Hi everyone,

I’m hoping maybe someone has some advice/insight that might help me, I’m starting to feel very very depressed!

I have suffered with anxiety and insomnia several times in my adult life, and I am currently going through quite a vicious and debilitating phase of both. My main problem (caused by the anxiety) is that I cannot sleep. For the past week I’ve averaged about 4 hours per night, and I’m reaching the end of my rope. I feel like I would give absolutely anything to be able to sleep. It’s affecting everything. I can’t work, train, I’m crying a lot, I feel depressed and hopeless. I’m so exhausted.

I have had a difficult 6 months, with the loss of a parent, financial difficulties, exams and sports competitions, as well as a full time job. I am very stressed and struggling to stay calm. However, there is one thing in particular that is sticking in my mind and making me SO angry, which I think was the catalyst for this phase of anxiety. Whenever I think about it my heart rate increases and I get amped up and upset. If I think about it at night I cannot sleep. Just typing this, I can feel how high my adrenaline is and that I could scream.

Someone I know decided to very publicly drag my name through the mud some months ago. He did this on facebook, for an audience of many many people I know. Why did he do this? Because I challenged him on some unacceptable behaviour he was engaged in which was affecting others. This person’s bread and butter is man loves Facebook arguments – he has them almost daily (presumably because he does not have any family or friends except those on facebook, so it’s the only way he can get attention and interaction with people. I don’t say that to be nasty; back when we were friends he acknowleged the lack of people in his life) so I did not respond in any way in order to avoid giving him his jollies.

However this meant I didn’t stick up for myself, and neither did anyone else. Several people contacted me privately about what he had done, but no one said anything publicly. He is a ruthless, vicious, lying bully – so I can understand why no one else wanted to draw his attention to them. Since then, he has been engaging in yet more questionable behaviour, mostly involving lying to people to try to get himself ahead.

All of this is occurring within a community that I am a part of, and it infuriates me that he has joined this community (about 6 months after I joined, after I thought I would never have to see or speak to him again) and is now throwing his weight around, has badmouthed me so viciously to the people in it, and is trying to push himself into everyone’s attention via lies and hassling people. I thought I had got away from him and now here he is – and I hate that he’s there.

I’m so angry. It’s ruining me. I’m so anxious and upset about him, his continued presence in my life, and literally I feel like nothing would satisfy me more than to see something terrible happen to him. I want him to fail, to be publicly humiliated. I don’t like that I want this, but I do. I feel like his behaviour has gone unchallenged, notably his behaviour towards me, and I want him punished. While there are many who can see him for what he is (he is quite unpopular), there are many who have been taken in by him. He is manipulative and extremely pushy. He is a bully.

I cannot stress myself out further by addressing this situation. I am avoiding contact with him and have blocked him via every means possible, however mutual acquaintances of ours keep messaging me with screenshots of things he has said and complaints about things he has done. It’s maddening. It’s stressing me out enormously. I literally want to be able to move on and forget he exists. Yes, I will encounter him occasionally (can’t be avoided entirely, sadly), but it only has to be a few times a year. I don’t have to see any of his bullshit the rest of the time.

So, if anyone made it this far, I’m looking for any thoughts on how I can just get over it! I don’t want to be this angry, I hate that it’s got me so upset I can’t sleep. I need to find some inner peace but I can’t seem to do it! I know this idiot isn’t really the cause of my sleep and anxiety problems, but he is the thing I’m fixating on and I just want to be able to deal with it calmly and not care!

Many thanks 🙂