I wanted to be the person that can withstand the troubled seas during the storm, be the anchor that held my partner steady during the worst of her battles with her personal demons. I wanted a happy ending, one that included her and our beautiful, little family. But. That is not how this story ends. It turns out, I am not a superhero and there are limits to the trauma I can withstand and endure.
I feel for her. I really do. I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that burdens her mind on a daily basis. What she feels when she experiences emotion is in extremes, overwhelming to her senses. But it's her complete disconnect from reality that breaks me. Her perception is not based in reality, in the world in which we all live. The sleights she feels, powerfully real to her, just do not exist. Each day I need to defend and explain and apologize for things that were never meant, never said, or never done. And it's all futile in the end because she is incapable of seeing things outside her perception. She has already determined the facts and nothing I could ever say or do could possibly sway her mind.
I have insidiously poisoned myself over the last 18 months, all with the same result of bashing my head against a brick wall repeatedly. But rather than a bruised and broken skull and a bloody mess to mop up, I have a bruised heart, broken psyche, and an immensely tangled living situation to unravel.
There's a gaping emptiness engulfing me. I do not the feel warmth of another human being touching me, I do not see softness in the eyes that are supposed love me. There is just coldness. There is anger and hurt and betrayal. There is the sensation of drowning... in sadness. There is grief in unrequited love. I have come to realize that my self-esteem, my self-worth have been on a steady spiral into nothingness. I have grown to believe that I have lost my zest, my appeal, my attractiveness to others. I am losing myself in her crisis. This is life on the borderline. Life with a Borderline.
To save myself, my sanity, my liveliness.... This is me walking away.
