EPThttp://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/520485-post-pro-gaming-the-aftermath-part-two
What is this?
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The idea is to review and tell what I've been up to the past 5 years basically, counting from the day that I stopped playing Starcraft 2 professionally. This post is pretty personally revealing and at least for me, is tough to write about, some of you might find it overly dramatic, some of you might find it down right made up. But I assure you it is not. This is my way of venting my thoughts and dealing with some of the shit i've been through the past couple of years. Hopefully it can be of some lessons to others if you have the endurance to read through this giant wall of text.
TLDR;
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merz embarks on a journey of binge drinking while destroying one relationship after the other, knowing that he should probably stop behaving like an asshole. Also knowing the potential negative consequences of burning bridges to left and right, especially in a small town where people talk, but finds himself stuck in a behavior which he can't really stop.
So let's start where we left off.
March 2015 - August 2015
Self-destructive behavior; "Self-destructive behavior is any behavior that is harmful or potentially harmful towards the person who engages in the behavior."
Now, having ended my relationship with my girlfriend, whom I was also sharing a flat with, left with a dead end job and pretty much not a whole lot going for me, that's where we continue this story. Initially the break-up in itself was really well handled. Me and my girlfriend agreed that it was time to split up, things weren't working out and we were not very happy with our lives. There was no yelling, no screaming, no anger, regret or grudge. Just a mutual agreement that this had to end and we could walk away from it on good terms with eachother.
Young people tend to be naive about relationships. At least that's my experience, and I'm still very young, thinking it is as simple as just endning an almost 2 year relationship with no harm done is foolish. But that's what we set out to do. Guess I had to find every way possible of fucking that up.
We started off discussing what to do with the flat, eventually we agreed on that I'd stay in the flat and she would move back to her old place, as she still technically had the contract and could just terminate the contract with the person staying there in her place. The problem being that the termination of the contract had to be notified with one month in an advance. Given how we were on good terms with eachother, at the time, we agreed on that we'd just have to live together for the remaining 30 days and then she'd move back. Seemed like a pretty decent idea at the time.
What an absolutely fucking terrible idea that was.
In retropect, I think I had already come to terms with breaking up and I was ready to move on. My ex was however not really on the same level, given how she never really had considered breaking up as an option until I made the move. She needed time, at least 30 days, to let this sink in and then move on. Blinded by what I think was an ongoing life-crisis coupled with my inability to actually sympathize with that she might cope with the break up in a different way than I chose to, this set the scene for chaos.
It took me exactly 5 days to truley mess things up, to the point where it was beyond repair. Or well, I guess I could've lied, spared her the pain. But I felt too much guilt and honestly, the alternative which was being caught, seemed far worse. So no, I'm not saying I didn't lie because I wanted to be honest with her. That'd be a politcal correct and bullshit answer right there. I told the truth, to ease my own feelings of guilt, and to avoid being caught with my pants down, and I literally mean being caught with my pants down.
So what happend? My ex decided to visit some friends for the weekend. To just get some space, clear her thoughts, not having to see me every waking minute that she'd spend at home. This was early april 2015. What do I do with all this free time that I can spend alone? The only reasonable thing to do. Call up all your single friends, tell them pre-game at my place, and then we're heading out. Now, drinking when you are emotionally unstable is generally a bad idea. Getting absolutely shit faced is even worse, let alone where you drink to the point where you actually have black outs and can't even account for most of the hours spent at the night club.
But I did drink myself down right stupid. And it was not like I didn't intend to get that drunk, I was fully set on getting absolutely wrecked. I didn't want to deal with all the shit going through my mind at that time. I didn't want to spend sober hours at weekends alone thinking of what could have been. I wanted to push away these feelings, and I refused to be left alone restless with my thoughts, because that scared the shit out of me. On weekdays I could occupy my mind with work and then later in the evening working out and finally watching a series on netflix or whatever but weekends simply offered too much free time which I had to fill up with mind numbing things like alcohol to cope.
To cope with the fact that I was already second doubting my decision to break up. To cope with the fact that I was second doubting where I was in my life and how it had all played out. To cope with that I was closing in fast on the latter half of 20, yes im serious, no I know that 25 is still young, but it still felt like shit and like I was slowly going from being a young adult to just an adult.
