I've been skimming through the social thread pages and I see a good handful of names of people I know... so I'll go ahead and post a general update on myself. I miss the release for my need to communicate I get from here.
A couple/few years back, you may remember I abruptly left. The reason was because my wife, who was never fully aware of the extent of my drug use, had just found it all out (she found something out and I just came clean). Additionally I had been suffering from opiate addiction (mainly to kratom and poppy seed tea) for years already and it had already passed the point where she decided to quit, and expected me to quit as well. We had been through several cycles already of temporary quitting, succumbing, and lies. Well, she told me I had to never go to Bluelight again or we were done. So, I didn't. Plus it was necessary for me to get back to using psychedelics only occasionally when the opportunity presented itself, and this place was a big temptation for me.
So I left, and I also stopped doing psychedelics. But, I couldn't shake the opiates. Over the course of the next couple of years, I sank to lower and lower places. I really made it utterly impossible to trust me. The hold the opiates had on me was really, really intense. Fortunately I never went to the illegal opiates, which probably saved me from going even lower. Even so, I never managed to quit for long, and I was constantly in a cycle of various levels of withdrawal. For the 2nd half of 2013, I was almost suicidal, I never got to the point of deciding to do it but I constantly wished I would die. I can't describe to you the horrific nature of 2013, I had good points, even some amazing times, and I also began pursuing a new passion (which I'll mention later). But through it all I felt empty and defeated.
Eventually this took too much of a toll on my wife and she ended it, that was in late May 2013. But we own a house together, and she makes no money because she doesn't work. So it was a very difficult and confusing time for me, I assumed we'd get back together, I always knew we would be together forever, I thought. And she would snuggle with me sometimes and even though we weren't having sex or anything like it, she made it a little unclear. So I didn't really let go, I just lived in a perpetual state of confusion and sorrow. We fought still at first, and as the months went on, we stopped fighting and it started getting weird between us. I started to stop and think about the reality of our relationship. It's a weird thing to think about now from a mostly detached place, what I allowed myself to put up with to be with her. Since nearly the beginning of our 12-year relationship that started when we were 18, she has unleashed this terrible rage against me, and usually at ridiculously inappropriate times (like I put a dish back in the wrong place when she wasn't feeling too good). During this rage I wouldn't even recognize her in her eyes, it was like she was possessed, she'd scream horrible things at me that were aimed at cutting me down and making me feel bad about myself, she'd bash on my family, all kinds of crazy stuff. And so many parts of myself she didn't really accept and tried to make me think they were weird qualities that humans don't have, and I should want to change them. And from the beginning, because I am a people pleaser and afraid of confrontation (especially when I was younger), and to keep the peace, I would either convince myself I should change or lie about my opinion. And thus began my path of lying to her and eventually leading somewhat of a double life with the drugs. What makes it so confusing is that she also have always had this intense connection and huge level of sweetness and closeness, which now seems impossible for me to feel but which I remember well and miss. But what I have come to realize is that she emotionally abused me on a regular basis.
Well, my wife spent many years and racked up huge student debt to go to graduate school and beyond, for a piano performance degree. She's extremely talented. However, ever since she finished school she has not earned a dime. She always had an excuse for not working, and we bought a house with the expectation of having two incomes, so it became a source of massive stress for me as I fell further and further into debt. Also I was putting huge amounts of money on credit cards to get my legal opiates, 30 dollars a day or more for 5 years. It really bothered me that she would just tell me to stop worrying so much about money, I put too much importance on it. But I was like, hello!!? we're barely staying afloat here, don't you see this is something i HAVE to worry about? It was like she wasn't connected to reality. That was actually my real sign I saw that something might be wrong. Over time she was getting more and more eccentric. Around mid-October, she started actually having spells of really bizarre behavior. The first time, it was late, like 1am, and we were watching episodes on Friends, falling asleep. All of a sudden she leapt up violently and started running around to all the windows, going "what the FUCK was that? What's going on right now? Something's going on, I know you know, tell me. I know something's up, tell me" over and over again. I kept trying to tell her nothing was up, and then suddenly she ran up to me and started feverishly unbuttoning my shirt buttons. She got about halfway down and stopped and slowly backed away and calmed down, and I stared really hard into her eyes and asked her what was going on. She just shook her head. I asked her what the buttons were about and she said "don't ever talk about that..." and then she went to bed. After that, we were over at a Bluelighter's house who have become really good friends for us, and when we were about to go she said "I wanted to tell you something" to Alex... and then just couldn't speak anymore. She would make gestures and facial expressions and sort of seem like we should be able to understand her, but no words. This went on for a full 10 or 15 minutes, a long time, it felt like forever because it was really awkward after a while (at least I felt that way). Then I said let's go and we went home. She started almost always talking very formally and stiffly, and would think for a long time in the middle of sentences before saying more words, like talking was hard. It was very painful to engage her in conversation. I knew something was wrong. Curiously she got really nice to me, still very distant and not romantic but we were getting along pretty well considering. Then the talking thing happened again, shortly before we were going to go home for Christmas. It was starting to really freak me out. I told her mom about it, who told me she had been thinking something was seriously off with her as well.
