Dear Laelithia:

You are welcome and good to read from you. I appreciate your update (I thought about you the other day, wondering about the medical appointment you had scheduled). So, if I understand correctly, you officially received a Bipolar 2 diagnosis?

Good to read that you’ve been sleeping better/ longer with the new medication.

“I wonder if that’s how you feel too, with your past experiences and being able to help so many here on this forum”- I don’t know if I am helping many people, but thank you, and yes: my past and current personal life experience helps me understand other people. We people are so much alike- being the same species, we operate by the same principles.

“I’m trying to practice what we spoke about and using compassion and empathy for myself rather than beating myself up over what happened 3 years ago”- that inclination to beat yourself up over what happened in the past-that’s a compulsion, a drive.

To weaken this compulsion, it takes becoming more and more aware/ mindful of the moment you start to pick up that figurative whip, and no matter how strongly you feel that you must hit yourself with that whip- put that whip down instead. Do  it again and again, and over time this strong compulsion/ mental habit will weaken.

Same thing with your compulsion to obsess about past relationships (an obsession aimed at figuring out what you did wrong and therefore,  if and how much mental whipping you deserve). Mindfully pay attention to when you start to obsess– and let the obsession go. It is difficult to do, it goes against the grain of habit, but I’ve done it and I know therefore, that it is possible (or will be possible) for you as well.

“It seems sort of evidence to me that if this man still enjoys talking to me 3 years after dating one another, that he probably was interested in me and it was my behaviour that drove him away”- I personally don’t see the evidence, but regardless, this is your obsession:  that you drove him away, that you missed on something good by doing wrong. Coming to think about it, the very title of your thread depicts this obsession: “Let a good guy go”.

I wish I had a magic wand and was able to remove this obsession from your brain, and I wish there was a medication that will remove it smoothly and completely. From my experience, it takes the practice I mentioned: to notice the beginning of your obsession (I “Let a good guy go”) and/ or the compulsion (I must beat myself up) and resisting the strong urge to proceed with more obsessing and/ or whipping yourself.

anita