Hi Anita

I talked to a couple of coworkers to ask their opinion on the job. I just chose to go full-time. I concluded that I won’t really understand what is the better choice until it’s happening to me and I can just change my mind if it ends up being a huge mistake in the future. I really hope I don’t regret it but only time will tell.

I had the ultrasound on my neck for the lump and my results came back negative for anything concerning, so that’s good. However, a few days after this, I woke up and noticed an even bigger lump on the left side of my neck that seemed to just pop up out of nowhere. I freaked out as I do and made myself sick all morning trying to ignore it and tell myself it was probably the same as the other lump that just got tested, but I decided to go ahead and call my doctor again. I feel so embarrassed and shameful to give into my paranoias so hard.

Speaking of health anxiety and fears, I was scrolling through social media tonight and saw a reel of someone who had a mild heart attack from her heartbreak. That her anxiety and depression and extreme reaction to her breakup caused broken heart syndrome… basically something that affects blood pressure/heart function and can actually cause heart attack symptoms. I went on a spiral and I am now freaking out that any time I have my usual panic attacks, they will actually result in a serious situation. I feel so disconnected from humanity because of how neurotic and scared I feel all of the time. I’m so sick of myself, it makes me understand why people have to remove themselves from me. I can’t talk to anyone about this stuff without them getting annoyed and frustrated.

– He gave you a taste of Special, that’s what he did. And he is the only source of this taste that you know about. It is not only the words he uttered that gave you this taste, it is also his privileged and educated family background, and it is also about the way he delivered the words he uttered, something about his style, his mannerism, his way of looking into himself- to an extent- that touched your heart and gave you that taste of Special.” — this is completely spot on. I’ve always believed I was too much for people and he was the first person to ever see these issues and not only accept them, but reassure me and joke about it to make me feel not so heavy over it. He really did have a way of handling it that makes me feel crazy over losing. It’s so heartbreaking. I’m so incredibly lonely. My birthday was very rough because of it. I had the tiniest part of me that hoped he’d reach out to wish me a happy birthday, but he didn’t.

“– I am imagining that I am a man your age and I meet you, a very soon (in four days) 32-year-old woman, and she gives me a lot of positive attention (like that which you gave your ex). I imagine that I feel very good about it and want more of it. I feel important and I like it. But then I realize that I feel too important to her, that any word I say, any silence in between words, anything minor about what I say and do, is MAJOR to her, as in any word I say can make or break her.. I have too much power, I start feeling uncomfortable, so I withdraw. Could this be an explanation to the pattern/ theme you mentioned above?” — this is exactly what I’ve been saying in my thread, when I’ve been saying that I pushed him away/I scared him away/too much pressure, etc. I do think it’s why he was so into me for awhile and was trying, and then gave up. It’s impossible to not internalize blame on my part. I realize he had a part in this because he wasn’t honest with himself and with me but I can’t understand why I had to lose him over this. Why couldn’t he have came into my life after I was in a better place? I keep replaying what he told me after the breakup, “It was wrong of me to not be planning or thinking of the future for us…” “…I was just trying to have as much fun as we could together and to make you as happy as I could until our problems inevitably broke us up.” It makes me feel so so sick. That he didn’t even see me as a long-term girlfriend. This has been keeping me up at night lately. I’ll never forget his face when I said I saw a future with him and maybe even marriage someday… he cringed his face in so much discomfort.

I’m getting super concerned with myself that I’m not progressing AT ALL with this. It will be 4 months on Christmas since the breakup.

Hi Anita

I can’t thoroughly respond as I’m at work right now on my phone, but in reference to your suggestion I stay part time and keep my Medicaid: if I get full time at this job, I will be eligible for their health insurance plan. So I will still receive some help, but it won’t be as good as what I have now. Also, I’ll be making twice as much in a month since I’ll be working more hours and I thought this may help me to start actually saving to move out of this house. I think you definitely have a good point though and it’s why the decision is so tough. I already agreed to the full time position when it was brought up as a possibility before a manager meeting (I’m assuming they are still making decisions), so I feel strange going back on that too. I know it’s all something I have to decide for myself though and a job doesn’t care about my loyalty.

Hi Anita

I hope you’ve had a good week – wherever you are and if you celebrated the holiday or not. I am thankful for your care in wanting to talk to me and for this forum.

