Anonymous' Story

Where to even begin? I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety for over 10 years. It always got in the way of my relationships because men wouldn’t understand my moods, the depth of my emotions or why I couldn’t just pick myself out of my episodes.

There were nights I’d go to sleep and wish I wouldn’t wake up. There were days I’d wake up wishing I hadn’t woken up at all. Depression became a norm for me, and I felt strange if I was okay, because the fearful anticipation of a depressive episode was debilitating.

I finally got to a place where I was coping this year, and things weren’t great, but they WERE good.

I met a man this year through work who kept pursuing me like I was God’s gift to men. I thought to myself... why is he so obsessed with me? Am I really that great? Something told me not to believe his affections, because part of me always questions whether I am deserving of love and whether I am worth anything at all. This man was in a relationship too, which made matters worse. I kept fighting him all the way, but then when he told me he and his partner were separated, I gave in.

We began seeing each other in secret, almost everyday. I’d go to his house and we would play happy couple.

He made me reveal the most dark parts of myself to him. I told him things about myself that I never thought I’d share with a man.

I told him that I suffered from depression. I told him that I was abused as a child. I told him my struggles with wanting to stay alive and wanting to disappear. He would hold me and make me feel warm, and loved. He told me he loved me. He just is told me he wanted to marry me one day.

What happened next is not something I could have foreseen even if I was a psychic. He went on an extended vacation and I kept thinking... I can’t wait till he comes back for us to start our life together. I found out on social media that he proposed to the girlfriend that he said he was separated from. The girlfriend he spent most of the year telling me he couldn’t stand.

My heart fell so far out of my body that I was dry heaving for hours. It was the first time I cried over something not related to my depression.

To think that a man, who knew how I broken I already was, would purposely break me even more... was something I couldn’t comprehend. I felt like I imagined a bond with a man who didn’t exist... because this person who did this to me was not the man I fell in love with. This was a narcissistic person who got off on having two relationships at once. This event ricocheted me back into my dark hole... the one I fought tooth and nail to get out of. He knew my fears of being unloveable... and he proved them right.

The pain I’ve been in for months is so excruciating because I not only lost the potential of having a life with someone I loved, I also lost this person I spent everyday with, who I thought was my closest confidante. It turned out that in hating myself I was exposing my vulnerable self to a predator, who preyed on broken women because they were easy targets.

It was the first time I realised that I can never ever again be dependent on another human being to make me feel loved. Because the minute I did that, I signed my own fate.

It is a painful journey to get back to a good place... every time I hear his name I feel like I have PTSD and I shake uncontrollably at the thought of what he did to me.

I know I will beat this, and I will be better soon x