carolinawanderer Posted January 2, 2010 Posted January 2, 2010 I've fallen into a pretty deep depression. Even though it's been over five months, lately I've been handling things terribly. I'm sleeping for 12 hours at a time and I can't get myself out of bed until 3-4 in the afternoon. I don't want to be doing this, but as soon as I wake up I have spiraling thoughts about my ex... My full story's in Coping (probably on page 2) if you haven't seen it... My ex and I had this tradition while we dated. We were long-distance, so ever night before I went to bed, I would send her a message on Facebook. She'd reply every morning, and I'd see it before I went off to class. We just told each other about our day or what we were going to do the next day, and ended it by saying how much we loved each other. I looked back at a lot of our old messages last night. I noticed that my whole senior year of college was a bit rough for me. My ex knew I was struggling in my personal life. However, I don't know if it really took a toll on our relationship until February rolled around, that's when I started becoming more moody and irritable with her. I think about some of the things my ex said when she finally dumped me...she called me a "negative" person. I'm not sure what she was basing that on...a couple of months of crappiness, or more than that. She said that wasn't why she was dumping me, but that was certainly something she didn't like. Now, I don't think what she said was true. Plus, she was going through some difficult times our senior year as well. She worried a lot about her appearance/looks, and talked to me about it a lot, almost as much as I discussed my issues with her. Plus, I do remember her getting a little jealous when I went out with girls who were just friends. I got a bit jealous when she'd go out drinking without me (which wasn't often), worrying that guys would try something with her. Bottom line, she did some of the same things she said she did not like about me. Despite the stresses of life, our relationship seemed to be going quite well until February. In January, she thought I might have been getting bored with our relationship. Maybe I was, a little bit, as things seemed to be a little stale, but we still got along just fine. Then, in February/March, our differences really came out, and we felt quite distant from each other over spring break. She tried to break up with me twice in two weeks in April, citing my recent moodiness and how different we were. I ended up convincing her to stay. I don't know if she ultimately left me because she was just not feeling the spark anymore...but I do wonder if I leaned on her a little bit too much. My ex never really seemed to care that I wasn't some emotionless macho man. She constantly told me how much she loved how sweet and affectionate and caring I was. I do know that one thing she was really concerned about was not actually my moodiness, but our fundamental differences and how we reacted to things. I wonder if she was just referring to my depression during Feb/March/April, or just how much I was facing on the whole during my senior year...basically, I'm wondering if the fact that I let my problems get to me a little bit too much potentially turned her off to me completely. As I said in my original post, we were different people who did not see eye to eye on everything. It wasn't optimal, but it did not really seem to bother her until those couple of down months...our differences certainly did come out more during that time, but when I convinced her to stay, I told her the differences did not really matter to me. She had even told me that too, back in November of last year... I just don't know what happened...I wonder if she would have stayed with me if I just would have kept some of my personal problems inside. Plus, it was my first relationship. She seemed to be SO in love with me, then things went downhill very fast...is this common in first relationships?
Ro2Pi Posted January 3, 2010 Posted January 3, 2010 Hey carolinawanderer, I'm sorry to hear about your breakup and since it's the first all of your feelings are foreign and new. I had my first... well my first real breakup recently while others were near negligible in comparison. My situation is nearly identical to yours but exactly opposite in distance. I lived with my ex and we're both working together to find someone to sublet my place... Anyways... (just background) In regards to holding back personal problems to maintain a relationship: No. I thought about that too. My relationship was actually getting much stronger until I had a hammer of stress from school crush me along with some family emergencies. I tried to hold it in to keep a good tone in the relationship but it prevented us from having nice conversations... I eventually spilled all my problems but when I needed her the most she said she had already developed a lot of doubt and broke up with me. All of this in two weeks. What I'm trying to say is... right now you might be thinking of all the bad symptoms there were and how you could/would/should've done this or that. However, winning some battles doesn't win a war. Maybe there were deeper things that just couldn't be fixed and though it's painful sometimes we just have to accept them. Everyone deals on their own path with breakups but keep us posted so we can help guide you. If you'd like I can post a gigantic list of things and what you'll most likely feel... But it's from a perspective where I knew that my breakup was solid. Stay strong and keep your chin up.
Back2dabasics Posted January 3, 2010 Posted January 3, 2010 damn. im sorry to hear you going through rough times. i also was in LDR for 2.5 years so i know how LDRs are like. you just gotta be strong. doing productive things and go out more instead of sleeping all day. i know how you feel because i felt the same way. i felt like my world was ending. its been like more than 3 months that my ex broke up with me and left me for another guy. so you can imagine how that is like. at times i think about it but i never over do it. you said its been 5 months since your break up and you're very depressed. don't allow yourself to be depressed. its very unhealthy. it brings down your self-esteem. you should go out and pamper yourself. if you got money, go out buy yourself some new clothes and get a fresh cut. hit up the gym. try something that you always wanted to do. go out with your friends to bars or clubs and flirt with girls. you deserve to be happy. good luck.
dazzle22 Posted January 3, 2010 Posted January 3, 2010 You are going past what would be considered a normal grieving period, into full blown depression with what is called "vegetative symptoms" -meaning it is not just a mood issue anymore, but it is starting to affect your life functioning. You really should see your doctor. Depressions that go this low, are often very difficult to pull out of, and what we now know from PET scans and MRIs, is the brain undergoes actual structural "die back" of areas of the brain that govern mood if the depression lasts too long.
Howitzer Posted January 3, 2010 Posted January 3, 2010 Ditto to dazzle22. You could try seeing a therapist, to at least talk things out, develop a plan to start feeling better. It looks like you'll have to put some work in before you start feeling better. Get out, work out, sleep less, eat more, yada yada. Do stuff man.
cybersister Posted January 3, 2010 Posted January 3, 2010 Sorry you're going through this. it's tough. One aspect you might draw some comfort from is my experience of just being out of a 5.5 year relationship of which the last 3.5 were long distance. I think that a LDR can paper over cracks cos you do not want to upset someone over the phone or the internet ( be that MSN, Facebook or email ). So in fact your incompatibilies are not addressed and you pretend they are not the red flags that they are. think about waht you got in the relationship and how to get it elsewhere- you got morning and evening contacts telling you all was well with your world. find another FB buddy who will contact you daily -(or post here every day- you will get responses - this is a very caring environment) and use this as a crutch until you start to get more in your life. Apart form that I echo the other advice- you have to get out and do stuff. I bought a very useful book " how to lift depression fast" for when I thought my son was depressed and have since loaned it to a couple of other friends in need who found it helped. Good luck
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