Dear Hamza:

Welcome back to your thread more than 9.5 months after the last time you posted here!

“I am feeling 95% better and normal again, though still suffer from intrusive thoughts / memories of her on a daily basis. Where do I go from here?“-

– How about quality, professional psychotherapy, one that will include treatment for intrusive thoughts?

“I feel shame that despite saying ‘I’ll get back to you’, I never got back to her, and wonder what she thinks about me. On the other hand, I also am starting to feel indifferent about the whole thing and thinking of never reaching out again… I am confused and stressed and anxious about what I do next. Do I block her. Do I remain indifferent and just forget about her..“-

– although you feel indifferent at times, overall, reads to me that you are not indifferent. Seems to me that psychotherapy that will address your obsessive thinking (about her) is the place to go, at this time.

I have suffered from OCD much of my life, so I know how draining it is to obsess about someone or something…

I am glad that you are feeling a lot better some of the time, and hope that you will feel way better much of the time.

(I will be away from the computer for the rest of the day).

anita

Dear Hamza:

You are welcome and I am well, thank you!

You expressed (I am paraphrasing) that you accomplished 95% healing in regard to the relationship with her, and you are wondering if you can accomplish the remaining 5% without blocking her on social media, and without apologizing to her for not replying to her email of almost a year ago..

(I am adding the boldface feature to your quotes from here on): You expressed that you “worry about what she thinks about what I post online”, that in regard to what you post online, you are “trying to show her how good my life is”, that you don’t want to “come across petty” to her, if you block her; that you have trouble with the “irreversible decision to permanently cut all chords” with her (once you block her), and that if you don’t block her, she “she continues to live in my head as I feel ‘watched'”.

Before I respond to the above, I want to re-read and summarize what you shared back in January: she initiated the breakup on Aug 1, 2022. At the end of November 2022, the two of you met and you remorsefully apologized for everything you did wrong in the 3.5-year relationship with her. She followed up by sending you a long, gracious online message where she expressed her concern (in regard to your suggestion that the two of you would become friends and see where it goes), that she might not be able to fall back in love with you, and that it will hurt you even more than you were already hurt. In early December 2022, you sent her a message saying “I’ll come back to her as soon as I am able to do so”- and (fast forward to today, almost a year later), you never came back to her. That was the last contact you had with her.

On January 5, 2022, you wrote: “I feel like I’ve already lost all respect in her eyes by first pretending I was mutually ok with the breakup, then trying to get her back, then trying to be friends, then going NC, then saying I’ve accepted the breakup, then… I feel I’ve made every mistake in the book and have gone from someone she respected and loved to someone she doesn’t respect and love, or worse yet, looks down upon. The most important thing for me, above all, above getting her to fall for me again – is to pursue a path forward that restores my dignity and self-respect. How do I do this? Walk away forever now, or re-initiate contact as friends, get her to see the strong me one or two times, and then walk away forever”.

Back to yesterday, November 17, 2023: when you post on social media, you still “worry about what she thinks”, and she “she continues to live in my head as I feel ‘watched'”.

My input today: somehow she has become, in your mind, the one holding your sense of self worth hostage. As in.. it’s up to her to declare you worthy or unworthy, deserving respect or deserving disrespect. This is why you’ve been stuck in analysis-paralysis for so long: the weight you have placed in what she thinks of you is so heavy that.. you haven’t been able to move one way or the other.

She is engaged to another man now.. but still, in your mind, she is holding your sense of self worth and respectability hostage.

And because this is the situation, whatever I suggest to you is not likely to get you to move one way or another, is it? I mean, it’s what you think that she thinks (not what anyone else thinks) that’s holding you down, isn’t it?

You wrote yesterday: “I’ve been seeing a therapist regularly for the last 12 months and will continue doing so. I guess I’m just wondering if there’s a way for me to get to 100% without blocking her..“- didn’t you ask this question ‘in therapy.. again and again? Did you discuss in therapy about what I mentioned here in my input?

anita