Oh fudge.. 1 year of hard "getting over it", then bumped into her... 1st time

[Cloud9.5]

I made a post on Monday about bumping into my ex for the first time after 1 year no contact...

 

I'm not going to go into dwelling details about the relationship and how it ended, that's counter-productive...

 

The situation is... 1 year later, she's moved on, new man etc etc.

 

It's been a long and difficult road for me, 21 year old, first "real" love, hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life.

 

1 year of fighting heart broken depression, making progress each day...

 

Now I've bumped into her, seeing her face to face, it's set me back.. big time, when we first broke up she was on my mind 24/7 for the first few weeks and months, then as time went by I started to think about her less each day...

 

And now I'm worried because after bumping into her, it's bringing back memories, replicating the hurt all over again... I'm asking myself "the questions" again...

 

I feel set back, and SO, ****ING, ANGRY that this has happened, after making so much progress... I'm starting to feel this way again... all because I bumped into her and exchanged nothing besides 5 halfassed words and the very slightest of smiles...

 

I can't believe I'm back here, reading this forum... I never thought I would need it again.

Edited May 15, 2013 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[TaraMaiden]

Clinging and grasping are the self-inflicted paths to constant suffering.

 

That's why you suffer.

Not because of her.

 

because you won't LET GO of her.

[Cloud9.5]

Clinging and grasping are the self-inflicted paths to constant suffering.

 

That's why you suffer.

Not because of her.

 

because you won't LET GO of her.

 

If I won't let go, it's sub-consciously...

 

I wouldn't take her back even if she had won millions on the lottery and begged for me to marry her.

 

I wouldn't do it, her chapter in my life has been and gone, but the emotions as a result of that.. are something I have no control over, I was genuinely letting go..

 

I wouldn't say I'm over her, I almost melted on the inside when I seen her... but I'm "past" her, I accepted it a long time ago.

 

I still accept it Tara, any form of "hope" is a non-issue for me, there is none...

 

But I can't control these sudden emotions due to seeing her face... being in her presence has F'd me up!

Edited May 15, 2013 by Cloud9.5

[Larry56]

Are you dating/seeing anyone?

[Cloud9.5]

Are you dating/seeing anyone?

 

Not at the moment, but I have since the break up..

Nothing serious, 3 one night stands and was also seeing a girl for a brief few weeks which didn't lead to anything, just a casual thing... that came to an end last month but I have no feelings regarding that what so ever.

[TaraMaiden]

If I won't let go, it's sub-consciously...

 

I wouldn't take her back even if she had won millions on the lottery and begged for me to marry her.

 

You're confusing 'taking back' with 'letting go'.

The two are quite different, as you have discovered....

 

I wouldn't do it, her chapter in my life has been and gone, but the emotions as a result of that.. are something I have no control over, I was genuinely letting go..

 

Your emotions are your emotions. To say you have no control over something your mind generates, is an error.

 

The first stage in being able to think about what is happening, is to acknowledge that what goes on between your ears is entirely up to you, and your choice and option to control....

 

.....But I can't control these sudden emotions due to seeing her face... being in her presence has F'd me up!

 

What goes on behind your eyes is a thousand times more powerful than anything which will ever occur in front of them.

 

You have to find the fundamental reason, cause and rationale of why exactly you have been unable to let go of her all this time - and then counter-act it.

[Larry56]

Not at the moment, but I have since the break up..

Nothing serious, 3 one night stands and was also seeing a girl for a brief few weeks which didn't lead to anything, just a casual thing... that came to an end last month but I have no feelings regarding that what so ever.

 

Wow...OK. Just a question. Did the one-night stands boost your ego and make you feel better (for a short period of time)?. I just would like to know...for my sake.?

 

I know how you feel though. If she was a terrific girl and you have uber feelings about her, and she really was the "one" then you can do one or two things

 

1) pursue her regardless that she has a new man. Seriously, if she is indifferent to you she will show no feelings at all. you never know, she might actually be thinking about you right now

 

2) get a new girlfriend that is above and BEYOND her.

