Dear Andypandy499

If you can get hold of Walking Meditation by Nguyen Anh-Huong & Thich Nhat Hanh (which includes a CD of guided practices) and practice before you go to the city it may help you cope with the gamut of emotions that that visit may trigger.

Are you going there for work?  Can avoid going to places in the city that have a strong association with your ex? Be aware when you are feeling nostalgic as this often ends up in suffering.  Eckhart Tolle gives an excellent talk on YouTube about he calls the pain body which may also be helpful in preparing for your trip.

kind regards Roberta

Dear Andypandy499,

I am so sorry for your suffering – both your illness and having been abandoned and betrayed by this woman, a woman who meant so much to you.

A long time ago I was abandoned by my first boyfriend, and I too thought that my life is over. I was crying every day, not understanding how he – who used to be so loving – could be so cruel to me. It took me 2 years to recover…

Later I’ve realized that the reason I was so incredibly hurt and incapacitated is that without him, I felt unlovable and unworthy. I also felt like an orphan, all alone in the world. What happened is that his leaving triggered my childhood wounds – primarily the wound of abandonment, and I regressed into that childlike, helpless state.

It seems to me that you too might be experiencing something similar:

I don’t think I can move on, I miss her so much that even now I still cannot focus to carry on. I have tried to hate her but I cannot. I have tried to forget and move on but she is still here, in my head when I walk down the road. It’s like a ghost of her appears next to me at places we have been and that time replays in my head and I end up crying, which can be awkward in Starbucks. I feel so hopeless.

I am willing to try anything to take away the pain and the emptiness eating me up each day.

May I ask – have you experienced abandonment in your childhood in some form? Because that might be the reason why you feel so broken now.

I wish you get to the bottom of this, and find love and hope outside of this woman who treated you so unfairly.

Dear Andypandy,

I am very sorry about your wounding and the resulting PTSD. It could be that PTSD (if you’re still suffering from it?) contributed to a very strong reaction of sadness and hopelessness after she left you. But from your last post, it seems you’re getting stronger and have resolved to get over it sooner than later.

I don’t know why I have been feeling this way and I think it is the way that she refused to communicate, never gave a reason and how she could walk away so easily after everything we had done together.

As anita said, she probably didn’t feel such a strong attachment to you as you felt to her, and that’s why it was easy for her to leave you. Ever since February 2021, up until your breakup, she was pretending to love you, while she was already involved with someone else. It shows her not too stellar character and selfish motives. But it seems you take her betrayal as a sign that something is wrong with you:

Not knowing why she chose someone else means I constantly feel unworthy and the fact it went on for so long makes me feel I was just used.

You feel unworthy – as if it’s your fault that she used you like that and betrayed you. It wasn’t your fault – no one deserves to be treated like that.

I think if you could accept that her betrayal is not your fault, and that it doesn’t tell anything about you and your worthiness, it might be easier to deal with it.

Dear Andypandy499:

You are welcome! It feels good to read about your new resolve: you are indeed “worthy of someone better, someone true and loving”!

anita