To be fair, even for me it’s hard to understand my own mechanism of thoughts. I often find myself getting lost because i go deeper way too fast when i start to think about anything. I can barely focus on one thing at one time, usually i do many things at the same time to stay focused. What works for me normally, is to listen to classical music because i can listen to the harmonic progressions of the piece and at the same time enjoying the music itself without having to listen to the lyrics. Because lyrics make my brain works again, maybe even more, because i can’t stop thinking about the meaning of each words.

That’s true, i hate being explored, i’m far to be affective and i think i look and can be extremely cold. I don’t really have filters when i talk (i don’t take the time to think about putting filters on my words, my thoughts come and go way too fast for that haha..) Although, with that guy, i really tried my best to get out of my comfort zone as i felt he was worth it (and still he is). I always did my best to weight my sentences. Everything i did or tried to do for him, i never felt it was a burden for me. Actually it was a pleasure to think from a different side and pay more attention to what i did. When i was with him i became softer. As he’s someone extremely sensitive, i learned to put a little water in the wine. For the very first time in my life, i was/am ready to ameliorate some parts of me because i want/wanted to make things work between both of us.

In him mind, being in a relationship with you was dangerous. So he looked for a reason to end the relationship.” => And what if the danger here was simply the commitment? He was kind of a roller-coaster physically talking (but again, i told him i didn’t mind knowing what he went through), which wasn’t the case before we decided to give a real try. What if for him, being touchy/cuddly meant accepting to let someone getting closer to him and in my case it would mean accepting that we were getting attached to each other and therefore making real the commitment? What if his issues aggravated his intrusive thoughts concerning the relation/commitment? It sounds a bit far-fetched no? => What i wanted to explore in that part was the lack of physical interactions i mentioned some messages above during the last time we met before he decided to stop and in general. He said he didn’t feel comfortable with those kind of interactions. Which was extremely weird. Because before we decided to give a try, he was extremely cuddly/touchy. And from the moment we started to be more “serious” together, he became.. clumsy, it was like he didn’t know how to physically act anymore. Even holding my hand made him asking questions toward himself (“should i? shouldn’t i?”). And this is why i said “What if for him, being touchy/cuddly meant accepting to let someone getting closer to him and in my case it would mean accepting that we were getting attached to each other and therefore making real the commitment?”. I know myself and once i get comfortable and serious with someone i’m not afraid to show my physical affection, i’m not clingy but i’m not uncomfortable either with that. I’m pretty sure that his clumsiness regarding the physical interactions played a strong part in his decision to stop everything. And i really wonder why he started to be like that.

The point also is that we went too fast. From the moment he got his first panic-attack, we had a talk we weren’t supposed to have at this early stage. We talked about a decision to give a try, to see how it goes, to take things as they come and nothing more. I can hide myself behind all the expressions i want, it won’t change the fact that the real implicit and final idea was to be in a serious relationship on a longterm basis. I think we both wanted the same thing (otherwise he wouldn’t have accepted to give a try as well neither talked about “wedding”) but the fact that we had that conversation kind of formalized the situation and we stopped being “careless” and we cared way too much. It was too soon to have that conversation. But we didn’t have the choice i guess.  Not only him but also me, we pressured ourselves so much in a different way because we wanted to give our best to the other. Maybe he also thought i wanted more than he could give. And maybe i didn’t drop enough my walls because i always had this thought that being “perfect” was the only way for me to be accepted by someone. But eh, trusting at 100% someone isn’t something which is possible in only a few weeks no matter how comfortable you feel at first with the person.

I wish the situation could move faster, because i want to see if he would be ok to give one last try to a real relationship, what he thinks about me. But i know that’s not something possible, not at the moment at least. We have a lot to work on ourselves first and this is just not the time yet neither for him and even less for me. Also, what it’s “funny” is that actually none of us has met someone during the summer.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Lea.

