Hi Anita and all

I hope all is well!
I am just trying to come back and let everyone knows I am sound and safe 🙂
It’s been quite sometime after this breakup, and I do feel a lot more energized at this moment.
I have come to terms that these two people have left my life,and I don’t victimize myself anymore, I actually feel good that I have learned so much about myself through this.I am re-prioritizing things in life, and am spending more time taking care of my parents and myself.
I have having been refraining myself from contacting my ex, and last week, I finally did. I had this urge for a very long time, i know i have to do it. I was still wondering previously if she was thinking of me, but didn’t contact because she was scared to hurt me.

But since I have initiated the contact, there was no reason why she would withhold herself if she wants to talk to me.Unless, she doesn’t want to contact me at all.
We talked very briefly on non-personal things. and that’s it.

So that’s the conclusion, she doesn’t want to contact me or care for me at all.
That’s cleared my query.

It’s a pity, knowing how much she thought she wished to marry me previously. But this infatuation is too fragile to stand. While she could just leave me when she thought i mistreated her and belittled her, to minimize the hurt. She chose to secure herself with someone else before she left, ignoring the agony that she has put me through.

I didn’t know how i get cured. It’s just like i wake up day by day, and suddenly realized i am not that bothered.
I also feel very blessed, especially when I realized there are other people who has gone through trauma, yet didn’t have the resources to get better.
Some lose their job if they slack off, some need to take care of their children/families, some don’t have that many friends to accompany them. some don’t have the previous resources or strength that I have built up along all these years, to sustain till now.
I have none of these burdens.

I work with people who have emotional problem, and having gone through a period of depression(I kind of self-diagnosed since I am in the mental health field), I gained tremendous understanding of how helpless it could be when you were depressed.and i finally understand what these people are going through, that kind of emotional understanding is rare to get.

So I feel very blessed and grateful in the end, and that I can see who is really good to me, and who actually just walk all over me.

And thank you the tiny buddha community, it’s so great to be heard and receive so many insights from it.

Take good care everyone

Chau

Hi Anita

I was thinking of that too. the reason why I remembered so little was because I have an unhappy childhood.and yes i was too timid to raise my hand and asked for help.
There are times when i feel i need so much love from someone else. Guess deep down i don’t feel worthy of love, although I have a good job and well educated, i have friends and family etc. There is just this tiny voice in my head that goes against it. And so i just go ahead into relationship even when i see red flag.and i think i don’t love myself enough.
Thanks for your kind words. I sometime just want to dodge away from it, from all the emotions and the thinking. my head is very heavy these days and am quite stuck.
I did try a counsellor but I think his style doesn’t match mine, i need one which is more non-directive especially I am dealing with such delicate emotions.
Wish me luck in finding one.

Chau

hi Anita

I am trying out new things.

I have done my mini retreat in a small island(well it’s not entirely remote though, easily accessible by ferry back to the city)
It happened that a few days before the retreat,someone just randomly txted me online through an app, and it turned out that she was very good at dealing with inner emotions, and self-acceptance since she was major in psychology.

I followed some of her suggestion, basically i listed out all the emotions that I had, and asked myself why these exists, there were times when i had very dark thinking that came out, such as ‘i want to possess her’, and I realized the self-blame, the unwillingness to let go and forgive(myself mainly) come up again. It’s all where the feelings originate.

I want to find ways to let go of it, i think one of the reasons why I am still lingering was because I had hopes, still, for her to be in good terms with me.
the second one is,i am still not forgiving myself, not accepting the imperfection that I have. It’s may not even be attachment, or love. I just don’t want to give myself a good time. I want to punish myself, by clinging onto this chaos.
again, my heart is in not in sync with my mind.
I tried to go to the beach and sit to meditate, I tried to hike, i tried talk therapy, but this heavy cloud in my head is still here. I am still obsessed with my feelings and this incidence.
I can sense that I feel impatience towards the emotions I have now, which apparently has added extra burden to the already heavy mind.

Would you have any suggestion on how to gradually let go?Let the heaviness comes out from my chest.
I even thought of coming forward to my ex and gain closure(whatever the closure means), may end up just another fight or even more hurt, either or both of us.

Thanks again Anita. Take good care.
Chau

Thanks Anita
you are right nothing good comes from a tired mind.
felt quite emotional and had a hard cry today. I think i started thinking of them and was checking on them online a bit, so that’s why.

