Advice?

[Radioactivity]

Ahhh so I've been meaning to make this thread for a while now but I haven't gotten around to it...
Anywho, I was hoping I could get some help here. The past month and a half or so have been pretty rough for me. My boyfriend broke up with me and it's been so hard to live without him.
This may sound cheesey but he really was my everything. We always had so much fun together and now that he's gone my life just feels so dull. I've done everything I can to forget about him, to move on... I've been hanging out with my friends a lot, dating other men, writing in my journal to vent and surrounding myself with my favourite hobbies. But no matter what I do I still have days like today. Where I just wake up and I feel horrible. I miss him more than anything and it takes everything in me to stop myself from texting him or calling him.
I just need help... Honestly. Because I'm starting to fall apart and I just don't know what to do to pick up the pieces and start anew.
I know everyone will have an experience like this, a heartbreak, at least once in their life... And I'm hoping with everything I've been doing as well as advice from people on here will help me move on. So... Anyone got any advice? Stories to share? I'm all ears.

[neomattlac]

I ain't got no advice for ya. I know small heartbreak, but not'in big. If you was my gurl, I wouldn't have left ya. I don't leave my gurls hangin'. I don't know why I talk liek dis, I just do.
Long story short, from what I've been through(not much), you'll get over it in three to four years. It kind of sucks, but it can't be helped much, other than through distraction and new experiences. Just don't let it get the better of ya. I wish I was around and could keep ya company.

[Chu]

Hm... A story. Alright.

So. I used to have a very co-dependent personality. All throughout my life, I lived merely as my father's daughter. (Yes, it started that way.) Every action that I took - every aspect of my life - was devoted to him in some way. Granted, the internet was a bit of an exception to that, but even there, some of those tendencies would shine through.

Well, he was accused of an unforgivable crime when I was in high school. A girl - my age - said that he raped her; and he left the state. I repressed a lot from that time period, so I don't remember too much. I remember that some contact was attempted, but it had pretty much completely faded away. To this day I don't know if he was guilty.

A couple of years later, I started having strange... flashbacks, I guess. I was heartbroken because of the loss of my dad, but I covered the sadness in anger. At that point, I had begun replacing him (unconsciously) with who was, at the time, my boyfriend. The first flashback was during intercourse - a new position - and I just broke down and cried. I began to think that something traumatic may have happened in my childhood.

I told my boyfriend, and he didn't believe me. So, being the passive, broken, unsure young woman I was, I didn't bring it up again. However, about a month passed and the flashbacks persisted. Distant memories began tormenting me and I just couldn't cope with it anymore. There was crippling tension between my boyfriend and I, so, after two and a half years of dating, he broke up with me.

He said that he didn't think I'd ever be happy. He said that somehow, sadness and "drama" were just drawn to me, and he couldn't keep trying when it did nothing.

Well, that's when everything began crashing down. I had transferred all of my dependency from my father onto him, mind you. Instead of being my father's daughter, I was then my boyfriend's girlfriend. Like you feel now, I had no sense of self - but possibly unlike you, I truly never had a sense of self at all.

I sought out professional help. I began talking with a counselor, and although she did ease the pain, I still felt lost and broken.

I left my school. I finished my classes online, granted, but I left everything behind. My friends lost respect for me - thinking that I left because of the boyfriend. Certain girls had begun harassing me under that presumption, too. I finally broke down and told my family about the memories, and I was sent to yet another therapist.

From there, I was on medication. PTSD, depression, general anxiety disorder... I lived in isolation, save for my family. No friends, no boyfriend, and even limited contact to people online. All that I ever talked about in therapy was that I felt I served no purpose... I talked about how meaningless my existence was, unless I was serving someone else. I assumed the role as a caregiver - because I needed to be needed. My entire sense of self-worth was derived from what I could do for others, and I had no life outside of them.

