Failure

I realized that when it comes to Blake's overdose, in some ways I feel like a failure.

This morning in my counseling class, we learned about Motivational Interviewing. This is a type of therapy used with addicts to change their drug use. As my classmates started asking questions about what to say and how to get the client to make positive changes, my heart sank. Although I know I never got the chance to have these conversations about addiction with Blake because he didn't let me, I still began to feel like I failed him.

I quietly cried in class, looking down while covering my face with my hand. I could have gotten away with hiding my tears if it wasn't for the betrayal of my nose. It sniffled and leaked and uncontrollably drew attention to me. I tried to silence it, but every time I wiped it, it surged back with vengeance. I felt the hot stares of my classmates, but didn't dare to look up. I didn't need to see their faces to validate the pity being sent in my direction. Instead, I got trapped in my head and sat inside myself as the lesson droned on. With every word from the professor's mouth I slipped further into my cave of inadequacy.

The difficult thing about guilt is that it can defy logic. I can logically know that Blake's death is not my fault and that there wasn't anything I did wrong, but the weight of failure still crushes me sometimes. Not all the time, but when it does I get completely flattened by it. I spiral deeper into my head posing what ifs. What if I asked better questions? What if I showed I cared more? What if I made it clearer that I'd always love him? Never judge him? Never leave? What if? What if?

What if I make the decision to forgive myself? What if I recognize that even if there were things I could've done differently, so what? Am I going to I punish myself for the rest of my life for that? Call myself a failure for all of the hypothetical things I didn't do?

We're talking about Motivational Interviewing in class. This means that I have the opportunity to learn how to work with people and help them make changes in their lives. Instead of using this as a means to criticize myself for not doing this in the past, I could be focusing on how I can utilize this strategy in the future.

I acknowledge that even though I fail sometimes, I am not a failure. The things I didn't do or could've done are insignificant in comparison to what I can do now. And what I can do now is infinite.

More Than Enough

When Blake first met my mom and dad I was SO nervous. I honestly didn't know what they would think about him. I wasn't sure if they'd like him and was afraid they wouldn't believe he was good enough for me. After introducing my parents to too many of the wrong guys, I felt extra pressure to make sure they knew he wasn't just another one of them. 

Before we went to meet them, I was extremely anxious. I started telling Blake what to say and what not to say. Talk to my dad about computers, you'll have so much in common. Tell my mom about starting your own business, she did too. Don't talk about religion. Or politics. Or anything about rehab. Blake handled my obnoxious nagging well for the first several minutes, but eventually called me out for it. He said he was excited to meet my parents because if they were like me, they would get along great. To him, it was that simple. Then he told me it was sad that I wasn't more confident in him.

Reflecting back upon our relationship, I know I had my doubts about Blake. He had all of these incredible business ideas, but lacked the discipline to really build on them. Money seemed to always slip through his fingers. And he was constantly taking risks, making mistakes, and assuming that somehow his messes would get cleaned up by someone else. But although I had my uncertainties about Blake, I also knew that I was completely in love with him. 

And this love for him has only gotten stronger. Through stories from his friends, bonding with his family, and really taking in the lessons he taught me, I have a more complete view of Blake. I see what a light he was to so many people, the widespread impact he had, and how he truly balanced me out as a partner. The more I discover about Blake through connecting with people and looking inside myself, the more my confidence in him grows. 

Lately, and especially tonight, I feel guilty because I wish Blake experienced me feeling this unshakably secure about him while he was still alive. I've been beating myself up questioning if he ever believed he was good enough for me or truly believed that I thought he was. In spite of all of my nagging, critiques, and judging, did he actually know? I wonder how many times he looked into my eyes and saw what an incredible man I viewed his as. That although I had my doubts, I never forgot how lucky I was to have found him and how much better my life was because of his love. 

I just want him to know he is enough. More than enough.

I should have told him that every day. 

Hindsight is 20/20

There was a pivotal moment from the last day Blake and I were together that I always think about.
                                                  _______________________

It was the last morning of our Memorial Day week together. As we were talking, Blake started nodding in and out of consciousness. At first he was alert and texting someone, but then his body slowly melted into his phone; his fingers frozen mid-movement. I yelled "BLAKE!" He stirred and then immediately went back to texting like nothing had happened.

I didn't want to brush off such absurd behavior so I questioned, "Why are you falling asleep like that?" He shot me a look that instantly had me thinking that I needed to back down or this would escalate quickly. Blake explained defensively that I knew he hadn't slept much the past two nights because of all the stress he was under. He assured me that I would be falling asleep too if I was him. He asked what exactly I was trying to accuse him of anyway? Was I trying to say he was on drugs or something?

"No..." I thought to myself that I actually hadn't been trying to say that at all, but since he mentioned it so defensively maybe I should have been. But instead I told my brain that what Blake said made sense. He was rattled by upcoming challenges and the fact that I was leaving for a whole month. This was keeping him up all night and had him worrying himself sick. Blake must have been sleep deprived. This was just his body shutting down. Besides, I thought to myself, he already went to rehab and recovered. I didn't want to ruin our last hours together so I just apologized and gave him a kiss.

When I get to the end of replaying this moment, my mind sweeps me up into a different fantasy. In this new version I've concocted out of pain, sadness, horror, guilt, whatever you want to call it, our conversation doesn't stop where it did.

When he questions me "Are you trying to say I'm on drugs or something?" I silently walk over to where he's sitting on the couch. Without a word, I sit on his lap and wrap my arms around him. When I start to squeeze him tightly I notice that his breathing becomes a little shallower and he chokes up. Before I know it he's crying, harder than I've ever seen him cry. It's like the floodgates of his heart burst open and all the sadness he's been damming up can finally rush out. Without a single word we have the conversation he'd been meaning to broach with me for months.