I think i should just take good care of myself and heal from the trauma done to me, in order to feel love again. it feels like it has been ages, and things still come back. I don’t know how long it takes but I just want this to end.
will try to do some yoga and will have a small retreat on my own in an outlying island this weekend.

And as for the new skill, I will need to write it out on somewhere to remind myself, I have a reputation of forgetting learned lesson and fall into the same trap because of emotions etc.

As I have been reminding myself, I think today I am better with my parents, will try again tomorrow, now it’s too tired =)

Thanks and have an early goodnight to your side

Chau

Hi the Tiny buddha community

It’s been a bit of time since my last post, actually glad that I am back, this feels like a safe haven for me when I am having a troubled mind. and I am grateful for the community.

Things have been going on much more ok after I had that gut wrenching cry on my childhood trauma.
And now i am reviewing what really happened, which i constantly find i distort to fit my own reality(who doesn’t actually, more or less)
My friend keeps asking me to just let it go, doesn’t worth visiting anymore, but i guess this is just one of those sleepless nights when things come back again.

I finally see how much effort it took for both of them to lie and hide the truth from me, and that reflects the characters that they both have. Both can go beyond hurting one of your closest person for their own selfishness. In fact they are hurting each other too, if you care enough for each other you wouldn’t even put each other in such situation, and would wait a bit to sort it out one by one I assume.

Now, I do remember there were times when I wasn’t patience enough, when i criticized my ex, and when I disliked her or when i distanced her. Other than because I carried the burden of my previous ones, I remembered I saw red flags on this girl. She looked for my reaction and expected me to love her the way that she desired, because she thought she had loved me and given me a lot(which i had to be fair she did invest a lot of time on me), I so wanted to escape those attention seeking gaze because that would mean I needed to sweet talk her, react in a certain way etc.I guess that how she said i emotionally distanced her and made her very lonely. We just didn’t have the same way of looking at the relationship.
I remembered she blamed me for asking her back every time when we were at the edge of breaking up, saying that there were things we could try or i could try, but in fact getting together should be a mutual decision in which responsibilities are shared mutually.
I remembered she said she thought I didn’t care at all, and thus she thought the consequence of cheating wouldn’t be so serious, it would at max be a breakup, but not hurt me like that(which is quite BS when i recalled)
I remembered when i discovered the cheating, she said she wasn’t sure what to do and needed to clarify with my (used to be )good friend if the other side was serious or not, which now I think its another very irresponsible act, that she wants to put me in the reserved seat.
I remembered she accused me of causing her pain when she finally decided to break off, saying that I snatched away her ability to love and be loved.

Now I know why I was so terribly confused, in concrete details, because on one hand, she cried and said she was so hurt as if she was the victim, on the other hand, I saw so many flaws in her characters that I can’t turn my blind eye to. Plus she smashed my heart to the floor, and i just took in whatever that was presented to me, which was how upset she was.
I totally lost it and i blame myself so that I gain a sense of control, which in turned made me and her feel like I was the one in the wrong.

And as for my friend, needless to say, she was not hurt by us or even involved in this relationship in the first place, and yet she acted on it and destroyed everything for her own selfishness.

I was far from being perfect, but for sure I don’t think anything that I have done to either of them made me deserve this mess. They do deserve each other but they don’t deserve me.

I do have times when i still missed the good old days with my ex, thinking she would pop up at my door and apologize and tried to amend. I do have time when I checked on both of them online and found my ex liked my ex-friend IG post which apparently was something sweet that they did, and that i felt disturbed.
But i know these will only pass as time goes by.

I actually don’t have a specific question, but sometime i do wonder why would i not notice the red flags? was i too simple and stupid? why would i trust my friend for being a good person without really knowing her true motives? I don’t know how I can see them better
Would be grateful if there is any further feedback on this incident as well

I also want to seek insights on this general impatience that I have developed towards my family. I realized I have been neglecting them or even rejecting their care since this incident happened, kind of want to push them away. I didn’t disclose anything to them due to the nature(homosexuality is still quite a taboo in Chinese society) of the incident, they didn’t even know that I was gay.

doesn’t have to be an answer, just a ‘noted with thanks’means a lot on my sleepless night

