Dear Alina:

I am sorry about all the hardships you’ve been going through, and for so long!

“I was so happy that I found someone who is same as me (as I thought for that time), we had gone through the same pain during our growing up period, we had same interests, we both wanted serious relationship and family“- you’d think that a person who experienced pain growing up, wouldn’t want to inflict pain on another, but that’s not what happens: people in pain often pass on the pain to others.

“He sent me flowers, jewelry, he came to the country where i was working for that time, took me to the most expensive restaurants and hotels, bought me gifts. Everything was perfect, I was being myself, I could talk about anything and make fun about everything because he always get along and never judged me“- you were being yourself and you trusted that he was being himself, but he was being his best self version at the time, a best self version that was not sustainable.

“I couldn’t pay my rent (my boyfriend helped me with this), I was starving, I got sick. That time I told my boyfriend that I don’t want to stay in this country and I want to go back home. He started to accuse me for being lazy, for not being ambitious enough to start to look for another job in this country“-at this point and on, he started being more of himself, going beyond or deeper than his best version. His best version was based on and dependent on you working and living in the country where he wanted you to stay. (I wonder if he had hopes to move there with you after you settled there, if you settled there).

“He was born in rich country, his family had connections, even the job he is working now he got there thanks to his fathers call! He never went outside of his home country to work or to study. He only went outside just to travel… Last 1.5 year he was just working and sitting at home and eating!“- maybe he was depressed at home, and wanted to move away from his family and country, but didn’t feel confident in his abilities to move to a different country on his own. He needed connections there. The country you were in felt right for him.. and you were his connection there.. until he lost that connection when you moved back to your home country.

“So I told him that I want to go and he started calling me lazy“- I am thinking that he wanted his connection to stay in the country he considered moving to, and that he called you lazy not because he thought that you were lazy, but because he wanted to discourage you from moving away from his country of interest.

“Also I want to add that, he suddenly became SOO ‘ambitious’ when I came in his life. He lost 20 kgs in very short time, he started to go to gym and nearly everyday going out with his friends“- continuing with my theory (and I didn’t read yet the rest of your post, so it’ll be interesting to see if my theory is correct or not), maybe he got out of his depression when he thought that you will be helping him to move out of his family’s home and country to his country of interest, to live and work there.

“He idealized me so so much. Yes, I was ambitious, I am clever, I had business ideas, I could make networks..“- he idealized you as someone capable of helping him, as I indicated above.

“... He broke up with me.. he told me that I hurt him so much when I said ‘i will leave u’… He told me that there are so many things that he didn’t care before and now he needs to take care of them“- I think that these were excuses and not true reasons for him wanting to break up with you. I think that in the past, he placed you on a pedestal, believing that you have the ability to.. save him from his depression and dysfunctions, and that was the reason for him losing weight and being his best (unsustainable) generous, kind and positively attentive version. Once you were off that pedestal, his interest in you was greatly weakened.

“He was so stressed that I will depend on him, he told me this few times that I shouldn’t depend on him“- he wanted to depend on you. He felt too weak to depend on himself or to be depended on by you (or anyone, I imagine). For as long as you worked in that country, he placed you on a pedestal, seeing you as the strong person he needed outside of his family and his country.

“No one is perfect in this life and all human beings make mistakes, I didn’t cheat, I didn’t betray, I did mistakes but I told him all about these, I realized my mistakes and told them and asked for forgiveness. I was ready to improve and work on our relationship“- he broke up with you not because of your mistakes but because you fell off his pedestal as his potential savior.

“He loved me on my highest and left me on my lowest“-he loved you up there high on his pedestal, and only when you were up there.

“I feel so hurt, I am overthinking this every day. Why would u leave someone who loves you so much… why not overcoming all these problems together on move in life together?“- because he felt too weak to live independently, on his own, and he felt too weak/ inferior to be on equal grounds with you, working on things together as equals. He needed someone above him, someone to look up to as the strong, capable one… like a boy who needs to look up to a strong, capable parent.

“We were so good together“- you being yourself and him being his unsustainable, time- limited version were good together.