So back to that evening in the beginning of april of 2015. We had a lot to drink before going out, I started having small bits of black outs before we even ordered a cab. I remember bits and pieces of it all, some of it I have been told to me by the very friends who were with me that night. Basically what happend was this. We get to the club, we continue to drink heavily, we socialize with the people there, we dance, we talk and then all of a sudden, I'm nowhere to be found. My friends try calling me, but I refuse to pick up the phone, no one saw where I went and I told no one where I was going. This was around 1 AM.
At 2:30 AM one of my friends finally gets a hold of me, I somehow decided that it was time to pick up the phone. I remember small bits of the conversation where I basically told my friend that im at this girls place and im fine. My friend being at least a lot more sober than I was said "You're fine? Really? You really think this is a bright idea?" Followed by multiple questions and things such as "if your ex finds out about this you are fucking done man" To which I answer "No no, it is fine, it is [the girl I almost hooked up with couple of weeks beforehand] it's cool".
Let me explain to you why this is not cool.
1) It is the same girl that I almost cheated with prior to breaking up with my ex
2) My ex kinda knows the girl, not a close friend or anything, but they have mutual close friends
3) Everything about me not wanting to hurt her feelings by cheating just went out the fucking window because I just lost all credibility.
4) It had been only 5 days since we broke up.
5) I still lived with my ex.
6) Practically all her girl friends are bound to find this out through gossip.
I could probably go on and list a few more things but you get the idea. Apparently what had happened - which I discovered by going through my chat history the day after - was that at somewhere around 12:40-12:50 AM I figured it'd be a smart idea to text this girl and ask her if she was out tonight or not. It just so happend that she was, and she was apparently at the same club. Next genius move was me suggesting we should meet up, and from there on shit got messy. Eventually we ended up in her appartment having sex (at least I think so, but can't really remember, never had the guts to ask) the only thing I remember is a memomry where she is sitting on top of me, lauging, while she snaps a picture and sends it to her friends on snapchat. Yes the same friends that were also friends with my ex.
When I woke up at her place, I only knew like half of this. Waking up pretty fucking hungover and confused, not really being able to piece the pieces together in my mind, while asking myself why the FUCK I was in an appartment that looked a whole lot like the appartment I had been to only a few weeks ago. Things cleared up pretty fast as she jumped on top of me again when she noticed that I was awake. Meanwhile this immense feeling of guilt, panic, anxiety just exploded inside me. What in the actual fuck was I thinking? This isn't looking good, and wait, didn't she photograph me or am I just making shit up? One would think that the first thing I'd do was to make up an excuse and get the fuck out of there ASAP. But no, why try minimizing the damage, I spent well over 3 hours there and if we didn't do shit the night before we definitely got that out of the way the morning after.
Before I actually left her appartment I at least mustered the courage to ask her if she took a photo of me last night or if I just dreamt it. She laughed and said "Yeah, and I sent it to [friend 1 and 2 that also knew my ex], probably not the best idea...". My heart sunk, so basically the way gossip works, pretty much all of my friends would know this before the day was over, my ex would too probably.
I decided however, that I wouldn't panic, I would wait for my ex to come home, and I'd just take it if she happend to know about it. If not, I still hadn't decided (at the time) if I was to tell her about it or not. When my ex came home, she knew nothing about the events that had carried out. This was my first glimpse of an absurd group behavior, at least that's my take on it, where basically the entire group of friends that we both knew, simply refused to tell her anything about it. To this day, I'm not sure why they didn't tell her, I mean god damnit, not even her closest friend whom she shared everything with, told her anything.
I've theorized that it was because I put the group of friends, as a group, in a pretty fucking shitty situation. And somehow the group behaved in a manner that ultimately would serve to protect the group and not the individuals. See, if this was to come out, people would have to pick sides. They would all be in the fucking mess I had created. If they just let it be and refused to pick sides, the group would stay intact, and no one would have to chose. When I came up with this theory, it also had me filled with guilt. Knowing what a fucking piece of shit I was and what an awful position I put my friends in. It is just a theory though, and truthfully, maybe they just decided "that that's their business and not ours." What do I know. But ultimately, even though 10 or so people knew what happend that night and even though 2 of them were (are) really close friends with my ex, no one said a word.
