Reasons for ME love me

I'm funny

I'm kind

Lots of people observe these traits and want to spend time with me and talk to me

I am patient and loving

I am forgiving

I feel strongly, and am very reflective

I am creative

I write well

I am courteous and polite, and find professional settings easy to fit in to

I have a group of people who care about me deeply, and who want me to be ok

I am intelligent and love to learn

I am passionate about my interests

I am able to inspire and lead others

Today I went to Counselling

"I'm getting a lot of pressure, a lot of fear" she said.

"You are setting impossible targets for yourself," she said, "and then failing to meet your expectations and feeling like a failure."

It would appear that bullying yourself into being who you want to be doesn't work. You have to find the feeling.

As a first therapy session, it was pretty positive. Now to find out the secrets of self care and goal-setting without rendering myself a quivering, crying mess on my Mum's bathroom floor.

Small steps to start with. Ha!

Words 1

I'm the sort of person that gets left at the altar
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I'm a washed out fake smile under fluorescent lights
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I'll listen to your problems and give you advice,
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but I don't tell you about mine
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because its already all I talk about

New year, fresh start...

At the risk of transforming into an insufferable, hipster-esque 'blogger', transcribing my soul into some verdant hagiography, I've decided to give this a go.

What exactly we're supposed to write daily escapes me, so I'll start by recapping the last month of my life.

Early in December, weeks after moving back home after getting fired, my (now ex) girlfriend broke up with me. Let's call her Ro.

Ro had decided that, despite swearing to me a few days earlier that everything would be fine, that she no longer felt the required emotions to be in a relationship. She'd been struggling with her ED and the added strain of my own problems was causing us to fight.

We spoke sporadically for a few days, and she said she thought she wanted me back. She then changed her mind. She then did this again, and changed her mind again, and then a few days later, started 'hooking up' with a new guy.
We ended contact, and I had a complete emotional and mental breakdown.

She (through prodding from my sister, her friend) got back in touch and tried to help me, but sure enough, after a few days of talking, our emotions became very conflicted.

She came around at 3am and begged me to take her back, she called up her new guy and ended things with him on the phone. I watched her block him on all social network channels and generally do a 'purge'.

However, 12 hours later she'd already changed her mind. Her emotions were chaos, she was under-eating and she was starting to act very erratic (a concerning trait that mutual friends and I had been worried about for several months.)
I accepted she didn't know what she wanted, and that she didn't want to be with me. I asked her parents to try help her, and exited her life.

A few days later I got in touch to check up she was ok, and she seemed to be feeling a bit better, although very guilty. I decided to be 'emotionally mature' and still give her the Christmas present I had arranged on Christmas Eve, as well as tell her she's not well and I don't blame her for her actions.

She had reservations, but I expressed clearly that I didn't hate her for misleading me about wanting to get back together, or even that she had started to move on (as she had acknowledged it was deeply unhealthy to do so, and she wasn't going to continue to do so). So the present was given, and I got a lovely note back thanking me:

"Thank you for being one of the most patient, understanding people I have ever had the pleasure to know. I hope the New Year brings great things for you - they are well deserved."

Then, after Christmas, she admitted she was going to continue to see her 'new guy', she also declared it was none of my business what she gets up to, and essentially, acted coldly and angrily to my protests and begging that she do what's right and also that she restart her efforts to get help for her depression and eating disorder.

We had two days of silence, and then she returned to my life. This time, saying all the right things.

"You are right, it's so disrespectful to what we shared/I'm so sorry for everything I've done to hurt you/ I regret ever going to University, and everything I've done in the last term/You and I were so happy together, I hope that one day I can prove I deserve to be in your life again."

I drove around, and we went to a local reservoir at midnight. We sat in my car and spoke for 3 hours, staring out over the moonlit waters, pretending we were lost at sea and that nothing else mattered but our conversation.

She wanted me back, she was sorry, she wanted to prove she could be better. I agreed. We kissed. I told her I love her. She returned the platitude.

We watched the new Star Wars the next day.

The next day she said she'd seen me two days in a row and needed to do some things alone.

The next day was New Year's Eve. New medication meant I felt too ill and awful to go out, she didn't let that affect her plans.

She went out. She got in touch with her new guy.

She shared a New Year's kiss with him.

She spent the Friday after with him, ignoring my phone-calls and efforts to reach her.

I went to her place. She wasn't there.

I called her and she finally answered.

I told her that I knew, she refused to see me. Eventually she was swayed, "What will happen when I get there?" she asked.

"We'll argue and probably never talk again."


That's the story of how I let someone rip out all of my self worth, respect and vitality.

Hopefully I've learned my lesson.