Our Story – Part 5

We’re gonna back up a bit to part way through part four of our story because there was a big dynamic shift with the arrival of one of our mutual best friends back in the country. 

A different friend to the one who left just before attempt one of being dry, one who’d left a lot earlier in the year and was now returning in anticipation of starting school in the autumn. 

Our situation is a little odd. Because we were friends for so long before we started dating our friendship group is almost identical, and we share one of our closest friends. The weirdness works quite well. I’m a talker and like to get my problems and worries out of my head so I talk to this friend. My partner is not a talker so they share a more boy talk style of relationship. 

This friend, we’ll call him Freddie to try and mitigate confusion, knows everything. He has always been my first point of contact when I’ve needed someone to talk to. He is the person I cried over Skype to when I found the self harming for the first time. Who I pour my heart to about how I feel about my partners drinking, what I worry about, what he’s done and what is going on. 

For Freddie to experience what I live through first hand has been eye opening for him. It’s immersed him fully in the day to day reality of the mood swings and couch sleeping. 

One night he struck a deal with him, a no liquor pact. Just beer. This last about a week but it reduced the depressive mood and improved his sleeping pattern. 

For my partner, having one of his best friends around again has definitely helped, they have boy chat about gaming and general banter, it has definitely lifted his spirits. For me, I appreciate the support and the daily updates of what I’m coming home too. It helps me mentally prepare for what I am going to face when I walk in the door. 

Is it a fair situation for Freddie to be living in? Possibly not. But he knew what he was coming back to and he chooses to stay. When he first moved in my partner was still spending 4 days a week at his flat.

Both Freddie and I would love nothing more than for my partner to get back in control of his situation, but we both know we can’t push it. It has to be his decision to change, so for now, we have resorted to keeping our stash of alcohol on Freddie’s room and our fingers firmly crossed. 

Picture source: http://pin.it/KLFDr-C

Our Story – Part Two

In all honesty, when he first told me he was an alcoholic I’m not sure I really believed him. 

The self harm was my number one concern. I was faced with two things I’ve never had to deal with before and the cutting was the one that worried me the most. 

From a selfish point of view, it is not great for your own self confidence to find out that your boyfriend is self harming for the first time in his life two weeks in to a new relationship. I spent too much time worrying that I was a contributing factor to the situation. 

He has a family history of depression, as do I, so we are able to relate on that matter. I think our situation is also testament to how mental illness affects different people in different ways. I am a hide in bed and refuse to talk to anyone or leave the house type of person. I shut down. I sleep. Stuart is from the drink, listen to depressing music and pass out on the couch camp. He’s a very closed off person, he doesn’t communicate about what is bothering him, he tends to talk more once he’s had some drinks. But then you’re never sure if he’s going to remember the conversation. 

All of this is a really sensitive thing to talk about. Generally people don’t talk about it. People seem to prefer to pretend it’s not going on. That it’s best to ignore it. 

We managed to talk about what he had done to himself, about some of the reasons. 

A couple of weeks later it happened again. I got home from work, my best friend and her kids had come to stay. He had been working nights so I went up to wake him and caught a glimpse of his arms as he tried to casually but hurriedly put them behind his head. I’m a very emotional person, it was incredibly hard to hold it together for 18 hours until I could spill my emotions to my friend the next day once we managed to escape children and other halves for a few hours. 

The knife ended up living at my house for some time by a series of odd events orchestrated by him. It stayed for about a month until it returned to his flat. Fortunately that darkness hasn’t been revisited since. Hopefully it will remain that way. 

Picture source: http://pin.it/UkCoR94

Our Story – Part One

This morning as I was getting ready for work I went in to the living room to open the blinds. I noticed something out of place. 

There was a cloth shopping bag on the floor by the couch with a hoodie in it.  Little bit odd. My partner lives with me now so there is no need for bags of clothes… Everything else is scattered around the house. 

Unfortunately, I automatically know what this sort of thing means now. It’s not a surprise anymore. Under the hoodie was an empty 35cl bottle of rum. 

This is small scale liquor consumption compared to what we’re used to. But I’m skipping ahead. Today I’m going to start at the beginning. 

I’ve been dating my partner since April 1 2016, the date pretty much some us up pretty well. The chaotic start to “us”prior to this means that April Fools Day was a perfect beginning.  Our actual story starts a long time before that, back in October 2014 when we first met. 

We’ll call him Stuart. That’s a good place to start. 

I first met Stuart two years ago in a bar. My regular bar where I had previously hung out with my friend John. John had met Stuart and a few others whilst away on a training course. They were all local. It was the start of our group of friends. I was dating a different guy, let’s call him Thomas, at the time. 

As time passed one thing about Stuart became incredibly clear, he was Mr Nice Guy. He would always listen, was the one all the boyfriends sent their needy girlfriends to for attention, and he never missed a party. Genuinely, one of the nicest people I have ever had the privilege to meet. 

This is how everything ticked a long for the next 14 months. As a group we hung out nearly every weekend. There was always something going on and it was always our group of 6-10 that did it. Numbers have increased and decreased over that time as people have come and gone, but a few of the core remain. 

Fast forward those 14 months and Thomas left. It was long over due, the 18 months I spent with him were not happy, but I’d settled. It was vaguely comfortable, it would do. It turns out that Thomas leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. But that’s a story for another time. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about that toxicity yet. 

December 21 2015 is when things with Stuart began. An impromptu Monday night dinner at my house arranged by my friend on my behalf. It was a bit of a shock to come home too. 

We’ve always drunk a lot as a group of friends. It is our main social activity. That night people stayed for a bit and started to drift away, the last people left were Stuart, another of our friends and I. I’m not 100% sure where the idea came from that night, but as we stood by the back door smoking I decided it would be a great idea to kiss Stuart, and much to my surprise he didn’t seem to object. Here began a turbulent 3 months. 

We started hanging out more, a couple of nights during the week and then every weekend. I was going out whenever I could in the hope of spending time with him. Life became an alcohol fuelled mess of Saturday and Sunday hangovers, and going to work after very little sleep and too much alcohol. It was always rum. I could drink rum straight as well as the boys I hung out with. Still I did not see the warning signs.  I had no reason to. What was happening was not unusual as far as I was concerned. I presumed that, like me, it was something he did with company. 

We were 2 weeks in to giving a proper relationship a go when my world cane crashing down. I had cut back on the drinking, I knew it wasn’t sustainable for me. I didn’t really think much about what he was doing regarding it. 

It was a Friday, I’ll never forget it as long as I live. We’d gone to bed. We’d had sex. And then he freaked out. 

Completely freaked out. 

I was half awake, a little tipsy, ready for sleep. He gets up, he’s getting dressed, he needs to go, it’s all a mess. I’m trying to get him to sit down, to calm down, to talk. He just stood there repeating “can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel it?” and grabbing my hand and putting it up his T-shirt sleeve. I’m saying, “what is going on? I can just feel you.”

Then I realise. Then the shirt comes off. Then I see what he is referring too. The tops of his arms are littered with cuts. Deep cuts, scabbed over. “I need to go smoke”, he says and leaves the room. 

I’m reeling, I get dressed and go down stairs. 

I am confronted by a very agitated man, he’s ranting, I need to find someone else, he’s not good enough for me, I deserve better. “I’m a fucking alcoholic.” 

Well, I didn’t really see that coming. I tell him to stop, to breathe. That it’s OK. That it is up to me to decide if he is good enough for me or not. He gets to decide if I am good enough for him. That’s how this works. We breathe. We smoke. We go back to bed. 

Everything has changed. Forever. 

Source of picture: http://pin.it/IZPeXrE