The Elephant in The Room

I've been trying to do stuff every day. Let's just say that some days are more successful than others.

Unfortunately, just as I got into the swing of treating my depression, the holidays hit. This has meant no TAFE, the boys off at their dads, no school drop off or pick up, no dancing, no gym, and I'm also on leave from work.

I planned the holidays this way, because I'd intended to do work placement the whole time, but being unwell I just didn't have the energy, so that's been put off for a while.

The other problem with holidays, is that other people tend to do stuff, so while I'm at home, desperate for some sort of friendly human interaction beyond the empty greetings at the supermarket, everyone I know has been busy doing other things, with people who aren't me.

I can slowly feel myself turning into a hermit.

I have forced myself to go out. Do shopping, sort through my wardrobe, I even went to a party plan party last night, and bought myself a little something.

It doesn't fix it!

There is also a hell of a lot of stuff I have intended to do, that I just haven't been able to face.

A couple of weeks ago with the counsellor, just as we were wrapping up, she mentioned about how I should speak up and say what I want, that I don't have to say it's fine, or nevermind, or no that doesn't bother me at all, that I should say what I really want sometimes. That's something that I should do more.

Then the flood gates opened.

And out came the elephant in the room: That relationship.

All that time I couldn't speak up for my own needs, I gave chance after chance after chance, put up with some awful treatment. He had me convinced that if things wouldn't work with him, then they would never work with anyone else. He had me convinced that no one would love me the way he did. Had me convinced that all men other than him were bastards. I believed all of that. Never questioned it. Every time I ended it he managed to sneak back into my life, even if I was happy by myself.

I'm sure people who watched from the outside thought he was being unreasonable, that I didn't need that shit, and they told me so, but unless you're in it you don't understand. You don't know how much we love each other, how much we need each other, how I'm the only one who understands him, how lost he would be without me, how great things are when things are good.

OR

How difficult it is to leave an abusive relationship once you're entrenched, how he changes the way you see yourself, how he twists everything to be your own fault, how he charms his way back in, how he says it's only because he loves you so much, how he loves you more than anyone ever loved anyone else in the history of everything, even though he hurts you more than anyone ever has.

How you're only allowed to have your own opinion if it's the same as his opinion. How if you say what you really want, you'll be told it's wrong, or bad, or unreasonable. How everything becomes black and white, how he projects his own opinions and motivations on to everything you do, and how whataver you did was the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, no matter how many times you explain otherwise.

How when you're in a relationship where you can't do anything right, leaving is wrong too.

Even if it's what you really want.

We broke up 'for good' a year ago, but he snuck his way back in. Again.

I finally got him completely out of my life a few months or so ago, after a 'discussion' which involved him telling me I was, and I quote, fucked in the head for my beliefs, and how if I didn't stop talking that way he'd ring my dad to see what he had to say about me...

:-/ Words fail me.

Either way, after about four years of treading on eggshells and not speaking up for my own needs, I'm going to try to speak up more, try to say what I really want.

Try.

Convincing enough?