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Continued from Part III, “I was working on myself… trying to get better, trying to get a job and trying not to spend money, all things that he wanted/needed. Would he be willing to work on the things that I needed too?”
Adam said no.
He believed that there are just some things that people can’t change about themselves. No, he couldn’t be more patient. No, he couldn’t imagine supporting me more than he already did. He didn’t know why I didn’t feel supported! Yes, he realized that I couldn’t work full-time, but he would have every expectation that I would be working somewhere and bringing in a decent income. Yes, he would continue to see other women outside of our marriage just as “friends” and I needed to be ok with that too (this was our other Big Issue along with finances and lack of emotional support, which I called The Girl Issue).
The Girl Issue was super complicated and we had been dealing with it since 2014. Adam had an intense need for friendship, but he only seemed to get along with women. He did try to make male friendships, but these friendships never emerged during the time he was with me. The first time he got close with another woman was when he became friends with one of my close friends, and the second was some random chick on the internet. Usually, Adam met all his female friends from work though.
Adam and I had had multiple and many conversations about this over the years. Adam saw nothing wrong with going on vacation without me and with an ex. He didn’t think anything about going to dinner and the movies with his “best friend”, while I was home alone working with movers to pack all of our things up to move from Georgia to Virginia. He thought it was funny that I was so bothered about him talking to another woman about her yearly gynecological exam. He said I was overreacting when I was upset about him and another woman being stationed together in Jordan for 6 weeks, alone. He talked constantly about whoever his best friend was at the time, and he seemed to text them nonstop. He often bought them thoughtful gifts, which he would go out of his way to get to them on birthdays and holidays.
The worst thing was that he always wanted me to meet these friends of his. He had this fantasy that I could become best buddies with his female friends and that we could all spend enormous amounts of time together singing kumbaya (he didn’t say the kumbaya part). He tried to get around this most recently by becoming close with one of my college friends (who I consider one of my 3 close girlfriends). In November of 2023, he invited her to Thanksgiving with his parents, despite my obvious struggles in and out of residential treatment. He didn’t try to hide that I was the third wheel in the car when they sang karaoke together the entire way. When we went shopping on Black Friday, he literally ignored me, like he was ashamed of me in public, while he chatted with her and made jokes. I felt so unwanted. It was bad enough that I considered leaving, but I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s holiday with my brokenness.
Throughout the years, I had tried so hard to be understanding. I didn’t want him to feel squished and tethered in our relationship, like I was controlling him, but I didn’t know how to convince him of how much his actions hurt me, regardless of whether he meant to hurt me or not. He reiterated over and over again that adults can have opposite-sex friendships without getting romantic, and I tentatively agreed (with solid boundaries in place). It is interesting to note though that even though he was not supposed to have been romantic with these female friendships, the following was true:
- the first girl (who was my friend first) actually asked him to leave me so that he could be with her
- all of his female friends were very attractive, and
- other “opportunities” to be unfaithful had happened (he admitted)
I chose to believe that he wasn’t physically cheating on me, but I definitely felt like he was emotionally cheating. I could not compete with them, because inevitably they were always prettier and smarter than I was, and most importantly they had careers that I did not. It cut me to the quick that he wanted so badly to have a best friend, when I was right there being that very thing for him. He’d always remind me that yes, he liked them, but no, he’d never marry them. I’m the marrying type. But I always felt like I wasn’t enough. And I thought so little of myself that I didn’t set firmer boundaries because I doubted my own feelings and my perspective of the facts.
My heart sank when Adam said he couldn’t change. Despite the Girl Issue and the lack of support and the fights about finances, I still loved him with my whole heart. We had so many memories together and our lives were so intertwined. We had tried so hard to work through our issues, and even though neither of us were perfect, we still loved each other, truly. Leaving Adam felt like amputating the other half of me.
