Tag: breakdown

#oneaday Day 698: Congratulations Mr and Mrs Burvill

It was the marriage of my two friends Simon and Jennie today, now to be known as Mr and Mrs Burvill. It was a great wedding and I wish them all the best for their life together ahead of them, especially given today’s surprise announcement that a baby is on the way too. Congratulations to them both.

Attending weddings for me is a bit strange these days. Anyone who has been through the breakdown of a marriage will likely know what I’m talking about. On the one hand, you’re super-happy for your friends making a bold and very public statement about their love for one another. But on the other, you can’t help the odd bit of cynicism creeping into your mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no doubts in my mind about Simon and Jennie’s marriage. They’re clearly made for each other, and they’re going to make brilliant parents too. I just can’t help making comparisons to my own failed marriage, now mostly a memory left in the past save for the actual legal bits — a process of healing helped immensely by the lovely lady I now live with. Thank you, Andie.

I know the things that went wrong. Blame lay on both sides, despite things I may have written at the time when it was all collapsing around me. But as with so many things, the dubious benefit of hindsight allows you to look a little more objectively at what happened and realise what went wrong. In some cases, it could have been fixed; in others, the end of it all was an inevitable, unavoidable eventuality.

In my own case, there were elements of both. I shan’t get into specifics here, as that’s not fair to Jane, who isn’t here to say things for herself (obviously), and it’s also not something I particularly wish to dwell on in this particular format. Suffice to say that despite the fact the experience of splitting up nearly destroyed me completely, it’s probably for the best that we’re no longer together.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to Jane for my part in the breakdown of our marriage, and I forgive her for her part in it. It’s both our faults, and it’s no-one’s fault at the same time. It’s just something that Wasn’t Meant to Be, and I think in the long run we’re both likely in much better situations than we were in together.

Enough maudlin musing on the past. I have a future to look forward to. While it’s not the rosiest it’s ever been at the moment, things could certainly be much, much worse.

To those who have helped me through difficult times, whether or not you realise it, I thank you.

#oneaday, Day 170: The Pile

Ever have one of those days where every little thing that is bothering you builds up into a mountainous heap and eventually ends up collapsing on your head? Today was one of those days. Every little and big thing that’s been stressing me out attacked me all at once and beat me down until I really felt like I couldn’t take any more. I had what could probably be scientifically-inaccurately-described as a mini-breakdown earlier. Pretty much a solid half an hour of really, really not being able to deal with anything. It’s not a nice feeling. Half an hour isn’t a huge amount out of a day. But it feels like a lifetime while it’s happening. Thoughts flit in and out of your head, images of things that are going to happen, things that have happened, things you fear. Then they’re gone before you can grasp them and deal with them, replaced by something else. The mental noise is awful, and relentless.

Eventually, it passes, of course, and you’re left with a feeling of “what the fuck was that for?” It doesn’t make experiencing it any easier. If anything, it leads to residual feelings of self-doubt, guilt and of course it does nothing for the self-esteem to know that you’re the person who lets himself get beaten down by all the things that are happening.

That’s stupid. Anyone undergoing a difficult situation that they’ve never been through before is sure to feel at least some of these things. So why feel guilty about it? Why feel doubt? Why think it makes you a worse person for letting go at the wrong minute and thinking “whoa… shit, I can’t actually handle this”? No-one has infinite strength, however much they might want it, however much they might try, however much they might try punching the Konami code into various parts of their body.

It has to get easier… right?

I certainly hope so. Because right now, I don’t feel like I’m making any progress. I’m no nearer getting a job than I was months ago. I’m alone. I’m in a place I can’t afford to live in. I don’t know where to move to because I don’t have a job. And it turns out I am not dealing all that well with residual feelings of bitterness, resentment and anger. I don’t like the person that these feelings make me into. He’s weak, angry and cries a lot. He comes and goes. But he’s always back again at some point, triggered by some stupid little thing. And it’s getting to be too much.

I want these feelings to stop. I want my life back.

No. I want a new life. One that involves the important people from this life, and discards those things which have dragged me down into the mud time and time again.

I’m trying to make it happen. I’m trying.

It’s got to start working soon. Right?