Things with Chris have been good. So, so amazingly good. And for some reason, I am completely terrified about this.

I don’t know where this stems from, and I’m trying to figure it out.
* Is it because we crashed and burned on Round One, and I’m afraid of history repeating itself? Could be.
* Is the problem that my new meds haven’t totally kicked in yet and I’m still dealing with a chemical imbalance that causes major anxiety? Entirely possible.
* Is it because one man who promised to love me forever did, in fact, leave me a little over 2 years ago? Probably at least partially.
* Is it rooted in self-worth issues that started when I was a kid and my dad told me I was fat when I was 5 years old? Maybe.
* Is it some mutated DNA strand handed down from my Puritan ancestors who believed that life was just hard work and misery and that nobody deserves to be happy? Hell if I know.

But it brings up this feeling that I call the Doom Cloud. It’s as if there’s a voice in the back of my head telling me that yes, things are good with Chris, but they’re TOO good. I’m too happy. This can’t possibly last, it has to end. At some point the proverbial clock is going to strike midnight and I’m going to turn back into a pumpkin.

So it’s like the anxiety is this weird self-defense mechanism that kicks in to prevent myself from being too happy. I guess my brain’s logic is that maybe then it won’t hurt as much when it all goes south. Which is stupid, because if it ever does come to that, it’s going to hurt like hell. I know that from past experience, and I imagine it’d be worse, because I feel even closer to him now.

The Doom Cloud is basically this black cloud on the horizon that you can’t avoid, you can’t *not* see it, you know it’s coming right at you, and it’s absolutely terrifying.

And the kicker is, he does everything right. He checks in with me every few hours with text messages. He goes out of his way to do nice things for me. On Tuesday night, I was having a hard time, but not really talking to him about it, I was just letting those little demons rattle around in my head. He seemed to somehow know, and he came over after the girls were asleep. We sat on the couch and he held me in his arms and petted my hair and talked to me for over two hours. Or rather, he made me talk about my feelings. Which is something I am still really terrible at doing, but he’s good at dragging it out of me. I didn’t know how much I really and truly needed that time with him until he was actually there.

He tells me he loves me over and over, and I believe him. He says he’s with me because he chose to be with me and he wants to be with me, and I believe him.

Then he tells me that I deserve to be happy and feel loved, and… on some level, I know that’s true, but I just can’t seem to internalize it.

Once, when I was apologizing for all of my neuroses, I said, “You know, your girlfriend may be batshit crazy, but on the up side, she really loves the hell out of you.” He told me that he’s been with many iterations of batshit crazy women, and he can handle my particular brand of crazy since it won’t involve him ending up at the ER at any point. (That’s a long story for another time.)

I told him that I’m terrified that at some point he’s going to get tired of constantly talking me off the ledge, and he’s going to decide I’m not worth the effort anymore.

He said, “I don’t know. Once you come off the ledge, you’re pretty damn fun.”

I’m trying, y’all. I’m trying to ignore the Doom Cloud. I’m trying to spend more time off the ledge than on it. I’m trying to just relax and soak it all in and be happy. I just didn’t expect it to be this damn hard.