One of the funniest gals that I know, Brandi, was talking about "being real" on her blog. And that is something that really hit me deeply. There are many people that I know in real life and over the web that do not really know the "real" me. There are very very very few who really truly do.
This was the hardest post that I've ever had to write, but I think that it is also the most therapeutic thing that I have done for myself in a long time.
My real...
I thought I fell in love at age 14 and stayed with that guy for the next
9 years because I was convinced that he was "The One". I completely
messed up my relationship with my parents and with my friends and other
family for years because I wanted to be with him. We eloped when I was
20 and got sealed in the temple 2 years later. People at church knew he
was kind of odd, but what they didn't know was that at home he was
constantly trying to find ways to kill himself. He lit himself on fire,
he tried to induce hypothermia. When he finally got help he tried to OD
on his pills while drinking bleach. I was getting horribly depressed but
tried to hide it because we had a happy eternal marriage, right?
In
2007 I had been married for 3 years and gained about 50 lbs. I was a
wreck though I tried to hide it for a long time. I spent a lot of time
on the computer at home trying to find something that made me happy. I
blew off a lot of friends, or potential ones that I could have made,
because I was afraid of what they would think of me and my problems.
During the course of my marriage I was extremely emotionally and
verbally abused. It reached a point that there was even some spousal
rape involved.
I was too ashamed to tell anyone until 2 years later.
I
felt completely unwanted by my husband who would have been content to
come home, go on the computer for 5 hours, and then go to bed. The only
time he ever acknowledged me was when he wanted sex, food, or the rare
occasion that we were out in public.
In the middle of 2007 I fell in love with my best friend.
He was not my husband.
I told my husband that I wanted a divorce and he refused. We went to
couple's counseling because there was obviously something wrong with me
and it needed fixing. After only a dozen sessions with no effort on his
end the counselor told me that the next time he told me to leave (To go
see my best friend) that I should. And I did. And things got physical
between us. My husband and I split in November 2007 and I spent the next
almost 3 years with divorce proceedings. We didn't even want anything
from each other at that point, but it was still hard for me.
He later
told me that he never believed in the LDS church and he did it all for
me and it was all a lie. I felt like the last 10 years of my life were
wasted and useless. I felt like an idiot and I hated myself more than I
ever had in my life. I'd lie if I'd said that I never thought about
ending it. It started in the name of love and ended with me feeling
unwanted and rejected.
I moved back home with my parents. They couldn't
understand why I did not want to go to church anymore.
I nearly staved
myself after I moved back home. There would be days all I ate was one
single packet of string cheese. I hated that I let myself get so fat and
while there was a guy that now wanted me, I still felt completely
disgusting.
I hated that I wasn't pretty like all the other LDS girls
I'd grown up with.
I hate that I can justify to myself
cheating on my husband. Things like, "It was already over, you told him
you wanted out, it was only a piece of paper at that point, there was no
love or commitment on his end (long story)" But I was even more afraid
that people would hate me if they found out why I left. Why we were
getting divorced.
I'm still not out of the woods with
my self loathing. Even over leaving my ex; even though I now realize that he was never going to love me back the way I loved him. I just hate myself
for feeling like I failed in a marriage that was doomed from the start. I was, and am, scared that I would lose the friendships (however casual they may be) because of how they saw me in those 3 years, versus what was actually happening.
