Ha, well said Kkasxo – I was thinking exactly the same about how good it was to read that from Shelby….if you go back to the start of your thread and compare you really do start to sound different. I know it’s still hurting and don’t panic about how feeling better can feel like you’re moving on when you aren’t ready but just being aware of yourself enough now to consider a different way forwards is truly awesome.

Kkasxo – you may not realise it either but you too are sounding slowly different, realising the relationship is perhaps meeting other needs and that you are dealing with more than one thing here.  It seems you could have a huge opportunity here to try to deal with this anniversary in another way than being with this man. Which may really help you see that you are strong enough to get through it differently. I’ve only ever been in that dark place once, right at the start of dealing with the relationship break-up I mentioned and I reasonably quickly came out of it realising that I couldn’t do that to either myself or everyone else who still cared about me. That irritating little voice in me ( I never got around to naming it but I like the idea ) has never let me take the easy way forwards on anything – apparently suicide was the same and it just shouted at me that I had to work through the pain instead.  Realise that makes me sound a bit nutty but I think you guys get what I mean.

I am guessing this traumatic event is not something you feel like sharing on this forum, it sounds like it is still too raw.  Does anybody else apart from your ex and your therapist know about the trauma event? Would they be supportive of being around you on the date? Sometimes sharing more means lessening a little on the dependency on this man as the only other one who understands and can pull you back up.

Btw  – if it helps make you smile again – my first few days back at work after the break-up I literally occasionally moved my mouse so my screen-saver didn’t come on so people wouldn’t realise I wasn’t actually doing anything apart from sitting there, that was it….stunning coping skills eh…..so you’re both well ahead of where I was by actually talking to people and doing real stuff 🙂