Dear Tee,

Yes I said that the pain has been eating me up and destroying me and that I couldn’t sleep etc. But all that happened while I was in relationship with her. I was in pain and suffering during the last three months because that was the period when I decided to give her one more chance. But now that she used up all her chances and made me break up with her, I am slowly healing. The pain did ruin me when I was in the relationship. But now that I am no longer in the relationship, I feel more normal. I do not have a constant reminder next to me, even though I do remind myself anyway. But I am able to focus on my work without the reminder interfering with my studies. While in relationship with her, her very existence next to me or something, even just looking at her was a constant reminder to my pain. But I am no longer with her. I do not have her next to me reminding me of what happened. Reminding me of the things she did. Therefore I am in the process of healing, and working on clearing my doubts on whether I should take her back or not. But all the evidence indicate that I am more at peace without her in my life, but that does not mean my caring side will stop caring about her. My brain has accepted that I am safer away from her even if my heart aches for her. And due to that level of self control, I am able to lead a much more normal life, with less pain and suffering. It’s just everything is dull now. But other than that, everything is normal.

And yes I have the occasional thoughts of wanting to go back in time to erase myself, but the way I am now, even I am surprised with how well I am coping. Makes me wonder if I even loved at her at all, or if I just detached myself from those feelings completely. My thoughts contain pain but my actual emotions are normal. It’s like I literally feel nothing. No pain. No joy. No sorrow. No anger. Its like I am numb to all of it. Do you understand what I mean? It’s like the only time you feel something is when you actively think about the issue, whereas while I was in the relationship, I was constantly in pain, not being able to stop thinking those thoughts at all. But now I am numb, only being reminded of the pain instead of actively feeling the pain.

“This sounds like something your father would say.” That is the funny part. My father never said that, I actually heard other men say it, but my father said it through his actions. Besides you should know it is a common stereotype that society built of us men. Men are these strong unwavering figures that never cry and women are these weak emotional creatures etc. (I am exaggerating a bit but you get the point). That is the type of view that society has normalized, to the point that women just choose to leave their man the moment they see them cry, cause they see them as weak and etc. Men should be allowed to feel pain, but it has been normalized that men shouldn’t feel pain. Men have to hide their tears, show a strong face whenever something bad happens. And unfortunately, I am a victim to that too. Besides, I do not plan to let anyone see me in my vulnerable state of misery that I am in right now. It is just better this way.

“And the thing is that we cannot be really wise if we lack emotional intelligence.” That is very true, but sometimes, for certain decisions to be made, you need to cut out your emotions. I would not have been able to detach from B if I didn’t shut out my emotions. I would still be crawling back to her right now willing to give her another chance. Emotions such as fear and love and anger can end up causing you to make the wrong decisions, B being the prime example. Despite knowing that what she was doing was wrong, her fear and love for her aunt made her go along with her plan. Look at where it got her. So sometimes you have to put aside your emotions to make the right choices.

Paradoxy