I had the realization that I'd never gain a sense of self if I jumped back into relationships - romantic or otherwise. I began soul-searching, you could say. I read, wrote, meditated, exercised, studied, analyzed... I did all that I could to see what could light a fire in me. I wanted to see what drew me in, without the influence of another person.

Before long, I felt comfortable talking to people again. Not entirely so - but I got to the point where I began to desire human interaction. I could be around someone without feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt or sorrow. I could carry on conversations without feeling depressed. As more time passed, I began to re-establish friendships, and to even pursue romantic relationships. Without too much pain or discomfort, I could at least act normally again.

The best part of it all is that I did it myself. I came off of my medication out of a sheer force of will, and I learned how to cope with my powerful emotions. I still have pain, sure, and I do still lose my way every now and then, but I am my own person. The therapist, the medication, the friends, the family... All of these things helped, but time was my healer.

It's been a year and nine months since I was struck by those memories. It may seem like a long time, but it's felt incredibly short to me. I re-created myself completely in a little under two years. Granted, it took a lot of hard work. I remained very isolated, and I struggled a lot. But I did it. Hell, I'm even going to college and getting a job this month. There's no way I could've done that a year ago.


... What I'm getting at is that the heart (and/or brain) is a very resilient thing. You can feel you've hit rock bottom, with no hope of returning to the surface, right before you finally find salvation. You can struggle through a seemingly endless series of trials and mistakes - but before you know it, you're on the other side. If I can get through that - the loss of a boyfriend, yes, but also the loss of myself and my father, in a sense - then I think I can get through nearly anything; and I think that you can get through this.


When I re-created myself, I cut my hair. It seems rather silly, but I always had very long hair because my father wanted me to. It was my very first hair cut (aside from tiny trims) - and I cut it all off. From my butt, it was cut to my ears, and I never looked back. THAT was liberating.

I began taking long walks and bike rides. I spent a lot of time alone like that, but it did a lot of good for me. I was away from everyone else, yet I still existed in the real world. Even when I passed other people, I still felt at peace.

I began studying religions and mythologies. Religion was a big thing I lost over the years - and I suspect I lost faith around the time that I was traumatized as a child. However, none of them spoke to me when I began studying again. I did begin to study astrology though, and still do to this day. I could give you a detailed reading, if you're interested. It taught me a lot about myself - and life and human nature, on the whole.

I volunteered. You would think that this would be counter-productive to me trying to get over co-dependency, but it's different, somehow. Working with children, animals, and the homeless really allowed me to open my heart up to others.

I wasn't very patient, though. I think I hurt myself more than anything simply by not being patient. I was eager to get back into the real world and become a full, normal person again. I hated myself for being "so pathetic" and "taking so long" to heal. Please do be patient with yourself. Love yourself, and take care of yourself. Eat properly, get enough sleep, and even try to exercise, if you have the energy. As long as you take care of yourself, things will handle themselves. It just takes time.

[neomattlac]

Your story always makes me feel so sad, and yet motivated.

[Chu]

Haha, the more I tell it, the more I try to cut down on the sad. xD I'm glad it can be a motivating force, though.

[EposVox]

NOTE: I do actually give advice after the story, so stick with this, please. I know I can be pretty long-winded.

I’m going to share a little back story and while it certainly can’t compare to Chu’s, I feel that you gotta hear things as much as possible in order to believe them and be able to move forward with any advice you take. Also realize that any advice one can give for this situation is going to be advice that you won’t be able to fully take and acknowledge right now. This will be something that you will think back to a few months or a year from now and realize how helpful we were after all.

Over a year ago, I broke up with my girlfriend at the time. I can’t even completely say that. Hrm, let’s just say, we broke up. It was an absolutely terrible relationship in which she was a horribly manipulative person, and she spent the entire short time trying to change me, implanting that who I am wasn’t who I am, and any part of “me” that I held on to just wasn’t good enough for anybody. It’s one thing for a person to convince you some part of yourself isn’t good enough for them, but to convince you that not even a small part of yourself is good enough for anyone¬ – that’s just wrong.
But to me, everything was peachy. It’s difficult to word things in a way that don’t seem like I just want to make this situation sound as worse as possible, but it was almost as if I was brainwashed into believing this is how things should be, and this is the only way I could be happy. I’m not even saying she’s responsible for that, though, as I did most of that myself. Settling, changing yourself for the only people who seemed interested just somehow seemed like the only way to be happy in life, despite the fact that I really wasn’t happy in the slightest.

