A Toxic Kind Of Love

There was a lot that happened from July of 2014 to until the end of our relationship in March of 2015. Ben and I were only together for a little over a year. But in the span of that one year, my life was changed forever.

I tried to confront Ben about the shot gun incident the very next day. As usual he called me a liar and a manipulator. That was his favorite word to use against me. Every time he called me a liar, it broke me down a little more each time. I have some other past traumas that shed more light into why I hate being called a liar. That is a story for another time. Just know that it hurt. Ben would gas light so badly, that I began to question reality. Things that I know I saw with my own two eyes, I began to question because the man that I loved, questioned me. Of course the drugs didn't help. Things with Ben just progressively got worse. He stopped being nice and began to berate me on the daily. And it was always just little things. He hated the way my face looked when I was concentrating. He hated the way that I said certain words, and hated my nervous ticks. He began to control more and more of my life.

At this point in time, I was still the only one working in the entire house. I helped pay bills and I paid majority of them. Because of that, I had no cell phone service. I relied solely on Ben's phone and the house land line. Ben would let me use his lap top to get on Facebook, but other than that, I had no communication with my family or friends. I was purposefully kept locked away, so no one would hear or see my cries for help. My mental state deteriorated very quickly after that. Ben and I both began to do drugs more often. Ben over time became more and more agitated while I became more and more depressed. I remember one night, I was laying in bed alone. I was very sad, and I really just wanted Ben to come over and lay with me. Hold me, talk to me. But he was too messed up on DXM. He was out of his mind. He insisted on listening to Slipknot as loud as he possibly could, while playing some games on his laptop. He did look over at me once and asked me why I was crying. I told him I was sad and wanted him to come lay with me. He called me a slur of derogatory remarks and kept doing what he was doing. At this point, we had been fighting for weeks. Each time, I sank deeper and deeper into a black pit. I didn't know what to do. The love of my life was a drug addict, I became a drug addict, my life was not what I had imagined it would be. No matter how much I begged and pleaded with Ben to get sober with me, and go to counseling it never worked. I just couldn't understand. I finally cracked.

To understand my state of mind at this point in my life, would mean that you would need to understand the toll that being depressed and doing drugs will take on your mind, body and spirit. I was a mess. I just needed love, real love and the person I loved the most refused to give that to me. I had had enough of life, of pain. I wanted to end it. The same night that Ben was whacked out on DXM, he told me was going to walk down to a neighbors house to smoke meth. I begged him not to go. He wouldn't listen, he didn't care. Ben did, what Ben wanted to do, period. So we fought and it got ugly. He yelled and I just cried. My memory of what happened after that is a little foggy. I believe he ended up going, and I stayed behind.

Upset and in a very dark place I decided that I was going to commit suicide. I took one of my back packs and packed anything I thought I could use to kill myself with. I thought maybe I would run a bath and slit my wrists in the tub. I packed a knife, and some candles. I thought maybe I can suffocate myself, so I found some plastic sacks and a belt. I packed it all in the bag. There had to of been about 5 different ways to kill myself packed in that bag. I sat on the bed and looked at the bag, and just sobbed. I sobbed until I couldn't anymore. I didn't try anything for a few hours. I just sat and contemplated. Eventually Ben came back home, didn't say one word to me, and proceeded to continue his game on his lap top.

It was at this point that I decided I would attempt to take my own life. With Ben just a few feet away, and while laying on the bed, I pulled the blanket over my head. I took the plastic sack and the belt out of my suicide bag. I placed the plastic bag over my head, and I took the belt and I wrapped it around my neck and I pulled it as tight as I could. I was lost. All I wanted in that moment was to feel loved. I wanted more than anything for Ben to look over at the bed and come rushing to my side to stop me...but he didn't. He didn't even notice. He was so wrapped up in his world that I ceased to exist. I decided to loosen the belt, and write a suicide note. I wanted Ben to know just how much pain I was in. I wanted him to read my words and feel the desperation on the end of every syllable. I needed him to know that this was his fault. His doing. After I finished the note, I pulled the blanket back over my head and proceeded to place the bag back over my head and the belt back around my throat. This time I brought a knife with me.

I laid under that blanket with the belt fastened as tightly as it could be. I begged for death. But I kept breathing. I pulled and pulled and I just couldn't get it tight enough. Pissed, I grabbed the knife and just started cutting myself. Over and over and over. But the wounds weren't deep enough. I laid like that until morning. Ben finally decided he would speak to me about 6 AM. I was distraught and he was fucked up beyond all recognition. I lost it. I told him how messed up I was, and how he didn't love me, and how not once did he even realize that I was trying to kill myself while being just feet away from him. He yelled back and told me I was a liar. That I was manipulating him, that I wasn't trying to kill myself. He called me names, he dragged the fight out into the living room where his mom was. I was hysterical at that point. I needed help. I needed to get away. I was crying so hard and just hugging my knees on the couch, rocking back and forth as he kept yelling at me that I was faking it. Ben always did this thing where when we would fight, and he couldn't calm me down, he would restrain me by wrapping his arms around me and smothering my face in his chest. He would also take his hand and forcefully move my neck and force me to kiss him. He tried them both, I screamed. I didn't want him to touch me. He pulled me off of the couch and dragged me onto the floor. I laid there, sobbing in fetal position. He just kept yelling. His mom did the minimal to make it stop. I snapped back to reality a bit and realized that the only way I would be able to get out of that house, was if I calmed down enough to where they thought I was okay. I could then grab the house phone and call someone for help.

I regained my composure enough to where Ben didn't feel the need to forcefully restrain me and I took the house phone and went outside. I immediately called my grandmother and thank the gods she answered. I just sobbed and told her I needed her to come pick me up and take me somewhere to get help. I told her I had tried to commit suicide and that I was not doing okay. She was there in under 30 minutes. Ben was not happy when I told him where I was going. He proceeded to yell at me once I got back inside. It was the same thing over and over. I was faking it, I was a liar, I deserved to die. I should have killed myself. He spouted this nonsense until my grandmother showed up. Once I was in the car the weight of the world fell from my shoulders and I just could not stop talking. I cried the entire way to get my mom and then to the hospital. I'll share my experience in the mental rehabilitation center in another blog. Please read A Toxic Kind of Love part 4 for more about my story with Ben.