It’s hard to imagine the person I was and put that person into today’s position; into my shoes (well currently, I can’t wear a shoe on my broken foot that is still recovering from surgery so metaphorical shoe it is!). I was talking to Diego recently about how no “normal” person couldn’t have put up with the adversities that I went through with my mother as a teenager if it weren’t for my, at the time, undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
This topic came up when I was creating a Go Fund Me account for my college education. If you would like to contribute to my schooling fund to be a social worker, please let me know. Any funds, advice, tips, and prayers are much appreciated.
Anyways, if it weren’t for my bipolar disorder and compartmentalization strategies, I may have become a bitter, even jaded person who wouldn’t have the relationship that I have today with my mom. My sister was very bitter for a long time about my mother’s illness and her alcoholism. It wasn’t until her wedding and my mother had been sober for years and had her schizophrenia under control that they even had a viable relationship. Now they grocery shop weekly together, even though my sister is a newly wed.
I am thinking of how much I have changed even since August and it’s a lot. I got kicked out I think on August 14th and became sober off gambling exactly a month later. I looked for apartments, found one, and then my roommate bailed on me. I went on numerous dates with the wrong guys until I realized for myself for the first time in my life that I didn’t need a man in my life or need a relationship to make me happy. I had been told this over the course of my life numerous times, but never took it to heart until recently. I became closer to God as I started reading my bible daily. I began praying more, throughout my whole day and that has fundamentally impacted me and who I am as a person. I got my ‘relentless’ tattoo after contemplating suicide and making a plan to execute said suicide. I went to San Diego by myself and conquered my fear of flying and created a terrible vlog diary that most of you saw here at Precarious Aquarius. I got to a place that I began to love myself again for me and nothing else.
I don’t think a relationship with Diego now would have been possible if I wasn’t able to kick my terrible gambling addiction. The only way I was going to stop gambling was to hit rock bottom and thinking I was potentially going to be homeless is what got me there. Not even. I take that back because I still gambled two paychecks away AFTER I hit my “rock bottom”, so it was an accumulation of getting kicked out, moving back in with my parents and then gambling another $1100 paycheck away in an hour that got me feeling suicidal and that was when my best friend talked me off the ledge; something I prayed to God about because if he didn’t call me back, I would have completed my suicide plan. That; relying on my friend was something I was never able to do before considering how vulnerable I was and didn’t want to come off that way.
I was always supposed to be the tough one. To and for my mom, to Brent, to everyone. The only person I truly let in up until that point was Diego. I thought I had seen my darkest of days with Diego and now that he was out of my life, I resumed being the invincible and strong person, not showing vulnerability to anyone. I finally let my guard down in front of Brent when I finally realized that I needed his help. To get sober and to not kill myself were my main priorities and I succeeded but that wouldn’t have been the case if it weren’t for him.
If it weren’t for me going into the grocery store and telling Diego how I was doing and that I was going back to school and that I was a month clean from gambling, I am not sure Diego and I would have ever gotten back together. I think we were able to rekindle interest and our lost love for each other in those few moments and then resolve the main issue of him kicking me out by me admitting I was in the wrong. Being addicted to anything is hard because you are part of the problem. Of course, genetics and addiction is truly a disease plays a role in it, but if it weren’t for you partaking in something such as gambling, knowing its potentially addictive qualities, you wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.
With all that being said, admitting I had a severe problem is what made us have the opportunity to start fresh and truly have a chance at making something work. As long as I’m clean, I have no doubt we can one day get married. We are basically living together and planning our lives together. He is my biggest supporter; whether that be of my writing, my blog, my going back to school, trying to go back to work, of everything. And I him. I think him being sick this past week has proven to him that I am here to stay and take care of him no matter what. He admitted that he was happy to have me back and over dinner, he prayed to God in gratitude that we were able to rekindle our romance and that we will keep going upwards and onwards.
I don’t like to play the what could/should/would have happened game had things been different, but all I know now is that I am thankful for what has happened and the way it did happen because it allowed such fundamental growth and love and strength on my part and it created a sense of passion for loyalty and friendship to those who care, love me, and for those I can be vulnerable with. I think without those things happening, I wouldn’t be as close to my friends, family, or be even talking to Diego again.
Life is good. Life is stressful with SAT prep, but good. And that’s all I can ask for.
Much love,
Dani
Precarious Aquarius 