Hi all,

I’m posting on Tiny Buddha because I’m at the lowest point in life and I have lost my faith in the Universe (I’m 24). I’m a spiritual person, but right now I am finding it hard to muster a belief in the guidance of the universe – although I do keep seeing spiritual numbers everyday. I’m spending my days struggling to see my own worth, depressed and not eating or washing properly. I want to cry but feel like I can’t. I want to grieve yet at the same time know that I need to let go of my depression in order to move on in life.

Here’s a brief back story. I grew up in an extremely psychologically abusive household. There was physical abuse too, but it was mainly psychological. It was just me and my sister, and we were witness to my mother having complete control over my father. She was controlling, had OCD and was extremely strict. She never liked leaving the house much and depended on him for everything. She was dependent on him, and looking back think she had depression and personality disorder. She would scream and shout at me and my sister for no reason, and when my Dad came home she would yell at him so he would end up slapping us and making us cry. It was a very sad household. Me and my sister never really knew what love was, and I grew up isolated from everyone with severe depression.

My sister was the oldest, and she got the brunt of the physical abuse. I bore witness to it. Our nan died when i was around 14. My sister was 18. My mum blamed my sister for everything and my sister had loads of breakdowns, drinking loads and got kicked out around that time. We lived in a small town so everyone heard of the crazy stories my sister did and would tease me about it at school. I grew up with anxiety because of this, and would often stay at home at the weekends when my parents were out, binge eat and then throw it back up. There was no way out for me.

When I was 18 my parents kicked me out as well. I squatted in Bristol with my then boyfriend of the time, before going to university.I went to uni and had a lot of problems with people, because I didn’t understand their sarcasm, and I hated people who would criticise small things. This is because, I finally had freedom, and I felt this was taken for granted by people my age. I was extremely honest and naive – this caused me a lot of problems making friends at uni and maintaining relationships. I had a lot of suicidal episodes and was using drugs as an escape. My behaviour was erratic. I also went through a lot of love interests/ boyfriends as an escape too, which is something I still do.

I was so lost, and when I was 20 I went to skanda vale, a multi faith ashram in search for solace, and in search of peace. This somewhat restored my faith in humanity for a while.

I didn’t talk to my parents for 5 years, until a situation happened where my father was forced to fly over to Amsterdam to collect me from a psychiatric hospital (long story). I hadn’t spoken to my sister either during that time as the thought of the entire family just hurt too much. I tried to have a relationship with my parents, but they continued to make judgemental comments, and it was too painful to have them in my life, and especially witnessing their relationship, which is loveless. Once again, I felt trapped.

Since university I have worked in a care home, a job that I loved. Although there was a senior member of staff who always made snide comments who i had a lot of bullying issues with. Last year I kept seeing 11:11 everywhere for months, throughout summer and into August. This is what got me in to spiritual numbers, It was a sign that something big was coming. I was seeing a guy in my hometown at the time, and things were going well. I allowed myself to fall in love with him and by luck I won tickets for him to come to the festival I was going to in Chicago. At first he wanted to come, but then later said he couldn’t as his band were playing a festival the same weekend. He told me that he didn’t give his love to just anyone, and we slow danced together.

He would get drunk and be extremely affectionate in public. However, I didn’t hear from him for a week. It was the day before I was due to go to Chicago, and he called me up and told me that he couldn’t deal with his emotions, and that he had taken acid and gone and tripped in a field. We spoke for an hour, and he said he still had feelings for this girl he previously liked – who in fact didn’t like him back. I told him that he should be responsible with how he makes people feel etc. But I was heartbroken.

I went to Chicago depressed and heartbroken, although I was still seeing 11:11 everywhere. Before I went to the festival i was couchsurfing with a guy, who I’ll call Jim. When I met Jim we were friends instantly: I told him about 11:11, and he got out his tarot cards. He was a very healthy, spiritual individual – and someone I knew I was meant to meet.

In my head I knew that when I was at the music festival and at the front for a particular band, that everything would be sorted and I’d hang out with the person I met at the front. That’s what I did, I got to the front for the band, and as I thought, I met a guy in the crowd – I’ll call him Clarence. He was selling molly, and instead I suggested that we have it and go around the festival together – we did and we had the best time of our lives. I stayed with him in Chicago for 3/4 days, which happened to be the most intense but most spiritual time of my life. This guy seemed to be a mirror of my soul. He was lonely, isolated, erratic behaviour, punk, anarchist etc. We were so similar and in to the same things, although he does have a lot of issues.

