I feel like the breakup was some sort of retraumatizing event and I am cut off from myself. Has anyone experienced similar?

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

Hello all,

In the beginning of January my ex of only four and a half months broke up with me. To begin with, let me say that although she is a great person the relationship was absolutely toxic for both of us. We were at different points in our lives with different desires and needs and our characters didn't go well together at all. In fact, I had previously attempted to break up with her twice. We had constant terrible fights which made me physically ill. We both contributed to it, at this point it's hard to say who did more, although it might have been me, I don't know. My point is that it was most definitely the best idea for us to separate, before more damage could have been done.

Although our relationship ended in the beginning of the year already, I think I didn't even get to the bargaining stage properly until she told me she was seeing someone else a couple of weeks ago. went into a bad binge of alcohol and drugs, and was possessed by the idea that I should explain to her what exactly went wrong, how I failed her, etc. Sent her a bunch of explanatory messages until she finally told me that she was done talking, which set me straight and I promised to do no contact until she'd feel like reaching out herself.

So that was the bargaining stage, and as I exited the two-three week binge I was preparing myself for the depression stage, but I wasn't prepared for the state I am in now. Waking up today I realized that my mind was entirely blank. Not just blank; I couldn't remember the simplest things, and seemed to have lost the ability to do the things I usually do. I noticed some of this yesterday already: I make music, but coming back to my studio I found that I couldn't write the simplest of basslines, and didn't remember how my gear worked. I had to look up every single little thing on the internet.

This doesn't just feel like depression, which I am familiar with. Rather, it's like I woke up a different person. It really feels like I have lived through a retraumatizing event, and everything I was doing and working on before that event was somehow no longer mine. My cognitive abilities and self-organization are severely impacted, which I would expect from a depression, but this kind of lack of identification with myself is special.

I have experienced this before, similarly after losing a person in my life. After that event, reintegration of my own life did not work out fully. I am more hopeful now, seeing as this had been a relationship that didn't even last five months, but my head is a scary place to be in right now. It feels a bit like my brain associates all that is actually mine with my ex (for no real reason at all) and quickly shuts down any attempt to even think about them. So I'm floating in some kind of limbo.

I do not want to get back together with my ex and I know that separation was the only right thing to do. I no longer feel like I was solely to blame for everything, either; I have regrets but I have recognized that we were not a good fit and despite the best of our attempts, at this particular time in our lives it could never have worked. This isn't about that; but I seem to somehow have lost my feeling of being myself. I think that rather than simply grief, there is a deeper underlying trauma which has come to the forefront. Has anyone had to face similar things? How did you get through it and find back to yourself? Which steps did you take? At the moment, it feels like all I can do is the laundry (to be fully honest, not even that, but I think I can manage that mechanically somehow).

[d0nnivain]

You managed to write this post & you are doing laundry.  Those are good signs.  Just stick to your normal routine.  Things will get back to normal.  

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

8 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

You managed to write this post & you are doing laundry.  Those are good signs.  Just stick to your normal routine.  Things will get back to normal.  

Thank you. At the moment, there is not much of a routine (I took a few sick days at work to figure myself out, my job is intellectually demanding and I am in no state to perform it at the moment), but I've already decided I would follow a sort of day plan. I feel like over the past weeks and months I have trained my brain to think of her constantly and the thoughts were so painful that it has gone into some kind of shutdown mode. I just can't figure out why it shuts down even and especially at things that have nothing to do with her at all. It's like for some people (most?), separation is a sort of coming-back-to-themselves and for me it's the opposite...

[d0nnivain]

Stop giving your brain a steady diet of unpleasant thoughts.  Immersion therapy is not what you need right now.  When you think about her, acknowledge the thought then banish it.  Refocus on something else, even if it's taking a walk 

[StoryOfMyLifeYes]

Oh yeah, I hear you. I have started to attempt this now: every time a thought about her crosses my mind (all the time) I mutter "stop" aloud to myself. It oddly kind of works, even though I'm sure the passersby think I'm insane.

I'm thinking to just do things for a while which aren't maybe my "main thing" (since the main thing isn't working), it feels like living someone else's life but perhaps this way once I'm in a better place mentally my actual own life will slowly seep back in. Thank you for your sound advice.

Edited March 8, 2021 by StoryOfMyLifeYes