Miracles in the Abyss – What Life is Like Now

Two years ago, I sat on the floor of a jail cell, crying, because my life was over. Or so I thought. When was your life-changing moment? Did it define your future? That floor defined me. I sat there and asked God to hold me in His arms and see me through, and He did. I am in this rehab now about to face the next chapter of my life, and I am excited and scared at the same time.

Romantically, I am worried. My husband talks about smoking weed, but I know that will probably lead back to a cocaine and crack habit. I am hoping with all my heart it won’t lead down that road. I am also online chatting with a lot of different guys and learning about how much I actually love my husband. I have waited all my life to be in love – I remember reading my old blogs and seeing how far this quest for love has taken me. I used to obsess about so many things. My weight is one of them. I thought that if I just waited to lose weight and find a guy then I would be able to go back to work and get my life in order. These were unrealistic expectations and unrealistic goals. I think most of my life is based on unrealistic goals, compared to where I am at now.

Where I am now, life is a lot clearer. I know that I want a career doing something meaningful. Since I have a record now, (well at least an arrest record), I can kiss my career in Human Resources and Finance goodbye. I am looking into Peer Support or something I can do to supplement my disability income.

Life has new roads ahead for me now. I am no longer hiding in my parents’ house, searching online for Mr. Right to find me and sweep me off my feet. I have a real relationship now with a man that loves me completely, and a future that is bright and hopeful.

I hope wherever you are and things are bleak in your eyes you hear this message that it will get better. God only gives you things that you can handle. No more, no less.

Stay Tuned.

Focused Despite a Pandemic, Bipolar, Addiction, Relationships, and Uncertainty

steps Those are the concrete steps I fell in a freefall backward, in which I could have died by breaking my neck. How I survived that fall with just some stitches on my head and a broken wrist, I shall never know. Of course, we all know the culprit – alcohol, which is ridiculously accessible during these times – even delivered to your door via the Drizzly app. An interesting thing isn’t it – that such a deadly substance is obtained so easily now, and many, many people are drowning their sorrows in it, especially for those of us losing certain unemployment benefits as of this week.

But that’s not the reason for my post today.

I was supposed to get married a week before that fall down those steps, and my parents and my fiance’s parents being what they are, canceled our wedding in some sort of punishment as if we are both teenagers recklessly in love. There is some truth to the reckless love part – we have almost nothing in common, except of course music – which unites us in a way 90’s R&B and rap songs usually do – it brings us back to a time in our life when things were simpler, more comfortable and just made sense.

I have spent a good portion of my life looking for true love. There were times in my life I thought I have felt it, but this man, the one I am going to marry, makes me feel the love so deeply that it moves me to tears even as I type. Our primary common bond is, of course, mental illness, in which certain parts of it come out of both of us, bad and good.

He hears voices and conversations and has delusions I try and cope with and understand, while he deals with my constant yelling and flip-flop moods of this horrible bipolar. We are hardly the perfect match, but the abundance of love that comes from the both of us to each other is undeniable – oh and as a bonus, two people who have incredibly vibrant mental illness issues have, without a doubt, the best sex life on the planet, at least for me it is.

But besides the sex, which is explosive and out of this world, on top of all things, I picked up a drug habit that I share with him now. I explained a little bit about this in my last post, and, ironically, I spent my entire life avoiding hard drugs and now I am a full-blown addict on top of my bipolar disorder. I have kept it quiet, of course, not broadcasting it on social media or even to any of my friends, but I know this drug addiction is killing our relationship. All of our fights, and I do mean all of them, have been around this habit – either fighting about money to get it, or the fact that he sits there and watches hours of porn in front of me as we do it together, (I won’t even go into how many fights there were about that one), it’s just the fact that I don’t want to do the drug anymore.

There is something to be said about incarceration or, in my case, 10 months in a psychiatric hospital. I spent most of 2018 and 2019 in a hospital (this happened twice), and honestly, I believe it cured me of any addiction I have ever had. I had a bad alcohol addiction most of my life – mostly, which I blame my violent, drunk father for (like father like daughter apparently), but I was really cured of it before I met my fiance.

Experimenting with cocaine has been an invigorating experience, and when I got the chance to mix it with both Vicodin and alcohol, suffice to say, I was hooked. That freefall came from a night of coke and alcohol, both of which the Emergency Room found in my blood, but luckily my landlord only knew about the drinking when he called my parents – (oh yeah, the cops were called, and they thought my fiance pushed me down the stairs, and my landlord threatened to kick us out).

After that incident, I haven’t touched an ounce of liquor, but I have been drowning more and more down the cocaine drain. And when we do it together, we’re okay for a while, then the worst comes out in both of us when we want more, and we just don’t have the money for it. I am currently negative $377.00 in my account due to the last binge, with rent due in a week or so. My fiance is working delivering pizzas with my car, which I can’t afford the payments on either, and we plan on getting high tonight, or at least he wants to, and I feel almost forced because I need some sort of pick-me-up.

