Adrift at Sea —Dan’s blog on dankim.com

I found this post and thought I’d repost it here for Ellie to read. I really hope Ellie is still reading this blog. I don’t really know any more. I know she was still reading in February…

Love shouldn’t hurt.

Love is something that is wonderful to give and receive.

But to be able to give love to and receive love from another human being, we first have to be able to give love to and receive love ourselves.

Why do we have to love ourselves before we can love another?

Because, if we don’t love ourselves, then we don’t value ourselves. If we don’t value ourselves, then our inner well of self-worth is running on empty, and the only way we can fill it, is to find someone else to love us.

If we fill our inner well of self-worth with someone else’s emotions, we start to feel afraid that the focus of our desire will stop loving us and our inner well will become dry again.

This fear leads to panic. The panic leads us to try to control the focus of our desire, so that they cannot leave us. We then get angry that someone else seems to have power over our emotions, so we push them away.

This is a very common, very uncomfortable and completely unsustainable situation.

So today, begin your journey to love by learning to love yourself.

Do something just for you; something that makes you feel good and is good for you.

Stand in front of a mirror and affirm what a wonderful human being you are and how love comes easily to you.

Write down your fears. Ask yourself why you are afraid. Accept that it is ok for you to feel this way and that you don’t need to do anything to change the way you feel, other than to listen and acknowledge.

When we listen to our fears, they begin to lose power over us. When we acknowledge our emotions, we can begin to change them.

Ellie—

I think that what your father, Ian and Jarrod have done to you has caused you to doubt that you are a lovable person. I think how Chelsey betrayed you also makes you feel unworthy. I think you doubt that you are worthy of being loved.

I think your father’s constant emotional abuse and neglect of both you and your mother has taken its toll on you. I think you don’t realize how good a relationship can be. I think you only know what you have seen between your father and mother and don’t have any idea what love is really supposed to be like.

I think Ian cheating on you caused you to doubt how beautiful, smart, funny, sweet, and desirable you really are. I think this is especially the case because the girl he cheated on you with wasn’t as smart or pretty as you. Ian is an idiot. A lot of men are. Look at Tiger Woods. Look at Jesse James. Look at John Edwards.

You know me and what it means when I make a commitment—like the one I made to you last June. Look at how steadfast I have been, even in spite of the horrific things your addictions have made you do and say. I still love you—I have always loved you and always will. Whether you believe me or not is your choice. I also know you wouldn’t have told me you loved me if you didn’t.

I think the way Jarrod dumped you made things worse. Jarrod isn’t your friend. He had no commitment to you. He only wanted to use you for sex and was willing to give you the drugs and alcohol your addictions craved in return. If he had loved you, he wouldn’t have thrown you away as soon as he tired of you. If he had loved you, he wouldn’t have traded your dignity for drugs and alcohol or allowed you to debase yourself like that.

I don’t think you realize that one reason I have refused to do some of the things you have asked me to do is because I love you. Just because I love you doesn’t mean I will always do what you want me to—that isn’t what love is about and you should know better.

I know you don’t like some of the things I do but I will do what I believe is the best for you. I won’t do anything that would hurt you—denying you alcohol doesn’t hurt you—even if you don’t realize it yet. I wouldn’t do anything to take away your dignity or debase you—because I love you, respect you, and really only want the best for you.

Chelsey isn’t really your friend either. If she was your friend she wouldn’t have pimped you out to her friend Jarrod. If she was really your friend she would have been outraged at how Jarrod used you—she wasn’t. I don’t know why you consider her your best friend or did.

Unlike Chelsey, I care about you. I have cared about you all of your life. I made a promise to your parents years ago, whether they care to remember it or not—that I would give you the best advice and guidance I could, protect you, and take care of you and your brother when they decided to check out of your lives years ago.

One reason I love you so much is because I have seen how much you have grown and changed over the years. You were once a terror that your father nicknamed “THE BITCH”, and in many ways, rightly so. You were a terror—so selfish and self-centered that you had earned that nickname.

Somewhere along the years, you grew into a funny, sweet, caring and compassionate woman—someone who would help others and do things like run in 5k races to raise money for charities. You became an amazing young woman who cared about what Gee, a woman she had never met and was ten years dead at the time, would care or think.

Some things didn’t change—your feisty attitude and stubborn will are still the same. Your fierce pride in being a good student and one of the most intelligent people I know—though sometimes you act the scatterbrain—are still the same. Your mischievous sense of humor is still there. These are also things I love about you and I hope never change.

