Hello from the outside

I have to say that coming back to Burlington was not my idea of a good time.

I enjoyed living in Ft Madison, regardless of it was a trailer and not a house.
Or the fact my Harley Cat got out all the time because of the holes all over the place. 

I liked being at a distance from the Hellmouth that is Burlington. 

Don's father had also lived in the trailer park but in April of 2012 he left to Texas in the middle of the night without saying anything to anyone. Don was understandably upset. Shortly after, Don's mom was moving out of state and she offered him to buy her house for a hell of a deal and he accepted. He didn't consult me at all about this decision that effected both of us. This ticked me off greatly. 

We got the house in June of 2012 but couldn't move in until the end of the month because of the ridiculous number of fleas in the house that had to be exterminated. Oh, and because I had to clean his mom's stuff out of the house and clean the house before we could move our things in. It was ridiculous.

Having more space was nice at first but it quickly became overwhelming. Taking care of that much space and picking up after everyone on top of working and daily chores was exhausting. Life quickly became a slog and I had to wonder if this was all I was meant for. Of course the answer is no, but it was beginning to feel as if it was. 

In the winter of 2012-13 my depression came back with a vengeance. 

I tried to keep myself busy to keep my mind off of it's negativity but nothing really worked. I felt like I was losing myself. I had made these choices and become someone else that I didn't recognize. I was unhappy in my life and it was finally coming through. 

One night I was so grumpy while we were having sex that when we were done he said something to the effect of "I can't expect you to be happy all the time when I manipulated you into this relationship" and that statement has stuck with me ever since. "What do you mean manipulated?" I asked him "Oh, there's no way you would be with me if I hadn't used all of my powers of manipulation to get here"..... It sent me into a spiral. 

I was questioning all my choices between us and our relationship. 

Like at what point did he decide he needed to posses me? Why did he think he could possess me? What if I didn't want this anymore? What if it was all too much?

This was the first time I looked for Nathan online. I didn't log into any of the messaging services because I couldn't, I didn't have a computer, but I did log into my socials and I couldn't find him anywhere. 

It seems like I'm saying he was my backup guy, but he was (at least previously) my everything guy and I needed him.

But I couldn't find him anywhere. He hadn't posted since around the time we broke up. At least on anything I could find. This sent my spiral deeper. I couldn't find the person I wanted..I felt like I was suffocating...so I picked someone else. I covered up everything about Nathan and I picked someone else that made me laugh and feel good because I was incapable of making it better and no one that I was currently interacting with was helping either.

I cheated on Don.

I picked someone and I actively tried to fuck them. And I was successful. And it was everything I didn't want it to be. I had a post on here about it but when Don found it he made me delete it. He made me delete everything that was even remotely related to me having feelings for someone else (at least the things he could find). Everyone in my life had told me how controlling he was, but most of them didn't know him so I ignored them. But after that he was more controlling that he'd ever been before (which was not at all). And mean. I remember begging him to just let me go, I told him I felt like I was suffocating, like I'd never be happy again. Like the world was sucking out everything that made me who I was. And he replied simply with "I can't."

So I left. I packed my stuff, with my families help, while he was at work one day and I left him. 

In case you're wondering about the timeline, this brings us to the beginning of 2013.

I think I'm going to take a break from timeline related storytelling and remembering and talk about some other things in my life that were changed or affected during the Aug 2011-December 2012 time period.