can't cope :-(

[NoMoreJerks]

Hi everyone. I broke up with my bf a few days ago. It was the first serious relationship I had been in, and the breakup has left ke traumatized, severely depressed and hopeless, to the point where I can no longer function and perform normal day to day activities. I am a student working on my phd dissertation proposal so i dont have a 9-5 pm job to keep my mind off things. I do wprk, but part-time, and mostly research, and i keep putting that off. I stay in bed til 3-4pm, and cry most of the day. When i force myself to go out for a bit, i break down crying in public, out of the blue, and i immediately try to return home. I keep thinking of the good times we had together and every time i walk around towne, it reminds me of how we walked around together holding hands and going into this or that restaurant. I havent had any real food for the past 2 days. I forced myself to have a Kit Kat yesterday but thats about it. Is this something that youve all experienced or am i taking it particularly hard? Ive tried picking up a book to take my mind off things, watch movies, etc., but after 5 minutes of trying to read or watch, i give up because i dont enjoy it and it makes me feel depressed. Short pf seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist, any tips as to how i can get back to normal? Or is this the normal stage of grieving and i should just give myself time?

Edited September 16, 2012 by NoMoreJerks

[Million.to.1]

Don't feel bad. What you are experiencing is reasonably normal. I lost 5kgs after my last break-up because i just didn't have an appetite. Drink lots of sprillina smoothies if food doesn't appeal.

 

You are only at the beginning of this and it's important that you make a firm decision to look after yourself during this period.

 

Exercise will really help you. Staying in bed all day will not. you know that. Get up every day and do something physical. Go to the gym, go for a brisk walk, a yoga class, a bike ride, whatever. Make the commitment to do it everyday for a week.

then come home, have a shower, give yourself a face-mask or a manicure or something like that.

 

Try and get your wok done.

 

Go and visit friends who are fun and will be supportive to you. Tell them you would appreciate company more than ever at the moment.

 

It won't get easier staying in bed. TRUST ME. I tried it.

[Mcnulty]

Tha last time was the 2nd time my heart's been broken.

 

Things i did differently to help me cope...I wrote a list of all the failings in the relationship and in her...kept re reading the list...still do it now after 11 months, but a lot less frequently. I forced myself to eat, i remember it made me feel worse mentally and physically the first time. I let my feelings come, i cried when i wanted to, I hit pillows with anger when i needed to. I put my faith in time and hoped I could find the patience and strength to get through what I knew would be the hardest days, (the first few weeks) And lastly I went NC, no online snooping even and just tried to keep my dignity intact.

 

Your feelings are totally normal, you will get through this, I promise. ;o)

[NoMoreJerks]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Million.to.1, I have tried going out with friends and hanging out with them. In fact, the day of the break-up, I went out with a few friends for drinks at the pub, because they told me it was probably not a good idea to go home and be alone at night. They convinced me to go with them, but I stayed for an hour, and couldn't do more than that. Went home and cried my head off til the next morning. The next day, one of my friends asked if I wanted to have dinner with her and catch a movie, which we did, but throughout the time we were out, I kept wanting to come back home, curl up in bed, and cry. Since then, I have been by myself. My friends are mostly busy and I feel that they're fed up with my relationship drama, since I had been telling them about my problems with this guy way before we broke up. Yeah, they've been very supportive, but at some point I realized that they don't want to hear about it anymore. Same goes for my family. I really am on my own in dealing with this. Well, I have LS, and I honestly don't know what I would've done without it these past few days. If only because it's helped keep me busy reading other people's posts and answering back, etc.

 

Mcnulty, I actually did that yesterday. I wrote down the stuff he had told me that were disrespectful, the things he had demanded from me that were disrespectful, all the ways in which he had wronged me. In fact, read about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and realized that my ex may have been a narcissist, based on all the behavioural indicators that they had on multiple websites about the disorder. And it did make me feel much better. In fact, last night I went to bed even feeling like I was better off without him. But I woke up today feeling like crap again. I re-read the list today, and it didnt make me feel as good as it had made me feel last night. And I also went over his previous text mssges, from back when we first started dating. And he was so nice to me, and he was the one who kept texting me, and wanting to call me, or skype with me. When he broke up with me, he complained that I wasn't giving him space, and that I was expecting him to call every day when he was abroad (which wasn't true). But by then, he wasn't even calling me much, if at all, only texting, and his texts were mostly about sex and his threesome fantasy. How did things go so downhill? Did I push him away? Maybe it was my fault. He was so good to me at the beginning, after all. Maybe I smothered him by seeing him every day while he was here for work? I did that because he's usually here for 2-3 weeks and I don't even know when I might see him next, so i wanted to see him every day while he was here. Maybe that was too much? Still, that doesn't explain why he did some of the things he did to me, and his addiction to the threesome idea, but maybe on balance, it was my fault? That's what I've been wondering all day today. Because at first, even the day of the break-up, I was convinced that I had done everything in my power, bent over backwards, to salvage the relationship. But today I don't. It seems that I've taken a step back, not forward.

Edited September 17, 2012 by NoMoreJerks

[NoMoreJerks]

Tomorrow night will mark 3 months since I met him. It's going to be a hard night. I'm going to the pub where I met him, and having a few pints. It's gonna be such a hard night. But there's nowhere I'd rather "mark" tomorrow than at the pub where I met him. Maybe it will give me closure.

[TooHonest123]

on may 20th of this year my ex gave me the news that she was in love with somebody else....the months that followed were the moist painful months of my life...and months that i Do not want to remmember...I can recall not eating...not sleeping...i felt pain in the center of my chest...i had vomit, dhiarrea...stress and anxiety...i lost about 15 pounds.