This vicious cycle goes on and on, with every binge we break each other’s hearts, and I don’t know if it’s the fact that he has nowhere to go and I have nowhere to go that we stay together. We are so co-dependent; and we are both abusive – me calling him a worthless piece of shit and a loser, and telling him that I hate his guts – to him calling me an ugly whore and on and on. I have never been in such a volatile relationship, but we hang on to each other tightly because we know each other’s “crazy” really well. I once told him, “my crazy knows your crazy” because it really does.

I don’t know what will come of this – all I know is we hide this from everyone, employers, parents, friends, family, and landlord – and when we do it, we always want more, it’s never ever enough.

All I know is I’m trapped, and I am screaming on the inside every day. The cocaine brings me high and makes me incredibly focused, something I think rich people get off on; that’s why they are so successful, I mean stockbrokers are cranking in billions a year. But I know it’s my downfall and either my fiance or I am going to get really hurt – I mean I almost died down those steps so what’s next?

Probably death or jail.

Stay tuned

In Crisis – I Can’t Walk Away Because No One Else Ever Wanted Me.

Homeless adult male sitting in subway tunnel, hands on head

My self-esteem is at an all-time low. I have waited and dated miserably for over a decade for a man to come into my life who loves me completely – the only problem is he can’t beat his drug addiction.

I never wanted to date an addict – never – only because I know how hard that road is.  I had left my fiance when I was 19 due to his addiction and selling drugs, and I don’t know, it seemed easier to start over then. Everything seemed easier when I was younger. Now that I’m approaching 40, I have to say that dating had gotten so excruciatingly painful,  I honestly thought I would be spending the rest of my life alone. I don’t want to date, I don’t want to try, I don’t want to do anything anymore.

I really think I am falling into a depression. I am no prize either, I mean with my mental illness and my fat and ugly, pot-hole face and body, who the hell would want me? Am I going to stay in this relationship because I simply think I can’t get anybody else? I am so scared to be alone again that I am risking my overall mental health to be with this person. He can’t stop the drugs, I can’t stop loving him – two sides of this toxic coin that won’t stop spinning on the edge.

I feel like the whole world is rooting against me, I feel that God is punishing me for moving on from that ex-fiance whose heart I broke into a million pieces after he had gotten clean. What if I am not giving my current boyfriend the same chance I should have given that ex-fiance all those years ago? Is this a pattern that seems to have come full circle in my life?

I have been dying for love. My whole, damn life. I have never been loved like this before. Maybe it’s cause he’s an addict and is so desperate for love, that I find his desperation appealing. Maybe I am so damn desperate too, that I would believe anything he says.

I would love to walk away, say fuck it and let him deal with his own issues. But I can’t. I know things could be a whole lot worse because he could be an abuser, cheater or just downright misogynistic, but he’s not. He’s warm, loving, funny, and the man I want to marry, and who wants to marry me. But he can’t beat his addiction and my love isn’t enough. He just got out of rehab and hasn’t given himself a chance to be clean yet – they say it’s all about people, places and things, and I know his environment and the friends he hangs out with contributes to his weak resistance to his addiction.  I want to help him, I want to love him, but I feel so powerless that I can’t do anything for him.

Worst of all, I know everybody reading this will say, “just leave him,” like it’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s easy for ya’ll to judge me when you haven’t been in my shoes. I feel weak, pathetic and unworthy of a good man. I have been waiting my whole life to be loved the way he loves me, but unfortunately, he comes with his drug baggage that has destroyed my inner light inside.

I wish I could die.

This life is just too fucking hard.

Stay tuned.

Why Loving an Addict Can Break Your Heart Painfully

Two broken heart crashing on gray BG

I have to do it – break up with him. I knew all the warning signs from the start, but as an alcoholic, I thought I knew how an addict thinks, but apparently, I don’t. I kicked my addiction, and to be honest, I don’t even know I did it – but living a clean life makes me feel like I deserve a clean partner.

I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with this man, but I did. They say you don’t choose the one you love, that fate brings him/her to you, and it’s all written in the stars, but what if the toxins of this world, (drugs and alcohol), ruin God’s plan for your divine love? I know he’s the one for me – only because I have been looking for him a very long time, and compounded on that it took me nine years to find someone who loved me enough and I felt comfortable having sex with, which by the way was fantastic with this guy.

But is Love enough? Is devotion and heartwrenching Love enough? I am sitting writing this piece this morning saying a firm “no,” it’s not.

Last month, I let him walk all over me when he disappeared a whole night and morning and probably sold the phone I gave him for crack, to this morning where he is gone again and probably sold the other phone I gave him because he ran out of money for his addiction. He got paid from his job early this morning (midnight Thursday/Friday), from a job which he also quit, and I am not about to stick around and watch him spend his last check next week on his horrible habit. I lived with an addict before, years ago (my first fiance), and now after 20 years, a man who finally wants to marry me again is a fucking addict too. I am so sick of this shit, this disease, this epidemic. Can I find a normal guy, please?

