Archive for the ‘human relationships’ Category

7 Jan

Breathe out…

Posted by DOGKISSES in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, family, fibromyalgia, health, human relationships. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Sometimes No Sometimes YesShe’s coming and it won’t take her long to get here.  I have about an hour left.  I didn’t have the courage to say no.

She’s my mother and I love her.  She surprised me when she called to say she was packing.  My gut screamed out at me to say no, but I couldn’t.  I tried.  I called her back three times.

“Are you sure you want to come?” I asked her.

“Yes.  Are you sure you want me to come?” she responded.

“Well, I’m sick,” I told her.  “I’m not in the best mood either you know.”

She says she understands and as much as a part of me wants to say no, obviously another part is saying yes.

I have a hard time saying no, which is why I love the icon my friend, Leslie, at IconDoIt, the blog, created for me.  The image was the top rated media image I used in my blog in 2010.

I love the “No” icon and saying no in 2009 saved my life.

I need to print this icon on a very large sheet of paper and hang it above my desk, which sits in the center of my small home.

“If truth be known,” a phrase my mother uses often, I need to be in a hospital or at least I need a good nurse.

I need a break from the many obligations in my life.  I need sleep.  I need an appetite.  I need more time for me.

I keep breathing out, then in and slowly out again, but I’m still anxious.  My home is cluttered.  I haven’t washed my dishes or vacuumed.  I don’t think my mother has ever seen my place in this condition.  I don’t think she’s ever seen me as wore out as I am now.  She may be shocked at my dishes in the sink and I’m not sure if she will see how very tired I really am.

I wish she could understand how I feel but at the same time I don’t want her to know how sick I am.

Breathe out…

2010 was a hard year and even though my spirit has felt lighter this year my body has not.  I’ve been sick.

About six weeks ago I got a terrible case of bronchitis.  It felt like the flu.  I thought it went away, but the fatigue has come back and hit hard.

I keep getting confused and sometimes the room spins.  I keep crying too, but I’m not sure what that’s about.  Out of the blue come upheavals of emotions and tears.

My pain is worse.  I’m sick on my stomach and food is the last thing I want.  I’m angry.  I’m angry that I feel so bad and have for so long.

I finally called my doctor.  I doubt if he can help me and as I write that thought, the tears want to come.  Maybe it’s because I’m so sick and I don’t know if anyone can help me.

I dread going to the doctor.  He’ll check my lungs to see if there are signs of pneumonia, which is what I’ve suspected.  I looked up the symptoms and have every one of them.

I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to ask for help.  I guess because when you have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it’s hard to know when you get a new illness or have a bug.  Depression can also keep you from seeking medical help when you need it.

I feel guilty for being sick.  I feel like a disappointment to my mother.  At least, I feel like it hurts her to see me sick and especially if I’m sad.  I don’t want to hurt her.

I also feel very much misunderstood, or rather that my illness(es) are misunderstood.

“If you want to sleep while I’m there,” my mother said the third time I called her back, “then just go lie down.”

I wish I could sleep.  I would.

Most people I know don’t understand that fibromyalgia is a sleep disorder.  They think if you are fatigued that you can lie down, go to sleep and all is good.  They are wrong.

Most people I know also don’t understand the reality of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome any better than they do fibromyalgia.  If only they would read blogs by people who are living with and writing about these insidious illnesses.

If we could sleep and sleep well for more than a few hours then we might feel better.  Maybe.

I’m so tired.  I hope my mother is calm in her mind and spirit.  That’s about the best gift she could give me.   I know she’ll start doing chores when she gets here but this is the thing, it will require my help.

I can barely sit here and write, but I thought I better because I don’t know how long she’ll be here and she gets a little jealous of my computer.  Sometimes our visits are emotionally draining on me.

I said yes because I love my mother.  I know she loves me.  I know too that I won’t always have her here.

I said yes.  I sure hope I did the right thing.

I also hope to meet my weekly challenge for PostAWeek, which for me is on Saturday.

OMG!  How did she make it that fast?  OMG!  She is here!

Breathe out…

dogkisses.

