The journey to close the wounds to your heart is extremely challenging, being bipolar adds an extra layer that many can never understand, and few will ever talk about. Part of the truth of the epic failure of my Dallas journey is that the person I chose to take with me and build a life, was trapped by his family. They saw that he had a boyfriend who truly loved him and wanted to see his life improve. I did things for him because he explained his story to me, and I wanted to see him win. Despite the challenges he faced, he seemed undeterred. He pushed himself to be better. He was leaving the fast life behind. Getting off the hard drugs and trying to live a life he could be proud of. He got his come up being with me, his family saw that, and their eyes only saw green. Not only did his family see green, but they became very manipulative and aggressive in their private conversations with him to get money out of me. That’s where many of the cracks began to show.

When your biological mother and the mother who raised you, both come at you all the time with they hands out, it’s hard to say no. The problem was he didn’t make money to the degree that I did. He didn’t know how to save and say no like I did. What complicated matters even more was the accident that he and his brother had. They had two different situations, and two different types of people advising them on what to do. He asked me what he should do. I gave him the truth, and told him how the process works, being a claims adjuster. I also rationalized with him to understand how getting money from accidents works. His settlement was nice and being someone not used to lump sums of money, he blew it all within a couple months, even though I also explained to him about saving and why he should. His brother played the long game, faked his injuries, and got a little more money. But he didn’t understand the process, a majority of the money went to the law firm he hired to represent him. Taking “loans” on the money from the insurance company to feed his drug habits and give his family money. My boyfriend did the same thing. Splurging on shit he really couldn’t afford and constantly giving his family money. Down to $500 in about 45 days.

I remember one argument we had one day after his family questioned my commitment to him because I was unwilling to regularly send money to them. When he got hooked back on hard drugs, and they found out, they quickly showed how little they really cared about him and more about the money he could give them. Quick to tell me he needs help, and he needs to get into rehab and all these things. Nobody offered to help pay for it. Nobody accepted part of the responsibility for constantly hounding him about money. Which means he harassed me for money, causing more issues in our already strained relationship. I accept and understand that part of what drew a wedge between us was his family. I also understood that he was a liar. Not being truthful about his prior sexual dealings, not being truthful about his drug problem. All these things compounded with rushing to be together and led to even more challenging times together.

When you understand that dynamics beyond your control are intimately affecting your relationship it’s hard to walk away, when you’ve become attached to the person at the center of the issues. That’s also where I must accept responsibility for allowing my life to crash out with him. There were numerous opportunities to walk away from him and rebuild the broken pieces, but I chose love and him. That has always been part of my downfall choosing the wrong man to love. Not always listening to my instincts when they scream walk the fuck away. This was one of those situations where I should have walked away and cut my losses, yet I chose to stay. The longer I stayed the more shit burnt up. Eventually, there was nothing left to burn and the whole situation exploded. Looking dumb and embarrassed, I walked away and went through this long journey to heal all the scars that relationship created. Damn man, sometimes it can be as simple as listening to yourself. This is one of those look yourself in the mirror and accept your shit. How I never allowed myself to get to the level of using hard drugs, I will never really know. I’m just thankful I have enough self-love to never get to that point.