Dear Mina:

For me to understand what really happened in your four months relationship I would need to have transcripts of conversations that took place, maybe videos of those so to observe facial expressions and body language, and have contexts of those conversations. I would need to maybe get a record of his interpretations of what happened, yours, then ask each questions… that would be a heavy duty endeavor which is impossible for me to do. But I will do the best I can with what I have and with your help to understand what indeed happened in the relationship and what is happening now with Mina.

To your questions:
“1. Did I drove my ex boyfriend into depression?”- If he was depressed during the time you interacted with him it was likely because of his upbringing which took place way before you met him. I am supposing his parents instilled in him high expectations, the highest of them is for him to be perfect. This very expectation is way, way… way more likely to be responsible for his depression than any input you had in his life. When his brain was forming, leading to his depression and struggles, you were not there. From your record he spent very little time with you at nineteen and in that little time he expressed to you his distress about the other parts of his life. Overall, I would say no, I don’t think you drove your ex boyfriend into depression.

“2. Was I a burden to him?” I think that eventually, from one point on, you were a burden to him. This is why he removed you from his life. His college social responsibilities were also a burden and he removed is position as the (what was it, I forgot, that important position…). Unfortunately for him he is likely to acquire more and more burdens, take on himself more than he can handle and continue to strive for the impossible, perfect performance in more and more endeavors, leading him, in intimate relationships. to dysfunction and overall lack of well-being.

“3. Did he even loved me at all?” I think so, from your descriptions, yes. But I don’t think he was available to adequately love you, that is, invest more in the relationship because he was driven to perform perfectly in so many areas, and in each and every area, it was an impossible endeavor leading to imperfection which means failure, sooner or later, in the mind of a perfectionist.

Regarding the rest of your last three posts:

You wrote: “I feel so awful. I am so sorry. So sorry… I (drove) the person that I loved the most in this world to a depression. I am not even human…I am such an awful person, my ex boyfriend is alone suffering while I live in a fairytale world… Even to the very end, I am very selfish…I need to hear from my ex boyfriend that it wasn’t my fault that we broke up.”

Earlier in this post I wrote that your ex boyfriend’s brain was formed before you entered his life, so was yours. These heavy duty guilt you expressed was in your brain before he entered your life.

Your core belief that you are guilty, selfish, bad, “not even human” was formed before you met him. It is now focused on him, as if there is something he can say to relieve you from this guilt, but it is not about him. There is nothing he can say to make you feel better except for the very short term, just like his last email led to you feeling relieved, but short term, and soon enough, too soon, your distress resurfaced.

The “fairytale world” that you made up about the relationship so to protect yourself from distress, that didn’t and doesn’t work. Like I wrote above, the relief is temporary at best.

Your distress is not about him even though it appears to you that it is about him. Your distress originated and maintained in the nineteen years before you met him and not in the four months of your very, very time-limited relationship with him at nineteen.

I strongly believe that it is possible for you to experience well-being if you direct your attention to this guilty core belief, to its origination and question it. Is it possible for you to attend quality psychotherapy so to explore this?

anita