There are many emotions. Some of these emotions can be quite exhausting. After the initial adrenaline of it all, you then slump into tiredness. Emotional tiredness is probably more tiring than physical exertion. I suppose this is why people recommend exercise to combat depression. I have to say though, I do feel great after a long walk. I can walk for miles and miles if I don't stop in the middle. When I do stop though, wow. Those pains are quite real indeed.
The most exhausting emotions are fear, sadness, anger. These can come in a chain of negative bondage, one link connected to the other. Then the feeling of depression, emptiness, feeling "dead inside" like there is a hole in your soul, but then you are too tired to feel anything.
You can be angry over anything really, it's a reactive emotion. You can drop something on your foot, hurting yourself in the process. Are you angry at the object, yourself for dropping it? Perhaps you blame another for distracting you, nudging you or some other reason you can think of and you're then angry at them? Or perhaps you're just angry because your foot is now in pain.
Emotional hurt can cause anger. It can cause sadness. Are you angry at the person for causing you this pain? Is it really them you are angry at, or are you angry at yourself for letting it happen to you? Is it really your fault? Or is it theirs?
I've spent my life being socially awkward. I suppose I've always been like this since I was a young child. I don't think this is learned behavior (I think I was just born this way), although the way my dad was can't have helped. He wasn't abusive as such, but I was physically punished, smacked but not beaten. All the parents did it back then. Some still do, but I don't believe in it. Physical punishment isn't something I ever did or do to my daughter. I don't really shout at her often either. I don't want her to feel scared of me. I was scared of my dad. I didn't really respect him, though I respected the effort he put into his family and the sacrifices he made. We didn't get on too well and between his aggressive ways etc. I really did grow to hate his presence over the years.
I think this is why I never cried at his death. It was just more shock than anything else and then a sense of relief. I think that if he lived we would have eventually got into a real physical fight (it came close a few times, this man is one of the only people that caused me to really shout, I'm not a person that shouts. If you made a mellow guy like me actually shout then you really did something wrong. The only other person to cause me to get so angry and shout, is the mother of my daughter). If I had gotten into a real physical fight with my dad, he would have gotten badly hurt as I had lots of pent up anger towards him. I feared what I was capable of. The result would have been me getting kicked out of the house. Maybe that would have been for the best anyway as I really was too old to be living with my parents. I more or less moved out when I turned 30 and I practically lived (unofficially) with my girlfriend (my daughter's mother).
My relationship with this person was exhausting. Amy (my daughter's mum) had/has a lot of mental issues picked up from an abusive mother who had her own mental issues after being abused (I think sexually as well) by her father who was an actual Nazi. What was I thinking getting involved with Amy? Her mum didn't understand her neurodiversity (she is autistic) and would get angry and lash out at her. Her father walked out on them both as he couldn't take it any more. Amy's mother taught her to take advantage of men and use them. Amy took on some of this teaching but tried to rise above the negative stuff her mum taught her.
Amy went from relationship to relationship, never really having the ability to actually have an adult conversation with her partner when she wanted to end the relationship. She just jumped into bed with the next guy.
I was about 28 years old when I started speaking with Amy on Facebook. Back in 2012. She had met my friend Simon who was my childhood friend and neighbour, at a place called A4E (action 4 employment) on some sort of employability "course". Apparently she felt sorry for him, so became his friend. She seemed to have a thing for vulnerable people. She used to hang out with Simon at his house (he lived next-door to me with his parents as I lived with mine) to get away from her current boyfriend, Toby. (As I realised years later) she had toyed with Simon as she does with everyone. Amy was having one of her usual "rocky" relationships with Toby. She then got pregnant with Toby's child and Simon wanted nothing to do with Amy, had tried to exit his friendship with her (although he thought it was going to be something more the way she had toyed with him). Amy still managed to keep her grip on Simon for a bit longer. Amy had started to reach out to me on Facebook, and we talked sometimes, then we spoke often. I think she found me a vulnerable person, fresh meat.
I first met Amy in person when she invited herself to one of the cinema trips me and "the lads" often took together. It was a group of me, Simon, Gary and Matthew. Amy was pregnant at the time. I just treated her as no one other than a friend of Simon's.
