Eighteen months ago my friend had an engagement party and when I woke up the next morning I felt two things:
1) I have never been this embarrassed
2) I need to be in therapy or I will kill myself
What did I do exactly that led to this all-consuming, stomach-churning, horrifying embarrassment I felt? I honestly don't know. The evening played out much as one would expect, drinking, talking, a few tears, laughter. It was all... expected.
The first faux-pas I encountered was apparently that you're expected to bring a present to an engagement party. (?). I brought a bottle of wine that I attempted to pass off as a present ('no dice' said my hostess's face) but although that struck a tiny chord of 'fuck if I know social conventions' within me, it certainly didn't ignite a burning fire of shame. If only because: real talk - both bride-to-be and groom earn way more than I do, they already fucking live together, THEY WILL BE MAKING A PRESENT LIST FOR THEIR WEDDING. What can I give them that they don't already have? Added to which, I'm supposed to buy not one, but two gifts, just cos a couple of bozo's (they're not really bozo's but bear with me on this rant) have decided to make their relationship 'official'. Except it's not official yet cos that happens when they sign the marriage certificate on their wedding day. Fuck! What the hell is the point of an engagement party? Why the fuck was I even there?
Maybe this line of questioning I experienced within the first ten minutes of arriving at the party didn't help my mood. Luckily my best friend had accompanied me and backed me up on the 'how many fucking presents do these muthafuckers want exactly?' question. She also agreed that she and I could and should get married in order to facilitate a present haul. That, at the time, (and somewhat now I will confess), seemed the only logical reason to enter the holy institution of marriage. In a similar vein to how Christmas is about celebrating how much bigger your present pile is than your brothers.
But there I was, stood in a bunglow, surrounded by people, the majority of which I knew only tangentially, feeling out of place and out of time and ill advised of the rules for this social gathering.
My next course of action was clear: locate the red wine and locate lots of it.
So boy did I. Get a glass, put your happy face on, start smiling and nodding and smoking and you might just make it through this evening, I told myself. Those things turned out to be true, but barely.
Around half way through the evening, once the lots of wine had started to work its magic, I found myself telling everyone everything about me. why my heart was broken, why I was so sad, how difficult I was finding life at the present time. On and on I went about my pathetic little life. 'Should I be in therapy?' I asked more than one person, more than once. The answer, of course, is if there's a strange girl (in every sense of the word) asking you if she should be in therapy at an engagement party is a resounding 'YES'. Like that, in capital letters. Receiving therapy is exactly where she should be. Not here, at this time of celebration, where the focus should be on a happy couple who have decided to strengthen their commitment to one another, instead of on this whining drunk girl that wants everyone to feel and be aware of her pain.
So that is maybe, possibly, why I woke up the next morning, with a pounding head that didn't quit for 72 hours, and throwing up that lasted for the morning, and this deep, unrelenting, unquitting, embarrassment that - I am not hyperbolising - made me want to kill myself. For whatever reason, though I think possibly laziness more than any other factor (killing yourself seems difficult and messy), I chose instead to find a therapist. Instead of spilling my guts to strangers, because keeping my guts to myself was starting to prove increasingly impossible, I would spill my guts to a paid professional that might be able to help untangle some of the torrents of shit that were swirling round my head at that time.
Admitting you can't cope is hard. This was the worst bit.