Thanks for reading. Take care everyone
Chau

hi anita
thanks for bringing this childhood issue up. it has always been on my mind, or in my head, i knew they were there , but they have never been properly or formally addressed.
and since u brought it up, i felt a gut wretching emotion inside my heart. you were right about me having the fear of not being protected in my childhood, while u acknowledged my situation, i couldnt help my tear.that has always been my fear, and i think that resonated with how i distorted the reality and placed the blame on myself, so that i would still want to reach out to her for comfort and care, just like how i wanted to reach out for my parents for protection. the coping stategy that i once adopted as a child, being mute or trying to place the blame on myself so i can rationalize the abuse that was done on me as a child, is all too similar to how i placed the blame on myself in this situation so that i can rationalize my ex action or even reach out for her protection. while i forgot i have so outgrown of this strategy and that i have the ability to defend for myself, if not fight back when others attack.
i forgot , or didnt aware, i can complete myself without anyone there with me or for me. i am strong enought to travel around on my own, enjoy life on my own, work on my own, care for myself, and pamper myself, i thought i needed to please or cling onto someon whom i thought would protect me to feel secure. you were right in your earlier posts, that she once could offer that security, but now it is no longer valid, i think that may be why i have such a problem in getting over it.
i tried to write about it in a journal, and this time i stopped crying. things seem to make sense to me better,thinking and feeling seems to sychronize better and more deep rooted. i have very good friend around me who could listen and understand me, and said i deserved to be love as how i was, and i didnt need to keep clinging on her.
with all people standing by me, i know however , this is a journey that i needed to walk alone. it feels scary to be frank, i am on vacation alone and i feel scared to go back to my home town, facing everything yet again. but i know this is a journey i had to take on my own, and that no one can help me to becoming happy and blissful the except myself, and i think its time for me to grow up, from my childhood coping strategy as well as to take responsibility of my own happiness.
anita i cant be more grateful for your input, and you company in this silent journey that you have taken with me.
thank you for that
chau

hi anita
since the day of the outing we supposedly should go together, emotions are stirred up and this sadness of the two of them together finally hit me. i checked their online status,i probed my fd abt them, basically, i was imagining things again.
it was my fd bday earlier and i realized they both went missing from online for the whole night, which was unusal.
i stopped imagining she still loves me . i think the major sadness came from them being together,i was dealing and grieving with the lost of her and someone i love, no i am sad about them being two person that close to me betrayed me.
it seems that i have never really accepted it, probably because i dont have any concrete evidence of it. but i think, everything points to them being very close amd this time i try yo let my heart feel it, its was like what u said, my head knew it, but my mind didnt, and so i let me mind feels it, and its incredibly, incredibly painful.

i have this pain in my chest that is unlike last time, it feels so painful and real.

i am taking a short trip on my own and i decided to take whatsapp out of sight, it seems too painful to see.

i dunno how to deal with this pain other than let time passes.

Thanks Anita and Brievuong

Yes I think emotional and even cognitively I have a more well rounded understanding of the situation.
Now what i am missing is someone who cares for me when I am distressed, and someone who shares my life when I want to share.
She definitely is not able to connect to me in such a way now.
i went to an outing that supposedly the two of us would join together. We arranged it months ago.
I did tell her that I planned to go on the previous day, I think it’s just impolite to go without telling. and she did say ‘see you soon’, but late at night she txted me and said she wasn’t ready to see me, and she would quit if I wanted to go. Apparently she thought for some time before sending me the txt

We did talk a bit via txt, but apparently she was not wishing to share anything emotion-wise. she did reply, but they are mainly just very plain messages. She is no longer that person that I found caring and putting me in the first place, or important. She just wanted no connection with me.

It’s interesting that I brought some souvenir from the outing, and in the end i didn’t give her. During the outing I kept thinking it would be nice if she was around, I kept imagining she would respond well if i talk to her or give her nice gifts, but on second thought, I know she would just act cold or even reject me. I don’t want to look like a fool.

I still enjoyed the event, and i didn’t mean to kick her out because of me joining,I did however, thought of what would happen if I really see her, I did have expectation to see her. So it’s a bit disappointing that we can’t see each other and have talk.

Last night I also had a dream, that she was crying and coming back to me, saying that she was just lost and she was trying to do everything the cycle. I think I wanted her to say she regret? May be just want to win her over? probably that’s not even love.

@Brievuong , I think I am disappointed at the fact that I wasn’t able to treat her well when I was dating her, I had always been very reluctant to connect with her emotionally and that definitely has hurt her. I wasn’t able to do so until a later stage, but when I was more ready she cheated on me, because she said she was very vulnerable and desperately needed someone to care for.
I am also disappointed that she cheated on me and left me in the end, while she promised to make amends and made things better.
Now I can see a bit more clearer, that she really was quite selfish in that sense.

Thanks all, appreciate your responds and help = )