hurting -- need your support

[uriel]

I've been posting advice for awhile, but haven't shared my own story. This is a supportive community -- and I've benefitted from sharing others'. But my own -- that's tough. It's private -- hard to get into my throat, let alone a keyboard. I haven't, don't, talk about it much.

 

Fact is, the man I loved--the only one I ever have in the full romantic sense--left suddenly, horribly, twice. Played all sorts of headgames in the year before the first walk-out -- getting close, backing off. Led me on. Broke my heart. More true yet, broke me. Before that, I would've said no one could.

 

After, I went to therapy for the first time. I was diagnosed with major depression -- worst episode of my life. I felt like I was being, literally, crushed: a stone on my chest. The pit beneath was dark and deep. Poe's album, Haunted, was the soundtrack to my madness. In my darkest hour, I told my therapist, in front of whom I couldn't even bring myself to cry, "He gutted me." That's a fact.

 

Slowly, I rebuilt my life. Years passed. I've a happy family now, with a small child. My career's on track. My health's improved. Even gave myself a total makeover.

 

I've no contact with him, and haven't for over two years (yes, a five-month long relapse when I went back for a long-distance, correspondence only "friendship" -- terrible mistake). I got rid of everything that connected us or reminded me of him. I even recently took down a business website, since I would sometimes think, as I posted things there, that he might see it. Not a healthy thought.

 

This next, this is hard to say -- a contradiction only some of you here can really understand. But, uh, a few months ago, I backslid. I started reading the titles of his online journal posts. He'd always kept one, and I knew he probably did still. I didn't go looking; I came upon it by accident, doing a search for something else. I should have stayed away, but there he was. His voice was in my head. And I -- well. Like a junky, I rationalized. I thought if I just read the titles, I'd get a taste that he was alright, that he was-- present-- without getting hurt.

 

The titles are never anything personal -- all about public issues, etc. Except, today, I saw a title of a song that... Agh. I think he meant me to see. It's a song about a man who's lost a woman he loves, and he's regretting leaving her -- he's saying he thought he'd see her again, that they'd have time, and now they don't because she's gone and won't come back. I can't prove that he's doing it, but -- I just have a feeling, especially since I took my site down only days before.

 

Also -- there's something else. Here's how stupid I really am. He did this once before, before my other relapse into contact. He posted something after 9/11, using a phrase that meant something between us, to signal to me that he was hurting that he wanted me to come back. I knew then that he did that because he doesn't want to take responsibility for the contact -- wants to act like it's all on my end. That's how he is. A real prince.

 

I read the online journal entries back then -- so far apart, and yet almost close. This time around, I knew that wasn't safe. But still -- I can't believe I've done this... Why did I do this to myself? Rhetorical question.

 

The power of the thing -- it takes all sense from me. Like breath in my body -- that's what he was to me. The first time he left, that letter he sent, was a shotgun blast to the chest. I barely got up. Later, I remember standing by the side of a road, watching a truck coming, thinking I could just step out. If it hadn't been for my reluctance to scare / hurt the driver and those who care about me, I might have. No danger of that now, but I remember how much I was hurting.

 

Tell me to let this go. Tell me it's possible to love someone, hate someone, like this and leave for good -- for a lifetime. He's no good for me. There's no place for him in my life.

 

If I could strangle the part of me that wants him and bury it in the dark, cold ground, I would -- even if the world after was nothing but shades of gray. D*mn him, anyway, for d**mning me.

 

-- uriel

[sportsloving]

Awwwww Uriel. It is the little games that suck you back in, and no one can condemn you for you what you have been through, what you think, what you feel, or what you do (unless it is to hurt others).

 

I do know what you mean and are going through. I recently lost the only man I have ever truly loved, everyday is a hope .. a dream. I can still access his email accounts (silly duck hasn't changed the passwords yet), I can still call if I want, I can visit.... but I know it isn't healthy for me.

 

Everyday I sign into my email, and everytime I sign out, it asks me to log in. I have lately found it to be a reason to sign into his... so silly. And every time it lets me in, I think to myself, well, if he hasn't changed the password, he wants me here. But I know the guy is too busy for such trivial things. And I know for a fact that he isn't peeking in mine just to feel close. He will move on, because he is that strong. Instead of weeping the hours away, I know he is doing what he can to make his life the life he wants. And now it won't include me.

 

I want him to miss me as much as I miss him. I want him to remember the good and forget all the bad. I want the feeling only he could give me ... like I owned the world.

 

I figure in 50-70 years I should be over him. Perhaps. So same to you, you never have to forget, you never have to stop, you just have to do what is good for you.

 

You care(d) for the guy. You love(d) him. It isn't going to go away, it isn't going to stop. But please don't let him hurt you again. You said he isn't good for you, but he is like an addiction. When you get the urge to peek in his life, keep in mind, you don't need him in your life.

 

I wish you the very best in life. I know it is difficult, but I am rooting for you.

[moimeme]

Uriel

 

There are a lot of good books about love addiction. It might be worthwhile to you to read a couple. It sounds as though you're dealing with more than the usual case of 'breakup blues'.

[uriel]

Thanks for your help, sportsloving and moimeme.

 

Sportsloving, I was especially helped by your saying I might peek into his life without feeling I need to let him in mine. That's a great point -- one I'll remember. As always, I'm sorry the people who help one another here, like you, are hurting, too. Although it does give us an inside perspective we wouldn't otherwise have.

 

Moimeme, I've read the shelf on love addiction (also on related issues, including depression, narcissism (for him), etc.). I've got a degree in psychology. I went through a year of therapy. That's why such backsliding is so troubling for me. Knowledge is helpful in reshaping cognitive processes. However, there's emotional work that needs to be done, and that's a finer, deeper business. Ah well.

 

-- uriel

[moimeme]

Knowledge is helpful in reshaping cognitive processes. However, there's emotional work that needs to be done

 

Yep. In the end, the cognitive stuff only can do so much. Did you ever sort out why it was that this particular person was so appealing to you? Can you trace back what it was in him that you seem to crave and maybe deconstruct that?

[uriel]

Yes, moimeme, I've got all that worked out. Loveless, borderline father -- outwardly charming, eccentric thinker, strong intellect, artistic gifts. A man I once considered a hero, until I grew up enough to realize how dysfunctional he and the world he'd created for us to live in was. This man fit that profile.

 

I knew it from the time I was falling in love with him to the time we broke apart. That, plus the physical chemistry, did me in. I felt like heating wax whenever I looked at him, boneless and melting.

 

But, that awareness didn't, and hasn't, taken the power of the connection away, unfortunately. It did eventually help me to accept I would never have a healthy relationship or future with the man with whom I'd fallen in love. I'd already mostly accepted that with my father. Grieved through it -- as much as I could, inwardly and outwardly.

 

Here's the kick: My father disowned me -- ironically, out of the blue-- on the very same day this guy left me for the second time. How's that for synchronicity?

 

When the guy left, he said a terrible thing about how he didn't love me and wouldn't have even if I'd been the girl my father could have cared for. (He knew that my relationship with my crazy father was strained, but didn't know then -- as I didn't -- what was to come in only a few hours by email.)

 

Thus, the near hospitalization.

 

-- uriel