“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“.” — I am sorry you’ve had to face bullying and feeling that sense of isolation from others too. I know it’s definitely made me vulnerable to clinging to people easily as soon as they “choose” me. And yes, it feels so painful and also it’s just so insulting… a personal betrayal that he chose me because I was special (he voiced why I meant so much to him and why I was different than other girls he had dated frequently) to then dump me like I was nothing to him all along. And to admit to “wandering eyes” for other girls. Ugh.

“– 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.” — Yes, and as we’ve discussed here, the emotional and supportive inconsistency is really hard to deal with. Especially since I’ve been experiencing the same pattern with my friends as well. It’s really hard to not believe I’m the problem when every single source is giving me the same feedback.

“…Without this team, you are back to being all alone, back to your prolonged and consistent experience of social isolation. …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“ ..No wonder you are still so emotionally attached to him, why you don’t let him go.” — Thank you for understanding. I know that focusing on him and replaying all of the good and bad memories so much keeps my brain trained to keep him most important, but the pain is too much to ignore. It feels unnatural and makes me physically sick to try to just ignore my grief and move on. I keep reading about how if you are just constantly crying and not forging new thought processes, then you’re just re-traumatizing yourself with every breakdown. I can’t help it. I miss him as a person so much, everything reminds me of him. Yesterday marked officially 3 months since he left me. I’m gonna be 32 in less than a month, I’ve been hurt over men before, I’ve been cheated on and lied to, yet I’ve never been this heartbroken before. It’s seriously scaring me as to how bad it is, I don’t even know what to do with all of this. The feelings of belonging and genuine adoration for the real me is something I have never had before.

“Question is: can you have this fundamental human motivation directed elsewhere..?” — I requested a consultation/appointment with the internship counseling program I mentioned before and I am waiting to hear back. However, I worry that I’m too thick in grief to “hear” and listen to a counselor. I’m still stuck in denial and wishing for him to give me another chance, yet also wanting to tell him off for lying to me. That’s not remotely at a place that’s ready to change or move on. I genuinely believe that my accusatory pressure over time, mixed with him still being in love with his ex made him panic and run. I beat myself up about this constantly –  I feel I deserve this because everyone in my life has expressed to me how difficult I can be. I don’t know what I could do to direct myself and my fundamental human motivations elsewhere. I thought that working these two jobs and just trying to focus on myself that way would help, but no. I thought that having some days off finally for Thanksgiving for me to rest would help, but no. I thought that getting a new hairstyle would help, no. I do feel like I’m boiling over with this crazy need to express this grief in some way, though. I am an artistic and emotional person but I have no way to channel it. Drawing and painting just frustrates me, so does poetry. I can feel that I NEED to express/channel this some way, but I also feel exhausted and have no drive.

Hi Anita

“If it was his genuine experience that he felt worthy of love because of you.. he’d still be in a relationship with you.” — that is what has been hurting me so much this whole time. If he loved me like he said he did, I don’t think he would have even thought of wanting to end us, and this breakup would be heartbreaking to him. Knowing that everything he said to me at the breakup and after was all an act of appeasement just keeps me sick to my stomach daily. It feels like a cinderblock on my heart.

“He claimed they never made anything official but that she…”- what he claimed was not necessarily true.” – Yes, speaking of his ex, something hit me the other night and I’m confused as to why I’ve not yet put this together. Our third weekend together/date was on October 8th of last year. We planned to hang out again the next weekend after that but he had to cancel on me. I only know this because I documented this in my period tracker app… of all things. I was looking through that app the other night and saw all of this. I documented on Thursday and Friday leading up to that next planned weekend in October that he seemed to be a little “distant with me and in a bad mood.” Then that Friday, he cancelled on me. I don’t know why he did, I don’t even remember this now. Anyway, that following Monday as I was getting ready for work, he texted me THE text… the stuff I’ve mentioned here about him being worried about his problems from his ex affecting our relationship. He told me that he had blocked her on everything, and that he didn’t want her in his life anymore. I’m assuming now in retrospect that he literally meant he had JUST messaged her this that weekend… and that this wasn’t something he was referencing happening months prior to meeting me. I think now that they were STILL in contact when we were already dating and he felt bad about it, and was bothered with her being still wishy washy with him, so he finally shut it down. I think he cancelled on me the few days before this because they were still arguing and perhaps he didn’t want me there to physically see this play out, however it did. Not only that, but I then got even more curious and started digging through our old messages from around when we first started talking. The first week of us talking, he said, “last weekend I was heartbroken and depressed. Now I feel amazing and all I think about is what cheesy line I can say to you next to make you smile.” —  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??? At the time, I just assumed he was still going through pain from two months ago. He tried to move on with me, it didn’t work. The distraction was nice for awhile and once he realized he wasn’t actually in love with me caught up with him, guilt consumed him and he bounced the moment he got his chance. I think this is why the night he broke up with me, he said, “I know I SHOULD be happy, but I’m just not. I’ve been so frustrated with myself, I hate myself for it!” He hates that he still can’t get over someone who cheated on him with someone who would never.

