Deleting mutuals-with-the-ex: jumbled thoughts on finally beginning the process.

I've made a decision. Or, rather, I made a decision. Months ago. And finally I'm ready to act on it. Almost.

I'm deleting the Facebook friends I have in common with my ex - our "mutuals" (a perfectly good adjective gruesomely nouned by the internet!).

That I am writing (and you are reading) this may seem unnecessary. Not so. I have realised recently how therapeutic I find the process of writing out my thoughts; forcing my brain to process them as I type can give me clarity and calm on stressful or distressing topics. And I'm posting it on this blog because it's true, and therefore I feel it deserves space. 

The fact that I am giving this process more than the seconds it would take to click-click-click unfriend them all may seem the epitome of millennial self-indulgence. So, why? Why does the allegiance of my friends list give me such pause? I have a pain disorder which is disabling in terms of its impact on my mobility and energy, and I'm currently experiencing a flare up of my mental health issues which are rooted in complex trauma. The combination of these means that I'm stuck in my bed or on my sofa a great deal of the time, which makes Facebook (the only social media I really use) something of a lifeline. It needs to feel safe. I write candidly on Facebook about what's happening in my little corner of the world: my health, my grief, my politics. But recently there's been a topic which I've avoided: my last relationship.

The relationship lasted almost eight years, and its confusing, messy end broke my heart at a time when I could ill afford it. I so desperately wanted him to change his mind. In the year and a half since then, my perspective has changed: I look back on what he called love, and I see emotional abuse. Through his quiet, reserved Nice Guy facade, I now see the man who controlled me, isolated me from my friends, and gaslit me. And I wonder how it could ever have felt like anything else.

I remember the words which he spat at me, in those awful weeks after we'd split up, when I was begging him to leave, but he wouldn't: "If I'd known how crazy you were, I would never have fallen in love with you!" And I remember how deeply those words cut me, how ashamed I'd felt. I wonder if he said that to his other "crazy ex girlfriends". I remember him talking about the mental health of his new girlfriend, and I wonder if he'll tell her that one day. I remember the allegation made by another "crazy" woman: that he fetishised and preyed upon women with mental illness. I remember him telling me about this, in the very early days, before we were a couple, and I was 23 years old, being spooled in. When I was the one on the other end of surreptitious online chats, kept hidden from the woman who shared his bed. I remember my certainty that it couldn't be true, and I remember that my certainty was based on his bumbling charm and nothing else. I remember the words of a friend after our break up became public: "he made you crazier than you would've been". I remember changing so much about myself, to please him. Minimising aspects of my personality that he didn't like, and slowly, slowly becoming so much less, just to be loved. I wonder how much his new girlfriend has changed already. Sometimes I wonder whether he ever recognised his behaviour as abusive, or whether he ever will.

I don't want to censor myself on my own Facebook, and I don't want to retain any connection to him. So, it's time to start deleting.

At first glance, these mutuals fall into three categories - for simplicity: his, mine, and ours. 

Those who are "his" begin simply enough: nobody related to him would believe my word over his. And I never expected to be able to maintain a relationship with any of them. I cried over that, and accepted it. And ditto, I suppose, his friends from school. This is harder. Among his oldest friends are people I came to genuinely adore. (Although we never saw enough of them - he didn't feel comfortable with them, he would complain.) No longer seeing their updates in my Facebook feed will be a loss, and I feel horrible about the idea of their disbelieving me, but realistically it is inevitable. Unless I want to continue to pretend that the relationship was A Good Thing That Sadly Ended (and I simply cannot, any longer) the only choice is to lose these people. They are kind and hilarious and talented, and I will miss them.

The friends who are primarily "mine", I obviously hope to keep. But if they don't want to delete my ex, what then? I suppose that if my explanations are not enough, then perhaps I have categorised them incorrectly...

And the friends who were "ours"? 

Having spent a lot of time reading and thinking about sexual violence, and reading and listening to the stories of those who have experienced rape, assault, and abuse, I came to a conclusion: I could only ever believe these people. Perhaps this is an example of my autistic tendency to think in a binary way, but I'm always, always going to be with Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

I have a lot to lose here, but I cannot stay silent any longer. So I hope there are lots of Tutu fans out there.