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13 Nov

You cry fibromyalgia

Posted by DOGKISSES in human relationships, invisible illnesses, narcissists. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

peace prevailed

Peace of Home

The car was parked unusually close to my apartment.  It was foggy and I didn’t recognize the passengers.  I had to take my dogs out.  I usually take both dogs, but I only took one this time.  Maybe I was subconsciously preparing for the fight or flight response.  I surely can’t respond with two big strong dogs pulling on me.

They were still sitting in the car when I came back to get my other dog.  I said hello and the young woman in the driver’s seat returned my greeting.  The subject of my neighbor quickly came up.   He’s been harassing me for two months.

I thought she was being nice but then she cursed.  I asked her to repeat herself.  She verbally insulted me.

I have a rebellious nature that doesn’t always serve me well.  I responded, but not by taking flight, which I should have done.  I told her what I thought of my neighbor and that’s when he got out of the car.

He had a strange hat on and didn’t look like himself.  She got out right after he did.  He was clearly more intoxicated than I’d ever seen him, which must have taken an incredible amount of alcohol.  He walked around the car towards me.  He began his attack with a vulgar one-man show.

I was stunned but not too surprised by my neighbor’s behavior.   It was a clear view of what I had felt during the times I had tried interacting with him.   There had been a constant current of contempt seeping from his pores and he reveled in it like the insects in the sticky sweet sap from the wounded oak tree in my yard this past summer.

Being around him each time had left me raw and open, as if like the oak, something had struck a part of my foundation.

I made brief eye contact with the young woman.  We had both stood silently while he acted out.

“Why don’t you try talking to him?” she asked me.

Her remark actually surprised me more than the neighbor’s behavior had.

“You see the kind of person he is?” I asked her.  Obviously she didn’t.

“He’s really a good guy,” she said.

I guess she’s an optimist.  Maybe she believes she has magic powers that will reveal this “good guy.”

His behavior over the past two months had led to eviction papers but he blamed me.

I guess I was being the optimist too because I thought if I asked him one more time to be quiet, especially in front of a woman he wanted to impress, that maybe he would listen.  I was wrong.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone?  I need sleep.  I have…’’  I was going to say fibromyalgia, but he interrupted and began an outlandish verbal bashing.

“Oh and what do you say?” he shouted gloriously.  “You say you have fii bro my algia!  And what does fii bro my algia mean!  That you hurrt!”  He drew out the words fibromyalgia and hurt with great scorn.

He shouted fibromyalgia several more times.  Amazingly he pronounced it correctly, but then he had told me several times about having been the smartest student in his high school English department.  I’d found this curious because he reminded me of it every time I mentioned my writing.  It seemed like he needed to always make it understood between us that he was smarter and better than me.

This is all much clearer to me now.  Now that it’s all over and I can hear myself think again.  For a while, all I heard every day and night was him.

He looked up at the sky continuing to shout out, “Oh I hurt! I hurt! I hurt!”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he kept on.  He started physically mocking a person in pain by holding his body in ways to act like he was hurting.  He included sexual innuendos while he was carrying on.  It was a crude and ugly scene.

I can’t say why I stood there witnessing this behavior as long as I did, although I think it only lasted a short time.  Responding to a sudden outburst of verbal abuse and being bullied like I was isn’t something I’m well practiced at doing.

“You’re a c**t,” he said.  There it was.  Hatred that I knew was there.  I’m not sure if this surprised me or not.  My memory of the event is like one moment in time.  I remember more how I felt afterward than I do about when it was happening.

He briefly paced around in a small circle, obviously spewing with anger.  He called me that name again.  His friend looked a little ashamed, but she didn’t interrupt him.

I wondered how could she be okay with what we both saw.  I failed to remember that she’s looking beyond his behavior at some fairy tale in the sky where he’s that, “good guy.”

“I work every day,” I said.  I knew nothing I could say would mean anything to him, drunk or sober, but I’d said it anyway.

“Oh yeah, and what do you do!  You cry the fibromyalgia blues!  You sit home on you’re a** and cry those fibromyalgia blues, and oh how it hurts.”  He tried to sing but was way too intoxicated.  “I hurt, I hurt, oh I hurt,” he shouted, still looking at the sky.  I don’t know why I so clearly remember him looking at the sky while he ranted and raged.

