I do miss him. Even if I know he was bad for me, and that I was bad for him, and we would be at each other's throats until the day one of us inevitably (probably me) snapped and killed the other... I miss him.
This is the only place that I can admit that.
I don't think anyone really understands how I could love someone like him, and I don't have a grasp on it either, except that the parts of him that spoke to the parts of me that were softer and deeper than the addiction and the trauma, too were softer and deeper than most people would expect to see in him. I was surprised by his softness as well, and that's how he got so very close to me. Our quiet, hidden places found each other and uncurled from the place where we had repressed them for so long, meeting a kindred energy, though our personalities developed so differently. His extroversion, his recklessness, his boundless positivity, versus my introversion and fear. I didn't even know I was a negative person until he started pointing it out, and challenging me on those beliefs. Together, we made something greater than the sum of ourselves.
I'm not here to diagnose anyone, but I always felt like our inner children met and rediscovered how to play, when things were good, and we allowed them rein to run and stumble, as children will do. We offered each other a place that was safe, underneath of the toxic seas we cultivated to keep everyone else at a distance, but it was an environment that was familiar enough to breed love between two venomous creatures.
We were both monsters, and aware that we had been made that way, but old patterns were our undoing.
I can't talk about this with my mother, or my sister, or my best friend. They all hate him for what he is, and they will not find fault where much is to be placed squarely on my table, my bitter meal to eat, because they love me. They will not understand that I was half of a ruinous whole, and I had a very difficult time of it because I knew the people I loved the most would never accept him as my partner, so I sought fault in him that he did not deserve, trying to psyche myself up to leave him, again and again.
It was a very push/pull relationship we had. I saw his pain and wanted to reach out to that, but simultaneously wanted him to stay away, because he magnified my pain and need for validation and security. I wanted his love and validation, but for us to have a happy relationship would preclude me from the love and validation of my family and friends. This would seem to be an easy decision, except... my family and friends only heard my side of things. Both of us were broken and trying to figure out how to grow again, but I was too scared of what people would think if they knew I was broken enough to love him.
I didn't want to be another in the string of people who gave up on him, but his pain just resonated too close to my own. We were so different, but... I think in the deep place of truth, we were the same.
Different coping mechanisms, and an inability to back down when the fight came to us.
But I loved his chaos, and I loved how he challenged my concept of control being the thing that kept me from breaking. While I'm coping with the depth of that love, plumbing it based on the impression of the loss that it left, I still cannot seem to reach out to those around me, those who love me, and have the best intentions for me, because it is such a struggle to think about anything except the loss I am experiencing.
I so dearly want someone to talk to... so I'm looking into therapy again. That seems the only place to go from here. I can't keep sending blog posts into the echo chamber of my mind and make progress.