Still struggling

[PLT]

Afternoon LS friends.

 

Things are ticking over nicely with me. As the days, weeks and months go by, I am able to focus less on my ex, and more on myself. I am being kind to myself if I feel down, and I find it passes quicker that way. It took me a long time to realise that it was ok to be down, to be angry, to feel betrayed. Ride that wave!

 

Dating isn't going so well. Well, it's non existent. I'm trying speed dating for the 3rd, and probably last time for a while tonight. I've been twice and had exactly 0 matches. I've sent out probably around 50 messages on OLD and got 0 replies. You need a thick skin to try and date at my age these days!

 

Overall though, I'm starting to enjoy aspects of life again. Last weekend my son and I played tennis (I've been looking for a way to keep active, and I'm not a gym bunny so I recently bought a couple of rackets to have a knock around with friends or sons) and that was fun. My thighs ached like buggery the following day haha.

[EmilyJane]

I had a mini epiphany earlier. Now that I can look at it a bit more dispassionately, it's actually bonkers that we got together in the first place. We are worlds apart in our overall attitude to life, but we enjoyed each others company, fancied each other, and it grew from there.

 

I am angry with myself because I remember telling myself not to get too attached to her because it probably wouldn't last as we were so, so different, but I did grow very attached to her. I still miss her.

 

Once I fell for her, I thought we could overcome how different our outlooks were, as we got along so well, but it came back to bite us on the arse. I feel utterly betrayed, over, and over, and over again by her, and that is the one feeling that won't go away. In a way that's a good thing, because it means that should she ever crawl out from under her rock, even though I miss her, there is no coming back from what she has done. I take a little comfort in the realisation that I am now strong enough to reject her should she ever come calling.

 

 

My spring cleaning and de-cluttering started in earnest today. Feeling good about progress on that front.

 

In other news I'm actually delighted that someone else just used arse on this forum while I was face palming for using wanker on a US site

[PLT]

I saw a photo of her today and it hit me like a train that I haven't moved on. At all. It's 7 months since I saw her, it feels like an eternity. Yet at the same time it's like it was yesterday.

 

I've tried moving on. I really have, but something inside won't let me. I do not know how to let go, and it frustrates me. I keep telling myself that I have let go / moved on, but I'm just lying to myself. I can't make myself do it. It doesn't feel like it something I have any control over.

 

It's not even that I would take her back (I don't think). I know I could not trust her ever again after the things she has said and done.

 

I don't tend to hold grudges but it takes every ounce of willpower every day to not do something I will no doubt regret. I'm tired of fighting the feeling.

 

I see no beauty in the world anymore. I don't get excited about anything really, and if I do its just a facade. Nearly every day is just the same old plod, even when I try new things. I just don't see the point in life or living. I'm truly a broken man, and I can't even tell anyone apart from strangers on the internet. I'm a complete failure and I want it to end.

[PLT]

I (finally, after weeks of thinking about it) made a doctors appointment for today. I can't keep going like this. I know they will just throw me onto medication but at this point I need to keep an open mind. I feel dead inside.

 

Everything I do is just to pass the time. Even now, I'm writing this to pass the time before my appointment. I can't get her out of my head, no matter how hard I try. I miss being in a relationship, but still I only want her. God knows why, she was horrible to me for much of the final 18 months. I have a profile on pof, and have tried speed dating 3 times now. Not one person gives me the tingles I got from my ex. It kills me thinking that her life is better without me when I gave so much of myself to her, over a period of about 7 years in total.

 

I don't like being single, but the only person I want to be with is the one that betrayed me multiple times and walked out of my life without looking back. I'm a lost cause. The only things keeping me alive are my sons. I cannot do to them what my dad did to me. But I feel like the world would not be a worse place if I was not in it. I think my chance for happiness in any form has been and gone and I blew it. I hate myself, I hate my life, and I hate the injustice of the world.

 

I thought these feelings would pass in time, but they haven't. If anything they have sprouted roots and now taken a firm hold. Everything I thought I knew has been shattered. I'm completely and utterly crushed as a human being. I can't take any more.

 

Apologies for being so negative. It is how I feel.

[Hoosfoos]

I am very sorry that you are going through this and how you are feeling. I know how it feels. I really do.

 

In the grand scheme of things, 7 months later is not really a long time.

[keiji]

I (finally, after weeks of thinking about it) made a doctors appointment for today. I can't keep going like this. I know they will just throw me onto medication but at this point I need to keep an open mind. I feel dead inside.

 

Is that a psychiatrist or just a family doctor? If it's the latter, they will probably prescribe some antidepressants and leave it at that, but if you've reached such a low point I think it would be wise to start therapy. It's not an easy or fast process, but you'll come out of it knowing a little more about yourself and will definitely learn how to deal a bit better with situations like this. It's OK to ask for help when you need it. That doesn't make you a lost cause.

 

As a previous poster said, 7 months is not a lot. Don't beat yourself for not being over her yet. It's completely normal.

[PLT]

Thanks folks.

 

I've had my appointment (family doctor) and they have put me on antidepressants again, which I expected. I'm trying a different type to what I had before as they made me feel quite aggressive which I did not like at all.

 

They also gave me the information to self refer to the counselling service. I had quite a bit of counselling while it was all going on in the latter half of last year, and it helped tremendously. At the time it was almost more like crisis management, and getting me to recognise that the relationship was unhealthy for me. This time will be more about how I put the pieces back together and be able to move forward. There's usually quite long waiting lists but hopefully the medication will kick in and lift my mood in the meantime.

 

This place really is the best. We can be as weak and as insecure as we really are inside and not get judged for it.

[keiji]

There's usually quite long waiting lists but hopefully the medication will kick in and lift my mood in the meantime.

 

As you may know already, it may take 3-4 weeks for the antidepressants to kick in, so don't despair. And don't forget that medication it's just a sticking-plaster. It will help enormously, granted, because you need to get out of that negative spiral, but the important part of the whole process is therapy and sticking to it as long as it takes. Don't reduce it to moving on and getting out of this situation asap. Approach it as a way to know yourself and thus, by going deeper into things from your past that may be a bit hard to digest, you'll probably figure out why you're reacting like this to the breakup. Last year I asked my therapist: "Why am I analyzing all these things when I actually came here because I've gone through three horrible breakups in five years years and I'm desperate to leave the pain behind?", to which she replied: "Because knowing is healing". I didn't get it at first and answered with just a raised eyebrow, but a few months later it all made a lot of sense.

 

PS: What you're doing has absolutely nothing to do with weakness.

Edited April 3, 2017 by keiji