For those of you faithful readers of my blog, I have noted that some of you showed concern about being so honest and blunt in the public eye. And even about how this is somewhat one sided, but aren’t all blogs? More importantly, I had not in the thick of it mentioned nary a word about the break up until my ex had kind of opened the floodgates by making one sided statements on Facebook. So here I am; what one reaps, one sows. Let us deal with the concept of responsibility again. Do I blame my ex girlfriend for my depression? No, absolutely not. My depression starts and ends with three people – me, myself and I. I was in a mild depression off and on for the past 2-3 years.
In the last 11 years or so I had developed some bad habits. My ego swelled, quite without just cause I might add. Facing the consequences of many of my decisions, looking back at all my mistakes since I started making movies, I saw the pattern that I was ultimately responsible for my current position.
Trying to learn from my mistakes, accepting the blame is what sunk me into this slow descent into hell. I made many sacrifices to roll the dice as I have. I gave up the chance to have children. I gave up health insurance, living in an upscale neighborhood, having really nice cars, and going on a vacation every year. I do NOT regret any of these decisions. This is who I was, am and will be.
What I regret are some of the choices I made as to who to trust, how I dealt with situations, who I have helped, what I said or did that caused people harm, and more importantly that I should choose to be so stupid at times, and having expectation in return for the things I did out of generosity, which negates the generosity itself.
One of the most important things to me is to want to continue to do things for other people. I can always be disappointed if the people I help don’t return the favor, but the reason I do it isn’t for reciprocity per se. I believe deeply in karma, that you throw out the good will it comes back, maybe not directly and maybe not in a timely fashion but it always returns to you.
This is so hard in light of my situation. I gave so much to someone who not only didn’t appreciate it, but really didn’t care one lick about me. When I was bleeding from these spider bites, suffering in a way I had not known before from pain and blood, I thought she would be there for me. The question of responsibility is here. Could I have gone to the emergency room on my own? Yes, and I even did once during that time. They told me to get someone to help me and handed me a bill for $5,755 that I can’t pay. Could I have gone to my family? Sure. That’s more than a little bit awkward since I am LIVING WITH SOMEONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME, but yes, I admit I could have.
I had faith that she would come through for me. This is where I am so incredibly stupid. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this idea that my girlfriend of 10 years needed to be actually told that I was supposed to be a higher priority to her than her basic social calendar. Everyone saw it coming but me. Every single person that had met us both told me she wasn’t going to be there for me. For Christ’s sake even her own mother and sister told me she was NOT going to come through and be there for me. And I was STILL surprised.
So yes, ultimately, I was responsible for my own predicament. I gave faith to someone who wasn’t there. This is entirely my own stupidity. She didn’t do anything ‘wrong’ as much as she stayed true to who and what she really is. I think I was the only idiot on the planet that didn’t see this coming. The person I put my faith in, the woman that I believed in and wanted to spend the rest of my life with did not exist.
That means I did in fact do this to myself. Or even, I am continuing to do to myself. I keep waiting for this other person, this fiction to appear at my door. I’ve learned who the real person was, and she’s not what I want. Who on Earth would want someone capable of so much callousness and completely lacking in regret? Not even me. The person I want is that vulnerable, talented human being that I believed was inside, that I invested all my time, energy, money, and love into; it turns out that she wasn’t ever in there.
And that is what slays me. I lament my own misguided over-romanticised faith being so wrong and the fact that no such person exists for me. At least not yet. How do I move forward without losing this idealized faith? How do I continue generosity without optimism? Finding these complex answers plague my dreams. They will determine the course of the rest of my life.
The therapist is right. Expressing myself freely does help. Too bad I’ve already been doing this blog for years and years, and THAT didn’t cost me $350 an hour to find out the obvious.
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