I am hurting and I'm not even sure I have the right to be angry

[QuantumCriterion]

Oh man I can't believe this has happened. Early 2014 I was happy as could be and confident as all heck. I was 20 years old and at the prime of my life. A woman whom I hadn't known since we were both toddlers contacts me on Facebook and we hit it off. She lives in Romania and before I know it I'm on a plane to go stay on her orphanage and teach.

 

Long story short, we fall hard for each other, my two year stay is cut short to 5 months as her father doesn't approve of me, and I head back to California. I heavily consider cutting it off as LDRs never work but we decide to continue it for the time being and end up falling even harder for one another. She can't stop telling me how much she loves me and we can't stop talking about everything under the sun. Naturally, we're in the infatuation stage but it's lasted a good long while. Then December comes, I take an overnight job to help support my getting to see her again all the while I convince her to attend College in Florida with her sister so she'll be closer to me.

 

I want to also win the favor of her father so we decide to take a month break while I work the new job, and I attempt to seek counsel on what to do. It's a dumb plan, but the idea is that we can show him that we haven't been talking as he wished, that I'm willing to do what it takes to earn his favor. I really respect that man, and the woman that is his daughter, and I wanted to go about thing the correct way. Over the course of the month my feelings toward her inexplicably change, I think it's her at the time but I can't help but blame myself, how could I go from hot to cold toward her (and much else as it would turn out but my focus being so intently on her, she was all I noticed) so quickly?

 

I also started experiencing some really steams head pressure headaches and seeing flashing lights all over my peripheral vision. I think nothing of it, and push forward. When the time comes for us to talk again I tell her that I don't think things are going to work out, I can't even come up with a reason why but I say that the distance is too much a factor. She actually convinces me to hold onto her and I'm happy she did, the feelings come back shortly but they wax and wane wildly over the coming months and I'm at a loss to figure out why.

 

I do eventually discover that I am severely depressed and suffering from a chronic illness that I would later find out was Lyme disease. I didn't know it until multiple break ups ensued and I only now wish I knew what I knew. then about the way Lyme affects oxytocin and one's outlook on everything as a direct result of edema on the brain. I didn't even know it was Lyme then though, and as my world began falling apart due to an illness I couldn't put a name to, my ability to relate with the woman I actually loved but didn't know how to love dwindled. I would feel terrible when I was distant, but I was actually crying in my room often for hours.

 

I had gone from totally jazzed on life and our future to hopelessly depressed, and all she asked when I broke up with her the third time was that if I moved on and if I found someone else, to let her know. She just wanted to hold my hand, but as my ego crumbled around me and my sense of self was sundered, I didn't know how to love myself. Lyme is an evil, evil disease. I had always treated her well, but I was just hot and cold with my feeling toward her, and incredibly distant as a result.

 

We did get back together one final time but come October I foolishly broke up with her, and went no contact for pretty much two weeks as I tried to recede into a cave and reassimilate my sundered sense of self on the cave wall. I can't explain to you why this seemed logical at the time, but Lyme is evil, absolutely wicked in the way it maligns the person you are. She just wanted to hold my hand through it all and I pushed her away. I quickly realized the depth of my mistake and made the conscious decision that even though I didn't know what I was sick with, I knew it was screwing with my ability to think toward her, I told her if she would give me another chance I would let her in,

 

I would get better, and we would be everything we were supposed to be before I got ill. She went to college and promised me that the feelings were still present but that she needed time, and I, knowing what that meant, told her I respected that decision and didn't blame her all things considered, but I didn't want to be friend zoned. She promised me she would never do that, and would tell me if she moved on and I believed her. I was a fool. The following 8 months were hell as I doggedly pursued a diagnosis all the while letting her in, showing her the despair I was in which I was too prideful to do before.

 

She would see me cry on skype as I tried explaining to her what I was going through, all the while apologizing for what I put her through, and I can only imagine that her feelings began to dwindle as she saw the confident man she once knew turn into someone she didn't recognize due to an illness she couldn't possibly understand (nor could anyone were they to not have had it themselves). She would seem distant many days and I would try to bridge the gap, she would always insist she still had feelings and I at one point told her that if she no longer felt the same, it was okay but I'd need to go no contact, as hard as that would be.

 

She lied to my face, telling me she couldn't bear the thought and insisting she wasn't like other girls, she wouldn't do that to me, and I believed her. I put her through hell, so I couldn't really fault her when at one point in April I asked her what I was to her and she said she didn't know. That she needed to feel needed (which if anything I was probably making her feel too needed having lost my career and much of my passions to Lyme), in reality I think she was turned off by what I was going through and being unable to help me, though she didn't want to say, but I'm sure it was a mixture of the two. Either way this crushed me seeing as I had expected her to tell me when she moved on, like she had promised -- not make me pry it out of her but everything changed.

 

I wanted to go no contact and failed miserably at this point, having sunk to the deepest part of my illness in just discovering it was Lyme. I wanted her to wait for me to beat it into remission but she had already seen me in a pathetic state. I'm not going to sit here and best myself up, honestly I know how strong an individual I am having borne what I have these past two years and fought for diagnosis all the while continuing to work and trying to keep this love afloat, but I was worse for wear to her as result and I can't blame her after the confusion I had put her through the year prior. She no longer had any obligation to me but her being the one who had been with me through it all while I lost friends, and much of my life, I truly needed her.

 

I just needed her to be there. I decided to continue talking with her, doing Bible studies with her, etc. I knew the time would come when she would find someone else as much as I dreaded the thought, but I made the mistake I had always known to be a mistake before her, I kept talking to her in hopes the spark would rekindle. She would flirt with me anyway, and it was nice sometimes feeling as though we were still us, but I knew it was a lie. I guess this shows how far from grace I had fallen, I was the guy coaching guys on how to navigate these treacherous waters, and here I am sinking to their bottom with an anchor round my foot.