I didn't tell my ex about the events either. I had consulted with my closests friends and they were all torn. But one friend, who constatly preaches that you shouldn't tell the truth if the only outcome is hurting the other person, prevailed. At least for a while. As it turns out, I'd make sure I would be left with no choice other than telling her, why? I have absolutely no idea.
The two weeks that followed were... absurd. I was conflicted, one minute I wanted to call off the break up and beg my ex to take me back, the next minute I caught myself wondering if I should hook up with that girl again from last week. Constantly trying to assess the risk of my ex finding out one way or another. At the same time you are two people who at least had very strong feelings for eachother, and you are living under the same roof. It is hard to push that away instantly. There's no switch where you can just turn all your feelings off for that person. Which lead me to my next big fuckup that would make the damage irreversible. One evening me and my ex find ourselves in a situation where we are both sexually frustrated as fuck. To the point where my ex suggests that we can continue having sex, at least while we're living together.
Now, if she knew what I knew and what everyone else knew, that'd be an absolutely terrible fucking idea. Also, it's not like I used any protection with the girl I had previously slept with 2 weeks ago. For all I knew, I could be carrying a STD. The logical thing would be to make up a bullshit excuse and not have sex with my ex, given how things were going. But no. Also to be honest, the whole possiblity of a STD occured to me afterwards. Which of course made me panic. "Holy fuck" I thought, nevermind the shitstorm if my ex was told by someone else that I slept with that girl, imagine the fucking chaos if I have to tell her that hey guess what I fucked someone else like 5 days after we broke up AND you now have clamydia. Try explaining that without getting your face punched in.
In absolute panic, I ordered an anonymous test online the day afterwards and I used my friends adress (which he allowed of course). I couldn't have it sent to my adress, my ex would probably find it. Somewhere at this point I was already knee deep in shit. Couldn't possibly fuck it up even more could I. Well then came another weekend, this time, we were going out as a group of friends. Yes the same 10 friends that all knew about what fucking piece of shit I had been, yes THAT girl was also tagging a long.
So basically I was given the option to spend a friday night with my ex, 10 friends that all knew I had been an asshole to my ex, and also the girl that I happened to have slept with. Fantastic. Oh and of course with shitloads of alcohol involved. One would think that - at least at this point - I would do the smart thing here. Make up an excuse and stay in, I mean jesus christ, why would you enter a minefield where you are pretty sure that any step you'll take will result in a mine blowing up in your face. Logic and sound reasoning did not prevail this time either, so I went out and got drunk out of my mind.
At one point, when we are all at the club, one of our mutual friends grabs me and pulls me aside and she says "For FUCKS sake Tim, whatever you do, WHATEVER YOU DO, don't fuck around with [that girl] tonight or your ex will be fucking devestated" and then she continued "I don't really care if you fuck with someone else, and if you flirt with someone else in front of your ex, but can you just not shit where you eat? I mean EVERYONE knows eachother". To which I politely replied "Well I recall you cheating on your previous boyfriend with your current boyfriend so I don't really see how you are in a position to make any judgement calls here". Wow. Can you believe that people can be that much of an asshole (me that is) I barely can. Yet these are actions im accountable for. Looking back at that moment, how fucking cold was that. And why the fuck did I have to deliver a blow under the belt to a very close friend of mine, while I was at it?
You all know the story from here on, given my current tendencies, I openly grabbed [that girl] by the hand in front of my ex and we left the club together. It couldn't have been more obvious and disrespectful. I feel fucking sick to my stomach when thinking back about it. So the cat was out of the bag practically. Or at least I thought so. The morning after, again I had to let others fill in the blanks, was not pretty. You know what, [that girl] needs a fictional name, this is stupid, lets call her "Anna".
So I woke up in Annas appartment, I was filled with regret and anxious. I did not want to return to my appartment because I knew that there was my ex whom saw everything at first hand. I did not want to look at my phone, because I knew that I hurt some pretty close friends, in particular the one whom I called out for cheating on her ex with her current boyfriend. The latter one happends to be one of my best friends, so I hurt his feelings too. He didn't want to be reminded by something like that.
When I finally mustered the strength to return to my appartment I had what was waiting for me coming. And it was long overdue. First words I was met with, which came from my ex, when I stepped inside the flat was "Don't you say a fucking word, I want you to shower, because I'm not having a serious talk with my ex when he still wreeks of sex with some fucking skank". Well this didn't look too good. So I showered, longer than I had to, because I was scared shitless of having to face my ex. But eventually I had to go out and face her, so I did.
