How are you coping today?

[elseaacych]

+1 ex dream.

 

Fortunately, I didn't see him in said dream. It was just a newspaper article he wrote (in said dream), about some sporting event, and at the beginning, he wrote how odd it was not to be going with me, and that our relationship fizzled out. The end of the article had a case citation of Me + Ex v. Law School. Which, by the way, is not a correct citation.

 

4:30 AM is the bane of my existence.

Edited April 23, 2014 by elseaacych

[L1ght]

very inspirational/motivational post mate, thank you.

So much more to life mate and living in the past is a genuine tragedy. Live for yourself and just do what you love to do........romance should be secondary to finding happiness at this stage in our lives. Keep on rocking dude. Good luck.

[AnyaNova]

I just read an article about cats and why they do what they do.

 

My next thought was, "I miss cats."

 

Then I remembered that my ex has three of them and I really liked going to her parents house and playing with them.

 

Right away a few tears came dripping down

 

Hint: If you love cats....

 

And what you are missing is playing with kittehs (they are cute!) Get one for yourself. And move if you need to, to do it! Or get a doctor's prescription.

[redbaron005]

Ahhhhhh. This is the worst I've felt in months. Even though the down to earth southern girl I fell in love with proved herself otherwise, I am still in love. Not obsessed or addicted but just in heart-wrenching, unrequited love. And it's aweful. And it's beautiful. At the same time. I feel lost.

[iouaname]

Sometimes it's hard to feel like it will never just go away. After all that I've been through, I still find myself taking it one day at a time and just trying to stay positive and keep moving forward. I'm not in contact with my ex directly, but I can't ever really escape him. We have too many mutual friends, mutual hobbies... he's always lingering somewhere - and when he's not present physically, he still takes up so much room in my head. I still find myself getting angry at times, sad at times... sometimes I still feel self-conscious because of the things he said. It's weird, but sometimes I still imagine myself having conversations with him about how much he hurt me or how angry I am at him.

 

Things are definitely much, much easier, but I can never fully escape it

[Tally123]

Wounded, hurt, paralysed with heartbreak and fear. Just over two weeks since BU and just over one week from NC. (NC was broken because I was 90% sure he was talking to another girl days after we split)

Today was bad, feeling like i want to run, scream, shout, wriggle out of my body and mind so that the feelings and thoughts evade me.

 

Everything I do is with thinking of him, everywhere I go I see him and our memories.

 

Have a constant tightness in throat, constant ache and emptiness at the top of my stomache. A constant frown or look of pain on my face and in my eyes. My face cannot hide the sheer anguish that my heart is feeling!

 

I know there is no way back and to think it was probably all my fault, kills me more than anything!

 

I hope we all find relief and happiness and love soon!

 

T

[STM206]

A little set back.

 

While I've been in NC for almost a month now, I see on facebook that a mutual friend of ours is flying out next month to spend a couple weeks with the ex and his partner.

 

The reality of things set in once again... This mutual friend of ours showed her true colors right after the break up and contines to do so. She made her choice on what side she chose.

 

I wish I didn't care anymore, I wish I didn't think about him every day. I feel like I've been replaced by not only him, but by our friend as well.

 

4 years of what was the three amigos, is nothing but a memory.

[elseaacych]

It's Friday, so I am freewheeling my life. No plans, no structure, except for studying for upcoming exams. Boring.

 

It's days like this I really miss him. I don't know why, because he hated that I am in law school. But he was my best friend.

 

Well. Friends come and go, I guess.

 

NC sucks, but it's working. Haven't heard a thing from him in months. Guess he's showing his true colors.

 

Sigh.

