Mark - Part 2

** All names have been changed for confidentiality **

** Warning - drug/alcohol abuse, suicide and depression mentioned in this blog **

I went home completely heart broken, feeling regretful and frustrated. I called Julie and told her what happened. She was trying to comfort me. She had just broken up with her boyfriend as well. I decided to go clear my head and go for a drive. After my drive, I went to my room and took some Tylenol Night-time so that I could fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for as long as possible.

In the next few days, I found myself extremely depressed, as one is after a breakup. I had no motivation to do anything. All I wanted to do was sleep. I felt like if I was sleeping, I wouldn't think about Mark, I wouldn't be sad or feel any pain.

Because I was sleeping so much, it became harder to stay asleep. I started stocking up on sleeping pills from the drug store. I had a mix of drug store sleeping pills, Tylenol PM, melatonin and many others. I found myself taking 4-8 pills a night. I didn’t care if it was too many to take in one shot. I just didn’t want to feel anything anymore.

I had told Julie as well as Mark that I was taking these pills to help me sleep because I was so upset. Julie took me to Shoppers Drug Mart to get melatonin in hopes that it wouldn’t be so harsh on my insides. I didn’t care.

One night I decided to go for a drive, I was crying and speeding. I was doing 145km/h on a 60 km/h road. It was out in the country so there was a lot of dips and bends in the roads. It was also very dark. I didn’t realize I was coming up to a extremely raised set of train tracks on a steep hill. I flew over them going 145, I swear I caught air. I landed back down and the car kind of spiraled out of control. I was almost in the ditch. I put the car in park and just cried. I called Mark. He was surprisingly close to where I was. He came to check on me. He didn’t want me to drive myself home, so he asked me to call my parents to come drive me home. I didn’t want my parent’s knowing what had happened. He suggested I called Julie. She could come drive my car home then he would take her home.

We drove to Julie’s house, picked her up and drove back to my car. Mark drove me home and Julie followed. When we stopped in front of my house, I thanked Mark for taking care of me and he looked at me and said, “Get out.” My heart sank. Julie gave me my keys and he drove her home.

I asked her what they talked about when she got home. She said that he was saying how sad he was about the breakup and how he was worried about me. I trusted Julie that she would try to convince him that he was over-reacting and making a mistake.

A few days go by and I noticed that Julie and Mark had become Facebook friends. I texted Julie while she was at work and asked her why they had become friends? She read my message and ignored it. My heart started beating out of my chest. I got this overwhelming feeling that I was about to find out something bad. I couldn't wait any longer for her to reply to me. I ended up driving to work to confront her.

When I opened the door, I could see she was playing on her phone. She looked up at me and she went white as a ghost. I told her to take her break and come talk. I asked her what was going on?

Julie proceeded to tell me that Mark had reached out to her because he had been struggling with the break up. She had gone to his house a few times because he was "upset". My heart sunk into my stomach. I didn't understand why she kept it from me and why she would even go over. She was supposed to be my friend. I couldn't wrap my head around why she would prioritize him over me.

I made my way home and tried to give Julie the benefit of the doubt, but something just wasn't sitting right with me. Little did I know, this was the beginning of the horrific saga of Mark and Julie.

Some time went by and I chose to look past the fact that Julie had gone behind my back. We were at work, laughing, talking as we always did. Julie passed me her phone to show me a post about something. As I am looking at her phone, I saw a text message come through. The contact hadn't been saved in her phone, so just a phone number showed up. I instantly recognized the phone number. It was Mark.

Naturally, I panicked. The message read " Ok, fine :( ". I clicked on the message to see the conversation. All messages had been deleted. I looked at Julie and said, " Why is Mark texting you saying, Ok, fine :( ?". Once again, she went white as a ghost and said, "I'm so sorry". Turned out that she and Mark had continued to talk, see each other and now had started to become a thing. I was absolutely mortified.

Once Mark found out that I knew about them, he became a completely different person. He was malicious, rude and heartless. He started calling me names, told me that I was a terrible person, for what, I have no idea. When I confronted him about it, he said to me, "Well, you were a shitty friend to Julie anyways". Again, I have no idea where he got that from since Julie and I always told each other we are just like sisters, but I digress.

At this point, I felt completely betrayed, as anyone would. I was not only dealing with losing my relationship with Mark, but I also just lost one of my closest friends. I didn't deal with it very well. I started drinking a lot and finishing it off with sleeping pills. I didn't want to feel anything and I resorted to alcohol. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

One night, I was working the afternoon shift. It was Julie's 19th birthday. She and a bunch of co-workers all got together at someone' s house prior to going to Boston Pizza on Clifton Hill. I got off work an hour early and decided to walk over to Boston Pizza with my friend Shannon. As we are walking over, I asked her, "Do you think she would bring Mark to this?". Shannon responded, "I don't think she would, I don't think she is that stupid".

We get to BP and approach security checking ID's. I walk up to the door and the first person I saw... Mark. I swear, I think I blacked out for a moment. The rage I felt was more than I have ever experienced in my life. I got past security and approached Mark. He looked up at me and went red. I looked at him and said, "REALLY?!". All this scumbag could say to me was "You were supposed to be working till 12". I kid you not, I almost punched him right in the face. Thankfully Shannon came to my rescue and pulled me away. I wasn't even upset, I was furious. I felt so embarrassed that my ex-boyfriend was dating my now ex-friend ! Everyone knew it too.

Once I found Julie, it turned into a screaming match, I think I even shoved her. She was hammered so she had no idea what was going on. Mark ended up taking her away from me and leaving. I will never forget what my co-workers said to me that night. Many of them said, "Emily, I have never seen you that mad. You went into Hulk-mode". How I didn't get arrested that night, I will never know.

I went home and drank alone. I popped some Tylenol PM's and called it a night. I remember waking up in the morning hoping it was all a dream. It was not.

Over the next few weeks, people in the office knew what was going on between Julie and I. Things were awkward, people started taking sides as well. It was a nightmare. I was talking to a co-worker one day and they told me that Julie had decided to move in with Mark. Keep in mind, this all happened within a month after Mark and I broke up.

Hearing things about their relationship through the grape vine continued for months. Anytime I got new information from people, the more depressed I got.

My way of coping with all of this was becoming incoherent. Whether it was drinking until I passed out or taking enough sleeping pills until I passed out. I started to notice that I was going through a lot of drug store sleeping pills. I was starting to scare myself with how many I was taking a night.

I decided to sit down with my parents and tell them what I had been doing and that I think I needed a better solution.

I made an appointment with my doctor and told her that I was having trouble sleeping because of everything going on. She prescribed me some heavy duty sleeping pills. She warned me to only take one when needed.

Once I had the prescription pills, I felt better knowing that these ones would actually help me pass out like I wanted to. I was pretty responsible with them for the first little while, but once I finally heard directly from Julie, and not from co-workers, that they were living together, dating and buying pets together, I lost control.

I remember going home that night and telling my mom what Julie had told me. We talked about it and how it made me feel. I went to bed feeling better that I had talked through it, or so I thought.

To be continued...