In Memoriam

I was advised by my therapist to share my story with strangers, lift the burden a little bit, so to speak. I don't have any social media accounts and steamgifts is the closest thing to an online community I know, so... there you go. I was originally writing this big thing about my PTSD, depression and loneliness, but then I realised I was being selfish and instead decided to scrap most of that and focus on what's really important: my late girlfriend and our story together.

Warning: what follows is probably not for the faint of heart... I'm sorry and please feel free to skip to the end.

She was intelligent, funny, beautiful and kind and lived a life of misery. She was, to put it mildly, repeatedly abused by her own father from the ages of 7 to 14, at which point she decided to run away from home. I only met her when she was already 19 and addicted to alcohol and cocaine. I was only 16 then, if you can believe it, and as clean a kid as you can possibly imagine, but somehow we really hit it off. The first of our 3 years together was like a dream come true, she made me happy for the first time in my life and I think I also made her happy; she cut down on the drinking and gave up on cocaine. She said she loved me and that I was the only good thing that had ever happened to her. She made me a better man and I loved her so much.

Then I had to go away for a month for some family vacation nonsense I could not escape from and when I got back she had bruises all over and was doing heroin. I tried to get her to tell me exactly what happened, but she refused to and would just ramble on about her childhood-- it wasn't too hard to put two and two together. But the police were useless. Eventually, I decided we should move to a new place cause clearly it wasn't safe for her there anymore.

The next and final 2 years were this sort of downward spiral into insanity. She'd try to mutilate herself so that she wouldn't look pretty anymore, in case he'd come back. Cause maybe if she wasn't pretty anymore, he'd leave her alone. Her words. I was juggling highschool, a job and also trying to get her help, but she'd go into these violent outbursts whenever I even mentioned it. My therapist says I was just a kid and I got overwhelmed and I did all I could, but I know deep in my heart I could have done more, I should have done more. And maybe she'd still be here, maybe I could still hold her in my arms...

Two days before the end, I came home to find her with her clothes almost completely ripped apart, her face almost beaten to a pulp, bruises on her wrists and arms and some cuts on her legs and thighs. I knew he'd somehow found her again and I tried calling an ambulance, but she held on to me as hard and as tightly as she could and begged me not to, that I could take care of her myself. That she didn't want anyone else touching her ever again. Ever again. I was completely lost. I ended up acquiescing and did the best I could with what we had. She fell asleep in my arms. I cried so hard eventually there wasn't any sound coming out of my mouth.
When she woke up the next day she tried to break up with me, claiming she was ruining my life and that this was the only thing she could do for me now. A clean break, never come back, go away forever, I hate you, I never loved you, go away, go away! She played every trick in the book to try and get me to hate her and/or leave her and it worked, a little bit. I did get upset and told her I'd be back the next day to talk things over properly, to figure out what to do next. And so I left in the morning and only came back the next day...
I wanted to tell her things couldn't go on like this, that she needed professional help and experience I couldn't possibly offer, but that I'd be there every step of the way. I wanted to stand my ground and tell her all this, but I never got the chance.

When I walked into the house the day after, everything was clean and sparkling and pristine. I immediately knew something was wrong and I could almost feel my heart skip a beat. I ran to the bedroom, but she wasn't there. Then I ran to the bathroom and... there she was, dead in the bathtub, her wrists cut, blood everywhere. I still relive the following moments almost every single day, in the form of night terrors and/or random halucinations. Me running to her, slipping on the blood and almost hitting my head on the bathtub. Me reaching to her, trying to get her out of the tub, me slipping again and falling on my back with her falling over me. The blood on the floor now sliding down my back. She was already cold and white as snow, her eyes were completely void of life, but still I tried giving her CPR. Her lips were freezing and her chest was rigid. Eventually I stopped trying to resuscitate her and just lied there on the wet floor, holding her in my arms for... I honestly don't know how long. You could tell me it was 10 minutes or 10 hours, I'd believe you either way. Certainly felt like hours. I know I kept trying to make her hair look nice, for whatever stupid reason. Her hair had been getting longer and she liked it to go behind her right ear, but not the left.

Everything else from that day and from many of the following days is a complete blur. It has been many years since then, but to this very day I still can't remember anything from after the moment I left the bathroom with her body in my arms. Just flashes of strangers' mouths moving and screaming in my direction and noise, so much noise everywhere...

Her name was Rita and she was too good for this world. I still feel lost without her.

TL;DR, Here's some GIVEAWAY STUFF:

Today's my birthday, but instead of happy birthday wishes, I'm actually here to ask you all a favour.
Rita's birthday would be on the 11th of November and I'd like to ask you to help me make that day a day of joy, where we all get to try and spread a sliver of happiness to those around us.

GUIDELINES (the event has ended, however-- please don't add any more giveaways as I'll be closing this thread tomorrow!)
-- create a giveaway that ends on the 11th of November and post it on this thread
-- I don't care which level it is, if it's a AAA title, a bundle game or even a free game, just please don't make it a group giveaway

I'll start:
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/NDPku/castles
(inside the giveaway above you can find ALL the giveaways submitted by everyone in this thread so far and I'll be adding more as they come -- some are still ongoing. Thank you to grubs, for helping me out with these, and thank you, each and every one of you who submitted giveaways!)

https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/EtrRt/grim-fandango-remastered
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/dQVaW/tumbleseed
Can't afford anything else right now, but like I said, hopefully it's the intention that counts.

Help me try and bring a smile to as many people as possible on the day of her birthday.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

And to everyone that has ever been a victim of ANY kind of sexual assault, it was NOT your fault, you ARE beautiful just the way you are. Group together, support each other, do whatever it takes to survive and try and move on. And if you can, speak up. Make your voices be heard; you speaking out now could save someone else tomorrow.

Thank you for reading and sorry for the wall of text...

EDIT: Thank you so much for all the giveaways that are already up and also for any future ones; I won't be able to reply to and thank each and every one of you individually, but please know that all your generous contributions mean the world to me :')

hugs

EDIT 2: It's the 11th today... Forgive me if words will fail me a bit today. I'm speechless at the amount of support I got, but most importantly that hopefully people won't ever forget that Rita and many others like Rita have lived, still live and will live with a kind of unspeakable pain that never goes away-- be kind, be supportive and be loving, always.
I hope you'll allow me to thank you for remembering Rita in particular, because for so long I was the only one doing so... Thank you. Thank you for honouring her memory, thank you for commenting, thank you for creating a giveaway; there's going to be many gifts being delivered through the course of today and I'd like to think she'd smile at the amount of generosity going on on this special day.

I will be closing this thread at some point in the next couple of days and I apologise if I didn't get around to thanking you personally in the comments, but know that I read every single line in there and that I'll never forget your support. So thank you, one more time.

And... happy birthday, Rita... :')