[freebird31]

I just seriously wonder, how the heck people jump from relationship to realtionship? like being in a long term relationship for at least a year. it ends. And then maybe 3 months later theyre in another serious relationship? likee, what? Its been one year for me, and i do think that I am ready to date again now. But it took me A YEAR to feel comfortable with the idea. Anyway, I am just getting used to being comfortable with being alone, independent. Lately, I have secluded myself from a lot of people except for my family. I have secluded myself from so-called "friends" that I have known for many years. and this is actually the first time in my life that ive been compeltely indepednent and on my own. I mean I am not completely anti-social i have met a lot of people at school and i socializie with them and what not. But i dont hang out with any friends. Like, i dont schedule dates or go out with friends. Truth is, i dont trust these "friends". Since I was 15 years old, me and my bff were like glue. we did everything, i mean EVERYTHING with one another. im 22 now. And after this last year when me and boyfriend broke up. I did not have any one to confide on. I was completely left on my OWN to cope and deal with the loss. And my bff was no where to be found. its been a year since the BU, and i have realized all my life I have always depended on others. I have never really been independent. For the first time in my life, this past year has FORCED me to be completely alone. It has been hard u know bc for many years I was used to relying on others, but now I have been investing a lot of my time in my self . Discovering myself. Sometimes it gets a little lonely I will admit. But it seriously has taught me so much about myself about who i am. Its true what they say that everything happens for a reason. I really believe what has happened was a way for me to grow and discover myself.

[ThatOneGuyThat]

1st day of NC, I feel like I have much more to say but I guess I really don't, they're just rephrasings of everything I've already said. I miss occupying my time by talking to her, trying to channel this energy into new things.

[FredJones80]

1st day of NC, I feel like I have much more to say but I guess I really don't, they're just rephrasings of everything I've already said.

 

I've done this too, never felt like I'd said everything I wanted to, feeling the need to make sure something else is clear.. I guess at a point you just have to tell yourself you've done all you can.

[STM206]

"I fall to pieces, time only adds to the flame... You tell me to find someone else to love, someone who will love me too, the way you used to do..."

[AnyaNova]

I've had one hell of a beautiful, emotional, confusing, but ultimately with resolution day.

 

First off, I saw the specialist finally. The reason I'm having all these different and various nutritional crashes are apparently tiny tears in my GI tract causing not only nutrients to leak out instead of being absorbed, but confusing my immune system to actually actively kick out good things that I need as well.

 

So after we eliminate any other food allergies (no point trying to fix the tears until we eliminate all substances that could be causing them), we will fix the tears, increase the amount of serotonin in my gut which should cause my immune system to be reigned in enough to tell the difference between good things that I need and bad things that should be kicked out, and I should start absorbing the things I need again, and a lot of the neurologic symptoms both from the deficiencies and also from having low gut serotonin (did you know that 90 percent of the serotonin in our bodies is actually in our gut--when we're healthy and don't have leaky gut syndrome) and she told me that I want to say Columbia but I'm not sure is about to show through research that our brains don't control our guts, rather our brains take our marching orders from our guts and all of this comes from the healthy amount of serotonin we should have in our guts. Anyway.

 

Point is, I should be getting better.

 

Also today, finally. What I have needed is to understand.

 

It was very emotional and sad, but I do understand everything I need to. And I understand why my feelings are still, and what they need to be, and how they need to be transformed.

 

Right now, I am going to trust my and others' conjectures based on pretty solid evidence that my ex did have some pretty strong attachment issues and was probably the fourth category that is rarely talked about--fearful avoidant.

 

He wasn't yet ready for real solid love. It was too scary. And the mood swings which my nutritional stuff/GI tract holes/tears caused could not have helped him feel as secure as he needed to either.

 

But really, the love he needs is a parent's. The reassurance he needs is that of a parent. But not one, right now that is too close. I think he needs to distance.

 

I hope it helped him. I really do. I sent it to him for him, but it also seems to have helped me greatly too. I did contact him with a final goodbye (and this time I really mean it).

 

But in that, I hope I was able to quell some of the fears of that little boy inside him that makes so many of his emotional decisions.

 

I asked him to really hear me. To let that little boy inside of him really hear and know and feel completely and wholly that I will never forget him and I will always love him (though that love will be transformed, particularly when I am with someone else), that he will never be unloved and forgotten and to let that knowledge comfort him when he is scared and anxious and lonely.

 

And I didn't realize until afterward that I think part of the reason it helped me so much was because it changed the love that I will always have for him, into the love, as much as I can from a distance, of the parent I wish he could have had.