First question: - I thought that was obvious - did you sleep with Anna? Yes.
Second question: has it happend before? Yes.
Third question: Did you sleep with her before or after we broke up? After.
Fourth question: When exactly did you sleep with her the first time then becau...
And then my ex realised that the answer to the fourth question was obvious. The first time I slept with Anna must've been when she was away for the weekend, meaning me and my ex had sex afterwards. Meaning she slept with me only 2 weeks after it happened.
Fifth question. Please tell me you used protection? No.
And then shit hit the fan for real. Wow, the verbal abuse that I took was insane. I'm not saying I did not deserve it, I'm saying my ex delivered and my ex knew exactly what my weak points were and where to press to make it hurt. Hurt it did, because she was simply speaking the truth. Only she didn't really tone it down. I think I spent 4 hours just sitting there, getting yelled at, getting called out for all stupid shit I had done, getting told how big of an asshole I was. She even said she seriously considered if I was psycopath and if she truley ever knew me, because she sure as hell didn't know this person.
There are few moments in life where you cannot find one single valid excuse for a certain behavior. But this was one of them, I struggled I swear, but I couldn't find any reasonable excuse. Because there simply was none. I tried the "Well we were broken up". Worst argument in the book. Also that argument is beside the point, but I didn't really grasp that until much later.
I was mentally broken down, bit by bit, hour after hour, til the point where I couldn't really do anything else but to sit there quiet and just keep listening. Like I've said, I had it coming and I truley deserved it. Self defense set in however, and in order to justifiy my actions for myself at the time, I just kept repeating to myself "I've technically done nothing wrong, we were no longer a couple, I don't owe her anything". What a black-and-white type of thing to think, and how fucking stupid is it to think that everything in life is black and white. One moment you are together, the next moment you are not, does that mean that suddenly everything is off the table? No. I just didn't really want to understand that. I refused to see that there was grey areas. When you are trying to convince yourself that you technically have done nothing wrong, you probably have done something that is very fucked up.
So May of 2015 finally came. My ex moved out. She came by the appartment to pick up some of her last things, she then proceeded to say she fucked someone else just for the fuck of it. I was hurt. Can you believe that? I was HURT hearing about my ex sleeping with someone else despite the shit I had just put her through. The mind works in mysterious ways. Logically I knew that I couldn't possibly have the right to be hurt by something like that, but logic and emotions are sometimes not on par with eachother. To make things even more absurd we ended up having sex right afterwards. Right after she had just told me that she slept with someone else, after I had just put her through hell. I don't really have a deep analysis over why that happened. Sometimes humans make irrational decisions that they regret later.
Anna was still there, I didn't tell her shit about the minor relapses with my ex either. So I was basically being an ass to her too. Why? Well Anna said that we could keep seeing eachother, strictly casual with no strings attached, under the condition that at least we told eachother if we slept with someone else. Not because that wouldn't be okay, but because it might be cool to notify the other in advance in case they wanted an honest chance at judging whether the risk of STD was worth it or not.
May til June 2015 was just a haze. I was drunk out of my ass friday and saturday, every god damn weekend. I didn't recall much of it, because I still drank to the point where I blacked out most of the night. I still saw Anna, mostly drunk, but sometimes sober. Our arrangement was working fine. We were fuck buddies, nothing else. That shit wouldn't last long though.
I still worked at the insurance company. My job had become simply a chore that had to be done each day in order to sustain a living. I had no soul left in it, I just went there, did what I was supposed to do, went home. Rinse and repeat. I stopped putting effort into the job somewhere along the line where It was made very clear for me that no matter how good I performed, this was still a claims handler-job, and my salary was set accordingly.
Come to think of it, pretty much the entire summer of 2015 was a haze. It was booze, Anna, more booze, Anna and then more booze. Anna was definitely not good for me, we were two broken individuals and combining the two of us made one dysfunctional relationship. She was jealous, despite not wanting to admit to it, I was also jealous, I did not want to admit to it either. She drank too much and did stupid shit, I drank too much and did stupid shit. We had tons of fun though, but there was always this tension where we basically just waited for the other person to fuck things up. I.e. sleep with someone else and not tell about it. Or just blatantly hooking up with someone in front of the other.
