Over the past few weeks I’ve become an unbearable, cranky old bastard. Most days I want the world to disappear, or I want to disappear myself. My mood ranges from irritable to downright venomous. I’ve been picking fights with wifey over nothing at all, but the way I feel is not her fault. She’s just the unfortunate person who is closest to me, who cares most about me. And, because I feel rotten about myself, I have a problem with anyone who sees worth in me.
Now, I’m not going to make excuses for my behavior. It is wrong. There is nothing acceptable about it; she does not deserve it. I would like to change it, but I don’t know how. When I act unkind toward her, it only serves to reinforce my negative self-image, which then causes me to continue my behavior.
While there are several factors that contribute to my mood, there is one factor that seems to be eating at me more than the rest, one that I keep suppressing and trying to ignore. And, while I know that ignoring it is not going to make it any better, I don’t know how to even begin to resolve it.
Before meeting wifey, I spent four years with a girl. One evening she went to bed, then many hours later when I decided to join her, I found that she had died in her sleep. Without getting into the details, her death was the result of a medication she had been taking for many years. Since that night I’ve had an overwhelming sense of guilt about her death. Of course, everyone has told me it’s not my fault, there’s nothing I could have done, but that’s not how it feels to me.
Lately, that guilt has been gnawing at me all the time. It is almost always in my head. I don’t know why it has surfaced now. Maybe I forced myself to stop talking about it and to try to act normal too soon after it happened. Maybe I bottled up my emotions and tried to forget about them only to have them fester and become toxic. Whatever the reason, I wish it would go away, but I don’t know how to make that happen. Right now, I don’t want to discuss it with anyone even though that would probably help. All I want to do is push it down inside again and forget about it.
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