It’s been over six months now since Christopher and I broke up. A lot of tears have been shade. Mostly I have been angry. I have gone through feeling sorry for myself, to feeling angry and highly resentful, to feeling rejected and unwanted.

Through all this, I kept asking myself why do these things keep happening to me?  I kept feeling like there is something that I do that keeps attracting this type of person in my life.  Throughout all the questioning I did, there was a common undertone of me constantly blaming myself for what went wrong and taking responsibility for other people’s behaviour.

I remember trying so hard to rationalize his behaviour and the way he acted towards me.  But no matter how hard I tried, it made no sense. I now get it. I have no control over how he behaves. In my mind, I have always told myself that if I treat people with kindness that kindness would be reciprocated.  What I had failed to realise is that people whom we show kindness are not obligated to return that kindness to us, especially if they never asked for it to begin with.  Dr Thomas helped me see this fact much more clearly.

With this, I decided to be very honest with myself and the events that finally led to my break up with Christopher and the aftermath.  It really got to me that this man I had been intimate with and I believed I shared a deep connection with me could so easily throw me to the curb when I needed him the most. I had deluded myself into thinking he genuinely cared about me. Again this thing I had in me of thinking that kindness will be automatically reciprocated let me stray again and made my thoughts wander off.  I was so desperate to make a connection with anyone at that point as I had just lost the one person who understood and listened to me.

Let me go back to when I first met Christopher. I had just lost my sister. She had always been very ambitious and a good girl.  For most of her life, she had suffered from low self-esteem. But when she got to university she was coming into her own. I never really paid much attention to her private life as she seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders.  She rarely shared her matters with me and so I assumed everything was ok. And so fast forward to the month before she died, I found out through my other sister that she had Aids! I could not believe my ears, my heart sunk and I felt like it was my fault that she was sick. I kept asking myself why I never talked to her about safe sex and why wasn’t she comfortable with me. Like if she had been comfortable with me she would have shared her status with me, maybe she would have been able to cope and would not have died from denial.

Before I could even let it sink in I got another shocker. I learnt that both my parents were HIV positive too and all this had been kept from me. Everything inside me shattered. I mean what kind of a person have I been that I don’t inspire trust in my parents enough for them to tell me something this heavy. What kind of a human being was I that the people who carry my blood did not trust me to share their burden with me.

I had always gone out of my way to be kind to people because I always told myself I don’t want to do to other people the terrible things that had been done to me.  Yet here was my precious sister, suffering silently and she couldn’t tell me, I could not show her my kindness, the kindness that she needed the most at that point. And so walked in Christopher a month after my sister had passed.  All the while I had not allowed myself to grieve or cry because deep down I felt like I had to be strong on behalf of my family. Another responsibility I was taking on that I didn’t have to take on.

He seemed like a breath of fresh air in all the chaos that was suffocating me. He shared the fact that his mother was equally HIV positive and that he too only found out years after her diagnosis.  This I believe was the point at which I made this connection with him and in my head convinced myself he felt the same way. Looking back with honest eyes is now allowing me to see so many red flags that I could not see because of the narrative that I chose.

I was so sad and confused and miserable and was desperately looking for anything and anyone to hang on to so that I could ground myself and my Spirit. On so many an occasion I have said that I am heartbroken, with this clear view and an unbiased perspective I am able to see that I have been soul broken all this time.  This couldn’t possibly be heartbreak because it’s been a while since I ever felt grounded in my spirit as a person. I have been floating and bouncing off of the ages of my soul.

And so I have decided to go on this journey of self-rediscovery so that I can reclaim myself for myself. I am taking it slowly, one day at a day. I want to find the Girl that I lost. I want to find out what she needs at this moment, understand how she feels and try and see things through her eyes.

It’s not easy. Most of the time I feel like am about to lose myself, but I am staying afloat because I am hopeful I can and will find myself again.

Elizabeth