Sui Caedere Vivus - Learning to Live While Wanting to be Dead

17 days ago, I wanted to be dead.

This is entirely unremarkable, in truth, as 19, 23, 37 days ago I also wanted to be dead. And in the days since, its lure has remained. But, 17 days ago, I filled a bag with drugs* and two bottles of rum and got in my car: finally, it was happening.

That I am writing these words demonstrates that my attempt was thwarted. The police were alerted; my car was spotted and followed, sirens blaring, lights flashing; when I refused to pull over (think psychologically distressed Penelope Pitstop) a “stinger” was hastily laid across the road to burst my tyres. After being interviewed by a police nurse in the back of a car**, I was detained in hospital for assessment, under the mental health act. Around 26 hours later, I was allowed to go home.

On a number of these 17 days, I have looked in the mirror, at a hopeless, tear stained wreck, and wondered whether the doctors made the right choice, in allowing me to leave. I flatter myself that it was my cleverness, my hyperlinguistic, austistic skills in passing for “normal” that got the paperwork signed in my favour. By the time the two doctors and the social worker were available to assess me, very late on Saturday night, I had had more than enough of windowless, CCTV’d captivity, with its melt in the mouth boiled vegetables, and unrippable, plasticky bed linen. So I knew not to repeat to them such gems as, “Why do humans make such a big deal about staying alive?” and, “If they’re worried I’ll kill myself today, it’s illogical to think I won’t just wait until after 28 days confinement”. I did my all to present as earnestly penitent and optimistic. And they (to my mind) bought it.

So, I’m at home. Have been for 15 days. But I’m still (in the words of my wonderful therapist) Not Very Well at the Moment. Officially I am under the care of the Crisis Team, but in reality there is no ongoing package of NHS care; I am seeing aforementioned wonderful (but sadly expensive) therapist twice a week, and I have the most fantastic friends, and a boyfriend whose love and support you would not believe. Keeping me alive is a group project. The general consensus is that, all things considered, wanting to be dead is understandable. I am tired, tired, tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I’ve been demanding too much from myself, and allowing others to, also. Illness, grief, complex childhood trauma – the mental health nurse lists my life, neatly bracketed – any of these things alone can push a person to the brink. I nod, and nod, and nod. This is not new news. I suggest that, considering how many times I’ve wanted to be dead, only putting it into practice once is a pretty good hit rate. The nurse laughs nervously, and continues his spiel.

What I do not do is describe to the nurse on my sofa how it feels to want to be dead: a bone-deep yearning, as if for a lost love, that I have carried silently over the past 18 months. Shortly after my mother’s suicide, overwhelmed with things to be done, and feeling entirely alone and deprived of love and touch, I sat on the riverbank in the darkness. It would take so little to make it all someone else’s problem. Since then, this feeling has ebbed and flowed, at times drying up entirely. Those days are glorious days. But it’s not a feeling I can tap into at will.

I cannot expect these feelings to simply go away. And I accept that sometimes I do truly love my life. (Even at the darkest, coldest times I love the people in it. But one cannot spin a will to live merely from other people.) It is for that iteration of myself, The Me Who Wants to Live, that I must keep myself alive. It may sound like the height of selfishness, but it is the model that is working for me. And as days and weeks pass, and I’m getting more and more of what I need (rest, mainly***) The Me Who Wants to Die will be here less, and The Me Who Wants to Live will hopefully return. Until then, I’m learning to live while wanting to be dead.

Let me know if you are, too.

*The joys of living with a pain disorder: copious quantities of amitriptyline, napropxen, codeine, diazepam, and citalopram in a kitchen cupboard. Not especially safe.

**When I commented that a car was far from an ideal setting for a three person conversation of such importance, and asked whether a horsebox couldn’t be commandeered for the purpose – well. As my boyfriend put it, “You’ve not met one of me before, have you?”

***I’ve been cutting out all of my responsibilities. I won’t be returning to my degree in a month’s time. My incredible ex husband has taken over primary parenting of our son. I’m learning to say “no” when I don’t have the energy to do something. As a friend who always has the right words puts it, I must “rest until I don’t need to rest any more”.