Most Alone

Often in conversations with friends I assert that I rarely feel lonely.  Most of them insist my lack of loneliness is directly correlated with the fact that my son lives with me.  It's true, I am rarely alone in the literal sense of the word.  My eleven year old is usually here with me, playing in his room, doing homework in the kitchen or wandering in and out of the living room to ask me questions or tell me long stories about video games or other things I barely understand.

It seems that the concept of aloneness gets swallowed up in the idea of loneliness.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

My son is a constant presence in my life and for that I am grateful.  He gives me purpose and joy in ways nothing else really could; however, my eleven year old child is not a companion.  In conversations about dating, marriage, companionship, I find that so many people assume my relationship with my child must fill the void of an, intimate relationship.  Usually this assumption is made by people who either do not have children or who have never lived and "uncoupled" life for any length of time.

People insist that I MUST be lonely without a romantic partner, but honestly I'm not.  When I tell them I don't feel lonely, they circle back to--"Well, you have a kid."

I do know what lonely is.  I know what being truly alone is.  At one time in my life I spent a few years in that space of aloneness.  I learned during that time, what true friends are and that sometimes even true friends cannot muster up enough empathy to truly stand by you during the toughest times.

Lately I think back on those years a lot.  I remember myself as a completely unhinged person.  I made bad decisions, lived in a constant state of depression and discouragement.  There were times I really wanted to die.  I had a 4 year old child at home to care for and  I'm not ashamed to admit,  I was barely making it--barely functioning as a mother, barely functioning as an adult.

Guilt overtakes me often when I think back on those couple of years.  "Why was I so stupid?"  I wonder.  It wasn't until a few days ago that something dawned on me.  During that time literally no one called to check on me.  No one stopped in to see if I needed help, someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on.  No one offered to help me with my kid, offered to even try to understand what I was experiencing.  No one showed me that they cared.

I considered myself a person with amazing friends.  It never occurred to me that they didn't know how badly I struggled just to get out of bed every day.  I never imagined that they'd want to hear all the hurt and confusion and sheer terror I felt at the aspect of just living my life post-trauma.  I don't think that I even knew how badly I was traumatized.  I felt as though I wore them out with my constant "drama" and I felt judged by them.  I created distance and they allowed me to drift away.  It became a dynamic that left me more alone than I'd ever been in my life, forced to feel my way through a kind of darkness that covered my entire world.  I was just fumbling my way through life, stepping in holes, running into walls, crashing into bed at night hoping I wouldn't wake up the next day.

A lot of things led me to that place.

The year was 2008-2009.  In September 2008 I split up with Charlie's dad.  Over the last year of our relationship he had become increasingly unstable.  He could not keep a job, spent an inordinate amount of time online looking at porn and gambling away my paychecks.  He was verbally abusive to my daughters when I was not around and frequently used emotional blackmail to keep me from ending the relationship.  I lived in fear that he would harm himself or one of my children if I disrupted the status quo.   He was fired from 2 jobs for not actually working while he was supposed to be working.  I helped him get a job at a hospice and his reputation there was quickly souring because he would not shower or wear clean clothes to work.  After 2 years of begging him to get help and listening to hundreds of excuses why he didn't need help (after all he said, I was the one who had a "problem.") I started to prepare to end the relationship.  I set up a separate bank account, contacted his family and friends to see if they'd let him stay with them, and was attempting to make a calculated, calm, wise separation with little conflict.

Unfortunately my plans came to naught on a Saturday morning when he lost his crap and followed my youngest daughter up the stairs shouting obscenities at her, calling her a "retard" and threatening physical violence against both my daughters.  The police were called.  He was removed from the house and never allowed to come back.  He didn't take the breakup well.

For months and months--over a year and a half to be exact, he stalked and harassed me.  He followed me around, harassed my friends and coworkers.  He sent nasty letters to my parents, my boss, my closest friends.  He threatened a man that I briefly dated, broke into my house when I wasn't home, went through my garbage, watched me through the back windows in my house.  He sent harassing emails, texts, left notes.  He drove by my work numerous times per day, accused me of all kinds of inappropriate behaviors, threatened to kidnap Charlie. He employed his new girlfriends to call, email, show up at my front door.  He tried to hire an "actress" to come to my door and say that the man I was dating was her fiancee.   I honestly got tired of the drama, so I couldn't blame my friends for not wanting to hear about it anymore.  I needed support--I needed to tell someone what was happening to me.  The unpredictable nature of it all--of finding policemen in my house with flashlights at night because he reported me "missing" one Saturday, was so stressful.  I never knew what to expect from one day to the next.  Until he was finally arrested for stalking and harassing me, I had no peace and my friends, well, they didn't really want to associate with me much.  I didn't blame them.  I felt like a pariah.  Even after his arrest the behaviors continued, culminating in a charge against me by the family court, of contempt.  In August of 2010 I sat in a courtroom defending myself against his outlandish accusations.  Fortunately, the whole thing backfired on him and he ended up losing all his court ordered custody and visitation rights.  In order to restore them he would need to agree to allow a guardian ad litem to review his mental health history.  He walked away from court that day, defeated, and out of Charlie's life.  He makes no effort to establish or maintain a relationship with his son.

