Dear Blueman:

I hope that you will feel better soon.

“At one point I got obsessed with this person. I think I experienced Limerence… Once we dated my intense anxiety and negative thinking caught me up and destroyed our connection“- anxiety, negative thinking and obsession do destroy.

“Finally, it ended in 1.5 months. Ruined it all with my own hands My partner trusted in me yet I failed her… The guilt is so overwhelming… Everyone has been telling me I am being too hard on myself but am I?“- since the short, 1.5 month relationship ended, you’ve been obsessing about having failed your now ex-girlfriend, and you fee guilty about it.. obsessed with guilt.

I’d approach this particular obsession on two fronts:

(1) your childhood history of feeling responsible for failing someone.. one of your parents, perhaps?

(2) the short history with your girlfriend: in what ways, in actual terms, do you think you have failed or hurt her, in only 1.5 months?

anita

Dear Blueman:

“Then you must understand how much self-blame and beating up I am doing“- yes, I believe I do understand and I know how it feels. Self-blame and beating myself up was almost a constant in my life. Sometimes I’d get a break, but not often, not for long (my longest breaks were when I was daydreaming, as in playing movies in my mind, pleasant love-story movies where I was.. everything I was not in real-life).

It is only recently that I don’t feel the self-blame and beating myself up.. what a difference! I remember how it felt, it literally felt like some kind of a whip hitting me hard, a brain whip, if you will. It felt intensely painful.

I remember long ago, I was a teenager or maybe early 20s, I said to myself: if I could have one day free of this Guilt (this is how I called it), then my life would be worthwhile. Fast forward, Finally, the brain whip is gone. I can still hardly believe it!

I didn’t know how life can be, or feel, without the self-whipping. Nowadays, when I think of a mistake I just made, I remind myself that I don’t need to suffer for it, I can correct the mistake, or make a mental note on how to do better in the future, without the suffering (the whipping). I understand that the suffering itself is of no positive value and I am able to.. not suffer for my mistakes and faults. At the same time, I am improving myself, becoming a better and better person.

It is interesting how ineffective that self-abuse has been all these years, it’s done the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do (in the mind of the self-abuser, that is): it kept me from becoming a better person.

Also, self- whipping when done regularly, is a mental- emotional habit. Like any habit, it’s difficult (but possible) to change.

Back to your post: “The break up has had so much toll on me… It feels like all the Self-improvement I had done since coming to college has been ruined and gone down the drain. Like I am back to square one with my social anxiety and introverted nature and especially my self-esteem“- amazingly, this too is what I experienced so many times, over and over again. I’d type out what I called Rules 4 Life, as in guidelines of how to behave from now on, then start a New Life, a new page.. only to mess up, again, and again.. and again. The frustration was huge.

“She is on a pedestal to me“- it’d be a good day when she is off the pedestal, and you can look anyone in the eye and say: I am not less than you, I am not inferior to you.. We are equals!

“I have just 3 friends now and my girlfriend has left me“- at your age, in college, I had zero friends and no boyfriend or ex-boyfriend. You are a step ahead of me at your age (lol, if I may be funny, or try to be..?)

“Everything in future years (3rd and 4th) seems very bleak and lonely, I feel like my alone sad childhood self again“- isn’t it interesting, how we expect to re-experience childhood misery in the future (and we often do)?

But I don’t want that for you, and you don’t have to. It is very possible for you to experience something different. But it takes time and the right kind of work. If you’d like me to, I’ll try to help you best I can, based on my experience.

anita

Dear Blueman:

The best way to help you out of this mess, is for a qualified, skillful, and empathetic psychotherapist to guide you through the process. If this is a possibility for you, please consider it.

Here is what worked for me, how I got out of this kind of mess (a process that started when I attended quality therapy 2011-2013, and continues to this very day): first part is called emotion regulation, it’s about learning effective ways to lower the intensity of your distressing emotions and practicing these ways every day.

Are you aware of emotion regulation, and/ or of Mindfulness techniques, skills and practices?

anita