Things you need to know about me - I’m 11 years single, almost 45, an only child with parents that have been married for 53 years.  Growing up I was privileged, nothing was a stress, I had a happy childhood surrounded by lots of friends and I never missed not having siblings.

When visualising my future, I had a husband and a child of my own.  I was traditional, I dreamed of marriage, motherhood, and happiness.  Is that traditional or is that societies stereotype? (probably for a different conversation)

Other things you need to know about me – I had a breakdown aged 36, I didn’t want to be in my own body, not suicidal but hated my life, everything about my being, my body, my mind, my job, my lack of ambition … I wanted out, off the rollercoaster.  What led to this?  He did.

I won’t mention his name, I’ve tried to say his name as little as possible over the past 11 years of him being out of my (physical) life and there is a reason I say physical, I’ll come to that.

We met in our mid 20’s, I was getting over heartbreak and after a couple of dates I explained I wasn’t ready to commit, we parted ways.  Two years later after a lot of clubbing, drinking and casual sex I felt ready to meet someone, someone important, someone I could imagine spending my life with. I bumped into him, purely by chance, I’d not seen him since the day we parted ways, it felt like fate, I romanticized it, believing there was a reason he appeared again now I was ready.

Everything started well, we dated, we party-ed, we went to art galleries, gigs, dinners, holidays, met with friends on weekends, we had the most fun, we laughed all the time. We moved in together after 9 months, we wanted to build a life.

Within a few months of us living together something started to feel ‘off’ you know, that feeling you get in your gut, we know it, we try push it down, but it keeps coming up… the problem is I never allowed it to come far enough up to take notice, I pushed that feeling away for months, in fact on reflection, years!

His control started out as not helping in the house, it peaked when he locked me in the spare room because he wanted to go out without me… everything you can imagine in-between these points happened… moodiness, silent treatment, lost his job, stopped paying for anything, staying out all night, cheating, emotional abuse, talking down to me, calling me fat, controlling what I wore, stopped seeing my family, gaslighting me, creating drama, totally destroying any confidence I had. The irony of this is that when we first met, he told his friends the reason he was attracted to me was because I was cool, I wasn’t like the other girls, I was my own person, I was confident and knew myself. By the time he finished with me I had completely lost any identity of myself, I was unrecognisable.

In the early days we talked about the future, he wanted what I wanted, children, marriage, the usual trimmings.  By the time I was at the end of my life with him he was begging me to have his baby, saying it would make things better, if I went ahead with this it would make him stop his behaviour and give him a purpose.  The hardest decision of my life was not to try for that baby, not to get pregnant, after-all it was all I ever wanted, I was 33, I wanted a baby so much but thank god I was strong enough to know this would have been the worst decision of ‘my’ life.

I won’t go into the details of how I finally escaped him, and it was an actual escape, involving police and injunctions.

He eventually left me alone a year after we split, he’d had too many police warnings to risk carrying on stalking me, so he moved away.  I was free, so I thought! Being physically free is far from mentally free.

PTSD is real. I spent two years after him going off the rails, reliving my 20’s, drinking, clubbing, eating crap, sleeping around, wasting my life… I didn’t recognise what was happening, I was just doing. Surrounded by friends getting married and having their own children, yet still I carried on self-destructing.

In 2014 I broke down in the most epic way… everything that happened came crashing in, all of a sudden, no obvious trigger, no catastrophic event, I just woke up one morning unable to function and that lasted nearly a year.

PTSD is what eventually was uncovered, I was traumatised but what ended up being the overwhelming subject in my psychiatric sessions was my regret of wasting my life with him. I couldn’t forgive myself for allowing him to own me, because he did own me, long after we split, he owned my thoughts.He took the most fertile years of my life, mentally it took me 7 years to get over what had happened to me, 4 of those years were my most fertile.

Following therapy and being discharged It still took me several years to process my past, I continued to work through it, I’ve attended all the workshops, all the 121 and group coaching sessions, read the books, did the meditation and eventually forgave myself.

I was 39 when I went for my first appointment for solo IVF, I’d discussed with my parents what I was planning; the baby I always wanted was going to have to be my own because dating just never worked out for me, I never met anyone, I never settled, I never trusted anyone, would they cheat on me? Would they harm me? My person never appeared (I think we all know why that is!)

Tests led to treatments, treatments led to 18 months of getting my body prepared and waiting for my body to prepare led to doubt. That 18 months saw me rationalise my future.. what was I doing, could I do this on my own, did I want to do this on my own, had I allowed myself to get swept away with the image of a baby rather than the reality?

I was now 41 with a daily depleting egg reserve and a bank account that didn’t match the cost of IVF. I’d moved back in with my parents 2 years earlier to save; I barely saved a penny (a subconscious retaliation maybe?)

In January 2020 I felt desperate, my body was ready for treatment, my mind wasn’t, I was so confused, at a loss, despairing of my own thoughts of indecision.  I was recommended an acupuncturist who ironically specialised in fertility, getting you ready for conception, except I wasn’t mentally there.  I broke down in tears within 2 minutes of arriving. Caitlin, my acupuncturist, will forever be one of the most significant people in my life; she opened my mind and gave me space, she treated me for the next 3 months, giving me emotional strength to help me make a decision.

Just before Covid hit I’d already decided I wasn’t going to pursue IVF and the dream of my own child was over. I was ok, I knew it was the right thing to do for me, my gut told me and I now listen to my gut, it works. I’m prepared for the times of regret, they happen, it’s natural, I don’t dwell on the regret, I accept it and try my best to move on. 

2.5 years on from that decision I’ve mainly been good, progressing my life, getting my own place, dating with no expectation, enjoying the prospect of doing my own thing on my terms, but when the waves of grief approach me, I am floored and I’m back to the beginning.

Anna

Photo by Liza Polyanskaya on Unsplash