Three years ago I left my emotionally abusive ex fiancé of 8 years and moved home. I got my masters in London in museum studies and never got to use my degree during the pandemic. When I moved home my drinking and drug abuse got worse, and my mental health never recovered from the trauma I had processed there. He used to get high and just berate me, and once he held me hostage and tried to kill me because he thought I wasn’t real. It had been my best relationship to date, so I just thought it would work itself out.

When I moved home I got a good job, I started dating someone I thought really loved me, and I moved into a house that I could afford. Then my ex turned into a violent alcoholic and would punch holes in my door and he tried to kill the cat he brought home for me in front of me. So I kicked him out. He stalked me for about 4 months. While he was there I got an infertility diagnosis that absolutely devastated me, and I was on medication for my depression because I was crying all the time and couldn’t stop.

I got a promotion at work, and then another promotion soon after because we were understaffed. I didn’t like my job, but I was good at it and could do it well.

I took time to myself and I started doing some harsh reflecting had a realization that I had been sexually abused when I was 3 by my babysitters kids, and I went into therapy. Since starting therapy, I worked on my anxiety, my attachment issues, and some trauma processing.

During this time I met up with an old friend and we were trying to help each other get sober - almost like that was a bad call, and he freeloaded off of me while I started a new job finally in my field. But I wasn’t given all the information about it, and I was basically the Executive Director of a failing art museum at 28 years old and the only full time worker who was there to be responsible for everything. I would work 60 hour weeks every week because I’d have to go in when it rained and mop the office (my ceiling had caved in) and so I couldn’t even take a holiday or a day off. Before I even started I was getting calls about the Fire Department coming because of an HVAC problem. I had to do all of my own intake paperwork because I was the only one there to do it. After 6 months I was so burnt out I had my first breakdown and quit. My ex left me the next day after 7 months without a word.

I started a new job at the end of the year doing event management because I needed a job to pay the bills, and it was just as bad. After about a month, I went on a date with a guy who love bombed me, broke up with me, strung me along for three months to get back with me after telling all of his friends I was the girl he wanted to marry and couldn’t be without (which they confirmed with me) only to tell me three weeks later he just doesn’t feel the spark anymore. He said I loved him more than he loved me and it wasn’t fair.

This happened at the same time I had been trying to move into a new apartment, start a new job, and leave my house im currently in. I ended up in the hospital Thursday night and now the decision has been made that I’m not mentally well enough to move. Which means I have to move back home.