I’m going to skip over some details and condense this story. I believe I only have a few answers to my problem here, and I fear asking for advice will prove redundant, but as a writer and as someone who is hurting inside, I just need to tell my story to someone unbiased and unknown.
There is a boy. Let’s call him N. I have known N for a year. We run in a closely knit circle of friends all from high school. We are all currently studying in separate universities across Canada, most of us science. For the most part, N and I are friends, and have been friends, but lately our friendship took an unexpected turn.
Inside, I have always had a tenderness for N, which has flickered on and off depending on his behavior/ attitude/ my overall perception. It’s always been in the back of my head that this guy was attractive, both inside and out. On one occasion, I told him this, to which he politely rejected me for reasons I will later explain, but for the most part he knew I was attracted to him in a way, mostly physically. He was determined to keep our relationship purely platonic, and often kept me at bay in an attempt to prevent further sticky complications. Despite my initial frustration, with time, my infatuation of N has slowly been fermenting into more deeper and emotional feelings…
On New Years, this came to a head, and without scarring you mentally, N and I hooked up in the wee newborn hours of 2015 in his basement while the rest of the party peacefully slept. A total surprise on my part. I just kind of happened. No, we didn’t do ‘the deed’, but something a little lesser. Probably one of the best night’s of my life..
All of this brought on a lot of confusion as to why he suddenly let down these boundaries he had up for so long. Here are the unfortunate reasons why:
N is currently undergoing diagnosis and therapy for what we believe is MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder. The mental illness works like a fog, and is often accompanied by depression, were a person phases in and out of different identities as a coping mechanism, along with derealization, detachment and amnesia. From when I first met N, I knew something wasn’t 100% right, and I knew his bad home life and just general shitty bad luck at times had something to do with it. Also in the mix, nearly every girl he has tired to show affection (not me, until now) has rejected him coldly and without maturity, which also contributes to his lack of trust and faith in relationships. N has had a string of bad girls, one of which had the balls to take his virginity and then sleep with his best friend.
He has only just begun going through therapeutic diagnosis, and it could take years for him to be ‘normal’.
Back to New Years, I managed to meet with him one on one and discuss what happened. I revealed my true feelings, and he admitted that New Years was a hook up, but rather he was just trying to for fill the physical attraction I felt for him. He was surprised when I told him otherwise, that I want him for the beautiful man that he is, emotionally, mentally, AND physically.
He carefully explained that while I am someone very important to him, he doesn’t love me, that he doesn’t love anyone, and whatever demons are in his head right now are preventing him from feeling love and falling in love. He feels lost, he feels like he’s wandering in fog all the time. He feels numb. He says he can’t understand why he’s not in love me already, that he should feel the way I do about him, but his sickness holds him back. He did say, however, that we should try, we should try and see where our relationship will go as he tries to get better, and maybe one day, we will be together.
This breaks my heart, because I’m not waiting for someone to have a change of heart, but I am waiting for a MENTAL ILLNESS WHICH HAS NO CURE TO FADE AWAY. A mental illness takes time, and some never fully recover. I am falling for him, hard, and it’s bad enough our schools are far away.
I want to wait for him, but what if I wait all this time and he never recovers or we just never become a thing? I am so sad and lost and angry all at the same time. I have been emotionally damaged by another man before, which contributes to a lot of the reasons I experience anxiety with love, and I am terrified of having my heart broken.
What am I supposed to do?