I’ve never cried any fibromyalgia blues to that guy.  I did cry twice around him while attempting a friendship, but my tears had nothing to do with fibromyalgia.  He was by far one of the rudest people I’ve ever been around and twice he insulted me in ways that caused me to eventually stop speaking to him.   The few times I visited him felt like I had entered his personal war zone.  Like he took a break from shooting arrows in his backyard and invited me over for some easy shots.

He continued with his drunken spew of contempt standing there in front of my porch.  “You sit and cry how you hurt so you can get a check!”  He emphasized the word check with a high note.  Then of course he mentioned tax dollars.

Some people who claim patriotism don’t seem interested in the big picture of what helps shape our country into a place of opportunity and freedom — for every citizen.

In America we can better our lives, all of us, not just the able-bodied working folks.  We can be anything we want to be.  We strive to make sure that every child receives an education.  We have social aid and many government programs to help needy children, and their families.   We also help our disabled and elderly citizens.   At least, those are American ideals.

People who don’t understand disability unless there is a wheelchair or a death-bed in sight can be cruel, like my neighbor.  Some people will automatically assume a person without these visible affirmations of a handicap or illness is a fraud.

I continued trying to defend myself, which was an odd experience.   I didn’t much care what this neighbor thinks of me.  The words coming out of my mouth were like dampened cries from another place.

“I paid taxes.” I said.  I knew it would only make him madder so again, the rebel in me most likely wasn’t serving my best interests, which is ultimately to have peace in my life.  Obviously this means walking away from certain people or situations.

“Yeah.  I’m sure they took a little out of your check,” he stammered.

“You are nothing,” he said.   He stomped out his cigarette on the ground.  “Nothing,” he repeated.

I remember this part clearly.  Finally, he began walking away.

“I’m not nothing,” I said quietly.  I almost cried but stopped myself.  I looked into the young woman’s eyes again wondering, I guess, what she thought of her friend.

“I know that,” she said.   She didn’t look pleased about her friend’s behavior, but she was looking for the sunny side of a burnt fried egg.

“You ain’t nothing,” he stopped to say once more before going inside his apartment.

“I’m better than you,” I said calmly, although that response surprised me.

“Ohhh yeah!  Oh you are sooo good aren’t you!”

“Yes.  I am.”  I said.  “You’ll be leaving soon,” I added.  I shut my door.

That wasn’t his last performance but he’s gone now.  It was a long two months.

The short-lived relationship I had with this person was an eye-opening experience for me.  I thought I’d be able to spot a narcissist anywhere and easily.

Spotting one and ducking one are different skills.

I don’t know how narcissistic my former neighbor is, but he sure had a mighty large dose of himself.  Arrogance and a sense of superiority over most of humanity were traits he proudly displayed.  I didn’t know what to think.  One day I asked him why he invited me over if he didn’t like anything I ever said and put me down all the time.  He said I took things wrong, adding that his friends were all fine with his ways.

I guess there are many reasons a person criticizes others, particularly when it is done with great passion.

“What you see is what you get,” I remember saying to my neighbor months ago.

I finally decided that people who spend a lot of time hiding think everyone else is doing it too, but that’s just a personal theory.

From now on, I’m going to follow Leslie’s turn on this phrase, “What I see is what you get.” which she talks about in a recent blog post on malignant narcissists.

I forgot to keep the light in the watchtower glowing.  I forgot that when people prove they are mean and rude to get away from them if I can, instead of trying to figure out if I imagined them being mean and rude.  I forgot again to listen to myself.  I keep doing that, but then forgetting does remind me to remember.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

This post represents several things to me personally, the best of which, I guess, is what it was like being bullied, although I didn’t write about the aftermath of that evening.  It was as hard or harder than standing there witnessing my neighbor’s abuse.

It’s also an extreme example of stigma and disbelief around invisible illness.  Although this person was intoxicated, I’ve had the stones thrown at me for looking fine and receiving disability benefits.

It’s about learning to walk away, right away, from people who behave destructively, especially when I am the target.  As with most of my posts, it seems to be about listening to myself, or not, depending on how you look at it.  I prefer to believe that I’ll eventually get wise(r?).

Also, my friend CJ, who has a great blog about living with fibromyalgia, has repeatedly encouraged me to keep on writing.  Write anything she said.  In that respect, this post speaks to my rather frequent unfortunate entanglements.