I guess it’s what the cards dealt for me. It’s interesting because this guy is really good looking, (another real first for me), and has an amazing family – I have gotten really close to his family and everything, I just wonder why he’s been suffering like this for so long with such a good background. Drugs can ruin your whole existence, and I know if I leave him now, he will probably get destroyed and do something worse. I honestly don’t know what to do, but I can’t be with a person like this. And if I take it to my grave that he hurts himself badly or gets killed while in the streets because of me leaving him, it will kill me inside, but it’s what I have to do. My heart breaks and suffers because that may be the outcome of our breakup, but that’s his choice. I don’t want him to suffer and drown, and as the tears fall down my face, I feel like I am suffering and drowning too. The fact of the matter is he doesn’t think of me when he has money and is using – nevermind the fact that I spend all of my money on us and he spends all his money on drugs without even a thought of me – it’s fucked up.

I need to be strong. Who knows? Maybe I need to be with my best friend upstate for the rest of my life? I don’t even know if that would be a bad choice, who needs mindblowing sex anyway – God I am so misguided and confused.

The facts are this person doesn’t think of our relationship – he puts the drugs first. He can’t help it, he’s thrown in addiction, but I won’t sacrifice myself and my own mental health to save him if I can’t save myself.

This has been a very intense two months, but I better get out before I get too deep.

I don’t even know what the hell to do with the Christmas presents I bought.

He thinks he can get away with this shit, I’m done being a pushover.

I wish it didn’t hurt so bad.

Stay tuned.

When You Break Someone’s Heart, Karma Will Definitely Find You

ring

Did you ever break someone’s heart and pay for it later on in life? It may not be on purpose, or filled with malice, but Karma makes you pay anyway? I find it serendipitous, (my favorite word), that my ex-fiancé found me on Facebook and we reconnected just last night. Speaking to him offered a lot of introspection and reminiscing, which allowed contemplating my life as it is today, compared to where I have been.

We were young, Felix and I, just 18 and 19 years old – both not having finished high school. He was from the South Bronx, I was from Brooklyn, and let’s just say, we were both survivors because of the roughness of our neighborhoods. The years we shared were such happy ones, and on Valentine’s Day of 1999, he presented me with a beautiful heart-shaped engagement ring, that I still have even after 20 years, (shown above).

She has taken her damage, that ring, and spookily enough she is missing just one diamond, which I think represents the hole that Felix left in my heart when we parted ways. Oddly enough, I was the one who did the leaving, because due to pressures of having money and being a young man, Felix entered a life of crime and went to prison. I, in turn, moved on to much better things and a new relationship by the time he got released.

Which brings me to the serendipitous part. I happen to be somewhat of a superstitious person as well as being very devout. I believe, in my heart, that anything you put out into the Universe, your Karmic Aura, will impact the course of your life. However, I am a huge believer in Free Will, so whatever we do and whatever action we take impacts our destiny. This is the principle that I live by, and I will never follow the path of Tarot Cards and Psychic Readings, but what Felix told me yesterday shocked me to my core.

He told me of a Valentine’s Day sometime around 2002. He was out of prison for a while and I had been avoiding his phone calls for weeks. He decided to surprise me at my job with a bouquet of roses and waited by the side entrance of the building on that faithful day. What happened next was heartbreaking – there he stood with flowers and with a heavy heart he watched me come out of the side door with my current boyfriend at the time, extra happy, all smiles and holding hands. Felix told me that he just watched as I walked off and just dropped the flowers and cried. He said it was one of the most powerful emotional experiences of his life.

Needless to say, I cried myself to sleep last night. What Felix didn’t know was, the guy that he saw me with, destroyed the person that I was. Three years later, I tried to commit suicide over that relationship fallout and what followed was many, many years of darkness. It was a pivotal moment in my life and a heartbreak that I never recovered from.

I prayed last night, and told Felix that I was so very sorry for his heartbreak and so very sorry that I gave up on us because that’s exactly what I did. I was riding such a high back then, thinking that Felix was beneath me because he messed up; I was on some sort of ego trip because I landed a new corporate job and had a new cute boyfriend.

Through it all though, I realized that I absolutely paid for the pain I caused Felix, tenfold. Even now, after all this time, my heart still aches from the memories from those days. What I learned now though, and what I am going to bring to this blog, is all the strength and wisdom I’ve gained and the realization that those events are the reason for all my success today.

Life has shown me that perseverance and dedication are how you take hold of your destiny and that consequences are absolutely real. The Universe will always be fluid, with time, space and actions being constant.

Would I go back in time and work things out with Felix? Probably not. But I do know that I would go back and handle it better. I would at least give him the closure he needed instead of avoiding him to the point of that encounter, and his ultimate heartbreak. We had been through so much up to that point and hearing his words last night affected me a lot more than I expected.

Now though, we both have a second chance at a real friendship. He is married with kids, and I am happy in my almost 10-year relationship. I want nothing but the best for him and I know he wants the same for me.

So here I am today, on this new journey with you and I couldn’t be happier. We will laugh, cry and grow together and I am so glad to be here doing what I love.

And remember wherever you are and whatever you are struggling with, it is YOU who is in control, and YOU always have the power to change and make your life the best it can be no matter what you could have done in your past.

All you ultimately have to do is just:

“Make it so”.

~Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Stay Tuned.