But I knew that I had passed some threshold where I literally would not make it if we didn’t make some changes. The fact that he refused to make those changes felt like a knife gutting me. We cried and agreed that we should start divorce proceedings. Our therapist even agreed that we shouldn’t stay together because Adam was unhealthy for me.
From that day forward it was like I was dead. Everything I saw, I knew I wouldn’t be seeing any more. I knew I would be saying goodbye to my cats, so I tried to spend every waking moment with them. My suicidal thoughts became a constant, beating drum in my head. My psychiatrist tried different meds on me again, hoping to find something that worked.
Adam and I started arguing about who would get what after the divorce. I agreed he could keep almost everything. I was going to keep some furniture items and things that I always used, like my teal chair and my books. As much as I wanted the cats, my mom couldn’t have any with her lease, so Adam got to keep them too. Losing Chew Toy especially just crushed me. We went back and forth about retirement accounts, cash assets, and the house and I finally just told him we needed to get attorneys because I needed someone else who could advocate for me. I didn’t trust myself to make sure that I wouldn’t just give in to whatever Adam wanted and asked for. When I was away from Adam, I felt like I could think clearly and recognize when something was wrong. But with Adam, I felt like he always hijacked my thoughts. He had an incredible knack for making me think I was crazy.
Adam was furious because he saw “our money” as “his money” since he was the only one working at the time. I felt terrible for taking what Adam believed was his, but I also knew that I had to survive and I honest to goodness didn’t know how that was going to happen without some financial help. So, I found an attorney who could help me keep my head on straight and we worked on making a settlement agreement.
July through September 2024
Originally, I was going to move back into the room where I had stayed with my mom in May. I had gotten used to it and liked the little set up that I had. A few days before I was to arrive back down south though, my mom’s dad passed away in Kentucky. She drove up there to take care of his effects, and she brought my grandmother back home with her. Granny ended up taking the space that I was going to be in, so I had to find another place to live.
My sister offered her home to me and like my mom, she did everything she possibly could to make me feel welcome, to make me feel like part of the family. Despite this, I felt like such an outsider, such a burden. Being in an typical, nuclear family was infinitely harder than being with just my mom and stepdad. I did not belong, no matter how much my sister said I did. Despite being with more people, I felt even more alone. I had lost my family, and in losing them, I lost myself too.
My depression deepened far worse than I’d ever experienced before. I slept enormous amounts but never felt rested. I could not concentrate on anything, including
- writing (I stopped working on my blog and my book),
- reading (I usually read 10-15 books a month; now, I hadn’t read anything since March), and
- work (I had started a contract paralegal job; what should have taken me a couple of hours to complete an assignment turned into 4 or 5 hours; I quit after 6 weeks.)
I alternated between feeling completely numb and lifeless to feeling like my heart would literally burst apart with pain from missing Adam and my home and my kitties. I hated myself, blamed myself for everything. I began isolating more, just wanting to sleep to get away from everything. I felt anchorless, worthless, helpless about my situation, and hopeless about my future. An overwhelming sadness enveloped me most of the time and I didn’t know how to escape it. Even though I didn’t want a relationship with anyone else, I started going out with men from Match.com because when I was with them, I didn’t think about anything that hurt. I could feel loved and wanted, if even for just a moment. Sex was like a hit to my system, the only high in my bottomless lows.
In August my psychiatrist took me off all my medications in the hope that we could jolt/restart my system from scratch because obviously, none of the 14 meds I had been on to this point were helping me.
I had no desire to eat. I couldn’t enjoy anything, even dancing or the thought of travelling to Morocco in September…the two things that made me feel the happiest, the most like myself, were just like sawdust in my mouth. I had no energy and couldn’t even bring myself to go on walks, which I also loved. I stopped caring about seeing the animals on my sister’s farm, stopped sending cute animal pictures to friends. I quit seeing friends and family altogether, except my mom and sister. My suicidal ideation changed too. What had always been a passive, often fleeting thought became more prominent. I would sit and stare at nothing for long minutes, while my brain would be thinking of different ways to die. My biggest protective factors were my mom and sister and loved ones…I knew I didn’t want to commit suicide because I knew I couldn’t do that to them. They had already lived it with my dad’s suicide and I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be for them to experience that with me too. So, I somehow held on.
