I'm thinking a lot about the nervous breakdown I had when my marriage to A broke, when I BROKE IT. I remember so clearly the moment sitting in the car in the driveway knowing I could not stay, that I could not be that person. And I could not see forward either, to another person I might be. And my mind broke. I watched myself have a good old fashioned nervous breakdown. And calmly, I killed myself. With no afterlife in sight. I left.

There were key differences. I had said, many times, "this is killing me" and A did not care. He wanted me to die and admitted as much later, much to his credit I still give him for it - he could have played the victim and manned up instead and did not. And there was Fph, as a ... thought experiment? He was not my lover and in most ways never would be and I already knew that and I preferred it that way: I left my husband because I left my husband because I had to, not because I had faith in a new thing, which I did not have. I would not let fph anywhere near that marital collapse. I had to own it myself by myself. That I had even had the thought I might commit adultery was enough, the last straw - if I had actually done so, maintained a double life of actual physical intimacy while married and lying, that would have killed me and I was already dead. DeadER seemed like a very bad idea and to this day, as shitty as it all was, as unhappily as I was in the liminal relation to Fph I had thereafter, as long as the healing took, as ALONE as I was with it, I am still thankful that at least I just went ahead and lost my fucking mind. At least it was clear. I needed to be humbled. I was NOT OKAY. Not "in love". Not "finding my independence". Not any narrative at all other than the truth: I was broken.

Aaron has very little of that now to work with. He did the double life thing, which I can't imagine having to live with, plus (I could be deluding myself, granted, but) how often does true love blossom in hotel rooms as you simultaneously text home, her watching you bring lovingly packed lunches with strawberry milk to "work", and she lets you, for weeks, her ass in the air not giving a shit about your sanity or your soul whatsoever? Pretending that is viable only obscures the central fact of the nervous breakdown underneath. Plus he left a relationship and family life that was keeping him alive, as much as it was killing him, so he half loved the people and self that he murdered/suicided. Plus, this sounds mean but, frankly his people are about as able to fathom any of that as guppies would be. To them probably I just kicked him out or something easy to understand because anything more valenced than that would be like trig. He is alone in a box somewhere and can only hear his own voice and added layers of obscurity too, like white noise over screaming.

So we go out to dinner, my family, always around me family and friends in a protective clump. I've lost soo much weight that herding me to eating places for at least some bites is a ritual of necessity. As you can imagine, everyone hates Aaron at this point. They've not heard from him at all, have been summarily rejected by him thus, feel betrayed/hurt on their own accounts rightfully, plus they look at me and are scared and protective. And for the first time, I try to describe what losing my mind felt like. How terrifying it is, and how once you've killed yourself there is nothing to do but live through it. They try to buy it, struggle to feel more compassion than fucked over, dubious. Then I say, "we are here, he is not, imagine if for WHATEVER REASON you FELL OUT of this family FOREVER". And it's Ears, again, who chokes around feeling for Aaron. Empathy seizing him, and loss. "That would be horrible." And I am proud of my son. That Ears feels more empathy than self-pity. Because in the end, if all you can feel for is yourself, you can't feel a damn thing I don't think.