A couple of years later, me and Amy were speaking to each other online quite often and I ended up inviting her to my 30th. She wasn't quite single at this point, she was dating a guy called Ian, and doing her usual trick of getting bored of him and trying to get with someone else (which was me at the time). She later told me that Toby was paying her for sex while she dated Ian. Classy!
Looking back at this, I probably should have seen all of the red flags, I should have seen she was damaged goods, toxic. She wanted relationship conditions from me, even before we had even gone on a date, while telling me she didn't want a relationship. She was in full control over the relationship, when I could and couldn't see her. She would change her mind at the drop of a hat and say we were just friends. She would get really paranoid about me "looking at other women". She got really mean and nasty when she wasn't in full control over me. I was always nice and put up with her behaviour, like a doormat.
Three years on and she was still accusing me of this and that, being nasty towards me. She was guilty of the things she was accusing me of. I am convinced (looking back at our chat logs) that in the first 3 months of dating, she had slept with a Guy called Michael. She had lot's of followers on the Internet with her cosplay and sexy photo shoots and damn right into the pornography territory. She loved the attention she got from that. She also had guys wrapped around her finger. Her other creepy friends thought she could do no wrong. They didn't really know her of course and anything she told them about her being the victim etc. was all delusional nonsense.
From massive fights to her suddenly flirting, she would use sex to keep her partners from escaping her abuse. With me and her it went from me having a difficult time to get to see her (relationship was fully on her terms) then I more or less became her nurse, doing everything for her, looking after her, to her financially abusing me, manipulative as she was, I ended up paying her bills, paying for her shopping, then I was virtually half living with her and she then didn't let me leave. When I wanted my own space and wanted to go home, I wasn't allowed. If I did manage to leave, she was then on the phone all night not leaving me alone. Getting quite abusive as well. She wouldn't leave me alone while I was at work either.
I was working part time at yes2ventures at the time. I actually think part of the reason I was made redundant was that I was always on the phone with Amy, I was constantly worn out, angry and was becoming a burden to Mark, my boss. I had already destroyed a friendship with a colleague, Rachel as Amy had decided to send her jealous and unhinged messages on Facebook. Amy then manipulated me into thinking that it was Rachel's fault that Amy had a miscarriage. Rachel never came back to work after that. I can't believe I let Amy do that.
I had a child with Amy, we officially moved into a house together a couple of months before Leliana was born. Speaking of emotions, when Leliana finally popped out (it seemed to happen very suddenly after hours at the hospital) I felt a rush of emotions all at once, nearly passed out. Probably the best moment of my life.
Fast forward a couple of months, me and Amy were fighting on and off. Amy then decides to start having these online relationships with random guys. (although I never really took it seriously) Amy was falling into her usual pattern. We had a child together, Leliana was a couple of months old and Amy was being selfish. Come November-ish she had gone for a "geeky meetup" with this guy called Jack that she had met online. She came back on a coach about 2AM, and because it was a long coach trip from Essex, she had actually shat herself on the coach. I tried not to laugh.
October time, Amy had gone down to London for a convention with this Jack guy. It was Halloween, I was sat on the sofa in our home, watching Halloween movies with my baby daughter. She was in her baby cushion happy as can be. So cute. I think I knew what Amy was up too, I was trying to enjoy the movies but I could feel my heart twisting in my chest like it was being wrenched out.
I found out for sure a month or so later that she had fucked this guy, as she announced to me that she was pregnant. I was eventually made to move out as this Jack guy wanted to move from Essex to take accountability for this pregnancy.
Karma came to Amy in the form of Jack. It turned out that he is mentally unhinged. Amy had other online relationships afterwards which more unhinged people (not getting pregnant this time as they were overseas). Karma really does exist.
Fast forward 9 years on, after all of the social services involvement due to Jack being unstable and the kid's living in an unstable home (after I left my job in the care home, I looked after Leliana myself for a couple of months while Amy sorted her shit out), me now being in my "new" job for nearly 5 years, stuff seems to have settled down.
Amy rebranded herself as "Teddy" and is becoming more masculine (testosterone injections and later breast reduction surgery) as she is dating a gay man now. She has had various therapies and claims to be a different person. As Hermes (the parcel delivery company) rebranded as Evri, but yet is still the very same company it was before, proving that just because you changed your name, doesn't make you a different company or different person in the case of Teddy. Still quite manipulative when she wants to be. Makes enemies of the other mothers of our Daughter's school. Unhinged.