So after the break up, things should return to normal, right? Nope. Nope. While I did have a brief fresh air of freedom, true freedom, and I had started to enjoy myself again, socializing with friends at school, enjoying this new environment of college, and the like, I had this growing issue in the back of my mind. I had no clue who I was. I had suppressed most of myself and had been convinced what didn’t get suppressed wasn’t good enough, so I couldn’t even say who I was. When meeting new people, interactions were different each time. I had so many fronts, so many made up selves, that it had to all crash down. Seemingly at the perfect time (for her at least) the ex decided to pop back in and try being friends again. Playing on my current state of just generally being lost, and even on my guilt to an extent, she forced her way back into my life, and suddenly the exciting first semester of college was just another prison.

Throughout all this, though, I had been talking to a YouTuber friend. Skype, Twitter, Facebook, we’d been discussing the relationship and all the aspects of it. He told me how he had been through a similar thing in the past, that I wasn’t the only one going through this. Something so simple was just so comforting. Another bit of advice, one he offered in Direct Messages on Twitter, of all things, was to just focus on myself. Don’t even put energy into trying to fix or get rid of this broken relationship, just find, re-create, and/or fix myself and everything else would fall in to place. He told me that one day I will be sitting somewhere and just realize how incredible a person I am, how great life really is, and the idea of what I was going through at the time would just seem so foreign.

Despite not believing that was possible at the time, that is exactly what happened. I still to this day have moments where I realize how happy I am and just how incredible things are now, and I find it pretty silly that I let myself go through what I did in the past.

Lesson learned – despite things seeming like the end of the world, you can and will get through them. You are not alone in going through this, you’re not the only one to have gone through it, and you will be with everyone else who made it through it very soon.

My advice to you? Stop trying to get over him. It’s not going to work. And definitely don’t try dating other guys with that intent. Being a guy, I just see that as being terrible to those guys, plus it’s only going to make things worse for you. You miss him, sure. You keep thinking about him and feeling like you need him, yeah. But stop trying to get rid of that. If anything, you’re just bringing it up moreso than it needs to and being harder on yourself. Instead of trying to get over the guy, try getting over yourself. Not in a mean way, but start doing some serious introspection, start finding out who you are. Do as much soul searching as possible, and start picking up the pieces and laying your new foundation. It took quite a bit of change for me, so perhaps you need to recreate yourself almost entirely. Others just need to rediscover who they were, so perhaps you need to find out who you were before this relationship, and be that person again. But work on that. Any time you start to miss him, or those feelings come up, channel those energies in to something. If you can, try to turn it into motivation for self-creation, but if that doesn’t work, channel it elsewhere. Anything besides drinking and drugs will help you find more interests that you have, and so you can see what you enjoy, what you use to cope, and add that to your list of who you are.

Work on finding yourself, creating yourself, or re-creating yourself, and I promise you that you will wake up one day, not too far down the road and wonder why you ever missed this guy this much, and maybe even find it kind of silly that you were in this mess. You will be a much happier and stable individual, and you’ll be able to move forward with your life and relationships.