But the thoughts didn’t go away. What used to be thoughts of killing myself so I wouldn’t be a burden on anyone changed to thoughts of wanting to actually be dead, believing I deserved to die. I felt like a cancer, just growing and growing into some unknown thing I neither recognized nor wanted any part of.
September 19, 2024
Eventually, I realized I needed to go back up to Maryland to collect and move my things. I didn’t know where I would be living long term, but no one I could stay with had space for all my things. I couldn’t afford rent anywhere, even down south where the cost of living was not so outrageous as it was in the DC area. What’s worse, with no job prospects or ability to hold onto a job, I would never make enough money to rent a place…even with the small alimony from Adam and disability (if it ever came through). I may never be able to live on my own again, and at best my future looked bleak.
In a crazy turn of events, my car of 11 years also decided to go on the fritz. Transmission and AC problems were going to cost me $8000, and that just took care of the problems I knew of. So, I requested part of my settlement money early from Adam and I put a down payment on a new car 2 days before traveling up north.
On September 19, I drove up to Maryland. The idea was to pack my things, meet the moms and travel to Morocco, return and bring my things down south. Unfortunately, when I opened the door to my house, my cats greeted me and something inside of me just…shattered. I couldn’t even bring all my stuff in. I just fell to my knees and held onto Chew Toy and started sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. Great wracking heaves. I rocked back and forth hugging myself, not being able to get enough air. My chest felt like it was exploding and my eyelids swelled shut and all I could think of was everything I had lost.
I managed to get everything inside but left it in front of the door. The house was an absolute wreck and I knew I needed to clean it but it was like my brain just completely shut off. I fell asleep crying on the couch.
September 20, 2024
I woke up to sounds of Adam getting ready to leave for work. He had apparently come in late after I had already fallen asleep the night before. I didn’t say anything. He told me that he mixed up the days and thought I was coming in another day which was why he hadn’t cleaned up or anything. He asked me if I wanted a hug and at first I said no, but then as he was walking towards the door, I reached for him and hugged him tightly around the torso while my eyes welled up with more tears. He left and the wracking, heaving, drowning sobs returned right where they left off. I couldn’t stand the pain. I physically felt like my heart was splintering apart in my chest. There was absolutely nothing left for me, no future, no purpose.
My loved ones had been what had kept me from committing suicide earlier, but now they were not enough to stall me. It’s not that I didn’t care about hurting them, but they all had their homes and their places and their roles. And if they were in as much pain as I was, they would understand. I had no doubts that they would move on without me. I didn’t fit anywhere. I made everything worse. I was just relieved by this point that no one was around me and I was finally alone. They would thank me later for sparing them the burden of having to take care of me.
I grabbed a knife and went into the guest bedroom. I sat on the bed for 30 minutes with the knife pressed against my left wrist, trying to summon the courage to just swipe, to just end it. Do it, do it, do it! My brain screamed at me. One part of me felt so so so sad that I was alone and that I hadn’t gotten the help I needed, that I couldn’t live and see my nieces grow up. The other part of me taunted myself, saying I wasn’t even strong enough to end my own life, and I didn’t deserve to live.
After what felt like a long time, I threw the knife on the bed and angrily got in my car and drove to the nearby park where I could walk. If this was going to be my last day, I wanted to spend it outside in the sunshine, among the trees. About halfway through my walk, I decided to reach out to my psychiatrist. I wrote him an email about what had happened yesterday, and that morning and he wrote back right away. He begged me to please go to the nearest ER. I told him I would try. But as I finished my walk, I thought more and more about all my awful traumatic visits at the ER, and I knew I couldn’t go back there on purpose. I just couldn’t. I was also terrified of them putting me in a psych ward, which they would.