It has been killing me because it proves he didn’t love me. It shows to me that he had REAL feelings for this girl, they DID have a relationship, she cheated, and she wouldn’t make up her mind about him so he had to end it and it kept him hung up on her. I don’t sense one part of him being remotely in turmoil or “heartbroken” over ME.

I absolutely resonate with the baby elephant imagery you gave me. Also the part where you said that I look at his social media and see him going about his life wishing he had taken me with him – I think 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 based on my upbringing and I pretty much had to reject some things and carve out my own unique interests and personality to make myself feel special and 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. For him to inevitably choose and have “wandering eyes” for other women just crushed me.

Hi Anita

“I think that this was a false belief on your part, and that in reality he was not capable of meeting your needs, not from the get go, and not at any time during the relationship (or after).” — Perhaps the trials we didn’t actually get the chance to experience together were already piling up in his mind, but he should have told me, just as he told me at the beginning of our relationship that he was still struggling with the drama from his ex. I really appreciated that transparency and expected him to keep being emotionally open and checking in with me like this, but he stopped. After he stopped bringing things to me, I assumed he was content.

“…whatever changed in his mind, in reality, is not the difference between your needs being met AND your needs not being met.” — I have read this sentence over and over today, at work and at home. I don’t know how to believe it because when two people are emotionally invested, it motivates them to want to work together. I wish I had met him at a more healed stage. I’m bitter that he told me after the breakup that he was “eternally grateful for me for showing him he is worthy of love.” My emotional mind wants to say, “Great! Glad I could be your ego boost for a year while you have no desire in how this will affect me moving forward.” It’s also insulting to learn that somewhere along the line, he just decided to himself that our relationship would inevitably end at a certain point so he stopped future planning with me in mind. It’s just that something in me doesn’t get it.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as cheating in the situationship or hookup that he had with this particular woman you refer to as his ex.” — That’s a good point. He claimed they never made anything official but that she was hooking up with someone who wouldn’t date her, so she was using my ex as a rebound and to make this other guy jealous. I found it confusing and a little worrisome that my ex referred to it as a situationship, yet also seemed like they were in a commitment. I still feel like he might have used me as a rebound to get back at her in his mind, even unknowingly.(I know, I’m doing it again. I think I make a lot of fatalistic conclusions so as to try to gain control).

Also, in reference to the part where you said he didn’t seem to fight for her either, I was more so referring to the fact that he even HAD the energy and fire in him to keep going with her in conversation, to “prove” his point to her. It shows he cared. When he dumped me, he had nothing else to explain and was done – he tried to wrap it up poetically by quoting our first Hinge conversation, hoping it would appease me. If there is one thing I wish I would have said that night, it’s that THAT is such a hurtful and ridiculous way to end a relationship with someone.

The Emily Dickinson poem was very nice, thank you. I haven’t read much of her work since high school, I should start again. The visuals remind me of the 2007 Sweeney Todd film with the character of Johanna being locked in her bedroom, singing to a bird in a cage and looking wistfully outside her window seeing people going about their lives below. She sings through her pain and it gives her hope, even if it’s all she has. I always really resonated with the idea of being JUST out of reach for what you long for and feeling powerless to your surroundings.

Hi Anita

Good to hear from you too!

“In regard to “(I) agree with what you said about no man/person being able to help me“- what I said was that no man “could have possibly given me what I needed… There was simply TOO MUCH that I was missing: a sense of self-esteem”,  “… you need more than any man can give you, but you believe that he was able, if he chose to, to give you what you need, and that he is still able to.” — Yes, I didn’t feel too much for him. I saw he was capable and willing to meet my needs and expectations from the get-go until something changed his mind about us. Knowing SOMETHING changed feels personal as he was super into us before. And this is why I do feel I was too much for him. So you’re saying that even if I finally got with someone who was a healthy fit for me, it still wouldn’t work out until I became securely attached in myself?