[Cloud9.5]

You have to find the fundamental reason, cause and rationale of why exactly you have been unable to let go of her all this time - and then counter-act it.

 

It's love... she's the girl I fell in love with, and the only girl I've ever fallen in love with, when I think about why she is even still an issue in my mind, the only reason I have is because I love her.

 

People say it fades, you forget about them in time, it becomes a non-issue... the break-up has faded for me, the hurt of losing her has faded, I've accepted it, I'm moving on... but when I think about it, as much as I hate her, I do still love her.

 

How do I counter-act that?

[TaraMaiden]

Wow...OK. Just a question. Did the one-night stands boost your ego and make you feel better (for a short period of time)?. I just would like to know...for my sake.?

If you haven't moved on, everything is just a sham and a pretence. During.

 

I know how you feel though. If she was a terrific girl and you have uber feelings about her, and she really was the "one" then you can do one or two things

 

1) pursue her regardless that she has a new man. Seriously, if she is indifferent to you she will show no feelings at all. you never know, she might actually be thinking about you right now

 

2) get a new girlfriend that is above and BEYOND her.

 

Fixed that for ya......

[TaraMaiden]

It's love... she's the girl I fell in love with, and the only girl I've ever fallen in love with, when I think about why she is even still an issue in my mind, the only reason I have is because I love her.

 

People say it fades, you forget about them in time, it becomes a non-issue... the break-up has faded for me, the hurt of losing her has faded, I've accepted it, I'm moving on... but when I think about it, as much as I hate her, I do still love her.

 

How do I counter-act that?

You turn 'conditional' love (The conventional kind, the give-take, reciprocal relationship kind) into UNconditional Love.

 

You wish her well, wave goodbye, and hope her life is fundamentally happy, because you realise that your happiness, contentment and peace of mind is not, and never has been, dependent on having her in yours.

 

You have to release the conditions.

[Cloud9.5]

Wow...OK. Just a question. Did the one-night stands boost your ego and make you feel better (for a short period of time)?. I just would like to know...for my sake.?

No not really... it's just sex, maybe if I had the mind set of going into it for an ego-boost then maybe it would have been an ego-boost, but for me... no, just sex... the only thing that did feel like a relief was knowing she wasn't the last person I had sex with, I rushed to get that one out of the way.

 

1) pursue her regardless that she has a new man. Seriously, if she is indifferent to you she will show no feelings at all. you never know, she might actually be thinking about you right now

This is a non-option, I don't want her, I hate her... no, I hate that she left, I hate what I went through because of it, due to that.. she's not a person I want to be with.

 

2) get a new girlfriend that is above and BEYOND her.

Getting a new girlfriend is easy, convincing yourself or even genuinely finding somebody who is above and beyond her... that's easier said than done, regardless of what Tara said I don't think we can control the way we think and the way we feel, it comes naturally... finding somebody that I love as much or more than my ex is not something I can "set out" to do, if it happens then it happens... or it might never, who knows?

[TaraMaiden]

You're wrong.

If you can't control it, who do you think can??

YOU generate your thoughts.

Your Emotions spring in your mind.

Your mind creates issues, and states and you choose to dwell in them.

 

You MUST take responsibility, for yourself, for the way you permit yourself to feel.

 

If you honestly believe you cannot control your emotions, and you cannot decide for yourself to change your thinking, then you may as well just have an affair with the Chief commissioner's wife and plead that "you couldn't help yourself, it just happened."

 

We all know that's nonsense.

Anything you do - is a choice.

because it all begins with you, and what you think.

 

And as the great late Henry Ford stated,

 

"Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't - you're right."

[Cloud9.5]

You turn 'conditional' love (The conventional kind, the give-take, reciprocal relationship kind) into UNconditional Love.

 

You wish her well, wave goodbye, and hope her life is fundamentally happy, because you realise that your happiness, contentment and peace of mind is not, and never has been, dependent on having her in yours.

 

You have to release the conditions.

 

I think I understand, I feel I was already so close to doing this... in the final stages (if there is any)...

 

And I've unexpectedly derailed, or become overwhelming side-tracked due to bumping into her for the first time.

 

So from here I re-adopt the mind-set I've learned during these past 12 months.. and just keep swimming right?

 

But I have forgotten how to stop dwelling on memories hahaha, I feel like I've been reset back to how I felt 3 months after the break up, 8 months of progress vanished... now I've got to re-start.

 

1 thing I do know now is that I can't handle seeing her, I've driven past her twice and that was ok, but being in her presence, looking at her face in person and exchanging words... can't handle it.

[Cloud9.5]

You're wrong.

If you can't control it, who do you think can??

YOU generate your thoughts.

Your Emotions spring in your mind.

Your mind creates issues, and states and you choose to dwell in them.

 

You MUST take responsibility, for yourself, for the way you permit yourself to feel.

 

If you honestly believe you cannot control your emotions, and you cannot decide for yourself to change your thinking, then you may as well just have an affair with the Chief commissioner's wife and plead that "you couldn't help yourself, it just happened."

 

We all know that's nonsense.

Anything you do - is a choice.

because it all begins with you, and what you think.

 

And as the great late Henry Ford stated,

 

"Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't - you're right."

Arghhh, I want to believe and understand you, but I can't relate to what you're saying, if we were talking about a crush... yeah, I could control my emotions and overcome them pretty easy.

 

But we're talking about a girl who I was deeply IN LOVE with, and maybe still am... I hate to say.

 

The hardest thing I have ever had to do was convince "what's between my ears" to accept it... now you're telling me I have the ability to passively treat it as a non-issue and my feelings and emotions will passively follow...

 

I'll book my flight today, I'm coming over, you have to teach me!

[Larry56]

This is a non-option, I don't want her, I hate her... no, I hate that she left, I hate what I went through because of it, due to that.. she's not a person I want to be with.

 

Hrmmm....What were her reasons for leaving?

 

Getting a new girlfriend is easy, convincing yourself or even genuinely finding somebody who is above and beyond her... that's easier said than done, regardless of what Tara said I don't think we can control the way we think and the way we feel, it comes naturally... finding somebody that I love as much or more than my ex is not something I can "set out" to do, if it happens then it happens... or it might never, who knows?

 

Hold on a second

 

you just said you "Love your ex". So you Hate & Love her at the same time? Don't get me wrong, I think that's reasonable.

[TaraMaiden]

Arghhh, I want to believe and understand you, but I can't relate to what you're saying, if we were talking about a crush... yeah, I could control my emotions and overcome them pretty easy.

 

But we're talking about a girl who I was deeply IN LOVE with, and maybe still am... I hate to say.

 

The hardest thing I have ever had to do was convince "what's between my ears" to accept it... now you're telling me I have the ability to passively treat it as a non-issue and my feelings and emotions will passively follow...

 

I'll book my flight today, I'm coming over, you have to teach me!

 

Give me the flight number - I'll meet you!!

 

Listen to yourself: You love her, but hate her.

 

The two emotions are basically 2 sides to the same coin. It's a fine line between the two, because both emotions stem from the same part of the brain.

 

There is nothing passive about it.

You have to meet these thought processes and fight them, Gladiator-style.

It takes hard work, determination and dedication to convince yourself that you ARE in control.

It's not easy.

 

But worthwhile things never are.

 

The approach begins by criticising and analysing your thought-processes, and determining which are honest, and which are 'lies'.

What you first think, is invariably true.

What you NEXT think - is invariably an embellishment. An expansion. An exaggeration.

 

A lie.

 

'Snowballing' is the biggest lie of all.

 

This is what I gave someone else, in another thread, so I apologise for the duplication:

 

I read something on the internet, that struck a chord....

 

Basically it said that when you're in true distress, the distress lasts for 12 minutes or so.

After that, it's self-inflicted.

A stack of people came back with arguments against this fact:

 

That drug addicts can take years to get over their pain, bereavement is permanent because someone is gone you can't replace them...

 

They were missing the point.

 

If a thought that provokes the pain comes into your head, that thought generates that pain for around 12 minutes at a time.

 

Any prolongation of that pain, is something you are psychologically inflicting upon yourself, by perpetuating that pain.

 

So the thing to do, is to not permit that pain to 'snowball.'

 

This is the problem with situations like this:

Those nursing a broken/healing heart, can't "just leave it there"....

They begin the snowballing... that is, they have the grain of an embryonic thought, and instead of leaving it, they begin to roll it DOWN the hill, accumulating more 'snow' as they go, turning this fleeting little notion into a great big story complete with chapter, verse, footnotes and date references....

 

The trick is to not start rolling the snowball.

Pick it up and throw it, and move on.

 

It takes time to 'get over' a relationship of any kind.

But in your healing process, learn to spot, to recognise, where the real 'pain' should stop, and where you begin with the self-inflicted 'pain'.

 

Pain is valid.

Emotions are valid.

They deserve to be honoured.

But if we self-inflict, we actually do those honourable feelings an injustice, because we coat them and embellish them with our own story, and blur the edges of their raw honesty.

 

The self inflicted pain begins when you begin to labour the point. When you diversify from the original thought and take that line of thinking into a completely new and unrelated zone.

you may THINK it's all related, but it's not.

 

For example: (totally invented and just to demonstrate....)

You suddenly remember that day the car ran out of petrol, and she jokingly accuses you of doing it on purpose, in order to get down to some naughty hanky-panky... it makes you smile, but you then remember where you were going, what your trip out was for, what she was wearing, other things she said....

 

Here it is again, with the original thought, and where the point starts getting laboured...

 

(1) You suddenly remember that day the car ran out of petrol, and she jokingly accuses you of doing it on purpose, in order to get down to some naughty hanky-panky... it makes you smile, [Highlight]snowballing starts here[/Highlight] (2) but you then remember where you were going, what your trip out was for, what she was wearing, other things she said....

 

See what happened there? You began the snowballing, adding, embellishing, expanding - and feeding your own pain.

 

Feel the feeling (1). Don't labour the point (2).

 

THIS - this is how you wrest back control.

Of your mind, your emotions, your feelings - and of you.

[Cloud9.5]

Hrmmm....What were her reasons for leaving?

Short cliche,

I didn't know what I had until it was gone.

 

I couldn't give her what I wanted to give her, I wanted to give her the world and was insecure that she would be happy with nothing less (my words, not hers).

 

So I gave her the minimum, when really I should have given her all I could and maybe she would have been happy with that.

 

Eventually she got exhausted of the fighting over nothing, I let her down often, I had trust issues, I didn't give her my all, when you love somebody you should give them your all...

 

Why?

Because I thought she was never going to leave, I thought I had time on my side... the attitude of - "I'll always have this girl, she ain't going nowhere"..

 

She's almost 3 years older than me, more mature than I was at the time, more of an adult, she was looking for somebody to spend her life with...

 

I was looking for... nothing, I was just experiencing true love for the first time, and I did EVERYTHING wrong...

 

In the anger stage, I told myself she left me because she lied, she never loved me, it was all a lie, she's a witch, devil in disguise, all women are evil liars, blablabla...

 

I've had 12 months to reflect on it, it was an important part of my life and I've learned major lessons from it... and I now I know why she left.

 

Her reason was: she's exhausted with the relationship, it's like we've been married for 20 years already, she couldn't handle anymore arguing, being let down... etc etc, we tried to get things back to pure love and no worries... didn't work.

 

Butttt, that's history now, and I'm not here because I'm suffering from a break up, I'm here because I'm relapsing on the progress I've made since the break up.. due to bumping into her.

