when you feel like you're doing your best but it's still not good enough

i'm currently going through a pretty tough time and contemplated multiple times whether i was going to post or not, i did join sane due to advice from the Sonder app. my situation is pretty rubbish, mid last year my mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and after 2 failed surgeries doctors aren't able to remove the tumour despite it being in early stages. it was pretty tough understand the fact that there is now officially a more urgent time limit on life with her and so i moved back home after the diagnosis to support and be with her. during this time a few months ago as well i walked away from a friend because i could no longer handle her behaviour towards me and a lot of it was to do with BPD. that was also quite traumatic dealing with her on top of my mums surgeries at the time.

anyway, a couple of months after moving back i started to reconnect with a friend and we had such an amazing connection. one that i don't think i've ever felt with anyone before, we decided to start seeing eachother despite him not really knowing what he wanted but i felt like i wanted to prioritse my happiness so if i'm having fun then it's okay, but then as well a lot of my own issues started to show up again now being attached to someone and i worked through them as hard as i could. he's had a pretty rough past relationship to extreme extents of emotional manipulation and stalking etc, so i understood that he already came with baggage. i am a heavy believer in working things through as a couple because i don't think you'd ever really find the perfect fit so i decided to give it my best go anyway (we both decided to give it a go).

it was a pretty incredible 6 months we had together, saw eachother often, weekly, and he was really good to me. we developed a great routine together and i was feeling so fulfilled in terms of emotional and physical needs. although i do admit there were times i felt like i was shrinking myself to not scare him off etc but also did my best to communicate my feelings and problems when they arise. he handled them gracefully and gave me reassurance that it's okay and that he did want to help me and that i wasn't being too much. i really liked this guy so much i almost can't believe it, he's so unique, lovely and kind to me even when unprompted. there were a few lacking things but obviously again every relationship is a work in progress. basically a month and a half ago we saw eachother after he returned from a little trip and everything was normal. the next day we were texting as routine and then he decides to tell me that he can't give me what i want anytime soon and that's not fair. that was really painful to read because it's like someone pulling the rug from underneath you.

he said he wanted to see me and talk to me about it in real life so we decided on the weekend, then when it came to that, he told me his anxiety was just too much and he felt like he was going to be sick if i came over and talked. i can understand this i think he does compartmentalise a lot of things and perhaps now they're coming back to bite him. (we also talked about him going to therapy to work through his issues too but of course you can only suggest and support, can't make one do something you want them to do).

i gave him a lot of space and tried to say like it's best if we talk about this as soon as we can beacuse it would only just hurt us both waiting longer and being in limbo. i said i wanted to talk things through work it out, we can call and keep it short instead just make a start and that emotions are hard but i am here and willing to listen and work through things together. he stopped replying to me for the rest of the weekend and it put me in the biggest turmoil i've ever felt.

the next week rolled around and i decided myself that this was it, no response is a response and decided myself that i would walk away. a day after he texted me back apologising for leaving me hanging and ghosting etc. he said to me that it wasn't a good idea to start dating when he has a lot of things to work through, and told me again that i deserve someone that will give me the love and care i need (which i get but like he was also really good to me). he asked to be friends if that's okay with me and then wrapped up the message telling me that i'm so genuinely kind caring and loving and that none of this is my fault.

in my message back to him i said thanks for replying back to me even though this wasn't face to face and made sure to let him know how much it hurt me. i wrote that i hope he's able to get the support because i believe in him wholeheartedly, and thanked him for taking care and supporting me in my sad times. i agreed to being friends one day, obviously not right now and one day i will reach out again if i feel ready.

as time pass it just chews me up every single day still. i know grief is very difficult to deal with and it doesn't help that my baseline is already so low due to my mums illness and everything else in life, it really did feel like a big slap in the face because i realise then that i've lost one of my safest place in my life to rest in. i really don't think i've ever been this low in my life yet and it just sucks. i'm still going out, trying to fill up all my spare time with friends to distract. i'm still working my full time job and luckily i am at home most of the time so i still have time to process.

i'm also still juggling the guilt that i'm going out a lot because my mum stays home etc but we try to find small things to do together or i just chat with her when i am at home. but this heartbreak is just so disasterous. i guess to me it hurts the most because he decided to walk away from me even though i wanted to be with him. i hate that the avoidant got me so good. i know some days will be worse than others but just i'm trying my best to be nice to myself but i just can't believe how much this hurt. i cry about it every single day, i still think and miss him every single day. i'm trying to break the loop, not isolate, try to move my body more by going to the gym and swimming, but even after doing all this it still feels like it's not enough.

i know the only answer here i feel is just to give it time, even my therapist said i'm approaching this the healthier way and i intend on continuing but it just feels so much sometimes like i'm witnessing myself drowning in slow motion. i have such incredible friends and many of them to lean on but sometimes the feelings of being a burden or fear of people taking pity on me creeps up and then it leads me to question my belonging even though i know for a fact that i do deserve a place here etc.

it's just been hard trying to hold 2 truths at once because i understand all of the logic of why it happened and whatnot but the emotions obviously pulls in whatever way it wants to pull. i know i deserve better not to be treated like this and i'm probably just saying this at the moment because i haven't detached from him but i also hate it when people say there's plenty of fish in the sea and my response in my head is usually but i litearlly just want that one fish or i don't really wanna go fishing anymore hahaha.

we weren't perfect but he was really different to all of my previous partners and with me and my experience at this point in my life i felt like i was really equipped to give it my all. but i guess at the end of the day you can't challenge someone's capacity for you even if you wanted to give them the entire world.

and to top of it off the past week or so my mum has been feeling really tired and lathargic from chemotherapy and has told me she will be stopping her treatment. it's not new news because we've discussed this previously after the failed surgeries but it still lands quite painfully. just feels like now i'm moving into the next stage of anticipatory grief we're one step closer to losing her.

i've had friends who have expressed that i'm being really strong and i'm handling it so well but sometimes i'm just yelling internally like why do i have to be strong all the time, why do i have to handle it well all the time. it's just so hard when you're in this and you don't know what you want or need, and people want to help but honestly what else can they do other than listen and support. i appreciate this from my friends so much but it's also sometimes just not the same when it's not him.

just really feels like the universe is being quite horrible to me right now and i'm trying to be grateful that i still have my health, friends, work and family but just all these events really getting me down and this week has been particularly hard.

i thank those who stuck through to read all this, if anything at least i feel a tad better writing it all out here too.