I like this alternative ending better because it gives me hope that he was always just moments away from letting me in on his addiction. But inevitably I pass from thinking that to feeling horribly upset at myself for never uncovering the pain that was clearly right under the surface. Maybe I was so caught up in myself that I never thought to question deeper about what was going on with him. Maybe all it would have taken is one knowing hug to help him understand that I would always love him no matter what. That he had no secret too dark for me to handle. That there was no burden I wasn't willing to help him carry.

I get lost in that for a while, allowing myself to think I could have saved him. I push it further and start thinking that if I would have cared just a little bit more, he'd still be alive.

But that's when I stop myself. Although now I know that "nodding off" is an effect of heroin use, at the time I had no idea that the two were even connected. Now I know that Blake was using, but at the time I had no idea that the state he was in at the end of his final weekend had anything to do with drugs. I can fantasize all I want about how I could've gotten him to open up and come clean to me in that moment, but in that moment I had no idea there was anything he needed to come clean about!

                       _______________________

I hope that in writing about this moment, discussing my fantasy, and absolving myself from blame that I have set myself free from it. Although this memory will probably still float through my mind from time to time, I need to remember that hindsight is 20/20. I see that moment with a completely different pair of eyes than I saw it through the first time. For this reason, I can't compare what I did and what I now believe I could have done, should have done. It's not fair to torture myself that way, so I won't.

Resiliency

I had a paper due today for one of the counseling classes in my grad program. The assignment was to write about a time of hardship and resiliency in our lives. Tonight, we had to read our papers aloud to each other.

This was mine (some of the parts have been taken and modified from earlier blog entires):

When people are deeply in love, they sometimes tell each other dramatic and romantic things like “I could never live without you.” Although a cliché like that sounds over the top, somehow love makes you say it with such conviction, like you were the first two people on earth to declare that to each other. When I said I could never live without Blake it was with complete sincerity. But now, even though I meant what I said with every fiber of my being, here I am living without him

In college, my boyfriend Blake was in an accident where he was injured and subsequently prescribed the painkiller OxyContin. Due to the extremely addictive nature of this drug, he got hooked. This addiction to painkillers eventually lead him to experiment with heroin, which is actually a cheaper, more accessible drug derived from the same source. Blake overdosed on heroin three months ago. The entire time we dated I knew nothing about his heroin addiction. He somehow managed to keep it completely hidden from me until the day he died.

I went through, and am still going through, a million emotions in coping with both finding out about my boyfriend’s double life and mourning him at the same time. The thing about lies is that just one has the power to breed contagious doubt about all other truths. Finding out about his hidden drug use initiated an overwhelming insecurity about whether a relationship I felt so proud of was just a product of my imagination. How could someone who actually cared about me keep such a huge secret? Were any of his feelings real? Did I know him at all? And then there are also the feelings of guilt for not being able to help him and confusion in wondering why he never let me.

But above all there has been an overwhelming sadness for the loss of my love and best friend. When I was with Blake, I felt like I could say anything, do anything, be anything. Anything and everything seemed possible because of him and how he made me feel. When he died, that was all taken away from me without warning and without any chance of getting it back. It was, and still is, devastating.

In the aftermath, the hardest thing in coping with such a tragedy has been feeling so torn to pieces on the inside, but looking normal on the outside. I almost wish I had an illness, broken bone, scar, something so it’s more obvious that I am not ok. If this were something physical, people could actually watch as I heal and know by looking at me that I'm still recovering. It's not like I want any of these physical maladies to elicit sympathy from others, I just want them to know that I'm not the same. I'm not normal. I'm not entirely myself.

But what is normal? Who am I anyway? These are things that I have begun to ask myself.  In order to manage what happened and look towards the future, I have given myself the permission to analyze anything I need to question, reflect on whatever I want to process, and feel any emotion that decides to grip my heart. I’ve done all of this through writing. 

I created a blog after a friend told me that reading how I explore my grief might be helpful for those who loved Blake, people who have gone through something similar, and most importantly, me. By opening myself up this way, so publicly and unapologetically, I have made my internal pain visible. Not only am I able to release what’s swirling around inside my mind, but I can also share my recovery with whoever wants to read it.  Whenever I feel like the pain is weighing me down or I can’t focus because it’s clouding my thoughts, I take out my laptop and allow it all to flow through my fingers. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m writing about until the entry is done. Then, I can read my message and discover new things about myself: who I am, what I value, and how I feel. Giving myself space to write has become both cathartic and essential to my well-being.

At the point when I first created the blog, I decided that this tragedy could either become a pain buried in the depths of my heart or a scar that blends into the landscape of my skin. It was my choice. I chose to wear the hurt openly because I couldn’t burden my heart with the weight of a secret. I realize, however, that I need to get to a place where I acknowledge this experience as part who I am without letting it define me. This is something I continue to navigate every day.

Through my journey of resiliency, I am beginning to realize that telling Blake “I could never live without you” wasn’t actually a lie. I’m not living without him because Blake has become a part of me. If I truly believe that I carry him with me wherever I go, I feel strong. Of course it's devastating to know he will never physically be with me again, this blow is lessened when I realize that I never have to say goodbye completely. He can be the reassurance in my head that whispers words of confidence, the pulse in my heart that beats with pride, and the air that fills my lungs and leaves me with a sense of calm. I don’t have to live without him because our love continues to shape who I am every day.