I've never spent holidays alone. This year, it looks like I'll be spending Christmas and New Year's Eve by myself, because all my friends are coupled-up or already have plans that can't accommodate me (COVID is under control where we live, and we're allowed gatherings up to 5 people). I am also uninvited to a Christmas dinner by someone I have a situationship with. I'm feeling alone, anxious, and I'm spiralling into a hole. I dread Christmas. I've been taking more Ambien than I should so that I can sleep weekends away. I'm still doing well at my new job, as per my update in the last question I've posted, and still going to ballet, but it feels increasingly like I'm just a husk going through the motions. I've been on a couple dates since then and have rekindled an old flame with whom I've had a brief romance with more than a year ago.
Two days ago he said he wanted more, so I said okay, I'll be more present and try harder. Previously, I was not very responsive to his messages or calls, thinking they were only booty-calls, and I only saw him maybe twice a month, despite his persistence. I apologised and told him that I'd clear out my weekend for him this time. We can spend more time together and really date, I said.
We had a misunderstanding due to terrible communication on both our parts - I had thought it was just a purely physical thing so I didn't invest a lot of time or emotional energy into our relationship, not knowing that he had wanted more out of it. That caused him to "readjust [his] expectations", and he slept with two other people. I don't blame him, but I am resentful that he hadn't told me about it earlier. While we were in the throes of substance-induced limerance he asked me to come to his Christmas party and meet his friends. I asked if he was going to remember all this tomorrow, and he said yes. I asked why he liked me, and he said to stop interrogating him while we were having a good time.
The day after he said maybe it's going too soon for me to meet them, and I was overwhelming him: "First you barely even respond to my calls or texts, and treat me like a booty-call, and now suddenly you want to spend the whole weekend together. It's too much."
We had an argument, if I can call it that. I left his house. He said we'd speak again soon, but reiterated that I should make other plans for Christmas. He also emphasised the fact that he would not be seeing anyone else "while we figure this out".
I think I should mention here that he has issues with his own mental health and is also on antidepressants. He's still learning to be happy on his own, and I've seen him at his lowest, most promiscuous, most drunk, most whatever-the-fuck he is. And he insists I don't know the real him. We make sense as a couple, he says. We should try, he says. I feel like we can help each other, he says.
But here I am, uninvited to his Christmas party. Here I am, with no plans for Christmas and no friends to turn to. Here I am, wanting to crawl into a hole again. I don't think I will leap from the window of my building, but I feel dangerously enthralled by the idea of it.
Hive, I am in a mudpit. I crave affection and connection. I've been doing a good job taking care of myself and loving myself, but I don't think other people can love me. Hive, I am at the end of my rope. I've been doing the bestest I can in trying to improve myself and do all the live-laugh-love things I can do, but ultimately, at the end of the day, I crawl into bed alone, take four ambien, and sleep fourteen hours so I don't have to wake up and go through the motions knowing that ultimately, I cannot form a real connection with anyone.
I feel broken.