Update in Juggling with Hedgehogs

I don't know where to start really. The last time I wrote it was just after that dream. The dream put me into the worst phase of the depression and I became suicidal again. My lowest day was the Monday following that dream when I seriously considered having myself admitted for suicide watch because I was planning on running a bath and slitting the veins in my arms. I called a friend, who was due to come and see me that day anyway, and she rushed round, armed with flowers and chocolates and massive hugs and she stayed with me all afternoon, until we both felt I was safe again.

Not long after this, my husband said he was going to house-sit for friends for a few days. This was all well and good, but he didn't tell me when he was coming back, so I stayed in my bedroom on the day that I thought he was coming back, and he didn't. Turned out he was at a barbecue with 'OUR' friends. One where of course I was no longer invited. It was another punch to the gut. And then he just continued to not return to the house, so I just had to assume that he had moved out. It turned out he had, but hadn't bothered to tell me.

I had to get very shitty with him about the finances, which I had asked him about weeks ago, and when he asked why my tone had become threatening, I gave him both barrels. I told him he had made both my children ill, he had made me suicidal, he hadn't done a single ONE of the things I'd asked him to do to help me move on - the main one being to get me the bill information that I needed, and that he was lucky his guitars weren't in splinters and his amps hadn't been set fire to. Amazingly, he got me the answers I needed the same day - proving that it wasn't impossible and he could have done that weeks ago.

I demanded that he remove every scrap of his stuff from the house as soon as possible. I told him I never want to see him again, and that all communication should be either for legal purposes or practical purposes only. That I don't want to be his 'friend' and I don't want to engage in polite conversation. We are done, finished and I want him out of my life completely.

He has been dragging his feet getting the stuff out of here, and I asked him yesterday how long it was going to take and he said it might take about 3 weeks. Well I'm not having that. I'm going to shift what I can into the garage and he can get it from there. He's not coming in the house again.

I had to ask my sister to call my dad and explain to him that I couldn't move away from my home town because I need my support network around me. He has accepted and fully understood this and told my sister he will help me with money if I need it. This is a load off my mind. I think I might be able to afford to stay here if dad helps me in the early stages.

Ryan has been great - at first he was terrible, but it was the shock of it and he went completely off the rails for about a week, but now, he's being helpful and supportive to me, which is what I need. Hana has been very ill but is also improving now.

And I've got a long line of men queuing up to take me out. I tell every single one of them I don't want a relationship, that I'm burned, I'm raw, I'm flayed and fragile and so lacking in trust for men that it'll be a long time before I let my guard down, but they are relentless. One in particular is a sculptor and dairy farm owner who writes me the most impassioned emails telling me how beautiful I am and how he can't stop thinking about me. Don't men talk such bullshit? But it's flattering and it's doing my ego some good, so I'll take what I can get for now.

I cry every day. I stay in my cocoon and hardly ever come out. I'm becoming a recluse. I don't know if I'll ever be able to lift myself out of this. But some days I just put on a brave face and go out and pretend to be in the land of the living, when in fact, I'm just a ghost.