Well, my idea of love (in the romantic situations) is the feeling of wanting to be with the other person 24/7 or missing them all the time, wanting to talk to them, be with them. If i don’t feel like this, it doesn’t gauge my interest, i feel fake, and i hate being fake.

On the other hand, i know consciously that love=empathy, caring, affectionate. But what good does that do if i can’t “feel the motivation” to do it? U feel what im saying?

We’ve have mentioned it again here but how can i know if that’s the case? I wasn’t consciously “expecting” things to get to this point. I never do in my relationships because i hate it. The only feeling i can think of escaping is the feeling of “not being enough” for the other person and letting them down, since this is how i kind of felt (i think??) when she confessed her feelings, that “now i have to be extra careful not to hurt her. This and the feeling of “responsibility” which came after probably.

I dont remember if i mentioned it again, but therapist said that “i have an interesting way of receiving love, or rather not receiving it at all”, i told her about the other day that 2 of my friends would refuse to meet if i wasn’t with them and they would cancel plans and how this enraged me and made me feel “responsible” for them like they’re little kids and need a parent. But she said that as a third person, she sees that as an act of love (from them-to me) that they want to include me in their plans and want to have a good time WITH me. So she said “maybe that’s what happened with the girl as soon as she expressed feelings?”. I had never thought of it this way, i immediately asked 2 people about my friends example and to my surprise, they said that they too would see it as a declaring of “love” or connection of sorts, rather than “responsibility” like i did. And i thought “wow, maybe the issue is me”. I also catastrophize and expect the worse every time, so that possibly numbs me bit by bit.

Plus, i think if i’ve only been using her as an escape, i would be on my way to find the next “escape” and i wouldn’t think twice about her. I definitely felt a bond with her, especially up close. While i was with her, i felt the intense pull to hug her, kiss her, kiss her hand/forehead, squeeze her tightly in my arms, the kiss felt magnetic. Even at the airport while i was saying goodbye to her, i started crying but i quickly turned around. I don’t think all those were made up.

@Roberta

I am sorry for your loss. I thought of that and i know it plays a big role, its just that i can’t get her out of my mind and i don’t know why. The only way seems to just tell her to cut contact indefinitely but i know i’ll be still thinking about her constantly. I’ve done it with others in the past, didn’t work. So i am trying to find out what’s going on with me perhaps, idk.

@anita
Psychiatrist said he doesn’t think i’m depressed or something. He said im afraid to let go and surrender and he sees some OCD in me, not depression. But i don’t feel like it. I feel depressed with strong OCD tendencies that focus around this girl.

What you’re trying to say is that i was using her as an escape?

I hope it comes in time, i will try to focus on other things and let my mind rest, but sometimes i think that this is what it craves, problems to search solutions for.

Hey anita

I experienced all those but with a different order that u wrote them, except Somatic one.

At first, when this happened, i woke up with a feeling of “doom”, like something bad has happened and idk what it is. Then depersonalization happened kinda, i was feeling like i am not “me”, i can’t describe it better sadly, like the person i was looking at the mirror wasn’t my true self, even my father noticed that week that i look very aloof/angry and it scared him. After came the cognitive dissociation. I remember not being able to form sentences with ease, forgetting what i wanted to say 10 seconds after thinking of it. I was on discord with a friend of mine, and i would start telling him something, then i would lose the words to form the sentence i wanted and i would zone out in conversations. Even having extreme difficulty texting someone, i would leave 15 people unread because i just couldn’t type words, it was exhausting and hard. Then came Dissociative amnesia, for example when i think about how i was feeling with this girl when i was having the time of my life with her, i couldn’t experience the feelings, it was just distant memories. Even now, when i think back on anything in my life, it’s like i am reading an archive that someone experienced. And finally, i think now i have the emotional dissociation, even though today while i was riding the motorcycle i thought about her, the plans we made, how much we wanted to travel together and i started crying in my helmet and my thoughts were “the back seat is hers only, i dont want anyone else” (and i think i meant it for my life too), then the crying stopped abruptly (like someone closed the valve) and again i felt nothing.

Damn all this is making me paranoid. Sometimes i think “am i doing this because i feel guilty to her?” other times i think “maybe i really want HER but i dont want the distance, so my body is at war with my mind” then i think “maybe i just wanted the feeling and not her?” It’s all entangled and i’ve never had this happen to me before. Usually i was a much simple-minded person

That sounds harsh.. How long were u in that state? Right now i feel depressed af/anhedonia at its peak, like i can’t experience anything at all, nothing touches me, i just exist.

Oh so there were no obvious triggers.
I dont know if it falls under the same experience, but i might have felt something similar on texting with this girl (since that was the communication we’ve been having). After the shutdown or whatever this is happened, talking/texting with her felt like i am speaking with a person that i dont know, logically i know who she is and what i was feeling before, what we’ve shared, but i just felt like i wanted to get away.

No no i havent, actually ive never experienced any of this in general. Sometimes i wonder if i am disorganized or if that’s just me, that those feelings i had vanished and i dont want to accept it. It all feels so strange.