With all that said, I’m happy to have my personal space back, my peace of home and am rather looking forward to the rest of this beautiful season.

Peace



29 Jun

The Elusive Fence

Posted by DOGKISSES in health, human relationships, invisible illnesses, mental and emotional health, relationships, stories. Tagged: , , , , , , .

“Everything God creates is good, and God made sex, so therefore, sex, when done well, is divine.” Amy Wolf

“I’m a FenceSitter,” I told him, as I was finishing, rather nervously, my third glass of water. Our eyes met but I’m not so quick when it comes to what I suspect is fairly easily discernible to most folks.  I’m usually the last person in a group, besides one of my sisters, to get a joke.  People’s witty remarks come slowly to me.  I think way too much.  Our conversation continued without my having taken note of an elusive imploring look in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked as he sat there,  seemingly content and happy in one of the handmade chair-stools at the large wooden table in his kitchen.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to do,” and I told him a little about what being a FenceSitter means to me.  I also told him the story behind the wonderful image.  He still hadn’t said anything as to the irony of what I was describing to him.

He grabbed another beer.  “Just do whatever you want to do,” he said with an ease of mind that may accompany a carefree lifestyle with minimal responsibilities.

I needed to decide, I thought.  In reality, I’d already decided on what I was going to do with my evening.  The navy blue shirt he was still pulling over his head when I opened my door felt like a sudden hard rain that comes while you’re driving,  causing you to pull over to the side and wait.

“I guess I don’t know what I want,” I responded.  I looked at the drawings on the large table, along with initials and short sentences.  I imagined the people who had sat there most likely inspired by alcohol, the main source of which being Pabst Blue Ribbon and much of the time, Johnny Cash’s music.

“Well, that’s no good.  Let me get you another glass of water,” he said.   His apartment was quieter than usual for a weekend.  He said his roommate was gone.  I asked if he had plans for the evening.

“Nope,” he said, without any hint about what he might like to do or wished he could do, which was a part of my acute but temporary dilemma.  Another part was that when I’d sat down at his table and told him I was on my way out for the evening, he’d said, “You look nice.”  I’d never seen the look on his face that I saw in that moment.   His eyes had only traveled from my hair and face to the crisscrossed straps of my summer dress.  “Very nice,”  he politely added.  He reminded me of a cowboy in an old western movie when he nodded his head in a slight way giving me the impression that his compliment was genuine.   I needed more water.

“I can’t believe I’m this age,” I finally said, as I finished another glass of water with about twenty more minutes behind me.

He smiled.  “Are you saying making decisions doesn’t get any easier when you get older?” he asked.

“Exactly,” I said.  I was no longer sitting but had stood up, taking hold of my handbag and keys, even though it didn’t change the way I felt.   “I mean it ought to be easier by now.  I should know what I want.”  I realized that making decisions were much easier for me when I was younger.  I don’t know when things changed.  I guess when I got sick.

I do know one thing I want and that is to feel good.  I’m tired of being sick and damn tired of pain.  I’m really really tired of it.  I’m tired of feeling like life is passing me by because I’m too weak and fatigued to do the things I wish I could do.  I’m also tired of being indecisive and unsure of myself — sort of unfamiliar in my skin.

“Sometimes being a FenceSitter is hard,” I told him.  Time was passing quickly and I was counting every minute by the clock on his stove.

“Right now you’re sitting at a fence,” he said.   He’d told me earlier that he had built the table out of fence posts.  “How does that feel?” he asked with a  smile on his face.

I finally got it!  My new acquaintance is a FenceBuilder and I was sitting at the FenceTable talking about being a FenceSitter!. I laughed, but only slightly.  I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t gotten this already.  I was also a bit taken by the irony.

“It feels pretty good,” I responded, and it did, except for my decision-making dilemma that I was creating on my own.  Nature had indeed slowed me down, but things had cleared enough so that I could have moved on towards my original destination.   Instead, I drank more water.  There were many things going on in my mind at once.

My age, being sick all the time, feeling like I’d lost so much time to grief, and last year, to an emotional trauma.  I wanted to live but that was why I’d made an earlier engagement.

