(If you are struggling with suicide or depression please call 988! the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline)
02/03/2024
Today, I had to let you go. In the deepest depths of my heart, I want you to know how much I love you. My heart is heavy with the love I feel for you and the pain echos through your struggles. It has pained me to watch you suffering with the heaviness that you carry, and I’ve carried the weight of your struggles as if they were my own. The journey toward healing has become a path of agony for the both of us, and for our children and families. I have been forced to recognize the necessity to prioritize my own mental and emotional health. I must learn to treat myself as if I love myself.
I never imagined arriving at this crossroad, but I’ve realized that sometimes, in order to truly love someone………I can not even bring myself to say the words.
You sent me another suicidal text message. My body has been deteriorating from the enormity of the secrets that I kept for you. I showed up for you under the train bridge, and after finding your keys and phone in the truck, my soul screamed out for you. I was breathless and ready to dive into the water to retrieve your body from the grips of death. I called the police.
I screamed out your name over and over. The pellets of ice and rain soaked through my clothes and I didn't even feel the cold. The police searched the edge of the canal with their flashlights, and then a figure. One of the police officers walked behind the truck and was talking to the tall dark figure. It was you. Your hands were in your pockets and you smiled. I don't know what had happened to me in that moment but, I let out a gutteral, primal scream into the universe. I was relieved to see your frame in the shadows, and intensely sickened at your ability to smile at me. You asked the officer, "what did I do?"
I truly believed in the possibility of a collective healing, and never imagined arriving at the place we find ourselves now. We both needed a miracle. You are back in the hospital for a wellness check, and I am alone with my dog, wondering how I will get through this day, tomorrow, the day after that, and then the day after that. This episode was different than the other times. I don’t have the unrelenting guilt of surrendering your care over to a team experts because, I am surrendering you and my care over to God.
I can answer that question for you today, if you are still wondering how you found yourself in the pit of hell. I have been here, in hell, for awhile. I had asked your therapist for help just a week before this all happened. I again, was brushed off. I would have done anything for you but, the secret life we were living was literally going to kill me. I could not navigate your pain and suffering alone anymore. I didn't have any intention of hurting you, in fact quite the contrary. Even in releasing the truth to your therapists, and eventually to the authorities, my intent was to get you the help you desperately needed, but the only way to the solutions to what ails us was the truth. I had enabled you to sink deeper into the depths of mental illness, believing I could figure out the answers, the cure, the healing balm....and all I accomplished was sinking deeper into the depths of self-betrayal and distorted dysfunctional patterns. The more I learned about myself the more I knew I had to stop enabling and saving you, but the threat of impending suicide is a mother f*cker of a weapon. Everything else took a backseat to the suicidal manipulation, and the other forms of abuse and control just escalated beyond my capacity to justify your behavior, and the results of your continued willingness to hide behind your need to save yourself at all costs, crucified me.
In loving you, I’ve faced unspeakable horrors, darkest despair, and the unrelenting torment of your mental illness, and I was unable to keep my own self from harms way. I am broken and terrified. The constant worry and the toll on my own mental health have become overwhelming. I had tried to be your source of strength and I even believed that my love for you could break you free and release you from your suffering but, the pain and agony of my failed attempts to heal your heart and save your mind, has become unbearable for the both of us. Hi. I am an enabler. I am so sorry that I have failed you, and you feel betrayed by my decision to lay it all out but, this is the truth, and I refuse to die.