Teddy (formerly known as Amy) is very good at planting stupid ideas into our Daughter's head. One lead to an accusation in which social services had to get involved again and I had to wait weeks not even knowing what the accusation was not being able to see my daughter. Teddy had made a video of her asking leading questions to our daughter. The police shut the accusation down as they even said it is Teddy's fault.
After Leliana's 9th birthday (we had a nice birthday tea at my house, Teddy brought the cake and her other kid joined too). The week after was half term. I book my annual leave around my daughter's school holidays so I can spend time with her. Leliana insisted to spend time at her mum's on the Thursday and she stayed Friday as well. Because Leliana had spent Sunday at her mum's, Leliana was only with me 3 days. Not really fair considering I only get to spend weekends with Leliana, but it was her choice.
On the Saturday I went round to pick up Leliana from her mum's, then to take her to Tesco for some shopping and a treat. For some reason, Teddy had promised Leliana that she would dye her hair on the Saturday when Leliana is usually with me.
Leliana, as we stepped outside, asked if I could take her back to her mum's to have her hair dyed as she was dead set on that now. I said no, "your mum should have done that on one of the days you were at hers". Half way down the road to Tesco, Leliana refused to budge. I ended up taking her back to her mum's and I had a go at Teddy for putting ideas in our daughter's head (such as convincing Leliana she smelled of mould and that her hair was full of mold after being at my house, which is absolute bollocks, "Amy" being her usual manipulative self)
Teddy played the victim and denied doing so and ran off crying upstairs. Leliana went inside and I told Leliana I have had enough (Leliana was having an attitude problem and being disrespectful towards me) and that I didn't want to see her for the next month.
I have stuck to my guns over it. I've not seen Leliana for about 3 weeks now and I'm feeling indifferent towards this situation.
During the weekends I've been on a journey of remembering the important stuff. Using various resources including my CV, posts on Facebook, old journal entries, to create a timeline of life events. Now at a glance I can pinpoint what year I was doing what, when and how long I spent doing x and y. I used old Facebook chats with "Amy" to dig up repressed memories. I did this because my daughter's behaviour of spending time with me on her terms only, reminded me of something. It reminded me of her mother.
So far instead of spending time with me (her father) she has chosen to spend time with her half brother (Amy's first born. She only sees the kid once every 2 weeks, so I let it slide). But then spending time with a new cat became more important than spending time with me, on another occasion opening her new doll at her mum's was more important than spending time with me and lately having her hair dyed was more important. I know she's only 9, but it does hurt. Hurt leads to anger, to sadness, to depression.
The more Leliana does this to me, the more I'm becoming numb to it. I've actually had a good month spending time on my own, doing whatever I want.
By reading old interactions with Amy, made me realise how much of a doormat I was was and how much abuse I took from Amy in that relationship. I have some PTSD from it, my heart now has a permanent wall around it, I will not let myself be vulnerable to anyone ever again. I sent Teddy (formerly known as Amy) a few messages regarding this journey and how I know she slept with a guy back when we had started dating.
One message from back in August 2016, Amy said she had invited a male friend over for a drugs binge. Now to put it in context, Amy used to lie about drug overdoses, suicide attempts etc. so I never really knew what was true or not (I mentioned this when I sent her a message recently). From what I can work out, our daughter was conceived in mid to late September. Was she doing drugs and sleeping with a guy that August? It makes me think and it makes me sick to my stomach. Teddy (formally known as Amy) will need to address and answer this question. Paternity tests are expensive and I've been Leliana's dad all her life. Not sure if I want to know the answer.
I remember my mum asking me (when I told her Amy had slept with Jack) "are you sure Leliana is yours?" My mum still remains neutral regarding Teddy, asking how she is and how her other kids are. My mum is probably the nicest person you will ever meet.
Teddy (formerly Amy) ghosted me, but I applied sone pressure sending her an actual text rather than a WhatsApp, to draw her attention to the messages. Her response was only "I will only respond to messages regarding the welfare of Leliana".
I spent father's day alone, never a message from my daughter (which would have to come via her mother's phone) or offer of a phone call.
Amy never respected me and I don't think Teddy does even now. We have been mostly civil over the years of our daughter's life, I've even continued to support and help with things. I try not to hold a grudge and keep it civil for the sake of Leliana.
It's a crazy life.
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