Somewhere at the middle of july 2015 I figured I couldn't go on like that with Anna. Fuck buddies is great, but the constant feeling of not knowing where we stood and if she fucked someone else, just gave me too much anxiety. When I questioned why this made me anxious and/or jealous, I drew the conclusion that I had somehow caught feelings for her. It wasn't really love, it was something else, I think it was trying to attain what wasn't attainable. And that made it interesting. See Anna had made it clear that she wanted nothing serious, changing her mind about that was somehow a challenge I felt like I wanted to take upon myself. But Anna wasn't going to change her mind. And the more I talked about the idea about taking things to a more serious level, the more she backlashed. She'd send pictures of some random guy that had just added her on Facebook and ask "Is this a catch or not?" She would go lengths where she'd send me texts when she was out containing shit like "Lucky for you we hooked up last night, otherwise I would've gone home with the first guy I see here, now I can be more nitpicky".
We started testing eachothers limits. I'd respond with the same ammunition. I'd get Tinder, the dating app, and I'd start talking with other girls. I'd show her the girls and what they wrote, asking Anna if I should see them or not. It was seriously a chicken race where we just waited for one of us to cave in first. Ultimately it got to the point where I said "I'm going to ask my ex if she wants to hang out, you know, just as friends". Anna said "Fine by me". When I however did see my ex, just as friends, I took a snapchat photo of my ex and sent it to Anna. That settled it. The day afterwards Anna told me to go fuck myself and never speak with her again. I replied with "What's wrong, I thought we were all cool with things like this" to which she replied "Even you should understand that seeing your ex is on a whole other fucking level you fucking idiot".
So that was that. August 2015 came a long, Anna was no longer in the picture, I was - honestly - friends with my ex. Not sure how to explain how that actually happened. Other than that she is a much bigger person than I am. She could set aside all the horrible fucking things I had done to her, somehow forgive me, and valued my friendship. How she did that is beyond me, because I sure as hell did not deserve it. I still don't. But I was thankful, because after all was said and done, she knew me better than most people. We could talk about pretty much everything. She could tell me about the people she was dating and I felt no jealousy at all. I was actually happy, as strange as it might sound, that she was actively dating other people. We even talked about the whole situation with Anna during the summer and she tried as best as she could to listen and give advice. Absurd.
August 2015 came to a close fast, and for a brief period of time, like three weeks or so. I did not do anything remotely fucked up. But then I remembered that I had installed Tinder, and technically I wasnt seeing anyone, so why not give that a serious go? Also I still got drunk off my ass every chance I got when the weekend came around. And I had burned a few bridges and hurt a few of my close friends. I still hadn't done anything to actually get a job I was pleased with either.
It was a period in my life where I had no compass or no direction to follow and a period of my life where I couldn't justifiy or even explain my behavior. I did get shitfaced and I said and did things that made no sense and hurt other people, and I still kept drinking despite knowing that nothing good came out of it. I intentionally hurt Anna just to force a response. I knowingly hurt my ex feelings multiple times, and I hurt my closest friends.
Looking back at the period overall, it was a life crisis. Somehow I had just lost touch with who I was and where I was going. Instead of trying to deal with it at first hand, I buried my regret and anxiety in alcohol and to justify that I was still good for something, I craved attention like never before. Ultimately the crave for attention made me hurt others peoples feelings as well. It is a period that I'm not very proud of at all and I probably couldn't see myself writing about this 1,5 year ago. Because it showed me that I can truley be mean and selfish. Even if I suffered from immense remorse I just surpressed that remorse by doing even more bad things and drinking even heavier. I was, to say the least, heading down a pretty bad path and I couldn't seem to bring myself to stop it.
September 2016 - March 2017 was probably the beginning of the end of my life crisis and what I would call my self destructive behavior. Looking back at things now, some events were crucial to turn things around.
This section focused solely on a few events that for me really set the tone for how I was behaving at that point in time. I guess this part also got a whole lot messier. The last chapter will focus more on my career side of life and the events that eventually managed to turn things around.
Kudos to whomever managed to read this mess of a text through, until next time!
EDIT:
I am mixing shit up. September 2015 - May 2016 would be the period where events occured that turned things around. Time flies fast.