We went home for Christmas, we spent most of the time apart with our own families. After Christmas, I went to spend a few days with her family (who are family to me as well, I love them greatly) before we went home. During that time, she came to me in tears and said she had made a mistake, she was sorry she had put me through all that and she thought we should be together. She had already pushed me far away and I was starting to know deep in my soul that this was wrong, and we couldn't be together. I was starting to feel a little better, the opiates were easier to stay off, I was starting to remember who I was, but I said, let's give this a try, we love each other, let's get back together. We kissed a little but it was very cool from her. I figured it would just take time, and she was going through something. Well, we got back, and a few days later went to a potluck at our Bluelighter friends' house. During the party, long story short - because this is really long already - she told this friend she has feelings for him. He told me right away, and it stunned me to the core. It seemed so out of character with her. She tried to keep it from me but I told her he told me after I gave her opportunities to tell me herself. She just sank down in shock (don't know what she expected though). She wouldn't say a word to me for days which really pissed me off. For the first time the balance of power shifted with us. After a few days I got her to admit that she just wasn't in love with me anymore. Then we got to the point of deciding we should get divorced. Meanwhile she continued to sink worse into whateer is happening to her. One day I came home and she burst into tears and told me she's dead inside and she thinks she's never known how to feel other peoples' love for her, which I found incredibly sad. And at the same time I was getting better and better. I was trying to suggest to her she go live with her mom for a while and try to get better, eventually she admitted something was wrong but didn't want to leave. Finally, one day out of the blue she came up to me and said she wanted to go home, so her mom and I bought her a plane ticket, 1-way, for 2 days from then. She's been gone about 5 weeks now. Her mom called me crying one day that she had taken her to the ER because she was so out of it, and they had wanted to admit her. But she took her home instead. Last I heard, about a week ago, it's one step forward, two steps back. It's really shocking for me to deal with, it's like, how did our lives get HERE? I care about her and I want her to be able to live a happy life. But I don't know how to do anything about what's going on. It freaks me out, I have a bad feeling about it. It's either an extreme reaction from suppression of emotions or perhaps trauma that never knew about, or something more serious than that.
Since she left, I have changed a lot. I have realized some pretty profound things. Her emotional abuse had caused me to sacrifice myself and demean myself to the point that I had almost forgotten who I really was. I lost most of my respect for her a long time ago, I never understood how she could treat me that way and I still don't. The result was I didn't feel bad about lying to her because I was lying to protect parts of myself from her. It was a defense against an attempt to stifle my spirit, even though I don't think she meant it like that. And then I lied to protect my addiction. She had convinced me that our problems were all my fault but in reality, the problem had started much, much earlier. In retrospect it's mind-boggling how I could have allowed myself to put up with that. But when I was 18 I was fresh out of my dork stage and we had a lot of really good things too so I just dropped it, assumed it would get better. And it did get a little better over the years. But the issue grew, and little by little I began to find myself unable to determine the emotions I was feeling at any given time, unable to think coherent thoughts. I was in shut down mode. I felt like I was going crazy, like I was losing myself. But it's remarkable how quickly those things have come back once I separated myself from her. The real moment happened when she told my friend she had feelings for him, it gave me the push to stop lying to myself and see it for what it was, and emotionally separate. I am living alone for the first time ever, which is lonely. I realize I need to be around people often, or at least, it makes me feel more complete. Perhaps that is something I am supposed to be learning about now. I feel like every moment is a lesson for me. Every day I feel stronger and I am starting to feel excited about the future again. Spring is almost here, and this year is going to be great. I'm still feeling a lot of strong emotions, but it's getting easier to deal with it. And most importantly, I feel sane again. I know now that we can't be together, and I don't want to. It's crazy now, I'm 30 years old and single, a place I never thought I'd be again. The prospect of meeting new people and new romantic connections is exciting to me. And as for opiates, I had been going 5 days between doses of poppy seed tea, my last one was 2 days ago and my intention now is just to never have any again. The withdrawal is very minimal, not even noticeable if I'm doing something or hanging out.
So, that's where I'm at. I was feeling lonely so I logged onto Bluelight to check out my old hangout, the PD forum. I;m super glad to see that the social threads are still around, it was one of my favorite ideas for this place.
God I left out so much stuff but this is way too long already.
Glad to see you're channeling on the up and up 