Hey Doc, I REALLY need your help. I’m begging you…
I’m going to cut to the chase. I suffer mental illness and boy did it fuck up my past relationship.
I was with a guy from Canada for 2 1/2 years so I already had THAT against me being an American. While I admittedly had a lot of body image issues before we dated and I gave him the heads up..he accepted and we decided to start dating anyways. The problem was… dating this guy was a mistake… because he was emotionally abusive.
He pushed me to give nude photos a lot, told me if I didn’t strip for him I didn’t love him, made fun of my weight… stuff like that. I don’t even feel like going into the rest… Generally this made me WORSE but I was too stupid to break up with this guy. In return I did bad things too.. I regret constantly bothering him to talk me out of suicide and cry that if he left me I’d kill myself. I was very sick. I regret it all so much now and if I could apologize from the bottom of my heart… I would if I could. My parents weren’t taking me seriously at all during the time to get me ANY real help until it was far too late.
After he broke up with me due to the stress of my mental illness I went off the wall and constantly harassed him over the phone to talk to me. At first it was because I missed him. But then it was anger over all the abuse in the beginning (there’s more but I don’t want to go in any further)
It got back to me from my old friends after a huge fallout I was labeled a “stalker” I guess I deserved this.
After 5 suicide attempts my parents finally took me seriously and got me help. I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
I’m currently getting help and making a lot of progress but this leads me to ask..is there any hope for me in the dating world? Let’s be real. I REALLY fucked up and I was obviously very, very sick. I was so scared of dying alone I recently drank bleach just to end it all. So instead of wanting to die anymore.. why not keep trying to be mentally stable? but what the FUCK do I do doc? I can get better all I want but whose going to want a crazy like me?
– mentally unstable
Hey MU, can we establish something right off the bat?
You’re not broken, you’re not worthless and you’re not defined by having a personality disorder.
That guy you were dating? The one who mocked you, who pushed you to do things you didn’t want to do, who took advantage of your body issues and used them to pressure you into bending to his will?
Fuck that guy.
You’re right: he was a great big fucking abusive shitbird and if there’s any karma in this universe it’ll be baring down on him like an out of control semi. He’s in another country and out of your life. I know it’s hard, but deliver the ultimate insult to him by simply forgetting about him. Spending time wishing for him to be infested by radioactive mutant pubic lice would be a waste of precious brain cycles that you could be using on something more significant, like memorizing which characters joined the X-Men during the Claremont/Cockrum years.
Now here’s what you need to do. And I’m warning you, it may be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done, but it’s absolutely necessary. With me so far?
You need to forgive yourself.
You’ve had bad shit happen, but you survived. You found yourself in a bad place and realized you needed help and you finally got it. Do you realize the sort of strength that takes? To paraphrase Boggle The Owl, you’re going through the emotional equivalent of trying to fight your way through a hundred miles of hostile jungle with a stick to try to make it to safety. You’ve been wrestling with your inner demons and trying to make it through the darkest nights of the soul. That’s not someone who’s damaged, that’s someone who’s fighting with all her might to get better.
That’s what you need to realize. There’s no shame in having problems. You’re getting help and you’re improving and that’s the most important part. Defining yourself as “damaged” or “crazy” is disregarding all the work you’ve put in to getting mentally healthy again. It’s restricting yourself to who you were, not who you are or, more importantly, who you will be.
You’ve had some bad experiences in your past but you survived them. You did things you regret because you didn’t realize you needed help. It’s sad that it’s happened, but you need to be willing to let the past be the past and forgive yourself for being imperfect. For right now: don’t worry about dating or who could possibly want you. That time and those people will come. Right now, you want to focus your energy where it’s most important: on your recovery. Regain your strength. Continue to get better. There will be time enough for love.
There’s a scene from one of my favorite comics that I think applies here, by the way:
Good luck. And write back to let us know how you’re doing.
Hey, Doc.
In your recent post-mortem letter, you said: NerdLove’s Rule #450: any text that comes after midnight and isn’t “OH GOD HELP ME I’M ON FIRE” can be safely read as “Hey, I wanna fuck.”
I’m a 19-year-old college freshman, female, and have a study partner. He’s also a freshman. We don’t study together very often, about once every two weeks, but I’ve had it bad for him almost since day one.
He texted me about a week ago, round 4:30am, to say, “Hey, we should get together sometime soon.” This was immediately followed by a longer text that basically explained he’s been pretty stressed, has a weird schedule, has been going to bed late and is tired, and apologized for being “unreliable”… and ended it with “Hope to see you soon.”
I texted him back almost immediately and said, “I’d like that! What do you have in mind? And yeah, my schedule’s been a bit screwy too, I’m trying to get it back on track.”
This where I wonder if I messed things up. Because I got no response. My friend says “You don’t text back immediately if it’s at 4am!” and told me I should have just said, “I’d love to!” and leave it at that.
Additionally, I texted him at 1pm the next day to ask about a quiz. He replied to that, but not to the other text, which tells me he’s ignoring it. When I saw him in class again, I told him my birthday was this weekend (truth) and that I was having a small movie party in the lounge at my residence hall, and I’d like to see him there. He responded with a half-hearted “Oh, uh, I’d love to, it’s just that I’m really busy…” and then left. And no, he didn’t show up.
Haven’t spoken to him since. We still see each other in class.
Question is, where did I mess up, and what the hell is going on in his head?
Thanks,
Baffled Beyond Belief
So this is something a lot of people, especially young people do. They say something and then think “OH SHIT! Did I just say that out loud??” and immediately try to take it back. And since they can’t remotely delete texts or magically unsay things that they just said, they will spin some yarn about why whatever they just said should be ignored and they’re totally not serious and they normally don’t say shit like that but they’re tired/drunk/stressed/insert-excuse-here and really it means nothing and pretend it never happened kthanxbai and then proceed to try to dig a hole and pull it in after themselves.
One possibility was that it was a classic “oh shit, wrong number” text, where he only realized after he hit ‘send’ that it was going to the wrong number and had a mini-freak-out. The other possibility (and what I suspect actually happened) was that it was late at night and your study partner – possibly filter-impaired in some way (or just horny and saying ‘fuck it, give it a shot’) tossed out a “hey, I kinda dig you” text and then immediately thought “Oh God what did I do, she’s going to think I’m a creep ohshitohshitohshit” and tried to walk it back. The last thing he was expecting was a response… especially an immediate response.
That alone probably blew a circuit in his brain.
Now the way you phrased it… well, that kinda sounds more like a “sure lets get together… as friends” if you squint (and are expecting to get rejected). Your roommate is right: if you were hoping to do something romantic (or something ending in sloppy make-outs anyway), writing back with “I’d love to!” would’ve been more than enough.
Now, whether it was a wrong number snafu or him trying to preempt a rejection, I’m guessing he’s seriously embarrassed and feeling twelve different shades of awkward. Hence: ignoring the 4 AM reply and trying to pretend that the whole humiliating episode never happened. So he’s trying to scrape together the tattered remains of his pride and carry on like he didn’t trip over his dick. I further suspect that he saw your asking him to come to your party as a “friend” invite, not a “hey, I’d like to possibly make out with you for my birthday” invite.
Either way, if you’re into him then just go up and ask him out. Say “Hey, want to go get some coffee? Just the two of us, no books, no classes?” Make it clear it’s an invite to a date not a “friends hanging out” and see how it goes. Either he’ll be grateful to realize that he didn’t fuck up his (self-imposed) only chance and you’ll get a great date or you’ll know he’s just not into you the way you’re into him.