Thread by @GuruFantasyWrld, Learning to Lose (at Life)[A CONFESSION] I have a confession to make [...]

Learning to Lose (at Life)

[A CONFESSION]

I have a confession to make - I was once the world’s biggest loser.

But before that - I won, at everything.

On July 4, 2010, I stood on top of the world.

All I had known was winning.

On July 4th, 2010, I got my first kiss & lost my virginity to the same girl, in the same night, and I fell in love with her in that moment.

We were “boyfriend & girlfriend” the very next day.

I was on cloud nine.

I could have died happy right then & there.

I had done everything I had ever wanted to do & I thought I had it all figured out.

But then, just a week or so later, my world came tumbling down.

My girlfriend told me she had to tell me something, and I could tell by the way she said it that it wasn’t good.

Trembling, she told me she had cheated on me.

That she had slept with her ex-boyfriend of two years - her first ever boyfriend, who she had just recently broken up with - and that it happened just yesterday.

It broke my beating heart into a million tiny pieces.

I left in tears & I cried myself to sleep for more nights than I’d like to admit.

I never imagined something like that could actually happen to me.

Breaking up with her was the only choice.

So I did.

But she begged & she pleaded.

She told me how big of a mistake it was, how she loved me, and how she was realizing how badly she had messed up, and that she wanted to be with me, not her ex.

I listened to every voicemail she left.

I responded to the texts.

I empathized.

I forgave.

And I let her drag me back in.

Because I loved her.

And things went really well for a while.

Like really, really, really well.

We put it behind us and it seemed like she meant it when she continually told me & showed me she loved me.

Then, six months in, when things were seemingly going great, she dropped another bomb on me.

She told me that something was eating her alive...

That not only had she cheated on me by sleeping with her ex, but that she also had hooked up with one of my close friends while she was trying to get me back.

It shattered my heart all over again.

It hurt so damn bad.

It was one thing when it was just her ex who she had loved before me & who I didn’t even know.

It was a different kind of pain (and anger) knowing I had been betrayed be a friend too.

So I broke up with her (again).

But she begged & pleaded.

About how she didn’t sleep with my friend, but only “hooked up.”

About how hurt & confused & alone she was when it happened, how she'd thought she'd lost me forever and thought I was never going to take her back for having cheated on me with her ex...

So I did what I had done before, because I loved her.

I empathized & I forgave.

Her, at least.

I was still enraged at my “friend” for having betrayed me.

And I ended up attacking him in a fit of rage during lunch one day, in the middle of my high-school cafeteria, when he sat down at the table I was eating at & refused to leave when I demanded it.

Attacking him didn’t solve my anger, it just got me a restraining order.

But I felt like I could move forward in peace with my girlfriend after that.

It felt like I had gotten the payback I had deserved.

And my relationship benefitted.

I fell back in love with my girlfriend all over again, and it seemed like she fell more & more in love with me.

It was like she became my other half.

But I couldn’t ever seem to really forgive & forget what had happened, I could never seem to put it completely aside and give her a clean slate. It was always in the back of my mind, and I wasn’t afraid to let her know it.

After about a year and a half together, it started to become a source of friction.

She wanted me to commit to her like she had committed to me, she wanted me to truly put it behind us, for good.

She wanted to marry me, she said.

But I couldn’t let it go, even a year and a half into our relationship.

I just couldn’t.

And looking back on it now, I think she realized things would never be truly “fixed” from the mistake she had made so early on, no matter how long she waited for me to forgive & forget.

Even if I wouldn’t admit it, she knew.

So she did what she did best, she broke my goddamn heart.

One day, a year and a half into our relationship, in the midst of some argument, she told me (nonchalantly) that she slept with two of my best friends, just weeks ago...

Two guys who were practically my brothers, one of them who I had grown up with...

There was no way she was telling the truth.

She was manipulative like that.

There was no way two of my best friends (practically brothers) could have betrayed me like that, especially not after they’d known about all I’d already been through with her...

But it was true.

I called them both & confirmed it.

After a year and a half together, after I forgave her for cheating on me with her ex & for hooking up with one of my close friends early on, after telling me she wanted to marry me, she slept with not one, but two of my best friends, my brothers, probably in part out of spite.

It completely destroyed me.

A thousand times worse than the first two times I found out about her cheating.

I knew there would be no taking her back this time.

I knew it was over.

I lost my girl and my best friends just like that, in the blink of an eye, forever.

Fighting someone wasn’t going to fix anything this time.

I knew that.

My trust in the world & my faith in humanity was gone just like that, in the snap of a finger, in the blink of an eye.

And I went off the deep-end...

I drank whiskey in school every day for the rest of my senior year & I skipped class to get high almost every day. I had almost 100 tardies out of 180 school days.

I started experimenting with harder drugs.

And then, at age 17, just a few weeks after my girlfriend had destroyed my entire world, I was pulled over & arrested at 2AM for DUI.

I sat in that jail cell overnight & I cried & I cried, knowing I was sitting at rock-bottom.

I couldn’t fathom why all of this was happening to me.

I was a good kid, honest, smart, loving, faithful, and I just wanted to have a good time.

What did I ever do to deserve all of this?

And that’s the question which ate me alive...

What did I do to deserve all of this?

I was so caught up with the fact that bad things had happened to me that I figured there must be someone, something to blame, and that I had to hate them for it.

I got caught up in losing, in being a blamer, a finger-pointer, a victim.

I continued to try to escape my reality through drugs, and it led me to LSD.

Luckily, I had a life changing experience on LSD that shifted my entire perspective.

I took so much LSD that I thought I died & slipped into some sort of eternal purgatory, in between life & death, where I was to live out my life’s memory on repeat in a timeless state, forever.

It was the most horrifying feeling I’ve ever felt because I KNEW I wasn’t ever coming back, that I had taken too much LSD, and that I was bound to live in this eternal & painful repeating cycle of my life’s memory, forever.

And then I blacked out & woke up to the realization that I was still alive...

That I had been “hallucinating” ...

That I had been given a second-chance at life.

And in that moment, all of the baggage I had carried for so long was gone, none of the pain I had felt before could touch me.

None of the things that had happened to me could rob me of the joy of the present moment, the joy of breath, the joy of life.

Not loss, not failure, nothing.

I was finally free.

And ever since that day, things have been different.

So much different.

Ever since that day, I’ve learned to let go.

I still don’t completely know what to make of life & I sure as hell don’t have the “right” way to live it all figured out, but I can tell you with damn near certainty that I know the wrong way to live it, because I lived it for so long.

At a certain point, you have to forgive yourself for all of the things that are going to happen to you, for all of the things you’re going to lose, for all of the relationships that are going to sour, for all of the things you are going to do wrong, for death, for everything.

Because the truth is - bad things happen to good people, and everybody loses.

Losing is inevitable & if there’s one thing I know, it’s not meant to destroy you.

It’s meant to polish you & propel you towards a better version of you, if you let it.

So many of us have gone through trials of loss & failure & we’re all destined to go through more.

You are not alone, I promise you that.

Nobody is immune & we are all in this together.

If you are struggling with your mental health, write things down, let them go, and don’t be afraid to lean on others, and seek help.

So many of us are here to support you in your journey.

I promise.

Latest Threads Unrolled: