xxxheartbrokenxxx Posted July 11, 2008 Posted July 11, 2008 I'm 18 months out of an EA with an MM who ended our 15 months relationship with sudden, crushing silence. I have cried every single day since then, and have sunk emotionally pretty much as low as one can. It's not even about him any more most days - I'm too overwhelmed with hopelessness even to rouse those feelings much of the time. On more clear eyed days I do miss him and grieve deeply the loss of my friend. Always there is the need to get past the experience without knowing precisely what the experience was because of his manner of leaving our relationship. I don't know what I'm getting over, and it's haunted me emotionally and eroded my trust in my own judgment and perception. I'm a strong person whose life circumstances and life choices have required endurance, resiliance, independance and personal strength. But this time, I'm tired. So tired. Everything is out of place: I can't sleep properly, I've lost weight, I've gained weight, there is no colour in anything, the stresses in my life get worse because I'm too overwhelmed to attend to the simplest things. I've become isolated socially and for reasons too complicated to go into my immediate family is not a support resource I can tap. Every day is a such a struggle to get control of the simplest things. I think about suicide, and though I would NEVER EVER actually do it it makes me sad that my life has come to this. The notion of any path from here to somewhere I once again feel peace, fulfillment, contentment, adventure, love etc. etc. seems comically fantastic. I realize I'm describing depression, but I can't seem to find my way out this time. There are meds and counselling etc. and I've been down those roads before without much result. How do I untangle all this? How do I distill my loss into something I can understand and move past with just the little information I have? In this lonely and joyless place I've arrived at I've realized just how active a task falling out of love actually is. You have to mentally and emotionally choose it and jettison love for and loyalty to that person from your heart. This continues to be monumentally difficult for me. When I feel anything at all, I feel only grief. I could ramble on much longer, but I'll spare you all and just ask for strength and insight from those who have been there or those who haven't but understand the place I am in anyway. Can't seem to get out. Please send hugs and GPS. I really feel your pain - I was involved with a married man who has recently just cut me out of his life with no explanation & I understand when you say its awful not having closure as you feel like you just want answers. I have also been very depressed about my situation although nearly 1 month on I am starting to feel OK about 50% of the time - other times I still sit & cry. A few weeks back I was in a very bad way - couldnt eat, sleep, cried hysterically all the time & almost lost my job as I could not function properly. (read my post called absolutely in pieces over married man) Please do try & get out of the house/meet friends/do something you enjoy. I know its hard as you probably feel there is no pleasure in anything anymore but it will help distract you from your emotional agony - I recently made myself go out with my friends which I really didnt feel like doing as I just wanted to sit at home but once out I did enjoy myself. Have you considered trying another counsellor? Have you confided in friends about how bad you feel? Massive hugs from me, I do understand what you are going through. xxx
NoIDidn't Posted July 11, 2008 Posted July 11, 2008 Yes, I'm going to work. No, I'm not taking care of myself well. Clever funny things make me smile. Sense of humor still intact. Don't want to lose much more time. I'm weary of this crap. I am NOT going to take my own life, I want to make that abundantly clear. It just makes me sad that I fantasize about it so much lately. I imagine sinking to the bottom of the Marianas Trench - the deepest, darkest depth of the Pacific Ocean almost 7 miles beneath the surface. What a cold and loney place I dream of. I would find such sadness hearing that from someone else, and yet it's my own thought. I won't feel this way forever, but feeling this way right now is very hard. I don't think you are wallowing. I'm just saying DON'T wallow. Suicidal ideation is never good - whether you want to take your life or not. It means that you are thinking about it. And may start to make plans for it. Not good. PLEASE GET HELP! PLEASE! I speak as a person that spoke to a doctor the minute I realized that I was starting to think people were better off without me - through some sort of abandonment or another (suicide is a form of abandonment, IMO). We may not agree or even be on the same side of the fence when it comes to this forum, but that doesn't matter. I value your thoughts and would like to keep reading them. PLEASE GET HELP!!!!! Its hard. Its scary. Its draining. Its overwhelming. A grief this big WILL swallow you whole. The loss of MM put you over your tipping point about the state of many things in your life, I am sure. GET HELP! Rebalance things. Just posting here is a call for action to yourself. You can do it. You can get out of this pit. Not to just hang around the edges and fall in again. You know what you gotta do. It won't be comfortable to get help and let another into your head and secret places, but you may need to. Please let us know when you have scheduled your first round of appointments with a psychiatrist for the meds and a therapist for the talk therapy. We are all rooting for you.
EdgeOfForever Posted July 11, 2008 Posted July 11, 2008 Hi 81, This is my first post on LS but your story compelled me to write. I have been lurking here for a couple of months and one day I will post my story here. Your situation sounds quite similar to mine in that you were left in a position where you had no closure, silence, and basically you were abandoned. They symptoms you are describing are symptoms of abandonment. I was involved in an 8 month affair. I was married and he had a GF of 8 years who for the last 3 months of our involvement, went back to her native country. We had a big ugly D-Day (I am currently divorcing by my choice) and although he professed all of this love for me up to the last moment, and that no matter what he wouldn't leave me, he up and left 2 days later without so much as telling me first. He, too, returned to his native country 4,000 miles away after 7 years of being in the U.S. I was so heartbroken I could barely move. My marriage was terrible and after D-Day the ugliness, obviously, got uglier. I had no way of contacting the OM and as the time went by I thought I'd never hear from him again. One night, in the middle of the night at work, he called me from a payphone. We talked for only 10 minutes because he was using a pre-paid calling card. For the next 2 months he called me basically once a week, but each time the calls only lasted 10 minutes due to the calling cards. I had no way of contacting him (probably for the best). Each time we spoke he continued to profess all of this love for me, and that he would love me forever, and that he wanted to see me again or even have me come there to see him. We talked of being together permanently. He described how much he missed me and missed touching me, the sex, and being with me. He told me how much he missed talking to me on the phone everyday and my personality. These were the themes of every conversation we had after he returned to his country. Then, he did it again... He just stopped calling. It has now been 6 weeks since the last time I heard from him. I would have rather he just said look EOF, it' over, we have to move on, I won't call you anymore because it is too painful for both of us. I have played our last conversation over in my head hundreds of times. There was no indication that I wouldn't hear from him again, that was the conversation when he spoke of me going to his country to see him. I've been terribly depressed about it 81, and I really empathize with your feelings because I understand them fully. The reason I write this though is because I've been reading some books that have really been helping me and I feel could really help you as well. Everything you are describing (aside from being how I feel) is classic abandonment suffering. The book you have got to get, read and follow is by Susan Anderson entitled "The Journey From Abandonment to Healing: Turning the End of a Relationship into a New Beginning." She also has a great workbook that goes along with this but it is out of print (only the WB) entitled "The Journey From Heartbreak to Connection". You can buy it second hand from Amazon or eBay. I'd also like for you to take a look at Byron Katie's books. A great one is "I Need Your Love, Is That True?" and I also liked "Loving What Is". These books help with reprogramming your mind to deal with the emotions in a healthy way, the abandonment books deal with this too. It teaches how to stay in the moment and how to use visualization techniques to deal with your pain and recreate a new life for yourself. The Anderson books also teach you a lot about not only the psychological damage abandonment incurs, but what is happening to you at a neurobiological level. Most importantly though, it teaches you how to heal from it. Please feel free to email me if I can offer you any more advise/assistance. (aquarius2572 at gmail.com) Wishing you Peace of Mind and Strength of Heart... The Edge of Forever
Author 81West Posted July 12, 2008 Author Posted July 12, 2008 Hi all, I'm heading out of town for a brief trip and will be back tommorrow night. Thanks so much for the thoughts everyone has shared. I'll think about those thoughts on my drive and share more of my own on my return. Thanks particularly to EdgeofForever who chose my thread for her first post. I feel very cared for, something I've been missing immensely in my real life. I appreciate this interim cyber friendship while I figure out how to rebuild a 3-D life of my own more than you all know. More soon, 81West
White Flower Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 He may already be back - I have no idea. He will not be back at work until Monday, however. I plan to stay NC. If he wants contact he will need to contact me. He has tracked me down before - but, of course now he knows where I am. Oh, this man won't be back until the 18th. Nevermind and sorry to bother you.
OWoman Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Hi all, I'm heading out of town for a brief trip and will be back tommorrow night. Thanks so much for the thoughts everyone has shared. I'll think about those thoughts on my drive and share more of my own on my return. Thanks particularly to EdgeofForever who chose my thread for her first post. I feel very cared for, something I've been missing immensely in my real life. I appreciate this interim cyber friendship while I figure out how to rebuild a 3-D life of my own more than you all know. More soon, 81West (((((hugs)))))
White Flower Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Hi all, I'm heading out of town for a brief trip and will be back tommorrow night. Thanks so much for the thoughts everyone has shared. I'll think about those thoughts on my drive and share more of my own on my return. Thanks particularly to EdgeofForever who chose my thread for her first post. I feel very cared for, something I've been missing immensely in my real life. I appreciate this interim cyber friendship while I figure out how to rebuild a 3-D life of my own more than you all know. More soon, 81West Enjoy that trip and try to notice anything beautiful around you. Smile and make friends. Surround yourself with them. Hugs.
Kamikaze Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Oh, this man won't be back until the 18th. Nevermind and sorry to bother you. No problem. My Xmm is so conservative - and of course now paranoid.
Author 81West Posted July 17, 2008 Author Posted July 17, 2008 Sigh, oh sigh, oh f'ing sigh. I'm free, single and 41 and my son has been at camp for a week and a half. I should have been out doing a zillion fun things but all I've done is stay at work late by myself doing nothing and then gone home to lie in the dark to wait for some half assed sleep. You gotta love hopelessness. lol. Like I said, the road from here to anywhere seems impossible, though I realize that's an illusion of my current sorry state of emotional health. On the good news front, I'm slipping in and out of a new stage with regard to my MIA relationship. That is, it finally feels lost. I suddenly feel...dumped. Just dumped - eighteen months later. It's a heavy, sad, dull ache of a feeling but it's a familiar one in that it's a normal, survivable part of the human experience. I recognize this now. I've done this before. I can do it again. For some reason it's still difficult internally to mentally and emotionally turn my back on this person that turned his back on me with such expedience last year. It's not logical, but it feels disloyal. My love for him and my attachment to the relationship didn't have a chance to devolve in any kind of a normal way. Instead a deeply confusing and immensely painful silence reached out and grabbed those things around the throat and held them frozen there for a very long, very difficult time. EdgeofForever talked about abandonment and recommended a book by Susan Anderson. That book is the 'book on abandonment' I referenced reading earlier on in this thread. I have a hard time acknowledging that I feel abandonment as it suggests a childlike vulnerability and fragility of spirit that feels like failure when applied to my 41 year old self. In emotional crises I am outwardly stoic, reasoned, measured and calm. I don't do or say things I later regret. I'm a great girl to break up with. I just go. Go, and retreat inside myself and weather the storms of panic and grief alone. My outward strength comes mostly from a desire for personal dignitity and from an acceptance of the hard truth that anybody has the right to leave any relationship at any time. I believe in Karma, for lack of a better word, and never invest a minute in seeking any kind of vengeance. It comes mostly from all that, but it comes too from a deep-seated belief that any emotional needs I might express will not be acknowledged or met. I feel deep humiliation in trying, and failing, to be loved. The truth is that through a combination of circumstances, fate and poor choices I have experienced too much abandonment, particlarly of the sudden choking kind, for a person of my emotional makeup to carry. I shouldn't feel ashamed to say that, but I am. My father left when I was just two, and my mother loved me very much and raised me as best she could, but she was a person troubled by her own emotional problems and was absent in vital but hard to define ways. I lost all four grandparents in my teenage years, the first and hardest at 13 when my maternal grandfather passed away. He loved me deeply and thought I was just the cat's pyjamas. I believed him. My first real love was killed in a fiery car accident in the fourth year of our relationship and his injuries were such that I never had a chance to see him again and say goodbye. Almost a decade later the father of my son left our relationship abruptly when he discovered I was pregnant and he never looked back. He does not see our son to this day, and has never provided for him. A decade after that the sudden, emotionally violent end of the relationship that brought me here. I feel like I'm hopelessly twisted up inside with no tools or skills to learn how to feel anything but angry, scared and numb. Mostly numb. There, I've said it. Just sorry it took so many words. My apologies, and thank you so much for listening.
pelicanpreacher Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 I'm praying for you. Since you believe in Karma and a higher power, in this dark moment I'd also like you to turn to GOD and have faith in his love for I believe the misfortunes in your life are leading and preparing you for a better place and the fulfilling life promised to all those who will heed his word. I know that if I were GOD I'd make it right because, time and again, GOD has come to my aid when I needed him most but, only because I called on him!
White Flower Posted July 17, 2008 Posted July 17, 2008 There, I've said it. Just sorry it took so many words. My apologies, and thank you so much for listening. No apologies needed. You have had a rough life and yet you shine with dignity and integrity. Once the numbness dissipates you will be strong again and back to your stoic nature. I relate to you on so many levels so I understand completely what you are going through and the need to express it. You have no one around you to support you and I am glad that you reached out here. Just keep expressing yourself and you will feel better. There is a simple book by John Gray called, 'You Can Heal What You Feel'. He talks about the fact that you need to come out of that numbness by allowing yourself to experience that pain. Cry. Cry until you can't cry anymore. Watch sad movies to get you crying or listen to sad songs. Once you experience the torrent of the tears, you will be purged of that numb feeling and begin to experience life again. This book even has ste-by-step instructions on how to resolve certain issues with loved ones even if they have passed away or won't work with you on resolving those issues! I hope you pick it up because I think it can help you. Big hugs and please PM me any time. I wish I were there to bring you a cup of tea. WF.
Author 81West Posted July 18, 2008 Author Posted July 18, 2008 Thanks so much WF. Hey good thing you're not "White Thorny Flower" or "White Thin Fower", eh? I find it easier to post on other people's threads than my own, so more tomorrow. And I want tea! From WTF.
Meaplus3 Posted July 18, 2008 Posted July 18, 2008 Sigh, oh sigh, oh f'ing sigh. I'm free, single and 41 and my son has been at camp for a week and a half. I should have been out doing a zillion fun things but all I've done is stay at work late by myself doing nothing and then gone home to lie in the dark to wait for some half assed sleep. You gotta love hopelessness. lol. Like I said, the road from here to anywhere seems impossible, though I realize that's an illusion of my current sorry state of emotional health. On the good news front, I'm slipping in and out of a new stage with regard to my MIA relationship. That is, it finally feels lost. I suddenly feel...dumped. Just dumped - eighteen months later. It's a heavy, sad, dull ache of a feeling but it's a familiar one in that it's a normal, survivable part of the human experience. I recognize this now. I've done this before. I can do it again. For some reason it's still difficult internally to mentally and emotionally turn my back on this person that turned his back on me with such expedience last year. It's not logical, but it feels disloyal. My love for him and my attachment to the relationship didn't have a chance to devolve in any kind of a normal way. Instead a deeply confusing and immensely painful silence reached out and grabbed those things around the throat and held them frozen there for a very long, very difficult time. EdgeofForever talked about abandonment and recommended a book by Susan Anderson. That book is the 'book on abandonment' I referenced reading earlier on in this thread. I have a hard time acknowledging that I feel abandonment as it suggests a childlike vulnerability and fragility of spirit that feels like failure when applied to my 41 year old self. In emotional crises I am outwardly stoic, reasoned, measured and calm. I don't do or say things I later regret. I'm a great girl to break up with. I just go. Go, and retreat inside myself and weather the storms of panic and grief alone. My outward strength comes mostly from a desire for personal dignitity and from an acceptance of the hard truth that anybody has the right to leave any relationship at any time. I believe in Karma, for lack of a better word, and never invest a minute in seeking any kind of vengeance. It comes mostly from all that, but it comes too from a deep-seated belief that any emotional needs I might express will not be acknowledged or met. I feel deep humiliation in trying, and failing, to be loved. The truth is that through a combination of circumstances, fate and poor choices I have experienced too much abandonment, particlarly of the sudden choking kind, for a person of my emotional makeup to carry. I shouldn't feel ashamed to say that, but I am. My father left when I was just two, and my mother loved me very much and raised me as best she could, but she was a person troubled by her own emotional problems and was absent in vital but hard to define ways. I lost all four grandparents in my teenage years, the first and hardest at 13 when my maternal grandfather passed away. He loved me deeply and thought I was just the cat's pyjamas. I believed him. My first real love was killed in a fiery car accident in the fourth year of our relationship and his injuries were such that I never had a chance to see him again and say goodbye. Almost a decade later the father of my son left our relationship abruptly when he discovered I was pregnant and he never looked back. He does not see our son to this day, and has never provided for him. A decade after that the sudden, emotionally violent end of the relationship that brought me here. I feel like I'm hopelessly twisted up inside with no tools or skills to learn how to feel anything but angry, scared and numb. Mostly numb. There, I've said it. Just sorry it took so many words. My apologies, and thank you so much for listening. I'm so sorry for all that you have been through. Abandonment with NO closure is real rough.. and hard to understand. Have you ever considered Therapy? (((hugs)) AP:)
White Flower Posted July 18, 2008 Posted July 18, 2008 Thanks so much WF. Hey good thing you're not "White Thorny Flower" or "White Thin Fower", eh? I find it easier to post on other people's threads than my own, so more tomorrow. And I want tea! From WTF.Hmm, that could stand for 'what the ****' And no, I am not thin by any means! Full-figured and proud of it. Do you take lemon and honey? I would bring it if I could, sweetie. How are you feeling today?
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