Grieving and Break Up

[Seachelle1]

My dad died one year ago. I had to come back home from a foreign country to take care of my mother who is unable to care for herself. I'm young, 28 and the whole thing is horrible and unexpected.

 

I come with a lot of baggage. I was badly sexually abused (raped and tortured repeatedly) as a kid and lost my community when I stood up for myself about it. The only people who stuck with me were my parents. I've got massive abandonment issues and trust issues. I have PTSD and have panic attacks. With my dad dead and my mother on the verge, I've been hurting bad. I feel like damaged goods and feel so stupid and frazzled.

 

Him and I, we started in October as sex buddies. We weren't exclusive. I'm the jealous type and let him know at the beginning that I enjoyed the sex (he was gentle and willing to stop at any time for my panic attacks) but I'd leave him when jealously and hurt became an issue. I had also let him know I was seriously hurting and he could tell me if it was too much. The jealousy and hurt on my part became too much after a month and I started to cut off contact. I let him know and he suddenly came to me and said he'd left all the people he'd been seeing and he wanted to see me exclusively. I REALLY liked him and agreed. I'd just been leaving him because I knew that my boundaries were being crossed and I had to take care of myself.

 

We tried to slow down but we were around each other all the time. My grief got worse. I cried all night and kept him awake. I started to have emotional meltdowns. I don't even remember what happened. I know the look on his face afterward. I felt sooooo bad, every time. It was just this intense emotion that would come sweeping through me and I'd lash out, become cranky and mean. I hated myself for doing it to him.

 

We broke up over housemate issues and my meltdowns.

 

Then we got back together. We decided to spend more time apart, to continue our own lives. We both really, really needed it.

 

We would meet up at my house every couple days to have sex and eat dinner together, then he'd go home and not sleep over. I was doing a lot better, no more meltdowns. I could have time to myself and to work on my business. He could have time to be with his friends who weren't grieving.

 

And then something snapped. I don't know what it was. I was talking to him about my mother. My mother is brain damaged and I was worried about some super serious emotional stuff.

 

He said I should talk to her about assisted suicide. My heart just kind of stopped and I told him to get the f*ck out. He tried to change the subject and ignore my response but I kept saying it to him insistently (no screaming, just insistence).

 

I went to be with my mom for the weekend and for Eighth Night. I was supposed to take care of her while my sis went on a well-deserved vacation. We talked a little after I told him to get out and we agreed to meet at a nearby bar to talk it over.

 

On Saturday night he messaged me and said he wouldn't come over, that my family was a distraction and he didn't want to deal with it.

 

I told him I thought we should break up.

 

He ignored what I just said and repeated what I had said with the addition of my family being "too much."

 

I told him he needed to stop hurting me.

 

Then I went into the living room and saw my mother had gifted me expired tea in the bag dad's ashes came home in. I went out and bought a bottle of cheap sherry and got VERY drunk. I burned the bag dad's ashes came home in and purple smoke covered the room because there had been plastic already in the fireplace. Everyone got a headache and an epileptic member of the family was ill from it. Everyone was mad at me.

 

I tried to call him. Repeatedly. I got hold of him and he was stoned and slurred. I don't remember what was said, really.

 

Then he put in a no contact request to me. I stopped trying to contact him. I sent a single letter about the stuff in my house that was his (which I offered to mail) and the fact that he'd hurt me a lot by what he'd said about my mother and family. I said that in healing and in retrospect I found our relationship passive-aggressive, that he said one thing but hated me for not being fun and for grieving and that he'd tried to change me and make me someone I wasn't. I reminded him I had a family to take care of and that they were my first priority. I wished the best for him and hoped closure for him. He responded saying he still loved me and that he was angry at me for grieving (essentially).

 

Two months passed and I ran into a mutual friend. I invited her into my house. Apparently they're dating now. They'd been having a non-exclusive relationship before me. She dyed her hair for him, does her hair for him, dresses for him. She professes to be deeply in love and that they have so much more than we had.

 

Okay, so I have no friends, right? I'd been living in a foreign country before dad died where I moved after I lost my community for coming forward about stuff. All my friends live in a foreign country. We talk by messenger but we live sooooooooo far away from each other. With this guy, he'd welcomed me into his group of friends. I'd felt accepted and tentatively opened my heart. I trusted him. Then he dumped me by email, told me not to contact him, and I was suddenly friendless again. My life was just in a mess. I'd had to move on with no support whatsoever. I had to run a business, move with no help, grieve with no help.

 

She tells me that she would dump me as a friend if he asked her.

 

Something just exploded inside of me. I have lost everything, I don't deserve to be treated like garbage, like all I'm good for is sex and I can only be good and have friends if I'm sleeping with someone. I just want someone to love me and stand by me in bad situations.

 

I told her to leave. I wrote him again and made it clear that she should never contact me again and he should never contact me again. I said I was struggling with anger and clear boundaries would help diffuse the anger.

 

I'd been doing okay before then, right? I was happy, more or less. I had been trying to make friends and do normal things like go for bike rides and hikes and get up in the morning.

 

My heart just twists inside me. I can't sleep. I ache all over. I feel so worthless and cheap and alone. I am so scared. I'm having anxiety attacks all over again, like the people who hurt me as a kid are gonna come and kill me. I feel like I'm taking a million steps backwards with that encounter. Sometimes I can barely breathe.

 

They moved in just down the block and when I see them together I have to go in my house and lock the doors and have panic attacks. I think I should see a counselor again. I don't know what to do. It's almost unbearable.

 

I feel so hurt and worthless. Help? What should I do?

[mishy]

I had a similar experience with my dad dying and my mother a few months later and I then got involved n a sex only relationship with a loser that lasted 5 years and robbed me of my self esteem and I only really ended it today

 

So what you need to do is forget about having any kind of sexual relationship until your grief starts to stabilise and that takes a couple of years. If I could do it again I would have sought out emotionally stable friendships, NOT sex.

 

You need emotional support and emotional support is not sex.

[Seachelle1]

Thanks. I'm hurting so much. This is so bad. I haven't had this bad of a time in awhile.

[Seachelle1]

Things have gotten significantly worse in my head.

 

I spend my days high so I can function with my full-on flashbacks. (Legal with my diagnoses.)

 

I am so broken-hearted. I don't even have enough in me to come on here again and ask for help.

 

I went to a counselor yesterday and I'm going to do two sessions until I'm better. I don't have money but I HAVE to do this. This isn't optional. She said she has a plan to work through EMDR with me.

 

I feel so attached to my ex. I think that is the best way to put it. It's almost impossible to separate from him, we shared a lot in terms of trauma. I want him to do well but also hate him.

 

I try to remember his new girlfriend as a human and remember that she is young, naive and stupid, not intentionally hurting me. But honestly. I don't know if she hurt me on purpose or not. I suspect she did.

 

I had it out with my ex, yelling at him for how he treated me (not a pleasant situation) and I found that he went no contact on her advice.

 

I am so, so hurt. So angry. So betrayed. I feel so stupid for opening my heart. It's the first relationship I've had in two and a half years. I choose guys that treat me bad. I need to take time. Can I move to Bora Bora, please?