 

It is true that I will never forget him, will miss him, and will always love him. But I can release him as a romantic figure now, because he really isn't ready for that yet and I really understand it. I understand why he did what he did. I understand why my health issues affecting my emotions made me feel unsecure and unsafe to him.

 

And I wish him well, and will make sure that I do think of him, remember him, send him good thoughts and love him in this new way so that the child within him can rest secure maybe (if I am lucky and he can hear and truly believe it---a long shot I know) that he will never be unloved again. Even if its not tangible and immediate, it is there.

 

For all I put him through with my ups and downs because of this, for all I didn't understand and wasn't cognitively able to see about where he was and what he was ready for or not,

 

it feels like the least I can do.

 

But I feel finally at rest about this in a new way. And I don't have that desperate need to understand because I do now.

 

It is sad. but it is finished and final.

 

I can only pray that what I did actually helps him in some way. I hope so.

[AnyaNova]

Hey JDPT,

 

haven't heard from you in awhile.

 

Hope you are doing well and there are great new developments and team TBD is up and running.

[redbaron005]

Right now, I am going to trust my and others' conjectures based on pretty solid evidence that my ex did have some pretty strong attachment issues and was probably the fourth category that is rarely talked about--fearful avoidant.

 

He wasn't yet ready for real solid love. It was too scary.

 

Just curious, what are the other 3 categories? My therapist told me both my ex and I were fearful avoidant. Part of the problem I guess. Maybe I should not have called her a coward if I was one too.

 

Also, happy to see your on the path to getting healthy again!

[AnyaNova]

Just curious, what are the other 3 categories? My therapist told me both my ex and I were fearful avoidant. Part of the problem I guess. Maybe I should not have called her a coward if I was one too.

 

Also, happy to see your on the path to getting healthy again!

 

Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably when they shouldn't be.

 

So make sure to ask your counselor if he thinks you two were high both in relational anxiety (as in, you have low appraisal of your own worthiness of love and a desire to be really close to people and a tendency to be clingy) as well as high in relational avoidance (a low appraisal of the trustworthiness of others).

 

Traditionally, there were three styles, before they thought to measure and consider these on a continuum.

 

And those were

 

secure--obviously a healthy appraisal of one's own worthiness of love and a healthy appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

anxious-ambivalent--low appraisal of one's worthiness of love and a high appraisal of others' trustworthiness (leads to a lot of clingy and jealous behavior).

 

and

 

Avoidant--high appraisal of one's worthiness of love and low appraisal of others' trustworthiness (leads to a lot of avoidance of intimate relationships).

 

But, then they thought to consider the components of each, relational anxiety and relational avoidance as a continuum and when you do that you end up with four styles with new names (three of which, are matched to the above).

 

1) Secure (same as above)-- again high in both appraisal of others' trustworthiness and one's one worthiness of love.

 

2) Dismissive-- (equivalent to avoidant above) high appraisal of one's worthiness of love and low appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

3) Preoccupied (equivalent to anxious-ambivalent) low appraisal of one's own worthiness of love and high appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

4) And then, of course, the fearful avoidants. Low in both relational anxiety and relational avoidance.

 

It is difficult for fearful avoidants to get into relationships. And they would tend to be complex and rocky. Sometimes I wonder if my ex thinks I was one. My behavior sometimes due to the nutritional deficiencies and the emotional symptoms it caused could certainly make me appear so.

 

It is nice to be back on the road to health. And to truly understand. I am at peace now about it, and about him.

 

I pray every day that he is well.

[Ally1993]

I am almost 6 months post BU too and found myself crying a bit last week (in public too). It's not pathetic. Do you still feel like you are crying over the same thing you were in the first month?

 

Sorry for the late reply, I try not to come on here cos it upsets me

And no, I cry now over the way he has handled things since the breakup but the thing that gets me upset the most is how he refuses to give me a second chance, makes me feel worthless

[Itspointless]

And there she was in my dream ... Somehow I knew I had to be careful, but my mind really wasn't there. The reached out, held my hand and smiled. Of-course it was great, it was everything I wanted. Yay, I am still attached.