I keep getting reminded lately of when he admitted to me early on that he was struggling about his ex and that when they had broken up, he written her a long and scathing good riddance paragraph, how she was a cruel person with no regard for anyone’s feelings, and that he realized it was pointless so he just deleted the paragraph instead and blocked her. He said he felt anger and shame for being cheated on – as I’ve mentioned here before, and he told me he was struggling with getting over those feelings and he was worried about it affecting us. I know that anger is just unaddressed pain and sadness. Yet when he broke up with ME, he was indifferent and wouldn’t even allow me to fight for us. There was no fight for us or passion or pain in losing me that night and since then in him. I see he’s capable of feeling pain and loss for people as he showed me with his ex. Does this mean he actually didn’t feel strongly towards me in the first place like he did her as I feared all along? Maybe. It’s been really bothering me and making me feel jealous though. I’m bitter that I wasn’t fought for but someone he didn’t even get to date over the span of two months who cheated on him can cause him so much distress. It’s insulting that our year together didn’t seem to mean anything to him. I think now that he was so eager to stay friends when I asked him so that he could feel less guilt and shame for hurting me. Actions since then have shown he does not want to be friends either.

“And this is why, post breakup, you still follow him on social media, and why you’ve been reading about his attachment style, trying to understand him better, so to .. somehow bring him back to your life and give you what you need.” — I think it’s also just an attempt to try to separate any issues from me and hoping that maybe it wasn’t that I was too much for him or anything I did to cause him to bail, but that he really isn’t equipped or willing to show up for anyone. I hear often that an avoidant and an anxiously attached couple are essentially doomed because they trigger each other and they require thorough and thoughtful understanding of themselves and each other in order for it to work.

– “It’s not that I feel safe, it’s that I feel more courage than I ever did before.” — That makes sense. Also, thank you for this poem, it’s very nice. I do hope to find power in my heart and the power to carry on because every single day is such a struggle to have any hope. I appreciate your encouragement.

Hi Anita

I’ll first address your latest message and I appreciate you for following up with me after I went MIA. I have been working 6-7 days a week lately to try to make up for the almost $800 car repair bill I just had to pay. So to address your question, yes I did get my car back a few days ago and it is driving okay so far. I don’t want to speak too soon. Also, my appointment with the ENT that I scheduled about the lump in my neck is for December 7th so I’m still in the dark there. I’ll keep you posted. My eating problem has been really flaring up badly lately and tonight it was terrible. I still feel physically sick from how anxious it made me. I feel this every day and it’s really hard to be hopeful that one day I will conquer any pent up trauma stored in my body if I just keep re-doing this daily. Kind of like what we talked about a month or two ago… how the body can only handle so many cortisol spikes. I know I say it every post update but my pain and grief about this has only been increasing with time because I see he actually just said a lot of things to make me feel better and didn’t mean them as a way to make things easier for himself. I know a lot of people will do this without realizing it to manipulate others and whatever those motivations are tells you about what kind of person they are. I know my crying throughout the day isn’t helping my throat and swallowing issue.

I follow a lot of avoidant attachment content trying to understand things from a more objective level to stop taking it so personally. I’ve stayed no contact since he ghosted me. However, I saw a video stating that avoidantly attached people rarely even care or notice you’ve gone not contact with them. I don’t know how to unfollow or block him. I think I keep waiting for it to click with me and feel right. I hate him thinking I hate him but he also is okay with just never talking to me again after stating he wanted to, apparently.

“I entered adulthood as a very needy child in a young woman’s body (thin, not womanly). I needed so much. No young man could have possibly given me what I needed even if he was very serious abut me and saw a future with me and cared a lot… There was simply TOO MUCH that I was missing: a sense of self-esteem, a sense of any amount of confidence in my ability to function independently and effectively in the world.. There was too much SHAME in me.. and GUILT. Too much unfinished business from a bad childhood.” — This is exactly true for me as well. I read somewhere the other day that when an anxiously attached person puts someone on a pedestal, they literally make them “perfect” and so they create unrealistic and harsh expectations on that person. So when this person disappoints us, we are overly critical over them and it pushes them away. I already kind of knew this but just being reminded… it makes me sick to my stomach. In my toxic relationship of 4 years that ended in 2019, I spent that entire relationship holding in my feelings until it completely destroyed me and I had to leave. I’ve done that my whole life and after therapy, I was determined to finally speak EVERY SINGLE feeling and concern after sitting with the emotions and trying not to be reactive. I feel with my current ex that I then did this too often and as much as he is at fault for not being honest with himself and me, I am at fault for being too critical of him. I can understand why he felt immense pressure to meet my concerns and needs over time. He told me it stopped being “fun.” The real Stacy showed up with REAL needs like you said. All this breakup has shown me was that speaking my needs gets me dumped. I understand that relationships are sometimes only meant to be for a season and that speaking boundaries filters out those not meant for us but at what point are our boundaries literally too much? I feel I am too much and agree with what you said about no man/person being able to help me. I think it’s really admirable that you have finally gotten to a place where you have that balance now and feel safe with yourself and choices.

