I’m laying here, in my bed, in the darkness. I’ve got my headphones on, and I’m listening to some music. Now i’m stuck on this computer.
The past three days have gone horrible. It’ll hurt me to try and go into detail about things, but I’m already hurt enough so what’s the point in not telling you. I’ve gotten broken up with. I’ve been having panic attacks (that seem to be getting worse and worse by the hour). I’ve realized that people are starting to bully me.
I’m mentally burned-out. I can’t cry, I can’t scream, I can only think. Yet, thinking doesn’t help anything. It’s just barring horrible thoughts into my head. Is it really my fault that I can’t have a deep, meaningful relationship with anyone? It must be…
Even though it doesn’t look like much, it feels like I’ve been trapped. Put into a simulation where the scientists outside are trying to figure out how much stress, anxiety and depression is enough to kill a person.
I’ve started to come to the conclusion that the world is against me.
I’m pretty sure all 8 billion of us have asked ourselves the same question.
The “dark night of the soul” is a rite of passage for everyone who’s bothered to give a damn about anything.
At times, the mind goes numb in order to prevent emotional overload. Then it allows what you’re doing: thinking. It’s not fun, but it helps.
It’s not a matter of “fault,” it has to do with opportunity to meet the right person. There’s no telling when that might happen, but the odds are better when you realize the opportunity continues to exist.
Feeling stuck sucks! When I feel that way, I visualize things I’d like to do and places I’d like to be. Physically, we may be stuck, but in our minds, we can have lunch on Venus.
I view the world in two ways, the human world and the natural one. The natural one seems pretty accommodating most of the time. The human world is too confused to conspire against me as an individual. I don’t take the rest of the conspiracies personally.
Be good to yourself. Be ready for the possibility of meeting someone great. If it happens in a week or in years, don’t lose hope or stop being open to opportunities.
Breakups are so fucking brutal the first few days. Then the first few weeks. Then eventually that pain weaves itself into your existence. It becomes part of your story, but not all of who you are. As you continue to weave the fabric of your life, the pain of right now will become an accent, a marker of the time.
“Why? It must be me. I must be deficient. No woman wants me, and whenever I can delude someone into dating me, they eventually leave because I’m not enough.” The truth was just that we were incompatible. I wanted something to work that was never meant to. I had some great times with old girlfriends, just as long as we ignored the issues we would never align on. In a sense, it was me, but the idea that I was deficient was a lie. I used to think people were patronizing me when they said “You’ll meet someone special someday,” but then I met my wife, who accepts me and loves me as I am, and doesn’t see my flaws as flaws. What that infuriating statement meant, whether the people meant it this way or not, was that I am not so basic that I would be fully compatible with just anyone. It took someone special to embrace me wholly and not reject part of my personality.
All this to say: breakups hurt terribly. You offer your being to another person, and when they reject it, it feels like they’re rejecting every aspect of you and your very existence. I’ll put it this way though: If a partner had a problem with your left arm, would you hide it around them or try to remove it? Sorry, it’s part of the package. If they reject your left arm, they reject the rest of you too. It hurts because you can’t help that your left arm is that way, but it’s not a shortcoming for you. It’s not even fair to say “it’s their problem;” it’s just an incompatibility. For now, you’ll ask “Why? What’s so wrong with my arm that they can’t accept the rest of me?” Do you want to be with someone who doesn’t like your arm though? One day you’ll meet someone who has no problem with your left arm, or any other part of you. Everyone up to that point will hurt like hell because “what the fuck is so wrong with my arm that people keep rejecting it?! I just want someone to love and accept me!” I didn’t meet that person until I was 29. Once I did, it didn’t matter that I got dumped multiple times before. I was home.
So for now, cry. Listen to music. Rage. Sleep. Journal. Post here. Grieve–you’ve suffered a loss arguably worse than death. Don’t drown though. Don’t forget to swim. Find something to help you keep your head above water for part of the day. For me, going to work was the only thing that kept me going for awhile. Remember this, and say it out loud (uncomfortable I know, but out loud actually helps): “I am not deficient. I am enough. I am good. I am smart. I am worthy.” Worthy of your ex? Clearly they didn’t think so. But (and again, this sounds cheesy and trite) if you are worthy for yourself, the right person will embrace that without you having to hide or change parts of yourself.
I felt that way before. “Okay, is this amusing to you? What are you trying to find? What’s the way forward?” How I’ve interpreted it in hindsight is that God or the universe was doing just that, but it wasn’t passive or malicious. I was being subjected to stress, anxiety, and depression to the point where I had to accept the chaos around me and acknowledge that I couldn’t control the universe. When that happened, the world started opening up. My experience left its mark on me, I’m still insecure and anxious and have depressive tendencies, but I can’t control the shitshow around me, so I have to figure out how to navigate it.