I got back home and immediately wrote a letter to Adam in which I told him how much I loved him and how our break up had destroyed me. And I told him I was sorry. I also asked him to convey my love to the people who had been there the most for me: my mom and sister, his mom, my three girlfriends, my cousins, my grandpa, and my uncle and aunt. I then swallowed a whole bottleful of muscle relaxers and pain meds.
Right before I lied down, I sent a text to my mom telling her that I loved her no matter what. She asked me if I was ok, and I told her that I had taken lots of meds. I then turned my phone off.
As I fell asleep, I remembered thinking about Macedonia and the mountains I loved so much. I felt so much relief that it was over, that I didn’t have to fight anymore. That I wouldn’t hurt anymore.
I don’t know how long it took for EMS to find me. My mother, intuiting that something was very wrong, had called the police. It took a bit to rouse me because I felt like I did with one of my dissociative seizures…I was aware of people in the room and could hear them, but I couldn’t seem to open my eyes or respond. It was like being dragged from a deep deep well, and it hurt too much to open my eyes to the sudden assault of light and air and people all talking to you at once.
They supported me and walked me out to the ambulance. I remember them putting my feet into my cat slippers and I wanted to ask for my glasses but I couldn’t get the words out. There were two men and a woman. The men were very gentle with me and had the kindest voices, but the woman was all business and curt bossiness and even without my glasses I thought she looked like The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. They strapped me into the gurney which was outside the ambulance, and I remember feeling such shame and embarrassment that the neighbors could see me. Once inside and on our way to the emergency room, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo kept asking me questions, firing them off in quick succession, giving me very little time to answer. Every word was like a huge boulder in my mouth that I had to twist my tongue around and remove and I just wanted to go back to sleep. “Why did you do this?” “What did you take?” “How much did you take?” When my blood pressure started to plummet, she became more insistent, more urgent. “You have to remember how much you took!” She called poison control and afterwards made me sit up and drink every drop of a liter of activated charcoal. It tasted chalky and felt slimy slipping down my throat. “You have to drink this.” “Drink it all.” “I mean drink every drop.” I vaguely remember thinking she should have been a drill sergeant in another life.
The more alert I became the more embarrassed I was. We got into the ER and while we waited for a room, one of the male EMS responders asked me detailed questions about what had happened and what caused me to overdose for his police report. I was effectively blind without my glasses, and I couldn’t see his face or anyone else’s for that matter. It made me feel so vulnerable. My lips, teeth, and tongue were a vivid black hue from the charcoal residue, which unnerved me and made me feel even more self-conscious. I kept on wiping my mouth with a napkin, wishing I could wipe myself away from this place too. The whole point was to NOT go to the ER, and here I was yet again.
I expected people to treat me with disgust and irritation because their time was being wasted on someone like me who didn’t want to be alive. Another nutcase for them to grudgingly tolerate. Unlike all my other ER visits though, everyone in this Emergency Department, including the doctors and the nurses, were incredibly patient and compassionate towards me. The EMS guy was unbelievably kind to me, and even in my poisoned stupor, I felt immense gratitude that no one was yelling at me or making me feel even worse about myself. Besides for the Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo (who was more worried about saving my life than being nice – understandably so), I felt somehow seen, valued. Even though I didn’t think it in myself, they all recognized my worth as a human being.
My blood pressure ended up tanking, so I stayed in the ER a good 10 hours. My cousin, who is also a social worker, drove all the way from Pennsylvania to sit with me. She brought my glasses which I was beyond relieved to have, cried with me, talked to the ER personnel in her no-nonsense way, and tried encouraging me by helping me know what would probably happen in the next couple of days. I was terrified of what else I would have to go through, but she kept reminding me that there were people who loved me and were going to help me get through this.
To Be Continued in Part V…
