What you want to know
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Well, I know everyone that knows both of us hates me. I don’t blame you. I hate me too. The difference is, of course, I have always hated me. Most of you just started now.
The fact is I am an emotional mess. You all know how insecure I am. I made so many mistakes I can’t even count them. The biggest one is that I have no concept of trust. I could sit here and make excuses for that, but they are all bullshit. No matter what someone does to me, I am responsible for what I do. I hold it all in out of fear and because I think that is what I am supposed to do. And then it gets to be too much. Nobody understands why I get upset when I do, and I can’t explain it.
I am not a healthy person. Oh, I know I am better than I was. None of you knew me then. Imagine my outbursts 10 times as insane and 100 times more common. I had 30 years of anger inside me, and I never really let it go. It would just erupt and I held on to it. My anger kept me safe because it made me dangerous. I can see that in some people now and I feel bad for them because the fact is, they are just scared. All anger is is a defense mechanism triggered by fear.
I will tell you, I am still scared. I have never really had anyone be honest and faithful to me. I have done a lot of reading about conditioning and I see what my problem is. If you keep giving someone the same result to a situation, they will come to expect it. I see it in Khan. When he sees a man holding a leash he expects to get beat. It is incredibly sad. For me, when I cannot see and touch my love, or when she is with another man, I expect to get betrayed. That is not fair, and it’s not right.
The reason I decided long before all this to go in to therapy was to break that conditioning. I am tired of being scared all the time. I have been lying to everyone about being OK. I live my life scared. I know no good way to explain it. I can just say to imagine you are on the scariest ride you ever ride, and you are at the scariest point for you. That is how I feel all the time. You want to know why a missed dose of medication wrecks me? It’s because the meds are barely taking the edge off. They are the difference for me between living and dying, and I know it.
I am not going to try to ask any of you to forgive me because forgiveness is something I don’t deserve. Frankly I am amazed that anyone would even talk to me. Well, I guess only Tricia is, and that says something. We have both been hurt and angry, and have both said and done some mean things. But we also both never stopped loving each other. I know some of you really don’t think we belong together and don’t want us together. That is OK, and it’s your opinion. But if you can’t support what we are trying to do, at least don’t try to pry us apart.
We both see we need to respect the fact the other has things that have to be dealt with, and we are both willing to support each other while we deal with them. This is not going to be easy. We both have a lot more baggage than average. And neither of us has ever really dealt with a lot of it. It will take a lot of work and courage. I doubt any of you really understand what I mean by that because you aren’t in our minds. But for both of us what goes on inside our mind is often something we don’t wish on anyone.
I don’t know how this is going to end. I know that for it to work we both have a lot we have to do, and we have both been there before and both know there are times we will just want to give up. Our job is to help each other so we don’t give up. Before neither of us really had support from the people we needed supporting us. This time I hope it’s different. I also know we will both have to accept some very tough decisions.
You don’t have to agree with what we decide. I know you say and do what you do because you care about Tricia. Just please respect what we both want and what we believe in, and support her. She will need encouragement at times, as will I. And I can speak for myself when I say that people who aren’t being supportive won’t be around me. You can disagree with me all you want, but I am not going to let someone stand in my way of being the man I need to be to be with Tricia.
I know it is hard to believe, but I love Tricia with all my heart. I reacted like I did because I felt like that love was betrayed and I was not respected. But I wouldn’t even still be here if I didn’t love her.
The fact is I am an emotional mess. You all know how insecure I am. I made so many mistakes I can’t even count them. The biggest one is that I have no concept of trust. I could sit here and make excuses for that, but they are all bullshit. No matter what someone does to me, I am responsible for what I do. I hold it all in out of fear and because I think that is what I am supposed to do. And then it gets to be too much. Nobody understands why I get upset when I do, and I can’t explain it.
I am not a healthy person. Oh, I know I am better than I was. None of you knew me then. Imagine my outbursts 10 times as insane and 100 times more common. I had 30 years of anger inside me, and I never really let it go. It would just erupt and I held on to it. My anger kept me safe because it made me dangerous. I can see that in some people now and I feel bad for them because the fact is, they are just scared. All anger is is a defense mechanism triggered by fear.
I will tell you, I am still scared. I have never really had anyone be honest and faithful to me. I have done a lot of reading about conditioning and I see what my problem is. If you keep giving someone the same result to a situation, they will come to expect it. I see it in Khan. When he sees a man holding a leash he expects to get beat. It is incredibly sad. For me, when I cannot see and touch my love, or when she is with another man, I expect to get betrayed. That is not fair, and it’s not right.
The reason I decided long before all this to go in to therapy was to break that conditioning. I am tired of being scared all the time. I have been lying to everyone about being OK. I live my life scared. I know no good way to explain it. I can just say to imagine you are on the scariest ride you ever ride, and you are at the scariest point for you. That is how I feel all the time. You want to know why a missed dose of medication wrecks me? It’s because the meds are barely taking the edge off. They are the difference for me between living and dying, and I know it.
I am not going to try to ask any of you to forgive me because forgiveness is something I don’t deserve. Frankly I am amazed that anyone would even talk to me. Well, I guess only Tricia is, and that says something. We have both been hurt and angry, and have both said and done some mean things. But we also both never stopped loving each other. I know some of you really don’t think we belong together and don’t want us together. That is OK, and it’s your opinion. But if you can’t support what we are trying to do, at least don’t try to pry us apart.
We both see we need to respect the fact the other has things that have to be dealt with, and we are both willing to support each other while we deal with them. This is not going to be easy. We both have a lot more baggage than average. And neither of us has ever really dealt with a lot of it. It will take a lot of work and courage. I doubt any of you really understand what I mean by that because you aren’t in our minds. But for both of us what goes on inside our mind is often something we don’t wish on anyone.
I don’t know how this is going to end. I know that for it to work we both have a lot we have to do, and we have both been there before and both know there are times we will just want to give up. Our job is to help each other so we don’t give up. Before neither of us really had support from the people we needed supporting us. This time I hope it’s different. I also know we will both have to accept some very tough decisions.
You don’t have to agree with what we decide. I know you say and do what you do because you care about Tricia. Just please respect what we both want and what we believe in, and support her. She will need encouragement at times, as will I. And I can speak for myself when I say that people who aren’t being supportive won’t be around me. You can disagree with me all you want, but I am not going to let someone stand in my way of being the man I need to be to be with Tricia.
I know it is hard to believe, but I love Tricia with all my heart. I reacted like I did because I felt like that love was betrayed and I was not respected. But I wouldn’t even still be here if I didn’t love her.
posted by R. U. Serious at 4/04/2007 12:45:00 PM
I'm R. U. Serious
From United States
I have nothing to say. I plead the 5th.
1 Comments:
Wow. I was at this same crossroad a few months ago. I was in Tricia's position and I love him so much that despite everything I stayed. Till this day my family/friends don't get it. I wish I could send this letter to them so that they can see that not everyone falls into the same statistic.
I know you two will make it. You're right, it is going to be hard, but it is well worth it. You will look back one day and see that the struggle was well worth it, and although it becomes part of your love story, it doesn't forever tarnish it. Overcoming this will give you more depth than you can ever imagine.
It looks like you are taking all the right steps. I wish you good luck. Tell Tricia to hang in there and give her my love. It's nice knowing that I'm not the only one.
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