“Help me out here,” I asked the FenceBuilder.   “I’m really too tired to drive,” I remarked.  I was sick.  It was true.  In fact, I was barely getting around but felt I’d go crazy if I didn’t get out and away from my home for a while.  I’d been in the bed most of the day with nausea and fatigue.  It had been a bad day.

“Ahh, you’re not too sick,” he responded, and he smiled.  He didn’t believe me.  I could tell.  I saw no use in trying to explain what fibromyalgia or CFS is like.  I did make an attempt at what felt like defending myself.

“I woke up sick.  I really don’t feel good.”

“Then why did you make a plan to go out?”

People don’t understand chronic sickness, surely not when they can’t see it, and even more surely, when the sick person is freshly showered and dressed up a little.  Looking good and being sick don’t mix well in the minds of those who’ve never experienced an everyday battle with illness.

“I just wanted to get out for a while,” I said.  We talked more and I drank more water.  I didn’t know what to make of the feelings I was having.  I wanted to keep my plans, kind of.  I think I wanted my cake and to eat it too, but I wasn’t sure that was the only dynamic happening.  I felt like if I was continuing to sit there with this man, that possibly that was exactly what I really wanted to do.

I honestly didn’t feel like driving by that time and quickly approaching was guilt about getting sidetracked, even if Mother Nature did have a little something to do with it.  The rest was up to me, like keeping my agreements with people, which is important to me.

As the minutes passed we continued enjoying each others company.  I told him the story of me having had two tick-borne illnesses.  I told him I’d been struck with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after the second one, which was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever that had lasted over a month before a doctor finally prescribed medication.  “I lost a lot of weight,” I said.  “I barely weighed a hundred pounds.”

“Well you can’t weigh too much more than that now,” he remarked. I realized he was right.  “I carry more than that around on both my shoulders every day,” and he laughed.

Mother Nature again!  I had a hot flash.  He got me another glass of water.  Now I was thinking about his arms and shoulders.  There had been many times I’d seen him arriving home in the heat after a long day of work without his shirt on.  Sometimes I’d wondered if it had been for my benefit but I always brushed it off.  I did however flirt with the young man.

Men flirt with younger women all the time.  Men date younger women all the time.   I’ve never flirted much, but I feel like time isn’t necessarily on my side.  If I’m ever going to know what it feels like to flirt, then I figure I better get to it, so I have, a couple of times.  It felt safe and I must admit, it was fun.  I had no clue that the FenceBuilder might feel the same way I was feeling when I’d seen him cleaning out his truck or meandering around in his yard without his shirt on.  Well, maybe I did have some clues.

I was trying to get more clues by the fourth or fifth glass of water I drank while I sat at the fence-table.  “Well, now I have more things to think about in making my decision, or rather, changing a decision at the last moment,” I said followed by a deep breath I felt like I needed.

“Like what?” he asked, seemingly naive but now, I realize, he most certainly was not.

“Well,  imagining you slinging around hundreds of pounds on your shoulders doesn’t help matters.”

He smiled.  I excused myself.  I needed fresh air.  I had to think about canceling my plans.  I felt pretty bad about it but time had gotten away from me and I guess, I simply couldn’t walk away from the desire to go back to see the FenceBuilder.

I made a phone call changing my plans.  I made a brief trip home discovering a plate of fresh pasta with herbs and chicken in my refrigerator.  A neighbor had cooked it for me and left it while I had been out.  I was starving.  I ate it immediately.  I felt better.  I thought I’d made the right decision.

Arriving back at the FenceTable I accepted a beer, which is pretty unusual for me, but I had a feeling the rest of the evening would be an unusual experience.

I think the FenceBuilder may have used my pain to get closer to my body, but I’m not going to hold it against him.  “Does your shoulders or back hurt?” he asked.

“My entire body hurts when it hurts,” I responded and quickly added, “although it does settle in my shoulders.”

“Would you like a massage?”

I never say yes to this!  “Yes, I would,” I said.

Stress had filled several consecutive days.  Financial worries had been making me nauseated but also disturbing me were my deep concerns about my son.

He has an ACT team who doesn’t do shit and this makes me mad, and stressed!  I am a mother — not a social worker, a doctor, a therapist, a money manager, which are all treatment services the ACT team claims to be providing for my son.  I’ve been doing their job for the best of a year.

