yes Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 it looks like i'll be posting every time i speak to him for now!... he still makes me feel sad and abandoned, even though i'm not in tears or anything. i think i'm still soaking in the reality of him - his crappy job, his crappy marks, his inability to committ, his excessive joking being a cover up for insecurity and shyness, etc. more and more, i realize that he was basically right - we make good friends, but a LTR is an absurd idea. but another side of me says - who cares abt the job and the marks and his insecurities, i want him!!! it feels like something's been left unsaid between us... i think i'll end up talking abt this to him. he has said before that he wanted to talk but at the time i was all about no-contact. a part of me is just scared... for so long, he had such a big place in me, and now i'm feeling it dissolve and there's a void. i'm not rlly in love with anyone anymore. i'm open for new r/s's. so much scarier than closing my eyes and longing for the impossible. lately i feel like life has been showing me that i'm looking for happiness in all the wrong places. no achievements, no guys, can make me happy ... it's all in me, now i feel that clearly... and the main thing i feel in myself is sadness. this morning is a beautiful one - it's sunny and spring-y, i'm here alone w/ my cats, i've got some things to do, i have plans for the upcoming 2 years or so, my obsession w/ the ex is dissolving, i've got friends and parents who love me, i've got LS to rant to ... nothing's wrong, really, but i feel so sad - that all this will pass, that - i dunno why. that's all, -yes
moimeme Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 If you've got something chemical going on, that's the 'why'. There is no other cause. A dip in serotonin will dump you into the blues on the best and most wonderful of days. There's no real need to search your soul for the source of the angst. Stuff a few carbs and some chocolate with a caffeine chaser and you should be up and sunny again shortly.
Author yes Posted April 9, 2004 Author Posted April 9, 2004 yeah, it may well be just the chemical issues. hm - are most people content? like, when your life is going fine, are you just happily going about your business? honestly? you are, right? you don't think about the fleetiness of it all, etc? -yes
CaterpillarGirl Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 Hmmm...sometimes I think I am chemically dependent on stress. If there is no deadline or large event looming, I feel a bit uneasy. I'm usually able to unwind on vacation, and generally feel happy for a few days, but if the vacation lasts more than a week or so, I start to ruminate about my research or life plans, etc. I sometimes wish I could turn my brain on and off at will. But for the most part, even when I am stressed, I have a positive outlook. As in, yes this project is incredibly difficult, but I'm really learning a lot. Maybe I will die young as I've always believed, but that doesn't mean life is futile.
meanon Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 I sometimes do think about the "fleetiness of it all" but it doesn't make me sad, if anything it makes me want't to enjoy the moment more. We all get knocked off course by things that happening our lives but equally we all have the capacity to make our lives happy, to enjoy the many good things life has to offer. People can learn to do this, I've seen it many, many times. I think you are focusing on what you wish you had with this guy as an ideal of happiness because you love him. Now the obsession is dissolving you have no other ideal of happiness with which to replace it. This will pass. Hang in there, yes - you'll feel better soon.
moimeme Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 I'm almost always cheerful. When I'm not, I check myself for possible causes (not enough food, time of the month, etc.) and 'treat' myself for it, generally with food and/or multivitamins. Sometimes I do think of the problems or troubles in the world, but that just makes me want to do something about them. The thing is this; you can think about all sorts of things but you can react to those thoughts very differently, and some of your reactions are controlled by your chemical situation. I have a hilarious book about PMS; one of the cartoons pictures a woman looking at the sort of front-loader washer that has a glass door on it, weeping. The caption is something like 'I'm crying because it reminds me of my life - an endless circle and no way out'. It's funny because we know that when the chemical onslaught of PMS hits, things which ordinarily would not seem tragic do. For me, it's a terrific illustration of how easily our moods can be swayed by our internal chemistry - and also a terrific illustration that our feelings may not be reliable in all instance. I think that, when you have some sort of unpleasant feeling going on, it's worthwhile trying to sort out what could be causing it in terms of physical stuff rather than always thinking there is some big problem at the root of it all. Our minds seek to rationalize. If we have a feeling, the brain looks for a cause when there may actually be none. People who feel anger seek someone or something to blame when often it's just their overstimulated system. Now sometimes, yes, there is an underlying cause, but I think one has to be careful in sorting out what, exactly, is going on and that the physical aspect should always be taken into account.
