Holes in my heart

Trigger warning: suicidal ideation (past).

I have a deep and irrational fear that everyone I love will leave me and it will be my fault every time.

It doesn't matter how many times we grow apart instead of them leaving. It doesn't matter how many times they tell me they will never leave. In the past year, I have given pretty much all of my emotional and mental self to three people, and they have all left me.

When I make myself vulnerable, and I allow someone to see all of me, and I allow myself to need them, it often feels like I am setting myself up to be hurt. After they leave, I have a tendency to withdraw into myself. I have to prevent anyone else from ever hurting me again. I have new holes in my heart that weren't there before, and that has a semi-permanent effect on my emotional well-being.

In the past, I've tried to fill these holes. Netflix, food, music... none of it works. That's because the hole was created by something that I cannot recreate on my own. The things I have been given by the people who have now left me are not things I was able to give myself. That's why there are holes. If I could fulfill all of my needs by myself, I wouldn't need communities of my friends and my family. I wouldn't need these people to give myself to, only for them to reject the burdens that I have thrust upon them.

The most recent hole has been here for less than a week. It's been difficult for me to mourn, because I began by approaching the fact that they left me from a logical standpoint: no one was at fault, therefore I can't blame anyone. I haven't figured out how to allow myself to be in pain without blaming anyone. If my pain is merely a result of life, then why am I alive?

Over the past few days, I've needed to take more time for myself. When there's someone in my life who I've given a lot to, I expect them to give me a lot back. I dump my emotions on them and ask -- well, demand, really -- that they give me attention. Interacting with that person gives me energy, as opposed to most other interactions in my life. Now that that source of energy is gone, it's easier for everyday things like existing to exhaust me.

The most recent hole has left me pretty numb. This scares me because the last time I was this numb, I was working out small plans in my head of how I might cause my own death with minimal pain to the other people in my life. The last time I was this numb, I believed that my depression meant that there is something wrong with me that needed to be fixed. I don't need to be fixed; I just need better coping mechanisms so that life is less overwhelming.

The most recent hole in my heart doesn't need to be filled. I'm leaving it empty as a reminder of my inability to control myself, which led to the creation of the hole. I'm leaving it empty as a reminder that someone can love me and want to be in my life while being unable to interact with me in the way that I need. I'm leaving it empty because not everything needs to be full to be good enough. I am allowed to be incomplete. I will never be finished growing.