A final farewell

The title of this blog not only deals with suicide but love. So, I make no apologies for this final letter to my lost love. I explained at the start of this blog that I write for many reasons. For me to understand, for my children to understand and for other loved ones to realise what I have been through. It is your choice whether to read on or leave and think that I am still wallowing in self pity!

Dear R.

I have now come to the conclusion that I will never see nor hear from you ever again. For 4 months I have been grasping at straws and hoping against hope that you would contact me. To give me some small sign that you thought of me, even for one moment each day. Even the return of my bracelet would have given me some sort of closure. I find myself constantly scrolling through my phone for hours, becoming hypnotised, checking messages and emails just in case you have decided to talk to me even for one last time. It’s a fruitless exercise and has become a numbing habit to dull the pain that is still constant in my heart and my soul.

Since my suicide attempt I have driven myself to be a different person. I once told you in January I was attempting to change. I only wish you had believed me and stood by me in the darkest and most frightening time of my life, even though I had pushed you away. The person I am becoming is totally different to the one you knew towards the end of our relationship. I am stronger physically and mentally, I’m more aware of what my actions have on others and I have knowledge. I know that the drugs I was on towards the end of last year caused my anger issues to increase. I firmly believe that one drug was responsible for putting me in Southgate ward at the end of January and was ultimately responsible for me trying to kill my self in June.

Despite what you or others think of me, I am a good person. I have a good soul and good intentions. Unfortunately I became ill and you didn’t see it. If I had contracted cancer or lost a limb you would have been at my side like you were when I visited the consultants about my stomach. You were amazing and your support made me believe that you really loved me. I cannot understand why you didn’t see how depressed and ill I had become. I told you I was struggling with the death of my father but it didn’t seem to register with you. I must assume that you were already falling out of my love with me and that those 9 days we spent together at yours in May was the final straw. I wish I could turn the clock back and sit down with you and tell you how bad I was feeling. I wish you could see what torment I was in.

I know that it isn’t the other persons job to fix people, but if I’d been stronger I would have stayed until the end of time to help you. I am now strong enough for both of us. I am strong enough to hold you and love you and steer both of us towards a good life.

I suppose I am still struggling with the fact that you professed to love me more than I’ll ever know, but not enough to find out how I was. Wanting to learn more about what I had done to myself, I of course looked into it all. When my door was broken in I was moments away from dying. My oxygen saturation level was at 80%. Anything lower than that, then hypoxemia occurs, damaging major organs such as the heart and brain. I had every intention of dying that day. I saw that I had lost you and all that it promised. I am thankful that I am still here. I am glad that I was rescued by Kerry and my brother in law.

During my recovery I have learnt so much. My one wish is for you to see me now, as the man that has come out the other side, and not the man you knew at the end. I am an entirely different person with purpose and drive and the knowledge that I am worth something.

Never in our relationship did you ever make me feel inferior or less than you, neither did your family. They welcomed me in and didn’t judge me. It was all in my head how I felt and that affected our relationship. My little business was failing as was my health and it impacted greatly on my self esteem and in turn how I felt in the relationship. I wish I had sat down and told you all of this. I wonder would it have made any difference to us, I hope it would have.

I cannot express how much I loved you and still do despite everything that has happened. When I looked at you my stomach fluttered and my heart would burst with pride and joy that you had chosen me to love. I only wish you could see that and had stopped overthinking things. I have never loved nor will I ever love anyone else like I loved you. Even I don’t have the vocabulary to explain how much I loved you and what you meant to me. When I ended the relationship I was ill. I wasn’t thinking straight and in a twisted way wanted to release you from the pain that I was in. I was in pain physically and mentally. I had seen what my fathers illness had done to my mother. She had become a carer, not a wife or lover, not her own person. My mother lost her identity. I didn’t want that for you. I now realise that I took away from you that choice. It should have been your decision to stick by me through everything but I didn’t allow you to. Again, we should have spoken about it but I shut down and shut you out. That will be to my everlasting regret.

The times I pushed you away wasn’t because I didn’t want your love. It wasn’t because I was afraid of changing my life. It wasn’t because I didn’t want a future with you. It wasn’t because of any other person. It was simply because I was unsure of myself. My low self esteem, my work, my debts and above all my poor health made me into a different person. I didn’t want you to become saddled with an old sick man. I didn’t want to be seen as a failure by you or your family. I doubted how much you loved me.

You cannot get any lower than trying to hang yourself. I didn’t even talk to my own children about how bad I was feeling. It’s terrible isn’t it that no matter how desperate I was I couldn’t even tell you that I was thinking of ending my own life.

I sent you numerous letters and messages and even some flowers but I’m sure you didn’t receive any of them. I wish you had, because although what I had written was very raw there was truth in those words. We both said some very wicked hurtful things at the end. For my part I hope you can forgive me as I forgive you.

You may read this in a month, 6 months a year or indeed never. I tell myself that you will one day and see how much I loved you and wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I just wasn’t well enough to realise what I once had. I wasn’t well enough to let you in.

We used to make each other laugh uncontrollably at times. We walked along the beaches. We went for long drives in the country. We made love for hours. We cuddled for hours and sighed with contentment. We cried at the same films and songs. We went for meals in pubs. We went on family outings and I know my daughter adored you. I have no one to tell how well I did at football, no one to message at night. I loved watching you put on your makeup, listen to your daily ritual of blowing your nose! Every time I looked at you in the morning, it felt like seeing you for the first time. I loved to hear you laugh and to see you smile at me. I even put up with your appalling taste in music! When we walked hand in hand, I was the proudest man in the world. I miss everything about you, even your business speak! I introduced you to my mother as ‘the woman I am going to marry’ and truly meant it. I used to love cooking for you on your cheat day and watch with pleasure when you devoured it all! Our times playing crazy golf with both of us being so competitive ( incidentally it’s 4-3 to me!) We made plans. We used to look at houses and talk about which room Briagha would have. You let me paint you blue all over and you made a great Victorian floozy! For gods sake what went wrong? What have we done to each other? How can two people so in love end up like this? Do you hate me? I can’t hate you, I never will. You had your own reasons for not seeing how I was after I tried to kill myself. I am sure you were scared and were protected by your family. Every day I was hoping you would come and visit me, but I have no idea of your own history or how you were feeling. For my part, if the roles had been reversed I would have walked through fire to be by your side.

I know that this is the last time that I can write anything about you. This is the last time that I can say what I wanted you to hear all those months ago. My last chance to try and make you understand how much you meant to me and the last chance to try and explain how it went so wrong. If I could turn back the clock I’d move in and marry you without question.

I am changing constantly. I am learning about myself and I am beginning to recover from years of self doubt and mental illness. I needed to change for me so that I could be a man for others. To be a father to my children, a son to my mother and a partner to you.

I sincerely hope that you are safe and happy and that you find what you are looking for, whatever, whoever and wherever that may be. Regardless of what you think of me, I will always be here for you whenever you need me, whether that’s now or in 20 years.

Goodbye my darling R. I would have loved you until the very end of time. Always.