midori Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 Originally posted by yes a part of me is just scared... for so long, he had such a big place in me, and now i'm feeling it dissolve and there's a void. i'm not rlly in love with anyone anymore. i'm open for new r/s's. so much scarier than closing my eyes and longing for the impossible. Yeah, I know this feeling. Years ago I loved a guy (not the ex I usually refer to) who shared a lot of the traits you've just listed about your ex. Yet I sensed other things in him, and believed that if he just got to a place where he could believe in himself, that he would throw off the insecurities and come into his own. And I wanted that so badly for him, and I wanted to help him. Meanwhile, what was I doing for myself? I wasn't engaged in work that brought me personal satisfaction. But it was harder to think about what I should be doing when I could focus on him, and his potential, and what he should be doing. Thinking about your ex maybe is a distraction for you, so that you don't have to face the hard questions about yourself that are waiting to be answered. lately i feel like life has been showing me that i'm looking for happiness in all the wrong places. no achievements, no guys, can make me happy ... it's all in me, now i feel that clearly... and the main thing i feel in myself is sadness. this morning is a beautiful one - it's sunny and spring-y, i'm here alone w/ my cats, i've got some things to do, i have plans for the upcoming 2 years or so, my obsession w/ the ex is dissolving, i've got friends and parents who love me, i've got LS to rant to ... nothing's wrong, really, but i feel so sad - that all this will pass, that - i dunno why. that's all, -yes I think that a lot of women do this. Maybe men do it too, but as a woman I can only speak from my own experience. For me, at least, it's a combination of the cultural and family values I was raised with, implicit assumptions that for a long time I wasn't even conscious of, and those assumptions were interacting with the thing I was more conscious of, my desire to do something in the world that I considered to be significant. That can be a tall order, doing something significant. If you come from a background that doesn't include money and connections, if you don't have an outstanding artistic talent -- what are you going to do? It's not as obvious or easy. Then there were the implicit assumptions I had: that a woman will be siginficant through motherhood, through being a good wife. I was being educated in a cultural miliieu that emphasized women's capacity to be significant in their own right, and I did believe in that principle -- but I hadn't figured out how it applied to me specifically. I didn't see myself as someone who had particular capacities that could be focused on something in a unique way that would useful and significant. Sure, I knew I was pretty intelligent, etc. -- but I hadn't figured out what specifically I was supposed to be doing with myself. So why not devote yourself to a person who, you sense, has significant things within them that just haven't come to the surface yet? Then you're not putting pressure on yourself to be significant -- which is scary since nothing is clear. You end up entangled in a relationship with someone whom you genuinely like and care about as a person -- but that's not your sole motivation for being in the relationship. And once you see that being in a relationship with this person is not very good for you, your feelings about them start to change. At a minimum you start to resent them, etc. And you wonder: why do I still care so much? Why do I feel so empty without him to focus on? It's not about him, it's about you. And what focusing on him lets you avoid. It's 1000x's safer and less threatening to worry about him, think about him than it is to focus on you, and what new avenues of opportunity you should be cultivating for yourself. You've started of course, it's not like you've just been sitting there doing nothing for yourself. But whatever emptiness you feel inside, I'd be willing to bet that it's not due to a lack of him -- the person he is, the things he actually does -- but what he represented to you: an opportunity to make a difference without having to step outside your safety zone and stretch yourself in new directions that won't be easy or obvious. That, at least, is what I have learned from my heartbreaks over men who weren't any good for me.
Author yes Posted April 9, 2004 Author Posted April 9, 2004 Thanks for all the replies. I think my case is a mix of chemical instability & some psychological issues similar to ones Midori described (probably not exactly same, but also along the ones of fulfilling some ideals through him instead of doing it myself). Also possibly the habit of seeing my parents be not cheerful is kicking in - I hope to be surrounded with more cheerful positive people in the future. It's nice to hear I'm not alone. What puzzles me somewhat is that this ex made such a big impact even though we only dated for a total of maybe four months. I feel like others can relate but for them it was based on a LTR... which somehow makes it more reasonable. Is that true? (Midori?) -yes
midori Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 I don't know that it matters how long the two of you were together, it was long enough for him to strongly influence you. And it's not as though it was really just those 4 months. Since then, you've had the idea in the back of your mind that the two of you might get back together -- not an entirely unrealistic thought -- and the other reasons you were invested in the relationship kept you focused on the possibility of getting back together. It's not just forgetting about him, the person that he is and the actual interactions you had with him. It's filling in the empty spaces the promise of having a relationship with him held. As long as it was a possibility you were entertaining, there were probably other things you didn't have to think about. For me, with my more recent ex for example, one of the things that would have been taken care of is money. I've now got school debt, and only work part-time because I'm a full-time grad student. Giving up the idea of him meant accepting that there would be no magic solution to my (hopefully temporary) money woes. Which is not to say that my primary reasons for loving that ex were money-related -- not at all. But in the aftermath, as I still found myself hoping to get back together, and then just sad and anxious, I realized that even once my feelings for him had eroded, the other reasons I had for wanting the relationship still existed. But they weren't about him at all -- he was just a possible solution. The trick was recognizing that my anxiety wasn't about him anymore, it was about the more concrete worries that, in theory, being with him could have taken care of.
moimeme Posted April 9, 2004 Posted April 9, 2004 even though we only dated for a total of maybe four months Yes, but we've seen time and again on here, and it's borne out by science, that the early phase of a relationship is usually the most intense. To have it cut off while it was still in its flower, as it were, can be even harder because you hadn't really gotten to the point where the idealized relationship starts being mitigated by reality.
Author yes Posted April 9, 2004 Author Posted April 9, 2004 Midori, - yeah, this way of looking at it makes total sense. The problem that he'd solve for me is loneliness. He's somebody I could call in the middle of the night, and we'd talk for hours, and i always felt understood, appreciated despite my issues, empathized with, and warmed up, emotionally. Although I do have friends, i haven't had this kind of open warm dialogue with anybody else. Clearly, this is about my need for this kind of support... just hope to find it elsewhere, eventually merci merci, -yes
Author yes Posted April 9, 2004 Author Posted April 9, 2004 Originally posted by moimeme even though we only dated for a total of maybe four months Yes, but we've seen time and again on here, and it's borne out by science, that the early phase of a relationship is usually the most intense. To have it cut off while it was still in its flower, as it were, can be even harder because you hadn't really gotten to the point where the idealized relationship starts being mitigated by reality. Very true, Moi! Time question successfully discarded -yes
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