What he believes

He believes that it’s better to keep his feelings aside from whatever he does. He said that his feelings never mattered, and that hurts because it’s true. I never considered his feelings most of the time. Whenever I wanted to do something, I always asked how he felt about it; he would tell me, but I would do the opposite. I always lost confidence or cared more about what others said, and I saw how wrong I was then. I asked if it was hard for him to talk to me, and he said yes because he still gets irritated, which I don’t blame him for. I told him about this app, how I vent here, how it feels like a dream when I talk about him, and how relieving it feels. He asked me what the worst thing I had written about him was, and I told him it was about how he treated me when we broke up and the names he called me. I deserved them; I mean, part of me deserves that, and he agrees. He says that I broke him as much as he has broken me. Wow, we are really messed up. He told me he doesn’t cry; he just plasters a smile and gets his shit over with, and he’s smoking all the time. I asked him, “So why do you want to help me when you should be helping yourself?” He says that in a way, I help him; I don’t know, though. I also smoked today; I got high, and it was nice. I know smoking isn’t good, and honestly, I don’t do it much—maybe once a week. I’m not an addict, so I won’t be doing that for another while, but he does it every day, plus vaping, and it pisses me off how his mom lets him; she doesn’t know he smokes weed, but she knows he vapes, and that makes me angry because he’s way too addicted to it. It’s like he’s being reckless. I told him to drive safely; he drives high, and that scares me. He says, “Sure.” I want to say, “For me, please drive safely,” but does that even matter anymore? Do I matter that much anymore? Would he do anything for me anymore? It would be wrong, I think, and I don’t say it because I feel like he would say he doesn’t have to do anything for me anymore; it’s his girlfriend who matters now more than me. I’m no one but a fucking friend now, meaningless really, but he shows otherwise; he’s been the one texting me, so today I tried texting him, and I don’t think we can get anywhere; really, all we talk about is us. I enjoy talking about us, but it angers us both because we both wanted it to work badly, but we knew why it didn’t. and I hate it because I still don’t have the courage to stand up for myself to my parents, which is the reason we can’t work out. The fact that my parents so badly don’t want me to be with him is the issue. They started disliking him over nothing when they found out we had been staying up on call late at night during our winter break and wanted his parents to talk to them about it, which they found ridiculous, and for that matter, so did I. I got in trouble, and my parents were making it as if I was pregnant or something, saying, “See how they left you with the problem.” I never had the courage to stand up to my parents; I was raised to not be disrespectful to them, and some people would argue that yes, it’s not disrespecting them if we just say what we want and what we feel, but to them it would be. I feel like after everything they have done for me, I can’t just go against them like that; they have been with me through a lot. But loving him always made me feel this way: I went behind their backs to be with him. I chose him over my family, and my family was hurt; they felt betrayed. I left with him once, and they brought me back because his mom said that I belonged with my family, but if I needed her to pick me up again, she would. I absolutely love his mom; she always understood me more than my parents ever did; she knew why I stayed silent and why I didn’t have the power to stand up to them; she says she has been in my shoes and knows what it is like. But I messed up so badly that she doesn’t like me anymore, and that’s fine because I deserve it. To this day, I still can’t do that; that’s what he’s so mad about—the fact that I can’t stand up for him. I hate that too, but he doesn’t understand because his mom is so understanding while mine says we have no reason to have depression and they’re very old-schooled. I don’t know. I don’t want to be stuck in the hole where I can never stand up for myself to them, but it’s hard when they’ve given me everything.