Have you ever been caught in one of those situations when your brain is telling you to do one thing while your heart is telling you to do another? I know I get caught in situations like that all of the time. Usually I do the stupid thing and follow my heart, because it seems to be my heart that makes me feel like something is right, instead of just making me weigh pros and cons and choose the logical option.
My heart is stupid. It gets me into trouble and throws me into situations that I'm just not ready to handle. I followed my heart when I chose my first college and that ended up turning into the most epic disaster in my life. If I had taken the time to really sit and think things through instead of doing what felt right maybe I wouldn't have ended up in that situation.
Right now I'm caught in one of those situations. I have to make a decision and my heart and my brain can't seem to agree with each other. I know that I should listen to my brain on this one, but my heart is speaking very strongly this time and I can't ignore what it has to say.
I've struggled with depression for several long years now. It's not an easy struggle, but I've been doing relatively well for the last several months, especially with the end of the unhealthy relationship that I was in. Now that I am single again, I realize that I will eventually have to deal with potential boyfriends again. My most recent romantic relationship was also my first, and I was disheartened by the ending, which was painful. This isn't the first relationship I've had end in a painful way, though it was my first romantic one, and because of past difficulties I've had a lot of trouble forming new relationships, trusting other people, and being willing to enter into any romantic relationships. I put my whole heart into this last one, giving myself over entirely to my partner, and that ended badly for me. I'm afraid to go through that pain again. The fear comes from the depression. I worry that if I continue to get hurt that I won't be able to continue fighting the depression and it will overwhelm me.
I also hate being alone. While many people will say it's perfectly fine that I didn't date until I was twenty, it is unusual. Most of my friends - even ones more quiet and shy than me - dated throughout high school. I honestly got to the point where I thought no one would ever ask me out or that I wasn't, for whatever reason, a date-able person. I resigned myself to being alone for the rest of my life. Now that I have finally had a taste of what it's like to be in a relationship (the good parts, not the bad) I don't want to go back to thinking I'll be alone forever.
All of this plays into my current dilemma. When I was a junior in college, living in Montana, there was a guy at home - significantly older than me - who expressed feelings for me (that's putting it mildly). At the time I was working through some issues that I had with men - fears that were leftover from several experiences throughout the last 20 years of my life. His messages telling me how he felt upset me and stressed me out and I avoided talking to him as long as I could before I was finally able to deal with the situation and tell him that we couldn't be together. I decided this because I had been trying to recover from depression and find out if I had a personality disorder that would have been the cause of some of my behaviors and experiences. Not only that, but he had his own mental problems that had not been diagnosed yet.
We were a bad match. That's all there was to it at the time. It wasn't that I didn't like him. This man is a sweetheart. I knew that he cared about me. That alone would have made me happy. On top of that, I had feelings for him, too, even though I was trying my best to bury them. In that case, I let my brain win out over my heart because it was a time when I needed to focus on ME.
I am still friends with this man, even to this day. I still suffer from depression, and he suffers from his own mental illness and is even more handicapped by it than I am. His life has not been easy. I haven't even been able to piece together everything that he's been through, outside of what other people have told me and small hints that I pick up in my conversations with him. What I do know is that he still feels something for me. What that something is, I'm never too sure. I think he knows that I tend to shy away from him if he goes back to what he first said when I was still in college. I can see in his messages (we talk via messaging systems at the moment) that he changes the words around. For example, he uses phrases such as "i want to try see something
in someone else that i don't get to see but may be once in a life time" and when I ask him what he means he gives me vague responses about friendship or love, but never really explains himself. The last time he mentioned wanting to be with me (he added in "despite our situations" when he mentioned it) I practically interrogated him, so it doesn't surprise me that he's careful in his own, strange ways.
Within the last few months there have been several times when he has asked me to come and hang out with him or get coffee with him. I want to say yes. My heart tells me that I should go. My brain says that it will encourage him to pursue me. The fact still stands that we are a bad match. Our mental illnesses would conflict. We would hurt each other without realizing it. On top of that, he's eight years older than me and, at the moment, can't live on his own. He gets money from the government each month. I want to have children, raise a family, have a home of my own. I need someone who can do that with me; someone who can support a family. I don't think he's capable of that. I don't even know if he's capable of maintaining a normal relationship. Things are different with him than they would be with another man. If my last dream weren't to have a family, then maybe it wouldn't matter so much. But at the age of twenty-two I'm at least ready to start looking for someone to settle down with.
That is what my brain is telling me. It makes sense, but I'm still torn between what my brain says and what my heart feels. Because when I think about this man I feel something. I want to reach out and take care of him. I want to be the friend that he needs. Maybe I want to be more than that. I know that going with my heart on this one would be a bad idea. The problem is that it's a lot easier to do what you feel is right than it is to do what you think is right. Feelings are powerful. Love, fear, hope, sadness...feelings are the basis of who we are. Our thoughts aren't any less important, but it's easier to push them aside.
Feelings are important. Always consider them. But don't forget to pay attention to your brain as well. Sometimes it has something just as important to say as your heart.
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