I Wouldn't Be Here, If It Wasn't For You

I feel like a few of my last rambling thoughts blog posts have been very negative towards the person who was my sunflower (if you want to know what I mean by that, you can read this post: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2024/10/you-were-my-sunflower.html) but it was not always bad. In fact, this morning, at work, things popped into my head that really made me smile, along with the line, “I wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for you,’ from a ‘Simple Plan’ song. I think I want to take the time to write some positive things to this person.

Although I have mentioned mental abuse in many of my recent posts, it was not always there. It was very present, perhaps even constant, towards the end. It is funny. The times where I wanted you, but did not need you everything was fine, more than fine, but as soon as I needed you, everything fell apart.

I received the keys to my maisonette on Friday. I will not go into all of the upset of no gas, electricity and that it might be years before I can ever move in – that is a story for another time. Today is about happy thoughts and memories. What I do want to say is, I realised today that I would not be owning my own maisonette, if I had not met you. I was only 24 years old when I met you, and you were 30. You were so sensible and had your head screwed on with finances and future planning. You knew what you wanted and were working hard to get it. I really admired that about you. I had never had someone in my life who was career driven and goal orientated. I know you felt that you had to act this way to please your father or to prove yourself to him, to make them proud of you, but that part of you also helped me to see an understand things in a different way. You made me want to try, want to better myself from my family and the life that was expected of me, to work in a supermarket forever and live at home, renting, forever.

You taught me that having confidence is not a bad thing, despite me being brought up to believe that it was. You built confidence within me. You held my hand and guided me, baby step by baby step, as you would say.

Okay, I have had to take a break from writing, because I got very emotional and could no longer see the keys to type, and although I roughly know where they are, I did not want to chance it. I make enough jumbled spelling mistakes as it is.

I had been mentally abused my entire life, at home, and I had no clue. I just assumed that it was normal. If I ever questioned things at home, my parents would reply, “That’s what you have to do when you’re poor.” You taught me what was not right about things. A lot of things. You taught me that things Steve (yes, I will use my sperm donor’s real name – he is and was never a father) said were illegal are not at all. You introduced me to independence and freedom. It was because of you that I could walk down the street on my own, without the walk needing to be to work and straight back home.

You made me feel safe and calm for the first time in my entire life. You were my safe haven. You showed me love and helped me to navigate my thoughts and feelings for so many new experiences. Despite me not knowing or understanding, at the time, why my brain is different to the average person, you supported me and tried to understand things. You even told me that if we ever learnt that there was a pill of some kind that I could take to become normal that you would never force me to take it. Sadly, there is no medication that I could take for my brain, now that I know it is autism, but I have spent a very long time wishing that there was a pill to make me normal.

You looked after me when I was scared, upset and overwhelmed. I remember laying in your bed, squeezing you as tight as possible, feeling overwhelmed with every sense and all I could do was cry, because I could not make sense over any of it. Soothing actions that you would do, to help calm me down, have stuck with me, all of these years later. Sometimes it is the gentle rocking. Other times it is the gentle rubbing of your hand on my back. In dark moments, occasionally my brain has reimagined you comforting me and it has helped to calm me down.

You were there for me when my parents spit up, when I became the head of the household. You were there for me when my previous neighbour tried to blame for her baby crying, when she left it in a room on its own from the day it was born and had no clue how to look after it, other than to make monster noises to scare it. You picked me up in your car and let me spend the night with you, because it was too scary to go home.

You supported and encouraged all of my hobbies, interests and creative thoughts, even when they were not something that you agreed with. You researched gifts for me, for birthdays and Christmas, making sure that they were things that I liked and not just a generic gift from a supermarket shelf.

While these happy memories flooded my thoughts, I felt such a warmth and happiness in my chest. This is a very rare feeling for me. Yes, my autism thinks a million emotions all at once and they are constantly fighting for the front place in my mind, but it is very rare that my heart feels what my head is telling me I do, when it comes to positive emotions. I have been told by an occupational therapist that my body could forget how to feel positive emotions altogether. He said it was a good practice to try to recreate those positive feelings and hold onto them for as long as I can, in the moment. I used to practice this a lot, when we were first separated, but I have not felt these feelings in a very, very long time. It was a complete shock to my body that not only could I still feel positive things, but they were so strong. I got very overwhelmed, with happy thoughts, and had to cry for a while. It was fine, because everyone at work knows that I have been crying over the complications I am having now that I own a maisonette with no gas or electricity, so people probably just thought I had a blotchy face from that.

The more time I spent with you, the harder being at home became. This is when I needed you most, but then you became the mentally abusive person that I was trying to run away from. The person that has appeared in several of my rants, of late.

I have a wonderful network of friends, who have done so much for me, since too. Like helped me to know that I could look for a better job than an office junior, and how I should be treated at work, and at home, and how to know when things are not right. But I would not have been able to navigate any of those things, if it had not been for you. I know we live in separate worlds now. You are happily married and properly have/planning a family of your own. Our lives have led to very different paths. I will never forget any of the positives. I will never forget that I wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for you.

- Josie -