“Was that only idealization-devalue-decline process or what was that?“- yes, I believe that you are correct, that’s what it was: he placed you on a pedestal because he needed you up there (idealization) and then you lost that elevated position in his mind (devaluation). It’s not your fault, it’s not about your mistakes. It’s about him not feeling capable and confident in his abilities to make independent, adult life possible for himself, that’s how I see it.

anita

Dear Alina:

Youa are welcome! I will thoroughly read your 2nd post (and any that you may add) Sat morning (it’s Fri 2:40 pm here), and reply further then.

anita

Dear Alina:

“We had a same childhood trauma, I even was shocked how our parents are similar and the pain they gave us was the same. Like we grew up together in same family. I realized that this same trauma gave us same complexity: toxic shame. But I think I am more aware about myself than him because I had therapy before and I read more things about psychology, he had nothing to do in psychology, wasn’t interested at all. So, I understood how toxic shame affected our relationship from his side thanks to your comments. But I also discovered from my side: All this time after break up I was blaming myself for everything non-stop, In my mind I was aware about the situation and why it happened like that, but my feelings, my heart deeply inside there was a voice that told me that I deserve this pain, I deserve that someone I loved the most left me like I deserved that my parents were leaving me when I was a child and didn’t take care of me properly. I knew that it’s not logical, but there was just a feeling deep inside me. But after reading about this topic, I understood that this feelings comes because the toxic shame and I really understood that I need to practice more self-compassion and stop blaming myself for everything. Yes, I made some mistakes but the most important is that I admitted and apologized for them. I am conscious about myself, I try to understand things and this is a very precious point from my character, I am proud of myself that I have ability to analyze my situation and asking for help from everywhere, for knocking the doors, instead of drowning in negative thoughts”-

– what you wrote here is so meaningful, so insightful and intelligent that I copied it all. Wow!

“Also, I understood from my point is that I liked when someone put me on pedestal. For that time (the idealization period) I didn’t question that much about why did he idealize me, I was thinking that it was love, I wasn’t aware that its unhealthy to idealize someone in the beginning of the relationship. I was feeling that there is something wrong but I couldn’t analyze, I was just enjoying love-bombing, thinking that it was real love. So our childhood traumas gave us both this kinda ‘narcissistic” characteristics, we both liked flying in our fantasy, being something ‘upper’, ‘bigger’,  not living in the ground”-

– I can’t say anything better than how you said it (So, I am just copying, hoping that people read it and learn from what you expressed so well).

“With me it was different, I am more educated about mental health, I am more brave to change my job and place if I didn’t like the environment… I begged him for this, but still he didn’t even want to work on us. His emotions, his anger were so intense because of his complexity that he was ready to refuse me and my love. And I couldn’t help with that. So yes, I experienced so many emotions, learned things about relationships and discovered new things about myself, about my own complexities and character. I am young, I’m still growing up and all this pain that I went through is normal, I am doing good and I appreciate myself for making lessons from my experience (cuz most of people they don’t even try to understand)”-

– You are amazing, Alina!

“Yes, as you said I need to grieve now. I just need time for grieving and to stop trigger myself and torture myself. I just need to focus on myself and mental health, what I am doing now.“- yes, please do this. You do not deserve to suffer from toxic shame. The relationship didn’t and couldn’t work out because, like you stated and expressed here so well, you are educated about and interested in psychology and mental health, and he s not. You are brave enough to look into yourself and see what you referred to as your complexities.. and he does not have this unique kind of bravery.

“I would like to know more about you, like how old are you, what is your profession, where do you live? Also, what bring you to this forum, how did you decide to help people here? Do you have any writing works, if yes, where can I found them?… Also I would like to know about your values in life”-

– Like you, I am interested in psychology and mental health and have been interested since I was a teenager. I had my first quality psychotherapy in 2011-13 in a big city in the U.S., , and then moved to a rural area in a  different U.S. state. Here, I discovered tiny buddha forums in 2015, and its unique format has allowed me to continue to work on my mental health without attending professional therapy. It helps me to read other people’s stories, people from all over the world, and respond to them. I try to help others and myself at the same time. I have a bachelor degree but haven’t worked (for money) ever since I moved to this rural area.

I suffered from attention deficit disorder since a very early age. I am inattentive to details, I can’t remember, for example, the colors of the walls in the room where I sleep every night in the last 10 years. I can’t follow a lecture if it is not delivered in a very organized way with breaks that allow me to take notes. Nor can I follow the plot of a detective movie for example. I’d have to pause the movie and take notes if I want to follow the plot. I often get lost in real-life conversations. And although I love writing, I can’t write a short story, not to mention a novel.

And so, the only place I write is here, in these forums: it helps me to write when I respond to the original poster’s lines, line by line. It helps me to process the information here because I have all the time in the world to type, retype, read, re-read and edit. As far as my values: I value mental/ emotional health the most because I found out that the healthier I am, the better person I am to myself and to others. I value helping myself and others in the process of becoming better and better at no longer harming each other, but at helping each other.

anita