Posting here.

I recently started talking about a past relationship, which I didn't even know was a relationship until talking about it now. I think that's the main thing I'm having a problem with atm, but to be honest, I've had panic disorder and major depression for several years anyway. And, it's hard to explain to people that just because you seem happy, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're okay, you know?

 

I guess I should explain why it's a problem? But it will be a whole wall of text, so sorry for that in advance.

 

When I was growing up, we were pretty poor, I still knew people worse off than we were, but we were on public assistance and we eventually lost our house. After the house, we decided to move to a big city that my mom had lived in before, and since we were basically spending all of our time there with my parents friends anyway, it made sense. I went to a catholic school for 8th grade because my parents were unnaturally concerned about "the bad element" (read not white-- which is just awful in itself, I mean my mom's an immigrant herself so this never made sense to me, but I digress) in public schools. It was, intense, religiously speaking, and I decided that I wanted nothing more than to attend an all girl's catholic academy for high school. My parents told me that if I got in, they would figure out a way to pay for it ( never mind that they never paid for the 8th grade class and the church just wrote it off, or the fact that other people were paying our rent for us). I got in and it was the best thing to happen to me.
My first day there I was talking to a girl and I saw another girl across the hall. For no reason that I could explain, I suddenly pictured her being ahem *intimate with a guy. I had never thought about girls before at all, and I was really confused, but I let it go. Same day, I met *L , she was the kindest, most amazing person I'd ever seen and I decided that we were going to be best friends. That's where it starts to get weird right? Who decides to make someone their best friend? Fast forward a little, I met another girl who was absolutely the most attractive person I had ever met, and I was totally focused on how evil a person I must be and how I will be going to hell, but at the same time, I'm still pursuing this friendship with the other girl like its a conquest or something. (I'm an atheist now, if that matters, so all of the religious reasonings that made me want to kill myself become irrelevant at this point). And looking back, whenever I spoke about her to my husband I would say that for the first year we were just friends- so I must have known that we were more.
Anyway, back to freshman year. By the end of the year L and I really were best friends but I never would have called her that because I had a *real best friend. That is the actual way I used to describe this. I was thinking about how the summer was going to be awful without her while working on a final art project and I randomly picked up the scissors and started slicing my leg open. It felt.. good. I won't go into more detail about it, but it became the thing that I was always trying to hide.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:07 PM ----------

There's more, accidentally posted that.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:21 PM ----------

So, start of sophomore year, I had a boyfriend, but I spent all of my time with L. Crazy amounts of time. I would get to the school 3 hours before it opened to be there at 5 am wither because one of the teachers had given me a key to the side door and to the tiny piano room (the school was once a boarding school so it had a bunch of extra secret rooms) so I could practice since I couldn't afford to take actual lessons. L was going to be a pianist one day, so she came in early to help me. We never really practiced that much, we just spent most of our time joking around and stuff. Sometimes we would skate/dance in our socks together on the cafeteria's waxed floors. She was crying alone in the locker room one day because a friend of hers had died and I skipped my classes (unheard of for me) to stay with her. I held her while she cried and then we were closer than ever. Every day we'd leave little notes and stuff in each other's lockers, and she began calling me by a secret name from a great work of literature - not Ophelia, something else, but only in secret, like it belonged just to us. We started spending all of our time together and we both joined clubs the other one was in. My *real best friend even lied for us, telling both sets of parents that we were hanging out with her when we were with each other. Which when you think of it, is really weird that we felt we needed to do that if nothing was going on right?
We used to walk through this old cemetery together, and she'd lean on my shoulder. That's where she first told me she loved me. It was the most amazing feeling ever, but I still didn't connect that I wanted to be with her because I had a boyfriend too. A boyfriend that I barely saw anymore due to school commitments. Commitments which were almost exclusively I want to spend time with L.
So somehow, she found out that I was cutting myself, and she would beg me to stop and I always told her I would, but I never promised. One day I remember walking home with her and she grabbed my arms tightly and shoved the sleeves back and started screaming at me and asking me why I needed to keep hurting her, but I didn't have an answer. She cried, I held her and apologized, told her I would stop and things went back to normal for a while. Fast forward to junior year. I was so messed up about stuff, and I had a few friends die, and I became obsessed over who would go to my funeral if I died. I would talk about it. A.lot.
I decided that I had to "stop being friends with her" or in actuality breakup with her because I didn't want her to be hurting if I killed myself. I know this makes no sense, but it really did back then.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:22 PM ----------

There's still more, I just didn't want to lose that if Safari crashed

 

We fought a little, but she would always come back to tell me that she loved me and we'd figure it out. Now at this point I should mention that she is afraid of blood, because it will be relevant later.

