"One is a lonely number," is the first line of a country song chorus. I have learned that 2 is just as lonely a number when one is alone in a relationship.

These days I am mostly grateful to be single and not struggling in a dysfunctional romance. But I still dream of a healthy twosome between myself and Prince Charming. It has absolutely never happened yet and I am 47 years old.

As a child I was a loner and still enjoy my own company but at times would welcome someone to be a loner with. Having been diagnosed with mental illness I walk around with a registered service dog, and I am not hiding the fact that my biggest struggle is Complex Post Traumatic Disorder. My second service dog (they tend to run away - just joking) is such a lover of people, by the time I get him calmed down in a social setting I have forgotten to be socially anxious. It works well.

I would not hide my mental health struggles from a potentially serious relationship. It turns out I don't have to - as soon as I am interested in a man I am turned down, even if my labeled and harnessed dog is nowhere near me advertising my handicap. Drawing addicts, desperados and flat out jerks is no problem however. "That is caused by breathing and being alive," my friend told me, not unique to me. 

In my brief marriage to my former counsellor's son - professional boundary violation exemplary - I was the built in excuse if the duo failed. After all I was the sh!+head and fool in therapy with his mother when we met. She introduced us after two years of counselling... once she had my "marbles," in the palm of her hand.

"I wouldn't sell you junk," she kept saying. But she was his mother and far from objective...

I have said I do not want to deal with another person with mental health adventures (as I prefer to call them) but how hypocritical is that! I don't mean to be - it's just that I believe the quote: "When it comes to people, two halves make a quarter." Meaning two dysfunctional denominators do not make a greater whole. So what does that leave me with then?! 

"I have been looking for the missing part of me," I told someone once.  "Maybe nothing is missing," they replied. I like that... I may be a jigsaw puzzle held together with scotch tape and cardboard but I am all here. I am neither delusional nor have alternative personalities, but I heard the joke that the people who do are never lonely or bored.

I am finally healthy enough to say no to compromise; as in: no to a toxic soul and no to trying to rehabilitate a dysfunctional man. My mantra is: “For better or forget it."

Bailey

A Moodscope member