[Radioactivity]

@neo: Thanks, you're sweet
@Chu: That truly is an amazing story. I'm so glad you shared it. I'm glad everything in your life is starting to get better.
Soul-searching and finding myself is exactly what I've been doing. I've changed so much about myself since the breakup (only 1 and a half months ago) and I must continue to change and find out who I am. The hardest part about this, though, is realizing that I truly was myself even when I was with him.
So I guess I've been becoming a different person.
Anyway, thank you again. I'll always remember your story.
@EposVox: Your story is amazing as well... In a different way, but it still is. I'm sorry you had to be mixed up with this woman... But at the same time, I think it's probably made you a stronger person.
Your advice means a lot to me because it's a little closer to how my relationship was. (although not entirely)

Thanks you three for sharing your experiences and giving me some excellent advice... I'll take it to heart and work harder on moving on and being a stronger person.

[Malverne]

I don't know if I'm too late for the whole advice thing, but I figured I might be able to help, so if you'll still take it, here's my entire life story (but not really).

My parents split up when I was about twelve. My dad was always travelling for work, and he met someone else, and things just fell apart from there. My parents were pretty good about keeping it away from me, and I was pretty oblivious. But when they told me, things kinda went to hell.

To cut a long story short, they made me be messenger between them. I had to be the adult out of the three of this, because they couldn't actually solve anything on their own. It freaking sucked. No twelve year old, or anyone really, should have to babysit his own parents. It's complete bullshit, and the next few summers were the worst of my life. I haven't ever been in a romantic relationship, but I've definitely had my share of heartbreak.

Now, I'm not just complaining about this, there's a point. Over those few years, I kind of lost myself. I seemed to have two different personalities, depending on which parent I was talking to, or staying with. At my core, I'm a people pleaser, and no matter how hard it as for me, I tried to be the best for both of my parents. Obviously, in this position, pleasing everyone is impossible, so I was miserable, my mother was miserable, and my dad...well, he had a psychologist.

Anyway, I lost who I was. I really didn't know what to do. I was depending on them, and they were depending on me, and I just turned into the kid trying to be the perfect kid.

It took a while for me to get beyond this. Hell, I'm still not entirely beyond it. However, as shitty as the whole 'you have to be the perfect kid' situation is, it did two positive things. First, it taught me a lesson (that there is no way in hell that everyone is going to be happy, so please, do everyone a favor and don't try) and second, it gave me a reason to keep going.

Now, I don't know the particulars of your situation, but that's basically my advice. Find something. Anything. A reason to keep going, a goal to work for. It doesn't really matter if it's impossible right now, but if you're so lost, it works as an anchor. If it hurts, learn from it. Because if I didn't have that thing I was working so hard for, I honestly don't know what would've happened. I'm still that people-pleaser, but I'm wiser and smarter, and fully aware that at no point in time, despite my greatest efforts, will everyone be happy. Now, I just try to make people happy in the moment, with little things.

But yeah, in a nutshell, find something to keep you going, and learn something from this problem you're facing. That way, you get something from it, and it's worth at least some of the trouble.

[Radioactivity]

Thanks for the advice, Mal, I appreciate it!
And no, it's not too late :P I'm all ears right now!!

[neomattlac]

Let me tell you a story.
[There was ] Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere ...
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'

[Radioactivity]

That story... Brings tears to my eyes! *cries passionately* LUL

[neomattlac]

That song and "Jumper" helped me get out of a slump I was in a few years ago. Some of my slumps were worse than others. That one happened to be really bad. My most recent one was pretty bad, but some weird optimistic part of me kept combating it.

[Red Lion]

I don't really have a heart break story. I've never felt heartbroken before, even when I broke up with someone I cared about.

I've had bad stuff happen to me, a guy I trusted abused me once but my feelings were never sad or even really hurt. I was just enraged and as time went on I hardened myself to withstand that sort of thing. I'm well armored against being vulnerable but I wouldn't advise other people to do that, it leads to isolation and loneliness. I still feel out of step with the people around me because I forgot how to let them in. I was so determined never to be in the position of a victim again that I feel as if I gave up part of my humanity. Being able to hurt is a good thing, I think, it means you are still open to those around you and I'm sure that one day you'll find happiness again.

[neomattlac]

Be careful with that hardening. I did that and ended up keeping everyone out, even friends.

[Radioactivity]