I'm not ok (break up)

I feel like I sound like a depressed broken record. It feels like I’m never going to get over him

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Time is a great healer. It gives us new perspective as we allow ourselves to let go and forgive ourselves and open up to new experiences.

You made a decision based on a very solid basis. If you logically thought about all the pain that staying together would have brought you when the inevitable happened.
He was your first boyfriend so that means you don’t have any personal reference for how a breakup feels, so it makes sense that this feels like it’ll last forever.

But, friend, it won’t. That’s not how life. Life is always changing, and part of that applies to our pains as well - that doesn’t stay constant either, but it fades, it changes, it loses its power over time, and as we learn and grow.

A useful trick is to have a favourite song that you know all the words for. Make an agreement with yourself that every time you think of this song, you will solely focus on the lyrics and not think of him, not think of anything else. Then, every time the thought of him comes to you, sing that song and refuse to think about him. It sounds silly but it is super effective. You will be actively creating a space for yourself where the memories of him aren’t allowed. It’ll break the mental habit of thinking about him and mourning what was lost.

Your feelings are valid, but you do have power over how you react to it. You can change the thought systems you are using and the language. How we phrase things has great power over how we react to it!

  • Instead of :

Say: I learnt many new things from him, but there is so much in the world for me to discover, on my own or with other people.
Instead of “even doing things I used to like before because it reminds me of him”, remind yourself that you liked him before he was in the picture, and that you deserve to like things now, when he’s no longer in the picture.

Change “I wish I could be with him” to reflect the reality: “I wish I could be with him but we’re not compatible. It would be worse if we had stayed together, or if I pretended (the reason for the breakup) was not important to me”.

Feel the heartbreak, yes, but also admit that it was going to end sooner or later, based on the different ideas you had for the future. Imagine the life you can have now, without the constraints of having to live with the ideas of the future he had.

Above all, it might be helpful to remind yourself that you’re allowed to be grateful for all that he showed you, but you don’t have to tie your heart and your mind to him to prove anything. It’s okay to let go, it’s okay to not be okay right now, but also to believe that it will get better.

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Thank you for that

I’ll try to put your advice into practice. There have been times where I really enjoy the music he’s introduced me to and I get lost in it. I forget about all the pain and enjoy the music and it goes downhill when I remember him. I’m gonna admit that sometimes I do make it worse because I get so bogged down in thinking of him. I make myself remember the time we spent together and how I miss it. It takes me down this black hole of loneliness.

I think to a certain extent, I don’t want to let go. Just the thought of it makes me feel extremely upset. It’s very difficult to process. Idk when I’ll be ready to let him go but I need to stop tormenting and punishing myself. I need to pause and stop and not let myself take it too far when I get hit with emotions. As odd as it may sound, I think I get comfortable with negative feelings that when I feel anything positive, I’m immediately skeptical if it’s real or if it’s gonna last.
I need to stop doing that because I’m driving myself crazy

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I suspected it was that kind of situation, where you think you should keep feeling miserable because of what went down. But no, you made a wise decision, a fair decision. And eventually, you will be able to be grateful for the relationship without needing to be in the relationship.

You deserve to be happy. i sincerely mean that.
You did the responsible thing, and you did the thing that had to be done. That takes a lot of maturity and bravery.

We’re here for you. It’ll get better. Be kind to yourself!

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Update: I think I’m doing somewhat ok. Maybe because I’ve been so busy with work and doctors appointments and seeing a new psychiatrist for medication, I haven’t been thinking of him much and if I have, I’m not getting an extreme emotional reaction. I really do miss him but I try to not linger at the thought of him

Bad news: I never had a lot of luck with mental health medication and I’ve just started back up again on trying to figure out what works for me and so far it’s the same cycle of either things being ineffective or gives me a bad reaction. But at least it’s distracting me from him. I’m trying to not be a pessimist from the start about being back to searching for meds that work for me but my last attempt was horrifyingly bad so it’s hard to have high hopes for my second attempt. At least this time my co-pays are not $75 :sweat_smile: that was one of the reasons why I had to stop because I thought that I was just throwing my money down the drain for medications that are either ineffective or cause bad side effects. I also didn’t make enough to be able to afford a copay that high. My co-pays are $30 now so since it’s an improvement I thought I’d start back up again

