I Need To Tell You A Secret.

I need to tell you a secret. In fact, I need to tell you a whole bunch of secrets. I’ve been lying. Well … Not really lying. More omitting the truth. Either way, I need to tell you some stuff.

He kept telling me he was sorry, endless voicemails and emails because he was blocked everywhere else. There was a rose, a beautiful, colourful one because I was a beautiful, colorful girl. And there was the note that came with it, that beautiful note that told me he was going to make me his wife and nothing was ever going to stop him. He loved me. He was sorry. He kept apologising and apologising and eventually he broke me down. I agreed to meet him to listen to what he had to say. I figured he wouldn’t say he was sorry so much if he didn’t mean it. And he really was sorry. Or so he kept saying. What if that one blog reader was right? What if Brown Eyes genuinely was sorry? Again …

So we met up. Once again he kept apologising but this time, he started explaining too. He suffers with depression and he’s on medication for it, something he hadn’t been entirely honest with me about before. He really misses me when I’m not around and he gets really frustrated which leads him to being impulsive. That’s when I started to soften. I know how that feels – to be so frustrated and angry, so annoyed by something so trivial and so small, you can’t help but act on your impulses. I’ve reigned in my impulses a lot these days so I tend to write letters I’ll never send or tap out never-ending blogs I won’t ever post. Anything to stop the thoughts swirling around in my head, to stop me doing the thing I’m not allowed to do with my hands. When I was depressed, I was impulsive. Impulsive enough to cut myself. That’s what he was doing – acting on his impulses, blocking or sending angry messages. I can relate to that. I don’t do that kind of thing now because I’ve learned to control myself a little better, but I could still relate. I started to understand, he talked and I listened. I talked and he listened. It felt like we had gotten somewhere, it felt like we had managed to jump over a hurdle. It felt like we were unstoppable.

I spent a week with him after that, laptop safely grabbed and stashed in my bag along with spare pants. The end date with him is always open. He picks me up and I’ll be home when I’ve had enough, or when Bestie and my cat has pined for too long.

We didn’t argue the entire time I was there. We talked, really talked. About his depression, his past alcoholism, how far he’d come from that life he once led. We talked and cuddled and smoked and fucked the time away, living in that happy little bubble I’d missed so much. That week was awesome. It was beautiful. I couldn’t have been happier. When I left, I left sad because I’m always sad when I leave him but at the same time I felt a little relieved, like a weight had been lifted. Like I hadn’t been wrong in giving him another chance and keeping it a secret from everyone.

I don’t really know why I did that. I guess the plan was to ‘come out’ and hopefully prove everyone wrong later on? I don’t know. I think I really kept it a big secret because I was a little scared I would fall flat on my face. So I just told Bestie what was going on and I didn’t really give him the chance to argue with me. I left while he was at work and text him when I was safely on the other side of the bridge, “Hey, I decided to have a chat with Brown Eyes. I’ll text you and let you know what’s going on but all is cool! Love ya dude! xo”

I always feel people deserve a second chance. I feel that because I fuck up by accident all the time. My mouth runs away and I hurt people’s feelings without even realising. I’m a dick, I’m socially awkward so I come across a right bitch, and I make whopping great big mistakes. I’m not unfamiliar with the concept of apologising, or even groveling a little if the situation deemed it necessary. I felt like I had to give Brown Eyes a second chance. He did act appallingly but if he’d realised his mistake(s) and we could move forward from that, wouldn’t it all be worth it?

I know, I know, I can hear what you’re all saying. What was I thinking? What planet was I living on? Did I think I could be the girl to ‘change’ him?

No. I didn’t want to change him for a start. I just wanted him to get a better handle on his emotions, or at least tell me when his crazy pills weren’t working. If I’d known he was still suffering from depression and on antidepressants, I perhaps would have been a little more ‘sensitive’ to certain things, or maybe thought more before I said and did stuff. I’ve suffered with depression on and off for years and I know how much of a crippling hold it can take on you. I still have bad days now where I can’t / don’t get out of bed, smoking myself into a stoned stupor, shutting out the world and not talking to anyone at all. I know what feels like. I get it. I would have been so much more sympathetic to him if I’d had prior warning.

But when he was explaining everything to me, it felt like things were slowly starting to click into place. Stuff started to make sense. I wondered – was depression a deal breaker for me? Could I cope with it? Him? Could I cope with his mood swings and trust that he wouldn’t suck me right down with him?

I brought it up with him. I brought a lot of stuff up with him, all the things that had worried me or upset me in some way. I figured if we were going to sort it out, we might as well sort it all out properly. I told him that his social medial block / unblock / friend / unfriend business was pathetic and I wouldn’t stand for it, and therefore I wouldn’t allow him on my Facebook page again … yet.

I told him his impulsiveness would be the thing to bring us down, and that I could cope with everything except those wild and crazy impulsive actions. Randomly blocking me really hurts my feelings and I feel it’s pointlessly antagonistic. Starting fights for no reason wasn’t cool either. Neither was name-calling, something he’d started to do in our fights. It wasn’t okay for him to take his bad days out on me, definitely not without prior warning. I can be there through the bad days, I’m not just a fair-weather girlfriend, but digitally ditching me every five minutes really wasn’t the right way to go about it. Neither was being a spiteful bellend.

I told him that when he was getting heated-up, he needed to take a time-out and calm down before he took any action. One of these days, his actions would lead to me walking away and staying away and he couldn’t guarantee I’d always be the one to hold out the olive branch after a fight.

I told him I would be sympathetic to his depression but he needed to be calmer and more open with me. He needed to tell me when he was upset so we could sort it out, usually because the things he gets upset about are petty and trivial and they always explode out of control.

He agreed. He agreed to all of it. He admitted to doing all of it too, his apologies seemingly sincere. If he’s a liar, he’s a good one. Either that or I’m crap at telling when people are lying these days too.

That week we spent together was amazing. We didn’t do much. We didn’t really go anywhere. We just kind of ‘lived together’ for a week, taking it in turns to cook and wash up, him doing his stuff during the day sometimes and me sat on the couch with my Mac across my lap. It worked. It was lovely. It was our happy little bubble, back to normal.

He dropped me home and everything was fine. Day one at home and we were fine. Day two, fine. Day three, fine. In fact, it was all fine for a while. We didn’t fight. He didn’t get the hump about anything. We talked, we called, we text, we were a ‘normal’ boyfriend and girlfriend.

And then day seven happened.