Hi Helcat

“I think you have a lot of people in your life who fall on the opposite end of the spectrum. This has created a lot of shame for you in sharing your emotional needs.” — Yes, so much so that I am convinced that a consistent connection isn’t real, as everyone has their limits and you can’t put so much onto one person. I know that me making my ex my lifeline probably made him lose some attraction to me. That’s understandable and I have to work on that even more than I already worried about. I hope to someday run across a friend or significant other who can handle me more consistently, but I also hope to be able to be more self-regulated for them as well.

“It is honestly disgusting that your partner told you that he was no longer attracted to you and continued to sleep with you.” — I mean, he didn’t blatantly tell me he was no longer attracted to me, I should have said that, but he admitted to wandering eyes and falling for thirst traps. He said he missed how things used to be with us, when things were “fun,” how he knew he SHOULD be happy but that he just wasn’t, not to mention the few times towards the end where he said the honeymoon stage for us was over. These were all indicators to me that he lost attraction and interest in me, or else he would have had at least SOME desire to fight for us, I’d think. So yes, even though he didn’t come right out and say that, I know it’s what he meant. I don’t see how someone can be so intimate with you whilst simultaneously being bored. I’m already incredibly insecure about my body and he reassured me so much about how attracted he was to me all of the time. I don’t believe any of it anymore.

Also, you make a good point about his lack of care and interest in wanting to call me too. He always dropped what he was doing and made time for me when I needed to vent. But it irked me that he never felt the need for the same connection from me. I chalked it up to him just having different temperance, ADHD, and attachment needs.

“I think that it’s a good thing that you were persistent in confronting him about issues that you were concerned about. It made things very clear that you were not going to accept the behaviour.” — Thank you. I do wish I had been more open-minded about his sexual preferences and fantasies, but they made me feel insecure as they were the polar opposite of me and he was seeming to be less passionate about me towards the end. And to be honest, I think I was and am a lot more sheltered than I thought I was. The Tik Tok coworker he’s been spending a lot of time with is into covered face latex suits and Shibari… makes me wonder if this kind of appetite interests him too as he seemed to take to them very quickly. To each their own, no judgment but that kind of stuff is way too involved and heavy for me. I know I shouldn’t have to change myself for someone, but I do wish I had been less serious about things when we’d discuss them. Sex is just not a priority for me. I’m constantly stuck in survival mode – my main objective and concern in a relationship is if this person is making me feel safe, seen, loved, and entertaining me/adding joy to my life. Sex is trivial to me, that kind of connection comes after the other stuff is very established. I understand sex is priority for some people and that’s okay too, and maybe I should care more about what it means for me as well, I’m not sure. But if he just dumped me over his sexual appetite not aligning with me, it does feel a bit shallow and disappointing.

“Because of the abuse and difficulties in life you cannot imagine better. But it exists and you deserve it. You deserve to be treat with the same kindness that you show other people.” — Thank you. I have trouble believing I deserve better when I’m told I’m being unreasonable and unfair. He seemed willing to compromise until things got very real. I feel bad about making him feel bad about his life choices but I don’t think he’s over there feeling bad about how he made me feel either. He doesn’t even know how I feel – I’ve not spoken to him in over a month and even then, we didn’t discuss our breakup except for the two days right after it when I apologized to him.

“I think you understand what happened in the relationship. But you also experienced gaslighting.” — It’s funny because he often joked about gaslighting me. He’d constantly do these little “bits” to be ironic and make fun of misogynistic men and “mansplaining.” It’s hard to imagine what I mean but it just felt like with so much awareness to all of this and how toxic it all was, that he was immune to ever actually being this way towards me. Kind of like how when a man is comfortable with his masculinity, he can joke about the subject. Exactly like what you were saying with the “pretending to be healthy” thing.