I got into a fight with my mom over something stupid, and I drank 3 bottles of medication and cut myself a bit. Unfortunately, I hadn't been sleeping, so I was making bad decisions such as trying to clandestinely call another friend from my school to have her help me and my mom picked up the phone, screamed at me that I was grounded forever and that I'd have to leave my school. That would basically have been the last time I would ever see L, so I spent all night cutting up my arms and legs. It was winter and I had to wear tights and a sweater for school, so I didn't think it would be a problem. But the friend I had been on the phone with told the guidance counselor and so everyone found out and it was a whole thing.
L was really upset at me, but I asked her to go to an event of mine for a thing that I did in high school I don't want to be more specific because I'm worried it might make someone recognize me. She PROMISED she'd be there even though she was upset because she loved me, but she sent her neighbor instead to tell me that she just couldn't go because she was so scared and hurting so much. Fast forward again. Medications. Hospital. Stress. Back at school around Christmas. I decided that THE thing I wanted in my whole life was for her to tell me that she loved me in front of people. I couldn't figure out why. But I decided that


Trigger warning



That if I sliced my wrist open in the girls room and she found me before I bled out she'd have to say it. That did not work out as I'd planned. Because she wasn't the one who found me (that is really the best part of this whole thing, because I can't believe how awful I was not even thinking about her feelings). Fast forward. Hospital. Medications. Parent issues, hospital again. L back in my life says she always loved me, never stopped. Forced to drop out of high school by mother. Started working instead to help pay for food, etc. Still working. My mom went to my old school with me to empty out my locker and she pulls L aside, not realizing that she was not just a friend and talks so loudly thanking her for being my friend even though I'm so impossible to deal with. L is embarrassed, and confronts me about it. We patch things up and spend some time together again. Fast forward. 3 more suicide attempts, one while on the phone with all, me telling her I want to be more than friends, her telling me all of this "family won't understand stuff". She calls my mom, tells her what I've taken, hospital, new medications, home, then back to work.
It is at this point that I under pschiciatric (horrible sp) care write l a letter telling her that I'm letting her go. They mail it for me. I try to take it back for months, but she is done, and who can blame her, I put her through hell.
Next Christmas I call her while at work, I'd been calling her from pay phones all around the city bc her parents blocked my number just so I could hear her voice when she answered the phone. She knows it's me, and tells me that I have to stop calling her, because all I seem to be able to do is hurt her, I tell her I'm sorry and hang up the phone. I worked at a small grocery store and we had been making fruit baskets for Christmas, so without pausing I picked up the knife a sliced my stomach open. In front of my friends who worked there. I just didn't even think. They panic and call my mom who informs me that I "can't be doing this at Christmas and ruining it" and she proceeds to tape my stomach up - she had been a nurse so she sort of knew what she was doing, and I went to our family party.
After that, I tried not to think of L because my behavior had been so horrible, and because I never stopped loving her.
A few years later I met my husband, fell for him hard. Love him so much more than I loved her. But still, sometimes I think about her and wonder if she is doing well. I don't generally keep secrets from him, but we only talked about this for real for the first time two weeks ago. So I google her to see if I can find a picture of her because my mom threw out everything I had of her.
I find her, and she is married to a man. Not surprising, because her farm is conservative, she also is in the profession they wanted her to be in not piano. And then, on the page, I see that she has a daughter. She named the daughter the secret name she used to call me, and in the photo the daughter is wearing a dress out of the same material that she had made me a scrunchie with way back when. I lost it.
Turns out, despite my best efforts to leave her alone, I'm still haunting her. And it gets worse, it turns out, she lives less than five minutes away in an area we are always in. We had even at one point considered buying a house on her street.
Now I don't know what to do because I'm terrified of running into her. I thought shed forgotten about me, but now I don't think there's any way she could have. I want her to know that I'm okay and happy, but I think finding her and talking to her will just hurt her more. And I can't stop thinking about her. I love my husband more than I love her, but I never stopped, loving her that is.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:50 PM ----------

I don't know what to do. I think I need to leave her alone, but that just makes me want to cut or something. I was so horrible to her and she didn't deserve any of it. What should I do?

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:51 PM ----------

And thank you all for being here. It's hard to talk to my husband about it because I don't want to hurt him either.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 07:51 PM ----------

Also, how the f**k did I not realize I was in a relationship with her until now? What the hell is that?

 

Oh, and at some point in there bc I had never heard of bisexuals I broke it off with the boy and told him I thought I was les. He was a really great friend to me, and the first person I told any of it to. I have run into him since and he is beyond happy for me that I have a good life and am in love with my husband.

 

No, but she should

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 08:00 PM ----------

And I have a feeling her husband doesn't know any of it.
I had told mine before, but apparently I'd glossed over almost the whole thing.

 

There's probably some relevant stuff I left out in there somewhere, but I didn't think you guys wanted to read a whole book

 

Probably not. Husband is always telling me that too.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 08:04 PM ----------

What I have found about her life, she has totally hidden all of it. Also, I'm not sure that I could deal either.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 08:05 PM ----------

She seems happy.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 08:05 PM ----------

And I am too mostly.

---------- Post added 30th Sep 2014 at 08:05 PM ----------

I guess I'm afraid