 

I fine tuned the details, reasons, regrets regarding the relationship and break up along time ago, and put them to bed, done and dusted.

 

Hold on a second

 

you just said you "Love your ex". So you Hate & Love her at the same time? Don't get me wrong, I think that's reasonable.

I can't even answer this, I don't want to.

I hate her for all the wrong reasons, I love her for all the right reasons, snm.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Cloud9.5

[Cloud9.5]

Give me the flight number - I'll meet you!!

 

Listen to yourself: You love her, but hate her.

 

The two emotions are basically 2 sides to the same coin. It's a fine line between the two, because both emotions stem from the same part of the brain.

 

There is nothing passive about it.

You have to meet these thought processes and fight them, Gladiator-style.

It takes hard work, determination and dedication to convince yourself that you ARE in control.

It's not easy.

 

But worthwhile things never are.

 

The approach begins by criticising and analysing your thought-processes, and determining which are honest, and which are 'lies'.

What you first think, is invariably true.

What you NEXT think - is invariably an embellishment. An expansion. An exaggeration.

 

A lie.

 

'Snowballing' is the biggest lie of all.

 

This is what I gave someone else, in another thread, so I apologise for the duplication:

 

 

 

"The big, psychological quote"

 

 

 

THIS - this is how you wrest back control.

Of your mind, your emotions, your feelings - and of you.

Jesus... I'm going to need to read this more than once.

It's all psychological... I am absolutely haunted by songs being stuck in my head on a daily basis, to understand and put this into practice is going to be difficult.

[Larry56]

you can't blame yourself if you got bored in the relationship. Most men do, it's more about how you try to continue to help you and and your partner grow. I'm figuring out these days anyways that if you want a fulfilling monogamous relationship, then you gotta help you and your partner grow in a positive way.

 

From my point of view, your still angry for the wrong reasons and you seem to still be blaming her partially. You have to let that anger go, because well...you didn't do enough to make her happy AT THAT TIME. But your older now (and wiser). So why don't you go out there and see if she still has feelings for you. Court the **** out of her.

[TaraMaiden]

Jesus... I'm going to need to read this more than once.

It's all psychological... I am absolutely haunted by songs being stuck in my head on a daily basis, to understand and put this into practice is going to be difficult.

 

Yes, but not impossible.

And find the most uplifting, positive songs you can, and get those into your head.

It's not only what you tell yourself, but what you feed yourself and surround yourself with, that counts.

[Cloud9.5]

So why don't you go out there and see if she still has feelings for you. Court the **** out of her.

 

Larry you're funny man, and I'm glad you're in my thread giving input I really appreciate it...

 

But no, that's just not gonna happen...

I have to think forwards Larry, forwards!

What you're suggesting is going backwards, my destination is forwards.

[IS IT Better late]

Interesting discussion going on here.

 

Tara takes the standpoint that we are kind of our worst enemy when comes to dealing with heartbreak.

 

I've tried to think about my life before I met her and how I never had these feelings before. I'd like to rewire my brain to use a reset point similar to how you can set your computer back months or years before corrupt files affected it.

 

If I could I reset myself I would go back to the day before I met her lol.

 

But this is my struggle. She's in my dreams, so I wake up already battling with my thoughts. The the reminders kick in. Seeing the same kind car she drives, music she likes, places we went to and positive memories overwhelm my system and then I miss her and want to experience them again with her.

 

This is a daily fight for me, somedays I win, other days I lose and I get upset. And then I hope I see her again!

[TaraMaiden]

Yeah, well... When Life dumps a great big pile of manure in your back yard, you can either complain about the offensive smell and distasteful view - or fertilise the roses with it, and make a better garden.

 

See....?

[itto ogami]

It's natural to feel a rush of emotions after not seeing your ex for a year -- but that's all they are, a rush of emotions. Let them go through you and OUT.

 

And kid, you're YOUNG. You will find so much more love in your loooooong lifetime. Your adventure is just beginning. Savor your time.