Please, God. Help me.

I have now met with my new psychiatrist today, and I had a talk with Christine about things. I'm going to give her some space, a little time, to process what has been going on lately with us, at her request. I am going to use this time to get myself back to a stable level, which shouldn't actually be that hard as long as I remember to keep my eyes focused on God and remember that his plans will be accomplished. It... also doesn't hurt that Dr. Van der Sluis told me today that I've been taking HALF the normal dose of my medication and no one bothered to tell me at any point in the past year.

Everyone keep Christine in your thoughts and prayers. I've unintentionally given her a lot of stress the past month. Pray God will give her guidance in the time ahead as to how she should proceed.

Please pray for me as well, that I can use this time apart to regain the stability I had such a very short time ago. I believe that I can, and will, be an even better man than I was before this whole mess began. I have learned a great deal from the past month. Pray I can apply that knowledge in ways that will strengthen me as a man, and help me cope with whatever my future holds.

So, I promised I'd tell the story of what happened over the past few days, and why I'm such an outlandishly superior idiot. Here goes...

So Sunday was a good day for me, for the most part. After Church, Christine, James and I drove over to my apartment. We watched a movie and I made lunch. After the movie, James excused himself upstairs so Christine and I could talk to her. I tried to explain why I'd been freaking out, and why I was a little scared, and how I knew it was wrong. I told her how much I loved her. I asked her if there was anything in our relationship that was bothering her, or anything she wanted to talk about. She told me no. I asked if she was sure, because that was the whole reason I'd set aside some alone time for us. So we could talk about us. She assured me she was fine, and I left at at that, because I trust her. We napped a bit on the couch, which was, as always, an incredible experience that ended too soon. Being so close to her like that, feeling so warm and safe and at peace, with her in my arms, resting without a care, so serene and beautiful... Anyway...

So we went to take Christine home, but her family was gone and she didn't have her keys, so we went back to James' house. She tracked down her grandparents' number, called over to her folks, who were eating dinner over there, and told them where she was and could they come get her. While she was waiting over here, we discovered that Lori was online. Both of us were talking to Lori, me in the bedroom and Christine in the living room. I asked Christine to come into the other room and use my computer instead of the family one, so I could show her where I was staying now, even though it's a huge mess right now. Now, Lori had been talking to me about one of our mutual friends, who for her sake shall remain nameless here. After Christine's folks showed up, I took my computer back. We started talking again, and I was telling her that Christine was gone and I was talking again, because she'd just been using my chat window while she'd been in here. Lori, on the other hand, went back to talking about our mutual friend. I missed that line of conversation.

And that is where EVERYTHING WENT WRONG.

Lori proceeded to tell me she had been told that being around me made our friend unsettled, and she wasn't sure why. She told me our friend didn't want to tell me, prolly out of not wanting to hurt my feelings.

I however, thought we were talking about Christine still. So here we are, and Lori is, as far as I can figure, telling me that I make my girlfriend unsettled. My girlfriend is afraid of me, and she doesn't want to hurt my feelings telling me. I start to freak. Christine? Afraid? Unsettled? By me? Why? How long? What about?

I broke. All the dark thoughts I'd managed to repress, all the things I had convinced myself I was reading into wrong, suddenly poured forth in a torrential wave of pain and anguish.

Lori and I never figured out we were talking about two different people.

I left the conversation feeling very hurt and scared and alone. Lori had suggested I write a letter explaining how I was hurting, and give it to her. So, I immediately laid down on the bed and got out my notebook. Several hours of pain, and four pages later... I got an envelope and sealed it, marked it to make sure she'd know it was from me without actually writing on the outside, and waited. I waited all through the next day at work, trying desperately to figure out how it was that I had disturbed her so, and why she couldn't trust me enough to tell me about it, when I had specifically asked about this sort of thing only hours before she had confided in Lori about it. I felt betrayed and broken. Upon getting off work, I sped over to her house, and dropped the letter into her mailbox. I waited. I hurt. I waited. I died inside. I waited. nothing. no answer. no response. no nothing.

Then our mutual friend sent me an email. I thought that was odd. it was rather late, and she had told me earlier that she didn't want me to email her. Lori had mentioned Christine sending an email to explain things at some point during the day... suddenly it clicked. I opened up the chat box history from the day before. I scanned down it to right after Christine had left...

I saw the line of text I'd missed before.

Lori hadn't been talking about Christine at all! Christine wasn't afraid or unsettled or rattled of me. She didn't need to protect herself from me. She didn't anything that Lori had said about it. Lori had been talking about our friend the whole time, and she was giving advice thinking I was freaking about that instead! I felt so relieved. I immediately, though it was late, called over to Christine's house and told her not to open my undeserved letter of pain. I told her I'd written it entirely under false pretense, all the while giggling with giddy glee at my realization that our relationship wasn't in mortal peril. I slept very well last night, as you can imagine. First good night in a week.

So, yeah. I'm a high-strung, self-destructing, blind idiot with a girl who loves me unconditionally and a brain that can't seem to grasp that she does.

Christine, I'm sorry I doubted you for even a fraction of a second. I don't deserve you, and I never will, but I will always love you more than words or actions will ever be able to explain. Please forgive my mistake.

It was the award for world's biggest ritard!

Seriously, though. I'll explain in detail tomorrow.

Suffice it to say, I've been dying inside over, well... nothing. All my anguish in the past 24 hours has been over a misunderstanding.

I feel so much better. Idiotic, but better.

Promise to post the story tomorrow.

yeah... I don't even know what to put up here right now. I can't think of anything witty or deep. I'm just really... there isn't a word that comes to mind. I don't want to cause any more pain than I have already, and I can't take any more myself. Please just pray.