 

I still can't believe I kept contact, but I had believed her when she told me she would tell me when she found someone else. I was a fool, and severely depressed as a direct and circumstantial result of Lyme in my CNS. She didn't. I had to pry that out of her too when I asked her whether or not there was someone else, she told me it was weird of me to ask before admitting there was, and that broke me into a thousand pieces. She called me weird for asking her to stay true to her word, she kept me friend zoned after promising me she wouldn't, for what I can only imagine what a self esteem boost.

 

Here was the woman I was took an overnight job to see again, the woman I convinced to come to the states for college, and she found another man all while my life fell apart. All of this would have been okay, I would have understood and respected all of it, but it was the way she went about it. I feel angry but yet like I deserve this. At the same time I know that Lyme was responsible for all of the confusion last year, and I don't deserve any of this. I just can't believe it's over. She's totally cold to me, and I've been no contact for three weeks, but I think about her every day. I cut her off Facebook and do everything I can to get my mind off of her, but I suppose it will just take time.

 

I just can't believe what my life has become, and all I have pre-Lyme is memories with her. I tip back and forth on the edge of suicide frequently but I will beat this illness, and I'll do it for myself. I've just left behind everything and moved to Colorado, and maybe this is drastic but the scenery back in California does nothing but stir up memories of the trauma I've endured. Either way, that last words I spoke to her were that I hope he makes her happy.

 

I don't expect I'll ever speak with her again, but is it right for me to be angry with her? I want to forgive and sometimes it feels like I have, but it's so difficult when she used me knowing full well my mental and physical state. I suppose I was the fool.

Edited August 8, 2016 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Toodaloo]

You are just jealous because on the outside her life looks like its so much better.

 

Truth is you don't know what is going on. How do you know that she isn't having problems with her Dad not liking anyone she dates again?

 

What you need to do is quit comparing your life to hers.

 

Concentrate on getting better and sorting yourself out then get on out there and meet a girl who does suit you more.

 

No body has a peaches and cream life. We all have worries and concerns. Time to accept that and just get on with it.

[whatnot]

Don't do this to yourself. You didn't ask for the disease. You didn't ask for her to meet another man.

 

I know serious illness and the stresses they bring. In themselves....on grapples with a new version of one's own life's view. Don't minimize the grieving, denial and strong emotions we deal with in regards to the diagnosis alone.

 

Throw into the mix an important relationship failing that you relied on heavily.

 

Both of these are major life stressors in and of themselves. The relationship was to be a stressor with the distance and the family issues itself.

 

We can only deal and cope (each of us) with so much. It's completely normal that you would feel anger toward a woman during a breakup. (Especially with her being the one putting the finality on it by having another man involved).

 

What's fair isn't where the anger is directed. What's fair is that wherever it's directed, it's honestly acknowledged. Feelings can present themselves irrationally, but it's not at all irrational for you to be angered that what you had hoped for with this woman wasn't meant to be.

 

You're hurt. (As anyone would be). And otsmcomimg.from all angles. Sort them out...acknowledge them. This is just one chapter of a life that will have many more.

 

Good luck

[QuantumCriterion]

I've been though breakups before, but I can't even describe how broken I feel right now between this and the illness. I know I'm going to beat this but the anxiety and depression are almost unbearable. I don't understand why she couldn't just honor her word and tell me; she lied and that's what hurts most. Like she lost all respect for me. I think about her and get so angry and yet I acknowledge that she's not worth my emotion for having treated me that way, it's just that of all people, I never expected her to use me for a safety net. I have no idea who she is anymore and I don't want to, she's obviously out grown me and that's okay, but the woman I grew closest to during calamity was using me and I'm absolutely broken over it. I hurt her first I suppose but I can't help but think she would have moved on anyway with how long this illness has taken. We were so happy before Lyme, and I lost sight of myself and she lost sight of me. I'm sitting here having anxiety attacks all day long, they were part of Lyme before but they revolve around her so much now, and I can't help but be hard on myself for caring so much about someone who obviously cared little about me. I can't believe I'm in this situation. I honestly am in the darkest place I believe I will ever be in life and I don't mean to be dramatic. It's more to do with the illness than it is her, but now I feel like I have nobody. God will see me through this, but the identity crisis caused by Lyme is compounded further with that caused by a break up, and I'm breaking down as a result.

[whatnot]

A life change. (A big one at that). But...it happens to people and they continue and you will too. I went through the same thing with a woman of 6 years while I was receiving treatments for a fairly serious disease. The disease itself can make you feel alone. With my disease anyway...you really feel alone as no one but those who have had it can (or want to) relate. So I lost my girlfriend and received treatments during the same period of time. A time when a person really does need supoort.

 

In a support group I ran across a man who had been through the exact same thing I was dealing with 5 years prior. His wife left him just as he received his diagnosis. And now...5 years later...he had just remarried (and also just had a recurrence). But meeting him gave me so much hope. Hope that "If he could do it, I could too!". Up until then I had found no one having to deal with what I was having to deal with. These sites are great for relationship trouble...and great source of support. But throw into the mix a serious life threatening illness and there's not that many places one can turn for support as few have had to endure both simultaneously.

 

He made it through. I'm making it through. And you will too!! You will get better (in all likelihood) from lyme. These are seasons, not days. It takes a lifetime to live a lifetime. Not done in a few months time. Keep hanging in there. You still have life to live (and a lot of it at that). These are temporary problems. It WILL get better. Be strong. Hang toigh. You are doing the right things. One foot in front of the other wins the day...In the long run.

 

Enjoy Denver. Stay away from that woman and concentrate on you.

 

Good luck