 

I thought I knew most of the basic psychological mechanisms, but as turned out I skipped adult attachment theory. I knew about her fear of intimacy and of losing control as she has experienced a lot. I also was a bit misguided as our communication was at first pretty good. It turned out I literally knew nothing, she was textbook avoidant-dismissive. Who could have guessed that her abundance of warmth and enthusiasm could make a complete revert to silence and as much distance as is possible (while holding on to the statement that I am important to her). Her medical problems triggered the behaviour and as the fool I was I wanted to be there for her (ldr). It still is mind-boggling that probably that gesture made her distance. She told me that she made an exception for by telling me what the exact problems were (yay again). After this she simply said she did not want to talk about it again.

 

Perhaps the only thing to be happy about is that this happened early on.

[ThatOneGuyThat]

Day 2 of NC, wondering what she's doing and thinking about... Feel little urge to talk to her but also finding it very hard to do anything else.

[AnyaNova]

Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably when they shouldn't be.

 

So make sure to ask your counselor if he thinks you two were high both in relational anxiety (as in, you have low appraisal of your own worthiness of love and a desire to be really close to people and a tendency to be clingy) as well as high in relational avoidance (a low appraisal of the trustworthiness of others).

 

Traditionally, there were three styles, before they thought to measure and consider these on a continuum.

 

And those were

 

secure--obviously a healthy appraisal of one's own worthiness of love and a healthy appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

anxious-ambivalent--low appraisal of one's worthiness of love and a high appraisal of others' trustworthiness (leads to a lot of clingy and jealous behavior).

 

and

 

Avoidant--high appraisal of one's worthiness of love and low appraisal of others' trustworthiness (leads to a lot of avoidance of intimate relationships).

 

But, then they thought to consider the components of each, relational anxiety and relational avoidance as a continuum and when you do that you end up with four styles with new names (three of which, are matched to the above).

 

1) Secure (same as above)-- again high in both appraisal of others' trustworthiness and one's one worthiness of love.

 

2) Dismissive-- (equivalent to avoidant above) high appraisal of one's worthiness of love and low appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

3) Preoccupied (equivalent to anxious-ambivalent) low appraisal of one's own worthiness of love and high appraisal of others' trustworthiness.

 

4) And then, of course, the fearful avoidants. Low in both relational anxiety and relational avoidance.

 

It is difficult for fearful avoidants to get into relationships. And they would tend to be complex and rocky. Sometimes I wonder if my ex thinks I was one. My behavior sometimes due to the nutritional deficiencies and the emotional symptoms it caused could certainly make me appear so.

 

It is nice to be back on the road to health. And to truly understand. I am at peace now about it, and about him.

 

I pray every day that he is well.

 

Correction. Fearful avoidants are high in rational anxiety and avoidance.

 

Which means thy have a low Ppraisal of their own worthiness of love and care and low trust in others.

[Itspointless]

I only just now see that my remarks on attachment were not the first on this page.

[ThatOneGuyThat]

Still Day 2 of NC, I have managed to keep down some food, so that's good. The feeling of wanting to contact her is returning, I have written down what I would say however I am not going to send it. Trying to stay strong.

[AnyaNova]

The emptiness when you have long ago filled your life with new things (like training, exercise, gyms, new clothes, new hobbies, refocus on your old one's etc) so that they are routine in your life now, you have completely relinquished your hold on the past, are completely open to what will be in your life, and particularly who...''

 

But you just can't yet see what and who that is yet, and so can't look forward to it in quite the same way or visualize it in any sort of a concrete manner.

[AcrosstheOceanGirl]

Day 2 of NC... It's hard 'cause I know that if I ask him to talk and maybe even take me back, he will. But I must be strong because he is not the right person for me, and I'm sure about that.

Feeling so down... trying to convince myself that I deserve more.

[sedgwick]

Been trying to cope with the breakup of a 10-month relationship for seven years now. It's been really difficult lately. I don't have any hope of ever getting over it or dating again -- gave up on that long ago -- but sometimes it's easier to cope than others.