Alone Together

My boyfriend and I never argued before we lived together.

Obviously that is a lie.

My boyfriend and I definitely argued before we lived together but, in all honesty, only maybe enough times properly that you could count it on one hand.

I have one vague recollection of being in his bed one night and deciding that I was going to leave and getting up and putting on all my clothes and moving to his living room where I acquired my boots and then holding one of the aforementioned boots in my hand and being so tired that I let it just sort of fall to floor and went and got back into bed and that was basically the end of it.

I'm all about making a point, unless I'm very tired in which case I'm all about sleeping.

That was probably about as bad as it ever got.

The fighting before we lived together had mostly been about this one particular incident where he hurt me real bad. And even then it was rarely fighting, it was like, 'oh hey, let's sit down and talk about our feelings in a mutually safe and respected space' by which I mean, he knew he'd fucked up and was willing to take the blame for it.

As soon as we lived together the fights became actual fights. With tears and shouting and raw anger. Very suddenly we both stopped being nice to each other. It's difficult to guess at what caused this exactly, maybe something to do with just being too fucking tired to maintain the thin veneer of politeness, maybe something to do with him feeling like he was being attacked for being himself (whereas before our main source of contention had revolved around the shitty thing he did), maybe I just turned into a total fucking psycho.

Or perhaps a combination of all three.

My feelings are so fucking exhausting. They consume every inch of me. I feel things all the time. Like ALL the fucking time. Almost constantly. The times when I am not feeling something very intensely and thinking about things very intensely are all too few and far between and usually when I'm asleep (even then, I'm not safe from FEELING things in a complicated dream environment). It's wearying. However, at least I know how wearying my brain is because it lives in my head, no one else has the luxury of seeing how I made 5 out of two plus two.

I never thought however, even given my endless capacity for introspection and over thinking pretty much every action, look and spoken word; and his temperament for anger that we would end up having one of those fights that happen in a street (like, OUTSIDE where other people can see), in broad daylight, when both of us were completely sober. (To be fair we've never had a brawling, drunken street fight at 2am either, which can only be a good thing, but I feel like that's more dignified in a twisted roundabout way - maybe because you can blame it on the booze rather than just being emotionally unstable?)

This all came about because I felt like he didn't truly appreciate how fucked up I am thanks to having to endure four years or so of being made to feel like the world would be a better and easier place were I not in it. I had a whole shit-tonne of bad feeling placed upon my chubby teen shoulders and was made to carry it at the exact point in life when it takes all of one's effort, intelligence, and strength just to get through the fucking day. I was an outcast at school and I was an outcast at (both) of my homes and, it kills me to say it, but that still bleeds into my life now. I spent most of my adolescence feeling completely alone. So when I tearfully walked away from him when we were stopped after an exhausting half hour of "but that's not what I meant" on a leafy street on a cloudy day, it wasn't because I was trying to goad him, I wasn't trying to get him to follow me, I wasn't making a statement, I was just... alone.

He had a fairly nice family life, I didn't so much. Normally that is not a problem within the confines of our relationship but, for whatever reason, on this particular day, on this particular street I didn't feel like defending the fact that I think at least one of my step-sisters is somewhat evil and he didn't feel like defending the fact that he doesn't think any of my step-sisters are evil, in fact they all seem pretty much alright to him. It was the most pointless argument in the world, but it connected to my deep dark past and therefore it destroyed me.

'I am not coming after you' he shouted at me as I felt my shoulders slump and my heels turn. I somehow managed to put one foot in front of the other again and again as I tried not to have a panic attack. He is supposed to make me feel less alone, not more! I thought to myself, not with anger but with a huge overwhelming sadness. I walked and kept walking as I tried to figure out where would be the best place to cut myself; on my arm would be more visible but easier to access if I found something sharp enough on the ground in the next five minutes. It would be more sensible to wait till I got home and find a knife and cut my leg, then less people would see it. I felt myself falling deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. My parents would be pretty upset probably but the harder thing to handle if people discovered my cuts would be their pity and disappointment. I used to be a fuck up but now I've got my life together and it would somehow feel like I was letting everyone down who'd seen me go from a hot mess to a self-sufficient, useful member of society. I thought about the logistics. What it would be like to be an in patient in a psychiatric hospital. Would I be admitted even? The NHS is stretched already, particularly where mental health is concerned but maybe it would be easier to just give in, in the long run. Let my crazy run completely free. Stop battling it and just give in to it, other people do this all the time. It might be nice to hand over the keys to being responsible and sensible and just go full out mental...

On and on it went. My mind kept coming up with ways to justify the horrible hurt I was intending on inflicting to myself.

He rang and rang but I was too busy thinking about the best way of starting my nervous breakdown. I kept crossing roads without looking, half-heartedly hoping a car would smash into me.

Suddenly I sensed heavy footsteps behind me and felt a hand grip mine tightly. We looked at each other and said nothing but kept walking and walking.

I cried tears of relief this time.

I wasn't alone any more.