I Need You to Survive
We started talking again in 2008. By that time I had been going through a divorce. For legal reasons I will not get into the the specifics. I hadn't seen Alex on Pal Talk for a long time and all of a sudden he showed up one day under a different screen name. He messaged to say hello. That's when I told him that my marriage was over. He was very shocked because he thought I had a good marriage all along. He had prayed for my husband and family in the past. I explained to him that I didn't believe in talking about my marriage to people other than qualified counselors. He understood.
Much to my surprise he was still talking to Suzanne. He told me she said he completed her. He was still very oppressed however. I wondered how it was going to work out for him with a woman from another continent when he was afraid to go out his own front door due to Agoraphobia. I started text chatting with him more due to not having anyone else to talk to at this point in my life, still living as a shut-in. I had missed his company as well.
One day I had this dream about him. This made me understand something about the dynamic of our relationship.
In this dream I was a little five year old girl. The kindergarten I was in was having some sort of show for the school audience. I didn't know what the show was about. All I saw was that each child in the class walked up to the stage one at a time to be announced to the crowd. When it was my turn I shyly walked up the stairs to the stage and stood there in the spot light just like each child had done before me. And within the crowd I could see Alex sitting there admiring me as if I was so special, like a parent would be, who was beaming with pride because of their adorable child. In that moment on stage I was feeling awkward and afraid. Then I saw Alex looking at me with so much admiration that I felt loved and accepted as a child would be when their parent is proud of them. Then the dream faded.
I realized something about myself after that dream. I had a real deficit within myself due to lack of a parent being proud of me. I never had a father active in my life. My father had left my mother when I was only four years old. After that I never so much as got even a birthday card from him. I was left with a mother that had a lot of anger issues that she'd take out on me. She had married my father because she had gotten pregnant with me. It was the biggest mistake of her life she thought. Growing up she would often have fits of rage and pin me to the floor. Then she would slap my face over and over shouting, "You make my life miserable!" I had very poor self esteem as a child all through school. I wouldn't talk much and often hid my face with my elbow at my desk. I remember wishing that I had some sort of disease so I could stay home and not have to go into the outside world. My self esteem only started to improve when I became born again at the age of fifteen. I came to Christ after a hellish ordeal which you can read about here: My Testimony. After that, when I was learning to walk with God and reading the scriptures, I had come across a verse about how God is a father to the fatherless. That's when I asked God if he'd take the place of my non-existent biological father. As I grew in Christ my self esteem got much better. I had gained an appreciation of myself that only a heavenly father could cultivate. I never got that from another person, until I met Alex.
I don't know why Alex had such a high opinion of me. No one else thought I was that great. He thought I was so smart, so insightful, and very kind. He once sent me a song called Beautiful, by Sarah Brightman, after I tried explaining to him that I'm not as good of a person as he thought I was. He had an unrealistic view of my spirituality. I told him, "I swear when I get mad." This didn't seem to sway him.
I was kicking myself because I realized I was falling in love with him. He had sent me a power point presentation he'd made for a girl he once had a crush on in rehab. There was a song that played during the presentation called, "Close To You" by Tiesto. In the presentation he shows pictures of white unicorns and a girl with curly blonde hair that can only touch the horn of the unicorn because they could not be together due to being in different worlds. In the presentation was a picture of him you can see in the graphic below.
My divorce had just been finalized. I just could not jump into another relationship this fast I told myself. But, at this point I felt a little bit ignored by Alex because he was always talking to Suzanne. One day I typed him an email saying that I was such a good devoted friend in the past and now that he's talking to Suzanne all the time I'm just like chopped liver to him. Much to my surprise he wrote me back a very angry response telling me that how dare I interfere with his relationship with Suzanne.
Meanwhile he'd fallen into drugs again. I knew that the long distance relationship with Suzanne wasn't the cure-all for him. I knew that I was better equipped to be the one there for him because I could be there in person. I guess I had the same delusion a lot of women have when they think they are going to save a man. A lot of women fall into this. The song "Close To You" lyrics fit all too well, if only my love could have been enough to save him.
