Re-submitted (hopefully without the excess print):

Dear Stacy:

(I am adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “I really appreciated being chosen by him because he was the type of guy who didn’t go for the conventional types. I respect when a guy isn’t attracted to those types because I have never identified that way. I always knew I was the outcast with alternative quirks…protect myself from bullies. I liked that he not only saw this as special in me, he resonated with it too and it made us feel like a team, us against the world“-

– an outcast: a person who has been rejected by society (online definition). Wikipedia has a long entry on social rejection. It reads in part: “Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection (or peer rejection), romantic rejection and familial estrangement…  rejection can be either active, by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the ‘silent treatment’… Although humans are social beings, some level of rejection is an inevitable part of life. Nevertheless, rejection can become a problem when it is prolonged or consistent, when the relationship is important, or when the individual is highly sensitive to rejection…The experience of rejection can lead to a number of adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, and depression. It can also lead to feelings of insecurity and a heightened sensitivity to future rejection…

“The need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation… Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfill this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships”.

This entry on social isolation makes me understand myself better and it helps me understand you (and other people) better. I now understand your intense and prolonged sensitivity to rejection by him, why- as the title of your thread indicates- the breakup has been so “Extremely painful“.

Like me, you’ve been rejected by peers, and worse: you were bullied by peers.  Plus, like me, you suffered from familial estrangement. In the entry, it reads (again, quoting): “The need for love and belongingness is a fundamental human motivation… Psychologists believe that simple contact or social interaction with others is not enough to fulfill this need. Instead, people have a strong motivational drive to form and maintain caring interpersonal relationships“-

– you lived your whole life with your family, being in daily contact and interacting with family members.. but these interactions were not caring-enough for you: not enough to fulfil your unfulfilled fundamental human need for love and belongingness.

Back to what you wrote, the quote with which I started this post: you felt like he, a fellow outcast of sorts, an unconventional, quirky type, chose you as a positively special person to be “a team, us against the world“. Without this team, you are back to being all alone, back to your prolonged and consistent experience of social isolation.

I now understand why the pain of the breakup has been so intense, prolonged and consistent, why “It feels like a cinderblock on (your) heart“.

“Our third weekend together/date was on October 8th of last year… I’m assuming now in retrospect that he literally meant he had JUST messaged her this that weekend…This further supports my new notion that he lied to me about when things officially ended with his ex. He told me it had been two months before we met. Yet here, he claimed LAST WEEKEND (as in the weekend prior to us meeting) he was heartbroken???… I don’t sense one part of him being remotely in turmoil or ‘heartbroken’ over ME.”-

– I now understand why every word he said, every emotion he expressed.. matters to you so much. From one point on, in your mind, he was the only person in the whole wide world who (you felt) satisfied that “need for love and belongingness“, a need that psychologists refer to as “a fundamental human motivation“.

No wonder you are still so emotionally attached to him, why you don’t let him go. Question is: can you have this fundamental human motivation directed elsewhere..?

anita

* The post above didn’t come out right, editing and re-submitting:

Dear Priyan:

You are very welcome!

“When I met her over the weekend, I casually told her that I am planning on going back to the dating apps to meet new women. She got excited over this and even offered to help me set up my dating profile. If her intent was indeed to get me interested in her romantically to gain control, why would she seem to not care when I said I am going to date other women?”-

– she did care: she was not indifferent. She was excited. She cared enough to feel excited and/ or to appear excited about your intent to date other women.

“But why bother having me emotionally invest in her if she was going to friendzone me anyway? Then was it all a game to give her ego a boost?“-

–  I think that it is indeed a game for her. Going about dating the traditional way didn’t work for her, Going about it the way she is going about it works for her (so far), in that she better, in control.. not helpless and vulnerable like she used to feel.

Dear Seaturtle:

I am looking forward to read your two recent posts and reply Wed morning, Have a good evening and night!

anita

Dear Kodi:

You are very welcome. You called your perimenopause experience “a fairly new addition“.

“Then I felt really guilty. I don’t feel like I have a support system to lean on because my husband and parents are sick of hearing me complain”-

– how about another fairly new addition to your life: support and empathy for yourself. No more feeling guilty for being in pain, or for feeling miserable, or for feeling anything at all that you are feeling.

I am sorry, Kodi, that you have suffered for so long. I wish you didn’t suffer at all, but since you do suffer- as we all do, to one extent or another, at any one time- minimize your suffering by peeling off unnecessary pain (guilt, shame, overthinking, etc.) from pain that you have to deal with (ex. perimenopause)?

I will soon be away from the computer, but would like to read more from you anytime you feel like posting. Here you can share all that you feel and it will not be too much for me to read.

anita

How are you, Kodi?

anita

How are you, anonymous03? I hope my last very long message to you was not too much…?

anita

How is Everything, Cat?

anita

Dear Luna:

I am well, thank you.

“we all begin to build our understanding of emptiness, and it is striking to know that the experience of it never really ends either“- amazingly, the experience of Emptiness, on a personal level, did end for me in the last few years and most significantly, in the last year. It happened some time after I moved from a very big city to an agricultural town where everyone seems to know everyone and people are predominantly kind and have treated me kindly, like an equal.

The change in how I feel as a result is.. seems like depression is gone, the despair is gone. I feel more alive, as in looking forward to life, instead of hiding from it. In real life, I reach out to people I never met (ex., people who visit this town from a big city to the south or north) excitedly, like a child eager to connect, without the previous shame and self consciousness.

“I’ve never watched that movie. I’ll have to try“- the technological side to the movie is not evolved, so it’s not as fancy as later movies.. but maybe you will like it because of that. This movie inspired me so much at the time, that I left the country I grew up in, all by myself, on a journey inspired by the journey of Atreyu, a child warrior, a character in the movie.

Here is a quote from the movie (G’mork is the agent of The Nothing):

“Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
– G’mork: It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
– Atreyu: But why?
– G’mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control… has the power!”

Isn’t it true.. what G’mork said… ?

anita