 

How did I cope?

Gym , Gym , Gym....i forced myself to go out and work out...i forced myself to eat and most inportantly spend time with my family who i had forgotten about. Try to keep the contact to a minimum and try to not keep up with what your ex is doing since this will only hurt you more...i really can not stress that last part any more...

 

Life is like a set of doors...the proffesional and educational door, the door for relationships, family, love, frendships and spitituality ( if you are religious)...always keep these doors open...and never let your entire life revolve around a relationship...because if you do this...and something goes wrong...the relationship door closes you will be left literaly stuck in a room.

 

Lastly let time heal your wounds...it gave me some self peace to know that in the future I would be in a much better place...and hopefully with someone who could make me much happier...

 

Keep in mind that you have great qualities...thats the reason why you initially entered this relationship, because your ex saw something good in you...there are others who will value these same qualities. It does not end here.

 

Take this time and sadness you are feeling and turn it into something positive. This is your chance to become the person you always wanted to be...channel this energy to better your self mentally and physically.

 

Never blame yourself for anything that happend...we are human and life throws curve balls at us....Take this as a learning experience and apply your new found maturity to your future life.

 

 

 

***I myself am a college student...currently studying electtrical and computer engineering and physics...I can imagine that you as a phD student have an incredible amount of research and work to do. Right now YOU come first in your life. Do not let this affect your future. Make an appointment with an Academic advisor if you feel things are getting out of hand..thats what i did.

Edited September 20, 2012 by TooHonest123

[spaniard]

on may 20th of this year my ex gave me the news that she was in love with somebody else....the months that followed were the moist painful months of my life...and months that i Do not want to remmember...I can recall not eating...not sleeping...i felt pain in the center of my chest...i had vomit, dhiarrea...stress and anxiety...i lost about 15 pounds.

 

How did I cope?

Gym , Gym , Gym....i forced myself to go out and work out...i forced myself to eat and most inportantly spend time with my family who i had forgotten about. Try to keep the contact to a minimum and try to not keep up with what your ex is doing since this will only hurt you more...i really can not stress that last part any more... blabla

 

Right after my ex dumped me I started looking for sites about how to deal with a break up, how to get over your ex as fast as possible. They were all about self-improvement, working out, rebuilding your self-esteem and so on. It was the second time a girl broke my heart and I decided that I would not repeat what I did last time (collapsing like a card castle, begging, sobbing and doing unmanly things -- for 6 long months). So I did exactly what those sites recommended.

 

And guess what: it worked. It's been two and a half months, and I feel better than ever. I'm not saying I'm over her completely -- however, I don't care about her. I don't check her FB page (I deleted her instantly telling her it was necessary for my healing process). I accepted that it's over. I gave myself 2 weeks to mourn this relationship and get through all the emotion waves that are common in situations like this. Whenever my brain wants to play a game like "hey, do you remember when you and your ex..." I think "STOP" and I hijack my train of thoughts instantly. It may sound skizophrenic, but it works

 

Also the transformation of my body, the new, healthy way of life gives me a huge boost on my self-confidence and I feel more energetic than ever. I can say I'm a happy guy. I even started skydiving, which has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager. Certainly, somewhere deep inside my heart there is still a little pain and some sadness, but it seems so distant now and has no effect on my daily life anymore. No contact + self-improvement. This is the way to heal yourself.

[Calico]

I havent had any real food for the past 2 days. I forced myself to have a Kit Kat yesterday but thats about it. Is this something that youve all experienced or am i taking it particularly hard?

 

It's normal. For me, it's essentially been a month since it all fell apart, and ten days of NC, and I still don't eat enough. In the first days, I ate nothing at all, just lived off of water, cola and rarely a milk shake, so it's improvement. I couldn't eat solid food. I hope you manage more than a kit kat per day by now (they are delicious!).

 

Keep watching movies (nothing with lovey-dovey stuff in it), even if you don't feel like it. Force yourself to. I watched all sorts of trash movies, mostly thrillers or scifi stuff, fast paced, shallow stuff. It provides new impressions to your brain and even though you'll probably still think about the situation literally all the time, there will be tiny breaks. For me, especially in the first few days, the worst were the dreams, especially when they had sexual elements in them. I still dream of her every night and mornings are hell, but they seem a little bit less vivid now (or I learned to suppress them better!).

 

What helped me was to befriend new people. Not in "meatspace", but online. Just text-chatting with folks and a little skyping. It's not at all like talking to her, and in a way it makes me miss what I had and lost more, but I can't remain stuck in the past or refuse to live, and neither can you. The only option is to go forward, even if it is baby steps that feel "fake" or unsatisfying. It's all better than nothing, and I do appreciate the new (online) people that have entered my life as a result of the break-up. I've had better conversations in the past few months than I did in quite a while and met bright, creative, interesting folks. It's something to be grateful for (I'd offer to chat, but I don't think you have PMs yet.)

 

I hope you feel better today.

[Berna]

Hey hun, I am so sorry. That is something almost all of us will go through in our lifetime, I am going through this right now. And I do have a full time job, but I just can't concentrate and this morning I started crying in front of a co-worker which made me feel even worse about myself.

 

What keeps me going is the fact that one day I WILL feel better and normal again. I have also lost my appetite and also have problems with my stomach, it's been a week. I don't have the strength and will to do anything, but I know that staying in bed will make me feel worse and even more depressed. I've always love long walks, so I take my dog and we walk for hours, meet other people who also walk their dogs and it makes me feel better. For now I am avoiding the triggers (places where I've been with him) as much as I can.

 

Hold on, we can do it