As you are aware, I am in the process of sharing my final thoughts with the world, one personal message at a time. This message contains my final words and thoughts to those whose hearts I have collected and put into my jar of hearts over the years.
Dear beautiful humans who at some point gave such an important piece of yourselves to me,
I know these final words posts have all been my “unapologetic messages” to the world, but this one is very much apologetic and is the only such message I plan to write.
I do owe so many of you an apology, and not just the quick, “hey sorry about that!” kind of apology, but a deep, sincere, overdue, from the heart apology. I wouldn’t dare interrupt your lives or current relationships by reaching out to you individually or by naming you individually, but if you are still reading what I write, here is what I owe you.
My family and friends constantly joke with me about the number of girlfriends I bring around. In recent years (with me laughing as they do — because what else can I do), jokes have been made, jabs have been jabbed, and good-hearted side bets have even taken place for how long it will be before I break up with the next one. I am admittedly often the instigator of these moments, but only from a place of insecurity, I assure you. You know me; laugh when things are funny, and sometimes laugh so that I don’t cry.
I literally can’t even tell the world how many actual committed girlfriends I have had over the past decade because there have been so many of them. None of them have lasted longer than seven months, most of them no more than two or three.
I tried hard in every single one of them. I tried ˆ hard. And strangely, that is one of the biggest reasons why I need to give this apology.
Because I tried so hard, I never actually figured out along the way that most of the time, my relationships ended because of something wrong with me or something that was caused by me. After all, I was sweet, I was funny, I was faithful, I was dedicated, I was caring. I had my own personality flaws for sure, but nothing I could consider as a big enough reason for the end.
For all of the introspection I naturally do all the exhausting time, it actually amazes me that it took almost 30 years of my pubescent life to figure that out.
So, yes. Here we go.
To those of you whose hearts are included in my jar of hearts…
I am sorry. I am so very sorry. I owe you that.
I am not going to make a single excuse. I am simply going to tell you the truth.
I have always had bipolar disorder and I had no idea that I had it. I didn’t know there were several types of bipolar disorder. I always thought, until I was diagnosed with it last year, that there was just the one general disorder where people went in and out of their bipolar episodes for weeks or months at a time.
But that is not the reality of my bipolar disorder. While (looking back) I have had a handful of longer periods of depression or mania, most of my episodes were very short in nature. Hours, sometimes. A day or two, usually.
It was only when I began being triggered heavily and often that I went and sought help from a professional. Once I got the diagnosis, and I started researching my type of disorder, suddenly everything from my past started making so much sense, including my jar of hearts.
I don’t call it a jar of hearts loosely.
I have truly broken the hearts and hopes of several incredible, kind, trusting women for no good reason at all. This was the bipolar disorder. It is how it manifested itself in me. It made me take drastic actions or say really hurtful things to somehow end the relationship out of nowhere, and I had no control over that when it did happen.
Again, no excuses. I hurt you. It’s just the truth. That was my disorder who said those things and did those things, it wasn’t ever me. Yes, the disorder is part of me, but it’s more like having a hallucenigenic fever that just has to break before I can see my world clearly again.
Do you know what the problem is with losing your mind for a moment and burning your own home to the ground?
You can’t just walk back to it the next day, when you’re feeling normal again, and tell it “I didn’t mean to burn you down, can I please still come live here?” Meaning, I burnt many of my relationships to the ground when my bipolar disorder would take over, and because the devastation from my actions or words was so great, there was no way I could go back to any of you and say, “I don’t know what that was I just did, but… Just kidding? Can we still be together?”
I wanted to, I assure you. But I respected you and the pain I caused you too much to do it.
There is something you may remember me telling you while we dated, which I will declare was and is the truth, whole-heartedly.
I have never given up on finding love and having lasting love in my life. I have never stopped being a hopeless romantic. I have never felt like I wouldn’t someday find my forever someone if I just kept looking and just kept trying.
It is important to me that you know that because I need you to know that it wasn’t just some line I was feeding you. It was entirely true and it still is.
Every single time I dated anyone and it developed into a relationship, I always had the best intentions. I never once dated anyone to temporarily fill some void. I never once dated anyone just to get laid. I never once dated anyone with any intention of ending it.
I also never said the words “I love you” without them really meaning something. Please believe that.
In my unending quest to find real and lasting love, and with the inability to see that I was the one usually to blame for my relationships ending, I pulled you into my life. I did all the things to earn your trust and your love. Then I reached into your chest and ripped your heart right out for no real good reason at all.
I am so, so sorry that I did that.
You are a beautiful soul and a beautiful human. You deserved so much better than what I did.
For those of you who had children, your children deserved so much better than a heartbroken mother.
I won’t be so obtuse to ask any of you for your forgiveness. I don’t really deserve it.
I simply feel it is fair to acknowledge what I did to you, and finally own that I really did hurt you.
It was me. Not you.
Except for the girlfriend who got pregnant with her roommate’s baby. That was definitely her. Haha.
But, really, sincerely. To all of you that I really hurt and you never really had an answer as to why, now you have it. And now you have my apology, too.
Dan Pearce | Dan Pearce Was Here (formerly Single Dad Laughing)