These are some of the multitude of reasons I love you Ellie.

If you think you aren’t worthy of being loved; or think that you’re not loveable—I say that you’re wrong.

How do I know? Because I love you.

I have loved you all of your life. I loved the adorable daughter of two of my good friends—people I had considered family for a decade when you were born. Then I loved you because you were one of my friends in your own right. And then, finally, last summer I realized I loved you as the amazing woman I want to marry and raise a family with—to spend the rest of my life with.

That is why I know you are lovable and worthy of love.

Ellie, you used to love yourself. You can see it in some of the photos I have of you, like this one, which is one of my favorites:

You can see how happy and confident you are. It is pretty clear in this photo that you know how smart and beautiful you are.

Here’s another photo—one that shows the truth of who you and I are to each other:

You can see how close we are and how much we care about each other in this photo. It is very clear to anyone who sees it. Yet, you still want to deny that we have cared about each other for years—that we have been friends for years—that we have loved each other for years.

That is what your fears and your addictions are making you do.

Ellie, answer these questions if you are brave enough and honest enough to do it—

• Is it any coincidence that you started lying about us and about me on the same day I confronted you about your drinking? I don’t think so.
• Ask yourself exactly what it was that made you stop talking to me—the man you had just spent a week talking to about marriage, having children with, raising a family together, and whom you told you loved in two different languages dozens of times?
• Ask yourself why you have pushed away only one person in the past year—the one person who loved you and cared enough about you to see what you were doing to yourself?
• Ask yourself who else cared enough and paid enough attention to you to try and get you the help you wanted and still need?
• Ask yourself why you were still reading what I wrote and following the advice I was giving you in these posts to you as late as this January if you really didn’t love me or care about me? Or why you are reading this now?
• Ask yourself what happened these past two semesters and why didn’t you make Dean’s List either of them?
• Ask yourself what really happened when you had your car accident in January? Was I right—were you drunk or high at the time of the accident?

Earlier this year, I chose to walk away from you—a person I have known and loved for over 20 years—only because I think that you have become a casualty of your addictions. I think you have lost yourself to your addictions and the inner demons of self-doubt and insecurity that have allowed your addictions to thrive.

If you ever realize that you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, and you should want my love, support and presence in your life again–walking beside you on your long road to recovery—I will do as I have promised you and your mother so many times.

But, unlike before I walked away—you will have to show me that you are once again the woman I love—the woman that loves me and whispered “Sarangheyo” to me so many times last June.

You will have to show me that you love me once again and are as committed to having me in your life as I have been to you this past year.

You will have to make a place for me beside you and show that you will fight to keep me there—I will not settle for being on the edges of you life ever again.

You will have to show me that you value our friendship—our relationship—and are committed to working at it as I have done.

You will have to tell the truth about us and what we really have been to each other—what we mean to each other.

And finally, you will have to make amends for the lies and damage your addictions have caused.

I will not say that this will be easy—fixing the wreckage of your life that the addictions have caused will not be easy—but if you truly love me, she will be able to do it. The woman I love is strong enough and stubborn enough to do anything she sets her mind to, and she is smart enough and honest enough to see the truth of this.

If you need help doing all this—and are truly trying—you should know you should ask me for my help. If you are truly committed to me and trying to accomplish all this—I will help you. We have always been so much greater together than we could ever be apart because we have always loved each other and supported each other.

I do not know who the drug-addicted alcoholic that has been occupying your physical shell is—nor do I care to know her. I have no commitment to the drug-addicted alcoholic that prostituted herself for drugs and alcohol—she is not the woman I love. She is not my beloved Ellie—the woman that loves me.

It is your decision now—it is now up to you.

Until you decide that you want to be more than a drug-addicted alcoholic no one can help you.

Until you decide you want to be the person God meant you to be you will remain a pale shadow of your true self.

Until you ask for help no one can help you.

Until you decide that you are worth loving and love yourself—you can not truly love anyone or accept anyone’s love for yourself—not even mine.

Regardless of what you choose to do with your life, your addictions and yourself—I hope that you will remember that I love you.

I truly hope you realize what your addictions are doing to you—that you finally choose to fight them before they destroy your health, your body, your mind and your future.

I hope you choose to come back to the man you loves and that loves you, so we can start our future together.

May God watch over my beloved Ellie. God bless her and protect her, even from herself. May God grant her the strength, courage, and will to fight her illness and return to being her true self. May God grant her the wisdom to see the truth—both about her illness and about us.