I had this inbuilt character quality to myself that I wasn't sure where it came from. I remember as a young eleven year old adolescent telling God that I wanted to take in the cat that nobody wanted. That if I were to go to a cat shelter that I'd pick the cat with the crooked tail who looked frail and sickly so I could nurse it back to health. I knew I was talking to God metaphorically. I just didn't know why I had this desire. I also told him that I wanted children that nobody else wanted. Why was I like this? I didn't understand at the time.
One day about a month later, Alex texted me to say that he broke up with Suzanne not really giving me a reason as to why other than he didn't feel like they belonged together anymore. I didn't feel too bad about it since he'd never even met the woman in person and probably never would have either. I found myself on the phone with him now on a regular basis having to talk him out of going out to look for drugs and hearing him go through painful withdrawal. It wasn't exactly a romance at this point. It was me serving to be the person he turned to in order to hold on to life. He was struggling with suicidal thoughts quite frequently and found solace in a Christian song called, "I Need You To Survive." I was constantly seeking help for him over the computer asking other friends I'd met on line to pray for him and talk to him. At that time I got to know his cousin Sonya a lot better as well within the Pal Talk chat rooms. She too was seeking God just like Alex was. She followed him around to every chat room Bible study or music room he went to.
I tried to get Alex to enter a David Wilkerson Teen Challenge Program for adults. He finally called a center which was a few hours away from where he lived. A man drove all the way to his house to bring him to visit the center. His name was John Paul. He had been a former drug addict who now volunteered to work for the center. The dramatic testimony John Paul gave him on this drive to the center and back really gave Alex hope as never before. John Paul told him that he was such a bad drug addict that he died in the hospital. He was in a body bag in the hospital on a cot that was about to be transferred to the morgue when God brought him back from the dead. He then unzipped his body bag from the inside and got out of it, knelt on the hospital floor and gave his life to God. It was an incredible miracle. Alex had never heard of things like this before.
Alex then toured the center. He didn't like the looks of the place. He thought it looked too small and cramped and decided not to go there. He went on to seek God on his own, but with more vigor this time. John Paul's testimony was the push he needed, because it was so powerful. While Alex had been at the center for the visit the director at the time prayed for him to be free from drug addiction. After that Alex never touched street drugs again. I guess he didn't need to be in the full program.
After Alex got his life together he was able to actually be more like a boyfriend instead of a person on the verge of death at any given moment. This was a nice break for me. Before I decided to meet him I was praying about it and God told me in a still small voice. "If you want to be with him there might be a danger that he could eventually take his life. Do you want to risk this? Do you want to be with him no matter what happens?" I knew I had to make a decision, and I knew I had been warned. Finally I said one day to God, "No matter what happens." I knew with God you just don't half way commit to someone. I knew I was either going to make a solid choice to stay by this man or I should never even meet him in the first place. You don't play with the hearts of desperate souls. They aren't there for a whirlwind romance, souls are on the line. His soul became a priority, not our romance. My purpose was to push him in the direction towards God and all the goals he wanted to achieve. He had aspirations of wanting to help people overcome drug addiction. He wanted to be there to minister to others, to pray for the sick, and win people to Christ.
He became quite a zealous convert after that. He was able to memorize and quote Scriptures and preach spiritual concepts that were really astounding. He became a street evangelist witnessing to every one he met. It's true what the Bible says about those who are forgiven much love much (Luke 7:48). I was so happy to see him flourish. His neighbors and close family members found him to be obnoxiously zealous at times. His nephew found him downright funny. I found him to be just adorably cute. I just sat back like a proud mother seeing him flourish. I would sit there and listen to him go on and on about the Scriptures he found inspiring because he made it interesting and his enthusiasm was compelling. He was spouting off scriptures I had given him years ago, but no matter, my delivery was kind of boring, his was dynamic.
Click here to read Chapter - My Home Away From Home