After massaging my shoulders,  he casually sat back down in his chair.  Smiling he asked me what I wanted as he opened another beer.

I didn’t think much about my stress for the next twenty-four hours, other than I might pay a price in fatigue and pain.  Much fun was had.  There was nothing confusing about that.

As I write, still fatigued, I’m reminded of my wonderful meeting with a Morgan horse named Candy.  I knew I’d pay a price in pain for the fun lesson I had with her.   My body feels about the same today as it did two days after my lesson with her and I learned some things too.

Riding a horse gives me joy for several weeks afterward.  Horses are good medicine for depression.  I had great fun with the FenceBuilder, but unlike my time riding horses in which I always feel an emotional connection, I was left with somewhat of a wanting feeling.

Something was missing.  I realized it was in my heart.

I missed my best friend who is on another vacation.   I longed for his company all day.  I longed for a feeling of being connected.  I took my younger dog for an early evening walk to a nearby natural butterfly garden.

I thought about how I was feeling.  Embrace this wanting I feel. Know it and feel it. So I did.  It was not such an easy feeling to sit with.

Returning home I snuggled up close to my canine companions.  They are my best friends.  Their sweet eyes revealed their loyalty and love.  I rubbed their soft fur.

Lying in my living room, brightened only by a colorful hanging lamp I recently installed, I saw the light flickering on my cell phone.  My dear friend had sent me a wonderful long text message, which he’d never done before.  He usually emails from his trips away.  His text felt more intimate than the emails.  He shared interesting little details of his trip.  Little things that made such a huge impact on me.  This soothed some the wanting in my heart.

I realized as I embraced the feeling, that I have some really good people in my life.  People who understand I live with pain and sickness.  Not dozens of people, but a few, which is enough.  I was reminded of how much I love these friends.

I learned too that part of why I enjoy riding horses is that they sense how I feel and this is a wonderful connection.   I actually communicated on an emotional level much more with the Morgan, Candy, than I did with the handsome FenceBuilder.

I learned too that FenceBuilders are indeed strong.  I have no doubt in my mind that the man can carry two or three times my weight over his shoulders.

As to being a FenceSitter, well, maybe the years ahead of me will change this some, maybe.  For a short time I was free, like butterflies on a sunny summer day.  As to my decision to return to the handsome FenceBuilder’s FenceTable, accepting a shoulder massage, which I had strongly suspected would lead to more, I have no regrets.



6 Dec

A Man without a Heart

Posted by DOGKISSES in human relationships, narcissistic personality disorder. Tagged: , , , , .

“Life is all about the Narcissist, and while they learn to “feign” or act emotions, they are essentially cut-off from their own authentic feelings, –They seek to dominate and control others as a primary way of navigating life.” 

Source: Narcissism as Prophecy, by Richard Boyd, Body Mind Psychotherapist, Energetics Institute, Perth, West Australia.

“I don’t have feelings for anyone, not you or anyone else,” he said, immediately after I told him I was sad and having a hard time with my feelings. 

“I’m thinking about ending my life,” he added.  “I have a 45 and I know how to use it.”

The man was lying about ending his life.  The reasons for his statement was to play more mind games with me.

“Can you imagine for one minute that maybe it’s the truth that I don’t have any feelings for anyone?”  he pleaded. 

I can now.

By all definitions, he fits the description of a person with severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Eventually, he went as far as to claim having been diagnosed, but I knew that was a lie too.

Our relationship was a lie.  He certainly took pride in his ability to convince me that he loved me and that his, “love was the kind that last forever.” 

He proclaimed over and over that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.  He literally begged me every day for the best of six months to believe he was truly in love with me. 

I hadn’t believed him.  I continued suggesting that he was in a delayed mid-life crisis and was merely infatuated with me.  This only fueled his wish to convince me otherwise, plus I was wrong.  His intentions towards me and our relationship didn’t come close to the innocence of a temporary infatuation and there wasn’t any mid-life crisis going on.  

I had trusted him as my insurance agent for over twenty years before he spotted me at a low ebb in my life, and took full advantage of that in every way possible.  I believe it was my longstanding trust in him that in large part, caused me to question my doubts and slowly abandon my screaming intuitive urge to get very far away from him.

Upon reflection, I can see how unfortunately perfect I was for him.