On one of the days I went to go the festival alone whilst he stayed at home. I went there but felt anxious and left the festival and started walking in a random direction. I stopped by a sign in a neighbourhood that said “Hope & Faith”, and I refused to talk to anyone. I felt so stupid, and I felt like my brain wasn’t working. I got a woman in a nearby shop to call the guy I was staying with. He came and picked me up, and I confessed to him that I felt worthless and that I wanted to die. He said he would look after me, and so we went back to his flat.

He had sprayed the walls with my name everywhere. And confessed how he wanted to look after me and for it to be me and him. I was overwhelmed because everything was so random. But we stayed in the flat together. I felt safer with him, and felt more like myself and said I wanted to stay in Chicago. We were looking up ways that I could stay and as a joke he said one way would be if I married him. I laughed but then said yes let’s do it.

We went to the marriage court the next day and got a marriage license. But you have to wait 24 hours to get married. We went back to the flat and continued doing drugs and talking about philosophy/ spirituality etc. Although I did too much and ended up having a breakdown. I’m a spiritual person and I kept talking about the big stuff and challenging him on life, and morals and stuff when he just wanted to have a good time. It was weird, but I felt as though I was acting from a place that I needed to act at the time because I was challenging his behaviour. I kept doing tarot cards over and over again because I needed to know our future, if we were going to stay together or not. We decided that our love was stronger than fate, and ended up burning the cards in the garden, cutting our hands open and bleeding together over them. I felt that we owned the universe, and I felt that he was my soul mate and we were the only thing that mattered. He was my 11:11.

I had a breakdown that night and my mind couldn’t stop thinking in rhymes. I kept writing loads of poetry, whilst he didn’t know what to do. He wanted me to come to bed but I needed space. It’s weird, it’s like we were already married.

I stayed up all night and in the morning didn’t know what to do. We both weren’t talking, and he asked me if I was the Angel of Death. (Which I felt like). He had to go to uni and we still weren’t talking. I was wrapped in a duvet on his floor, unable to do anything. I wanted to reach out and touch him. He was sat to the right of me, on a chair, I remember I could see his leg. But I just couldn’t. He left, and I messaged my girl friends and they said that I should leave asap.

I packed up my stuff and left. It was so hot in Chicago and I remember being lost and thinking, what is my life?? I nearly married a coke addict. I got on a bus and was nearly feinting from all the drugs. Luckily I was in contact with Jim who agreed to meet me. He got off work, and let me stay in his flat again. He let me sleep and sweat the drugs out, fed me well and surrounded me with health. I stayed with him the rest of my time in Chicago, recuperating and coming to terms with the whole thing. I spoke with Clarence on the phone and he said the feelings were real and it wasn’t the drugs. We remained in contact via messages briefly, but we didn’t meet up again. Part of me was longing for him to message me and say that he wanted to go and get married, and I would’ve. Even up until when I got on the plane I was wishing that he was going to come along and say don’t go, let’s get married and I would’ve – I threw it up to the universe, and if the universe willed it then I was going to do it. I’m such an empathetic person and I felt like I knew him, I felt like I really trusted him.

I spoke with him during my flights back to England, and he said he loved me, and we stayed in a long distance relationship. It was hard because I had to deal with a lot of messages from him when he was on coke, telling me how much he loved me, and how I was the one. He was obsessed with me and was doing his projects on me at uni. I tried to maintain what we had, but there were times when he had too much to drink and showed a darker side: he shouted at me for wearing makeup and on a couple occasions expressed his hatred for trans people. I forgave him because he said he didn’t mean it, and we made communication rules.

This was around December now. Things at work had continued with the bully. It was the work xmas do and I ended up drinking a lot of wine, and standing up to her. She left early. When i went home i continued drinking and talking to Clarence. It was a bad time. The next night I felt suicidal and reached out/ lashed out at Clarence, and asked him what he saw in the mirror. I bombarded him with messages, and he blocked me. He was supposed to be visiting me over xmas, but i never heard from him again.

Since then I’ve been off work and coming to terms with the relationship/ what actually happened, and trying to find the purpose in my life. I think it’s likely that I have borderline personality disorder like my sister does and I’m waiting for a diagnosis. In terms of Clarence, I can’t help but think of the 11:11 signs the universe was showing me, and how much the darkness and light of his soul reflected the darkness and light in mine. I remember how I felt in Chicago of the thought of not seeing him again and it hurt so much. I guess I am dealing with that feeling now, but about not having closure.

I’m not sure if I can go back to the same job or not, or whether its best for me to get out of the city were I’m living now and start again in the neighbouring city. All of this has made me realise that I need to live life for me and create a life that I don’t want to escape from.

I’d like to hear people’s thoughts on this – the relevance of him in my life, and how to get over something so spiritually massive and intense.

Thanks