Sure i can add more about my diagnosis and my ex-boyfriend:

1) I’ve never taken medication for, i’ve always refused it. I tried a therapy for a while but it didn’t really work, i dropped out after a few months because i didn’t feel comfortable with the therapist and i’ve never started a new one after. However until the pandemic, i could control it pretty much. It didn’t affect “too much” my scholar work in the sens that i succeed to force myself to finish my works in time for example.  I had some “mental barriers” which are totally broken since at least june. That was how the lockdown affected me, it destroyed my protections i succeed to put within my brain against ADHD. Added to the fact that he decided to stop everything at the same time approximately, i literally gave up to fix up those barriers, the situation with him just drained the few mental and physical energy i had left. Now i’m getting a bit better but i know i will need much more time to fix myself and i really don’t want to take medicines as long as i can because i also know ADHD can’t be definitely cured and i don’t want to have a treatment for life.

2) Well, the situation was different with my ex-boyfriend. In the sens that before dating, we knew each other for one year, he was a friend before being a lover. When he went to hospital, it was primarily for the friend i was here. But to be honest, it quickly became a burden for me. I had my own issues (two friends killed themselves in a row, my grand-mother almost died and my own mother got sick, almost died as well and i had to take care of her for a few months). I don’t think i really tried to help him that much, mostly because he moved out from our city a few months after his mother’s death so it was hard to be present for each other physically talking, i’ve never felt the need to fix him, i was focused to fix myself first. However with the time, i wonder if he low-key didn’t expect it from me. “You’re never here for me”, “you never understand”, “stay talking with me instead of wasting time outside”, “you don’t show affection”, “do you even love me?”. I mean, he knew my own issues as well, that wasn’t my role to be a therapist for him, he knew i  also had a lot to deal with. We were just supposed to support each other nothing more..

I was 15/16, i was far to have the words i have now to reassure someone and dealing with my own problems took me a lot of time and energy. I think we stayed together not because we really loved each other (not during the whole last year we dated at least) but because we could lash out against someone. Actually when i think about it, looking at the situation we couldn’t develop real and strong feelings in a healthy way so i would say what i felt for him was definitely not love but it was him and me against the world which is also why we stayed together for that long.

The last year we dated, i started to feel better, my mother and grand-mother were fines and i felt i wanted to move forward in my life. Which wasn’t the case for him but he can’t be blamed. At 16 he had to start to live by himself and losing a parent isn’t something we can really heal, mostly when it happens at this early stage of life i think. And from that moment, the relation really felt like a burden for me. I didn’t dare breaking up but i didn’t feel nothing for him, he lashed out a lot and i didn’t really reply because i didn’t feel the need to be be mad against life anymore and i thought that because of everything he went through i couldn’t let myself hurting him more but he wasn’t even a friend anymore for me. I decided to break up a few months before the end of high school because i couldn’t handle more with him and i was going to move in another city to pursue my studies.

For a longtime i questioned myself if i was selfish during that period of our lives. If i could have done something more, what i could have said. Recently, i came up to the conclusion that at 15-17 i couldn’t handle in a better way the situation. We were way too young for these events, we weren’t ready to grow up that fast, we did our best and that was all we could do.

Honestly, since last january i finally ended up an old cycle of past traumas, i started to make peace with myself and to get over various issues. I was ready to move forward. I already said it and i will repeat it, my attraction toward this guy was the healthiest one i’ve never had. Everything was supposed to be fine. My two ex-boyfriends before him were clearly the results of my daddy’s issues and the one even before wasn’t someone i really considered as serious.

Also, i wonder if there could be a specific form of OCD which particularly affects relationships? I mean, i re-read the chat i had with him about his therapy and he told me he had a “form of OCD” not a “classical” one. I couldn’t find useful informations about the different forms of the OCD in its entirety, i only found things which are related to the compulsive part.

Thank you for the tips but mostly thank you for being here. I will definitely try to find mindful exercises to practice on a daily basis. Also, English isn’t my mother tongue and for a longtime it was easier for me to communicate in a “normal” way with this language as i wasn’t fluent enough to think and talk at the same rhyme as with my first language. The more i become fluent the more my hyperactivity catch me up when i speak English. Honestly studying in a foreign language is a great thing for me because it forces me to slow down and think more before talking.

