after all that… TW domestic abuse & drugs

…. And after I survived the 16 year eating disorder
…… And after the heartbreak that brought me here in the first place
….. And after I pulled a life together, a good life, a wonderful one
…… And after I let him do it all to me again in 2016, but rallied faster and better than I had imagined possible
…. And after knowing I could survive him I kept just making my life better, doing that ‘living every day to the fullest’ thing like I always wanted to, but for real
…. And after thinking, ‘having someone to share all this with would be lovely. Not necessary, but it would be lovely’
…… And after meeting a girl who I could actually imagine myself with, who was clever and said wonderful things and had this rock-star sexiness to her….
…. And after saying I loved her
….. And after her saying it back
….. And after she came to live with me

She wasn’t there any more. This woman I barely recognised who seemed to really fucking hate me even as she said she loved me was there. She’d do me ‘favours’ I didn’t ask for then scream at me about all the things she did while I was just selfish; she screamed at me some more for not initiating affection (it’s not enough to return affection enthusiastically, you need to initiate it or it makes her feel like shit. Even if you explain that it’s difficult for you to do that and why, she will scream the same sentences again and again and again), then she began to shout at me about sex, I start to consent every time even when I don’t want to, but isn’t enough, I need to initiate it or I’m selfish and I make her feel like shit. I do it. She won’t let me be on my own, she even wants me to sit in the bathroom while she washes her hair, I say no once and the screaming lasts all night, I hate her, hate her, hate her, but I can’t leave, it’s my home, and I can’t make her leave, she says she’ll kill herself if we break up, she says I’m killing her, when I say ‘I can’t deal with being shouted at like this, if you’re angry about something just try and tell me calmly’ she screams that I’m torturing her emotionally, she threatens to crash the car when we’re driving home from work, I hate her so much but I can’t leave because I’m the bad one too, I’m secretly in love with her friend, I’ve told nobody and done nothing but I know I can’t lose this miracle of a girl so I let it go on as I think of how to get out of this hell, I begin to starve and act crazy so maybe she will leave me, or everyone will think I’ve lost my mind so I can finish with her and she’ll just think it’s cause I’m crazy and somehow she won’t kill herself or me and I forgot the one other thing I love, the one part of that girl I met back in that other life that hasn’t gone away and that’s the drugs.
At first I take the drugs because it’s fun to do them with her, then also to keep myself going on no sleep, then also to ignore how hungry I am but then when we break up, finally, thank God, after a fight puts me in the hospital (a seizure) I realise I am not ready to stop taking them.
She keeps visiting me as a friend or because we had tickets to so-and-so and gives me drugs, I siphon off what I can but I can’t make it last forever, she offers to supply me then picks a fight the day the drugs arrive, tells me I’m ruining her life and she wants nothing more to do with me and I need my drugs now, let’s not kid ourselves, my disorder is back with a vengeance and it needs the drugs and I get back with her, that’s right, I sold my very self for drugs and its another 8 months of abuse and two overdoses (I was so high when I did both I honestly don’t know what my intent was but I know I wanted to be away from her by any means) before the girl I love speaks to me privately, tells me I must finish this, I can’t live this way and the next day I tell my work what’s going to happen just in case something goes wrong and I finish it, it takes all night but I am not her girlfriend by the end.
I give her a few weeks to move out.
She gives me heroin.
I took it voluntarily. This is my fault. I take it again and again because I love it and then because I can’t stand not having it, I stop talking to her about moving out because heroin, I change jobs because maybe it’s a fresh start no, it’s heroin, and it’s the other drugs to get me through the hours before heroin, all I want is heroin and to be thinner and for the girl I love to message me (which she does, a lot, I answer her in heroin hazes or actual blackouts but I sound like myself, just some bad spelling) I know I can’t do this forever but I can have the next hit what else is there, more heroin, the size of my longing is shocking and I’ve been shocked by what I can feel before but this, this, this
I make an appointment at the methadone clinic and the night before, I stay over with the girl I love and she tells me she loves me and WE ARE TOGETHER
And my ex moves away at last and I move in with the girl I love and then there’s this fuck up with my methadone, they don’t tell me the right place to get it and I think ‘hell with it, what better time really to get actually clean? It’s only methadone after all.’
I don’t remember much about the following week or so. Just pain, mostly in my hips, stomach and knees, being sick, taking so many painkillers and sleeping pills my girlfriend was stunned when she checked our box of medicines, there’s not much else.
Except that even now, almost a full month on from my last dose of methadone, I am…. Not all here. The pain has stopped but I feel so empty. I’m with the love of my life, I escaped my ex and heroin, and I feel so…. Weak. Physically, mentally, I am so flat and absent, I feel bits and flickers of things but mostly I feel nothing. There’s no joy to me. There’s no will to live. I would lie down and close my eyes and just die if I could, I just want to stop living. It is so exhausting. I am so goddamn exhausted and I’ve put my lenses in and walked to the corner shop. I have to get dressed so my poor girlfriend doesn’t realise I’ve been in my pajamas all day while she’s been at work and then I need to smile and not say cause oh god help, she can’t know. I love her so much but I can hardly feel a thing. How can this be? Have I ruined my brain forever?
Every other thing that bought me here before has been exposed as the bratty screams of the green little nitwit they are. THIS being the rest of my life is the true horror. I can’t do this. This is not life. How could I get everything I wanted at this cost? Please God, please no, please, don’t let it be forever, this lethargy, this exhaustion, please let me come back, please, please, I want to feel, I want to care, I want to be who I was, I am sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. Please.