By 2009 I was dating someone that I really liked.  We got along well, but both knew our relationship wouldn't ever get serious.  He became friends with my friend Joey and the three of us, along with family and on double dates, spent lots of time together.  One year we were all together for Thanksgiving dinner, the very next year they were both gone, one dead from suicide and one moved to another state.  In fact, the man I was dating left for his new job/home 2000 miles away on the same day as my friend's funeral.  My daughter graduated high school two months prior and moved out on her own.  My youngest daughter decided to go spend a year with her dad.  I was alone in my big house with just my 3 year old boy.  The quiet was deafening, the grief overwhelming, and people who seemed to care, understand, empathize with my situation?  Nonexistent.

I admit that their absence wasn't all their faults.  I tend to isolate myself when I am down and in my isolation, I spent a lot of time breaking down. Depression and grief gripped me so tightly that at times I could barely breathe.  My kidneys were failing quickly, I had no insurance. My employer fired me because they found out I was seeking a kidney transplant in lieu of starting dialysis.  With none of my medications and no way to pay for them, I knew my fate and deep down, hoped I would just go ahead and die.

I know depression.  I know what Alone feels like.  I know the difference between alone and lonely.

I made plenty of horrible mistakes during that time period of my life.  I felt worthless, like a failure, a person that no one should or would ever love.  I was convinced no one could understand the brokenness inside me, and even if they did, they wouldn't care.  I pushed people away, ashamed of my struggle, ashamed of who I was.

Somehow I made it out of that deep, dark hole.  When I look back I'm not even sure how.  There were plenty of nights that I held enough sleeping pills in my hand to put an end to it all, but for some reason I didn't.  I wasn't sure if things would ever get better, but I hoped.

Even on the darkest days I had that tiny sliver of hope.  That's all that kept me alive.

If you've never felt like the only person in the world fighting a battle that no one else knew about or even remotely understood, you don't know what feeling alone is.  I thought of myself as a freak of nature--someone destined for failure, death, at the very least condemnation.  I believed I brought all these misfortunes on myself and that my friends abandoned me because they saw how foolish and irresponsible I was.  Why should they feel sympathy for someone who screwed her life up so badly?  Shame overtook me and separated me from the people who loved me.

I am still prone to that shame if I dwell on thoughts of that time.  I am prone to bitterness too, when I think of driving to my friend's funeral alone with just my daughters in the car. I felt abandoned by everyone in my life except my toddler.  Can anyone who never experienced such loss really understand how it feels?

I suppose not.  I do though.  I understand how it feels now and maybe if nothing else, that experience taught me how to love other people better.  Maybe it taught me to reserve judgment, to extend empathy and kindness and to offer a helping hand when I see someone else struggling.

Things got better for a while, things got worse for a while.  I made poor decisions that cost me so much--time I'll never get back.  I grappled with the idea of being a "sick" person, of spending the rest of my life alone because I thought no one would want to be with someone as damaged as me--my health problems, my past relationship struggles, three kids...I saw myself as  liability, not an asset.  I wondered if I could ever feel at peace imagining my life as a single person.

My life took some very curvy, twisty, dizzying turns over the last 10 years.  I never dreamed I could end up where I am now--not just here in Traveler's Rest or working in Marietta.  Not just living in this cute little cottage on a hillside, but satisfied.  I am not lonely. I do not miss being in a relationship one bit.  I never thought I could be this satisfied without a partner but I have learned, finally, to be my own best friend.

There is no substitution for good friends--their love, support, inspiration.  They love me, this I know.  I know I am valued and that if I need them, all I must do is call.  However, I rarely need to anymore.  I am finally learning to treat myself with kindness, to give myself the kind of understanding I extend to other people.

I write all of this to you who struggle.  For you who feel alone, lonely, afraid, ashamed.  There is always a glimmer of hope, even if it's as tiny as a speck of glitter.  Cling to it.  Give yourself time, give those who love you an opportunity to show you their love.  Don't convince yourself that your own shame means your friends judge you harshly.   True friends consider all your trials; they give you a pass for some bad decisions.  They support your every effort to just make it from one day to the next.

Never convince yourself that you are your circumstances.  Never allow yourself to wallow in shame over things that didn't go your way.  Learn from your mistakes, carry on.  Let people love you and help you.

Someday you will come through this.  You will find the other side of the darkness where light and joy and love unspeakable wraps you in hope and strength every step of the way.

Reach out to those who love you.  Stop judging yourself so harshly.  Treasure even the worst days because they are opportunities for growth.

Never, ever, ever give up.