Random Thoughts While Riding GO Bus

I’m on the GO Bus from St. Catharines heading to the boat, which is surprisingly relaxing way to travel back and forth. In December, my car broke down hours before I caught the bus to the airport for my trip to Wales. It’s been a month since I’ve returned and I still haven’t tried to fix it. My dad loaned me his car for 3+weeks so I can take care of bigger priorities.



I haven’t been writing or journaling at all since I lost my job on Cris’s birthday (of all fucking days for it to happen). My mind has been consumed with far too many things. I’ve also learned and I accepted that I simply can’t maintain some projects when I’m in a state of “controlled chaos” – keeping up with personal journal entries right now, especially the ones that end up getting posted in this project.



But…I’m handling things way way way better than I was in the past. It’s been an incredible change over theist 18 months. My “to-do” list is way past the point of me being overwhelmed in the past, especially considering what is currently at stake…the real possibility of losing my houses.



It’s clear that I’m still emotionally affected by my relationship with Cris. There are still many random reminders and whenever I think of her, I almost instantly start crying uncontrollably. I now know the “emotional swings” are part of ADHD, so it’s difficult to control being “dramatic” but I’ve learned to live with sitting in these emotions in my “post-alcohol era”.

As many great things that have been happening, there’s a constant rainfall of stressors. Losing my job on Cris’s birthday, my car catastrophically failing, boat engine failure, boat still not wrapped and freezing cold on there (was about a foot of snow that came inside the back yesterday!!!), worrying about my brother, issues with the house in St. Catharines, baby constantly crying and woman yelling in Russian when I’m trying to work on the computer hahaha..…there are many others.

But I’ve been holding up amazingly and continue marching forward with a real smile and maintaining my sense of humour. Changes to medication and new coping mechanisms (bye bye alcohol!!!) have made this rough stretch so much easier to manage mentally.

But right now, I’m also NOT consumed with worry and fear of my inability to service my relationship, like I was the previous two winters. Or worried that Cris wouldn’t be comfortable living with the boat “under construction”. Or worried that I would lose Cris because I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, having panic attacks and crying 5 times a day alone in my car. I’m starting to tear up right now and getting a physical reaction to vividly remembering how that felt. To feel like I was watching myself lose the most important person in my life, and feeling like I couldn’t do anything about it regardless of how much I “tried”.

At those times, I underestimated how much those relationship issues were affecting me. I was sooooo worried, it literally made me mentally sick and put me on deaths doorstep.

Random things keep reminding me of Cris, even when they have nothing to do with her.

Sometimes the reminders are real life happenings. Sometimes it’s reading a post about ADHD or relationships that I wish she saw…and makes me wish I knew more about how this affects me day-to-day while we were together and loved each other enough to try and make changes.

This week, I lost one of my gloves I had just bought. It reminded me of when I bought gloves when we were shopping together. She bet me they wouldn’t last more than 2 weeks. I was confident I’d keep these ones until at least the end of the season. She was right…I left them at my moms house and eventually lost them (thanks, Mom, for bringing them to a Travis/Marija’s place so I never see them again lol – they lost them).

Little did we know, my habit of losing and misplacing everything…phone, wallet, keys, basically anything I pick up…is a result of ADHD. It’s not just that one character trait that points to ADHD, but a collection of small things like that.

A couple interesting post from doctors/researchers that talks about these “small things”…

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTj0544jJqd/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTiJar8jg4W/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTZNebFkYOZ/?img_index=1

Today, I saw this post about relationships and how even when things are bad, they’re still worth fighting for. Yeah, Cris and I “tried”. But the best efforts will never work unless all the information is there…and unfortunately, I still hadn’t discovered the source of a lot of my issues (abrupt change in emotional state, feelings of constant overwhelm, extreme rumination, emotional spiralling, being “dramatic” as Cris would call it…and there are more).



The post I saw made me feel so angry. I couldn’t stop crying…because I know what happened shouldn’t have. I know in my heart that if I was given the patience and understanding I was asking for, that iI WOULD HAVE gotten to where I am today.

I was so sad because although I’ve taken accountability of my actions and made big life changes, like quitting alcohol, I know that a lot of that stuff is not my fault. It’s how my brain functions. I’m NOT absolving myself of responsibility. But when I do accept responsibility, I need to to be so hard on myself because I simply didn’t know that the environment I unintentionally created was making ADHD symptoms really really bad, which in turn was making me extremely anxious and depressed….which makes managing any life issues or making changes virtually impossible. Add in a partner that is not supportive/refuses to acknowledge my internal reality or minimizes it when they do….and it’s impossible to make changes if you don’t know the source of the problems.

Even my doctor had things backwards. Yes, I was severely depressed and constantly anxious. But symptoms of adhd were creating those negative feelings because of extreme overwhelm. The overwhelm was self inflicted. But if I knew, I would have had the tools to make different decisions to help keep me calm and have the ability to regulate my emotions.

It’s been just over 54 weeks since I broke up with Cris. It’s clear she doesn’t want to talk to me. It’s clear she’s written her internal narrative about me – that I’m a narcissist. That I’m “toxic”. That I’ve only been writing in this journal to look for sympathy like a “covert narcissist”.

I’ve read all the stuff that aligns with how she decided to view me as a narcissist. She’s likely even created a version of “disgust” towards me.

Yet, ironically, she probably still hasn’t admitted or accepted fault for anything that happened. She probably conveniently forgot or ignored that 6 times on 4 occasions in the last couple months of our relationship, she broke very big promises to me. They were some of the most important things to my well-being within the context of feeling secure in our relationship. I told her what it feels like for me when I’m completely shut out, with no explanation. I told her what it feels like when I’m robbed of the ability to choose.

I still have a strong desire to simply talk with her. Even to the point that I want to change my Avianca flights back to Medellin and go talk to her.

But what is that going to achieve? She’ll just refuse and run away, like she did with me before.

Maybe that’s what I need to finally burry her in the past and remove her from my heart. Because she still lives in my heart….a lot.

I’m going to end this note to myself here. My bus is getting close to Hamilton Harbour West and I have three giant bags of stuff.

But I want to remind myself that I can work through the chaos now, better than I ever have. I just wish Cris was able to see how Im handling things now compared to 1 year ago.