Hello

Ive had months of really putting it in me that yes this relationship is all about regression. And i didnt want to go to that truth because it made me feel as though ive wasted time.

My therapist said i should think of the immense growth ive experienced that she has seen in me throughout 4 years or more within this relationship. She told me to write it down.

The whole time from the start, my gut was screaming at me. Telling me this wasnt me, that it wasnt right. And i knew it wsnt, but my needs came before that. Even if i couldnt really get many of them. It was better to help someone and try to grow with that than to feel alone again.

Id been socially phobic with social avoidance personality for over 10 years. Prob 15 years. And in that time was experiencing the ins and outs of loneliness and depression. I had such low self-esteem and lack of social identity that it was very hard to allow others to get to know me as well as even be in a social setting.

When i started working and was pushed into it, my world did change. And when i met russell my world became very different. I felt alive and had someone to share things with. Things that i had missed out on.

And yes it was with a person very mentally ill unlike my type of mental illness. His was pronounced from the first time i met him. I knew he had delusions and talked nonsense and was a bit like a child. I knew all that. And i felt i was too deep in at the start but it was the comfort of the person and the connection that made it stay. And the surge of self esteem even if it were fleeting.

As u can see im in a bit of reflecting at the moment.

As the world has changed, so to has my little world within it. Its like a blessing but also a tragedy for me personally. Not the pandemic but my own personal life.

So Russell decided to make bad choices like always. His sister went into psychosis recently because him and her apparently had been smoking meth drugs every week using their pension money (they are schizophrenic). The mother they live with found out and after 3 or so weeks of the daughter in the hospital because of psychosis, and decided later that they needed a change and was going to move 400 km away in a new town within 3 months.

Im not sure how they are able to do that at the moment but that was that. It did not take russell into consideration. He doesnt want to move. He loves me and even if we are just friends even. Its been a very close relationship even if on my end its been crazy for me. My therapist calls him my familiar. Ive shared things with him ive never shared with anyone. Even with his disability and ups and downs ive still been able to have some needs met and he knows me more than anyone. Its been 4-5 years of messaging and talking on the phone everyday and night and seeing each other everyday. Its extreme as that is how he just came to do, but i got used it.

Now though, its very different.

In the time of the pandemic and he decided to go binge on his drugs. Spend extra money that was from a gov stimulus i think and go on this 3 week binge. Ive always been completely unaware when he would do drugs. Id only know by when his payday or week and his moods.

So what happened this week in the last few days he is in psychosis now himself. He rang me a few nights ago with pain in his side that it came to be in his liver and he got scared and i talked him thru how to help himself with a warm flannel and warm lemon water etc. Then he had been all over the place emotionally and not slept for 3 nights. I feel sorry for his mother living with both kids on drugs and in psychosis.

Russell didn’t want to admit to himself he was wrong in doing all these things. But he has brain issues that prevent him from being able to plan or foresee outcomes in his mind. Its all impulse.

So the limited amount of times now ive been able to talk to him or contact him because of him. He is at home but he cant go on social media anymore because of his delusions and psychosis. The other night he told me not to go on his youtube because it could lead to death. He thought or thinks he was possessed by the devil and things are either for love or against the world or something like that.

Hes been very rude to me. Not directly, but for instance this morning i chose to take some photos of things ive been doing at home so that it might make him feel less far as he liked coming over here. But he wasnt really interested and he cant make desisions. He wanted to know if we might meet up and go for a walk. So i said yes as long as he was well enough to. But when i mentioned where he responds with he wasnt sure to meet up with me. And i said thats okay and maybe another day – but the directness of him saying goodluck and goodbye – those words and then nothing when we hadnt finished the conversation. Or when i told him what to do when he had liver pain – ‘i need to concentrate now’ and i didnt hear from him till the next day.

This morning i was crying like mourning at a funeral or something. It doesnt help to have pms. But i did just let it out, all my emotions. Its just been very hard on me. His decisions have led to him being ill and his sister being ill and now even me being ill.

I crave connection. I want to talk to him and tell him about my own things like normal and hear his stuff. But i cant even contact him anymore. All his social media – the one messenger account he talked to me in is gone. Any way of me contacting him is unavailable except for his home phone i never ring as i have a phobia of phones esp home phones.

3 weeks ago after hearing the news his family was moving, he didnt digest it. and when i tried asking him about it he thought it no big deal and other things were more important to him. Then later he worked out it was something going to happen and so he told me he was going to stay here in this town and acutally be independent and live on his own. I was very anxious and couldnt believe him one bit because he would spend his pension money all of it without any savings every first week of the fortnight. By the second week he had 0 money. And thats because he would spend on drugs and money and pay back his sister the week before for drugs.

And that had been going on for quite some time.

And yet when i would ask him, if his mum would support him and set him up to live on his own. that sort of thing his answer was no he wasnt going to ask his mum for support. And when i asked him that he could live in a flat, his response that he was going to go get a 3 bedroom house with a view..

And then he said that i was making him nervous and not to talk about it anymore because i asked too many questions. At one stage he was angry with me for not supporting him and going off living with him here in a house together.

But as if i would do that? I had to write and tell him why. Telling him about his money issues and so on and my own mental health issues. I have genralised anxiety.

He was still thinking up in the air about him making it in his own place here. Without any details or plans on how he would do that.

I wasnt able to ask because it made him anxious. So i decided to just not go there. Tho when i first heard about it all i was in distress and had a huge anxiety attack. The whole day was emotionally painful for me.

Now tho weeks later, hes come to realise his mental illness and care plan he needs his family for support of all that, since his psychosis. He rang me this morning after me 2 and half hours of intense depressive anxiety from his goodbye statement  in messenger. He told me that he meant his account as that messenger account was the devil or something.

But he also told me that he cant stay here and that he loves me but he cant because of his schizophrenia and so on. And i told him that i had to mourn about that. And that it would be okay still that we could still talk and so on and visit, but he was really not well talking about that and i think hurt that i said that.

When things dont go his way he crumbles. And i suspect even in his illness right now, hes avoiding me because its painful for him. But for me its even more painful because i dont have any online access to talk to him and even when i do it results in me not getting any friendship needs met, it ends in me crying and being distressed and then even further the waves of feeling like ive lost him in many respects and the spiral of thinking ill be alone. Its not like at the moment i can go out and meet people.

I live with my parents in thier 70s and i have to be careful.

Its been very hard not having him to talk to, even with his illness he was still my very close friend. Now that hes likely moving and now that he has pyschosis again (he hadnt really been this sick in 10 years), its left me feeling like i used to, very alone.