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It’s been a really tough two days. The grief I feel is overwhelming. I feel extremely down and I’ve just texted my therapist that I don’t think I can live with my decision. He knows I post on here and I told him that the name “stuck” is very fitting for me because “I feel like I’m stuck in this fucking body living this shitty fucking life”. The only time I don’t think of him is when I’m overwhelmingly stressed about something else. He’s still on the back of my mind but the focus is on the stressful situation at hand. The decision I’ve made is something I feel like I’m going to regret for the rest of my life. But I also didn’t want my body to go through a pregnancy so even if I stayed with him, I would’ve regretted my decision.

I can’t win. I feel so defeated

I feel like I’m disappointing everyone in this thread trying to help me because I feel like I’m not getting better.
I want you guy to know that I am trying to do what you guys says, it’s just really hard to get out of the mental space I’m in.

It’s not you guys, it’s me. I’m grateful that you guys speak to me and give me advice but I feel like all I’ve done is fail everyone. I feel like a lost cause

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Friend,
We are here to be a wall of gentle support and love for you. There is no way you will disappoint us! You are going through an incredibly difficult time, and I see you trying. You’re trying to find the right meds etc.

There is non"right" solution, we all are just doing the best we can from all our experience etc. You’ve given a small mention of the different things you wanted. I’m so sorry it hurts so much still, but there will life after this, and you deserve happiness too.

Younsaved yourself and him additional grief by breaking it off early. Going forward after knowing the different things you want would have been even more painful.
.

I don’t care much for how I feel. All I’m thinking of are his emotions, how he feels and how I broke his heart. I’m always the antagonist in any senario I could think of. I’m the one that inflicted pain on him. I feel like the bad guy

I know it’s true that that I did the right thing breaking it off early because holding on for longer only would’ve caused more pain. It’s a tough pill to swallow.

I’m in such a dark place right now and I have no idea when I’ll come to terms that I did what I had to do. Idk maybe I’m just being impatient and this is all part of a process but it’s been 43 days. I’m so tired of feeling like this all the time

At points in my life, I felt like he gave me hope. Pushed me to be better and supported me. He was my first. I had my issues well before he showed up in my life and I felt that he made my gloomy life better. Losing that person is tough. My life is back to being it’s gloomy self and add on grief from losing the one person that brought light to my life made me go over the edge

He was the one person in my life that made things better. He didn’t always understand where I came from and communicating certain things to him was hard but when he was there, he was there. He always lifted me up even when I was extremely critical of myself

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Can in offer a radically different way to view the situation?
You’re thinking of his emotions, as you assume them to be.

  • but suppose he is hurt more by you having these feelings? Suppose he is happy that you made the tough call?

Another crazy idea.
You didn’t cause him pain. You made a fair decision. The pain he feels is caused by his own emotions, he is responsible for those, not you.

He showed you that your life could be better. Crazy idea again- believe that that was in part to him, yes but also in part to yourself.

There is nothing lacking in you. There are things that he prob gave you the confidence and security to feel and explore. There is no reason to lose all of the positives you gained from the relationship just because it ended.

I’ll stop noe because I don’t want to be overwhelming. But please, don’t think that then pain you feel now is permanent. Is raw and fresh so it hurts, but with time it will heal. He was the first, and that is always special. But there is a whole life available to you still.

I hope you can get some rest and do something nice for yourself today!

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Hey @Stuck, it’s okay to share updates and what’s on your heart, as much as you need. You’re not alone.

I hope this new week will be a good one for you. I’m rooting for you. :hrtlegolove:

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Today was awful. Been thinking about him so much for the past few days. Valentines day is hard. I had to leave my desk at work today to cry in my car (which sadly has happen before. even before we broke up. Having meltdowns in my car during work is somewhat a normal thing for me).