“His OCD ruined his initial spontaneity. It happened not necessarily because he felt that you and him were getting serious, but because it takes OCD time before it inserts itself into a new territory.” => I see. Also, could it be possible that through a therapy an intrusive thought toward a past situation could be “erased” or at least turned into a positive one?

– How OCD’s people can love someone? I saw it with him, no matter how good will be the connection with the other, how much in common you have and how strong is the physical attraction, it seems that the mechanism of intrusive thoughts will always be the one to have the advantage over a situation (although, i’m aware that my case has to be weighted due to his issues and their consequences).

– You said in a message above that “being in a relationship with me was dangerous for him”, “him and me” was a situation and therefore he perceived the danger of it. How could it be explained the fact that we keep talking very often (less lately as he has started his classes a few days ago) and everytimes a lot (in average between 3 and 6h without any interruption)? I would tend to say that i would represent a potential threat as well because “the relationship” and “him and me”directly involve me. As he withdraws himself from each dangerous situations, it would have been normal for him to “erase” me from his life, no? Not only we often reach out but our conversations are the same as when we decided to give a try and from even before we knew we were into each others.

I don’t have and i never had any intentions to try to fix him nor to help him. The only positive lesson i got from my first ex-boyfriend was the certainty that it’s not possible for me to save someone, no matter how hard i love this person. They are the only ones who can do it. Listen to him when he wants to talk is all i can do. I know it and it’s sometimes hard to admit we are helpless in front of our loved-ones who are struggling. The only thing i can do is to get myself informed in order to understand what he’s going through and to get some peace of mind.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Lea.

“if it is possible that through therapy he can “erase” the intrusion of his OCD into the cuddling and touching” => yes i was thinking about this but also about me in general. “But it is not a sure thing, that he will be spontaneous again.” gives already a part of the response tho. But i keep wondering, during our conversations he acted in a way which was more than friendly (sending to me covers of my favourite songs and pictures of him, complimenting me, etc..). But also the day after being like that, acting distant. He doesn’t play me, i think he’s just very spontaneous but when he realizes what he did, he panicked maybe?

“He can be taking breaks from her (being physically close to her) by talking with you (being physically father away from him and overall less dangerous than his mother).” => sounds like a possibility. Although, since he has started his courses, he haven’t replied to my last messages. I know he must be busy, getting in touch with his new classmates, getting used to his new environement etc. But i can’t stop myself to think “what if actually he talked to me through summer  because he was bored and now that he can meet new people he will just start not to care at all anymore?”. Which sounds pretty stupid even for me, because if it was the case, why would we have spent that much time talking and that often? Somehow i know if i’m in this state right now, it’s because we used to talk on almost a daily basis. It was a habit we had since the very first time we started to talk. The longest time we haven’t talked until now, was three days. I know the situation between us is different, I know he’s extremely busy and we, i need to get rid of this habit because just like it happens now, if i see we don’t talk for a week, i will overthink and pretty much having a sort of anxiety crisis.

I can’t stop having this constant thought about what is in his mind concerning me. Does he think about me? Did he move on? I try to find clues everywhere, over-analyzing is my way to cope the situation as well. I know if something is meant to happen between us it will come naturally. I know i can’t force life to move faster in order to see the future quicker. I know i can’t control everything around me, neither understand everyone. I have my life, i have my friends, my family, my studies, i could find someone else “easily”. But still, i’m here, writing on a forum a full thread about him. I can hide myself behind facts, analysis, theories but it won’t change the fact that i’m scared that he might moves away without me. I’m scared that the day he will start to feel better, i will be only for him a reminder of that period of his life when he felt down, unhappy and ashamed. We gave a try for one month, we didn’t meet each other that much and it’s been 2 months it’s over now. How comes i’m unable to move on? It’s not the first time i met a guy with who the “give a try” situation ended up quickly. So why with him it has to be different? I can’t blame the lack of activities, i’ve been extremely busy since june and my social life is very active.. I know i’m being irrational but i can’t fight those thoughts and it hurts.