I came here to talk about something weird I’ve noticed. I’m a mess when I think of him but when I think of him while being on ADHD medication, I’m less sad about him.

The first half of the day was horrible. I was a mess. I skipped my ADHD medication in the morning.
In the afternoon, I took my medication. He was still on my mind but I wasn’t as sad as the morning.

Idk why. ADHD medication has nothing to do with how you feel. Maybe I just happen to be less sad in the afternoon compared to the morning. I just wanted to say that was weird

I still really miss him though :sob:

I was so depressed last night that I uninstalled all social media because I wanted to avoid triggers on Valentine’s day. But I failed. I was texting someone and when I tried to send a gif, my Bitmojis showed up and they were all valentine’s day themed. I forgot to uninstall the Bitmoji app. That’s when the emotions came pouring in that I had to leave my desk and go to my car.

I never used to be big on holidays. If u were to ask me when Valentine’s day was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Even when I was in a relationship, I wouldn’t be able to tell you when it was. I forget most holidays. But after being single. Holidays are seared into my brain and I can’t forget about them even if I try to forget

Here’s a positive thought I had after therapy. This is the text I just sent to my therapist and I wanted to share that here. For context when I talk about my family or “not feeling like I was fully committed to the relationship” is referring to a whole different issue on my anxiety related to thinking that my parents wouldn’t be ok with my relationship and the fact that they’re very closed minded on certain things. Not gonna go too detailed into here because that’s not the main point I was making, but I did want to include that here to add some context.

"You’re getting through to me I think. The relationship conversation felt productive and I think when u said that I had no choice but to do what I did, that stuck with me. Since then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Idk maybe tomorrow I might feel differently but at the moment, I think I’m at peace with the decision I made (that doesn’t mean I’m completely over him) but I guess it’s the first step.

I keep focusing on other things to keep myself down. I might justify the guilt by saying that I didn’t feel like I was fully committed to the relationship or I kept thinking about my family but the fact was that even though I had nagging thoughts about my family and thoughts to end it all, I still stuck by him. And when I eventually did break up with him it was because of something I did not want so I took a stand for me, which is a very difficult sentence to say out loud but that is what I did.

I didn’t put my foot down because of my family, I put my foot down because I felt like I was put into a position where I had to choose between making decisions for my body or have someone else make the decision for me. Some of what I’m saying might sound a bit conceited but I think u know what I’m trying to say.
I’m still processing how I feel"

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A theme in my therapy sessions and my life in general is that I CONSTANTLY put myself down regardless of whether it’s justified or not. I always make myself out to be the bad guy no matter what the situation

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And Another thing that my therapist said that stuck with me was that I did was out of love. In the back of my mind I knew that but the fact that somebody else also saw it meant a lot to me and it served as a reminder to myself as well. I just want him to be happy and I want him to find his perfect person and I hope they live a great life together. I have no ill will towards him or his future partner. I just want both of them to keep each other happy and live happy lives and create the family they want together.

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I’ve definitely been where you are and felt like this person was the only person who could help me and get me away from my already miserable circumstance.
In your original post you explained that you didn’t have the same views or the same plans for the future.
Do you feel that it would have been beneficial for either of you to continue if that was the case?
Are you someone who feels like they can never say “no”?
You’re talking about hurting him and being worried about him, but at what cost to yourself?
Would you have been happy?
He will heal. I know you feel terrible and hurt right now, but you have been so generous worrying about him and what he deserves. What do you deserve?
It’s okay you’re feeling lost and sad (it’s not okay as in I’m glad you are, but you’re allowed to feel vulnerable). My circumstance was a little different I think, but the same thing that I feel guilty and I feel like I should go back and make them happy.
You deserve happiness too. You deserve to be able to take the path you want to create for yourself. I can imagine if anyone held you back for whatever reason you’d feel a sting of resentment, and that’s not healthy for either of you.

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