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Wanting to fix broken relationships with self + others after depression

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  • #51396
    lavender
    Participant

    Hi Friends,

    This is my first time posting on the forum. Any advice on healing ones self and relationships with others in the aftermath of depression/anxiety would be wonderful.

    In brief, I had a very traumatic nervous breakdown last spring/summer: during a period of extreme stress (work, financial, etc) I developed a severe panic disorder as well as depression. My anxiety revolved around being a hurtful person, and so I pushed away the people closest to me including my girlfriend at the time.

    I am way better now – not dealing with active panic attacks or severe depression – but I still battling some feelings of sadness, despair, and doom from time to time. In the period since, I have tried valiantly to reconcile with my (now) ex-girlfriend. She is very distant, indifferent, and unresponsive to me. And, I found out this weekend via social media that she started seeing someone else.

    My question is how other people have picked up the pieces after the storm. In other words, I feel much better and yet her utter rejection of me (and seeming lack of continued compassion towards me/refusal to engage in a conversation with me) makes me feel like a terrible, monsterous person. How do you recover from depression when the debris of your former life are cause enough to slide back into sad feelings? And, how do you make peace with yourself when those you once turned to for unquestioned love no longer seem to care about you?

    I can’t quite demonize her – she also went through a very traumatic time (I was confusing about boundaries – pulling her towards me, pushing her away from me, telling her not to call, etc). and is now putting her life back together, too. So neither explanation, “she wasn’t right for you, she couldn’t see you through this!” or, “you have to atone for what you did!” don’t quite make sense to me. I think my actions weren’t so severe that they merited such utter refusal, and this aftermath/shrapnel may re-trigger some negative feelings I was having.

    How have folks picked up the pieces? Made peace with things that changed irreparably during your depression? Not take abandonment from loved ones as a sign of low self worth?

    Thank you.

    #51397
    Happy Miracle
    Participant

    Hi Lavender!
    I saw your post about wanting to fix broken relationships with self & others. And I thought maybe I could share some insights that’s helped me in the past when I went through hardship in life. 🙂
    1. No matter what happens in life, we gotta first learn to let go of the blame for ourselves, our life situations, and others. Forgiveness is the very first step to having a better relationship with self and others. We gotta first learn and understand that no matter what happened, we did the best we knew how at the moment and so did others. Everything happens for a reason, if you’d allow yourself to see the gift and the life lesson from the situation, and let it go with gratitude, then you’d be able to free yourself from the emotional burden you’d created for yourself.
    2. Second is to stop judging yourself for whatever is going on in your mind and your life. You’re who you are today for a reason, and for a good reason 🙂 You’re a gift to this world. You had to go through a certain experiences in your past to learn certain things, or become the beautiful person that you are today. A lot of challenges in our lives are actually blessings in disguise. And it’s important for all of us to learn to be open to see the gift the Universe wants to bring to us. But we must first let go of the judgment about our life circumstances so we can open ourselves to new perspectives 🙂
    3. Stop scarying yourself with your thoughts. A lot of thoughts in our mind are just ”assumption” about what we believe is true about the situation or others. But it’s not necessary true. We gotta let go of our scary thoughts and our assumptions about A LOT of things. What you’re thinking in your head isn’t always true! So stop scarying yourself with your fearful thoughts of ”what ifs” as this won’t help you to get anywhere. Instead, listen to your heart, feel your heart’s guidance. Our heart is the channel to Divine Love, whatever that comes from the place of love is peaceful, relaxing, and joyful. Our heart will guide us to the right place only if we’d just listen 🙂
    4. Trust yourself 🙂 Trust that you have the ability to change your life circumstances. Trust that you are the creator of your own life, you’ve created everything in your life and so you have the power to create your life in the way you’d want it to be with your loving intention. Trust that you have the ability to change and be the ”you” you want to be! Trust your gut when your gut says no or when your gut says go forward! go toward the direction of your dream!! Just trust that inner loving voice withing you, we all have it 🙂 we just gotta allow ourselves to feel it and listen to it 🙂
    5. Embrace yourself with kinds words and love everyday! You’re the only person who’s gonna be with you 24/7 through out the rest of your life, so it’s important that you be your best friend and your cheerleader 🙂 We always want to be surrounded by loving people, so we can start with ourselves! Every morning when you wake up, take a few minutes to look at yourself in the mirror and say words that you wish you’d heard from your parents, friends, loved ones, society, etc. Often time, we don’t really need to hear these from others, we need to hear this from ourselves the most 🙂
    Sending you lots of love and light!

    #51399
    Noek
    Participant

    Depression is a time to learn about the self, Which most people should use instead of feeling their heads with negativity. It’s basically Solitary time when ‘depression’ hits. Now fixing broken relationships, if ever broken. Now you mentioned that you’ll regain those negative vibes if you collide with her. That’s an already caution bro, Associating her with those feelings destroys your newly found ‘New Self’ After the storm. You need to re fresh, Apologize to her, Since she has already possibly found another individual, she’s growing just like you, no need to go back to that same issue while you try and grow. Then it’ll set you up and sink you right back where you wanted to escape. Now you can ask her on a date, if that’s in your best mind, does not have to be an actual ‘date’ just a time to catch up on each others life and then apologize and leave it. Results will come. As far as the Others, Easy as pie. You’re new, Different person, Just recovering, Spread your positive vibes with others and show them you’re a totally new person. Life is change + growth, never settle for one thing only, when there is a thousand more to go. Shortens your adventure. We’re all on the Search for Eternal Bliss, I’ve made that my life’s mission. Through being nice to people, working diligent, changing, I’m trying to reach that euphoric moment, Just sit back and don’t fight it. Makes it worse. Escape that old mentality and establish a new one, If you see that relationship as the same, negative energy invades you. That means you have to Re- Think on that situation, Whether it’s good for the self, or only makes it sadder. Your life bro, Live it to it’s deathbed. Much Love:)

    #51407
    lavender
    Participant

    Hi Bridget and Noek,

    Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses.

    Bridget – you are right, indeed. I do need to focus on rebuilding that relationship with myself. I need to get out of this cycle of self blame. It’s just very confusing – she was my best friend, my closest confidant, the person I turned to for support for 2 years. So, I am missing a major part of my life… This feels excruciating in the pit of my stomach all the time. On one hand, we have to be self-sufficent in love, at the same time, we’re all social beings, no? Is this just about accepting loss as part of life?

    Noek, thank you for the insight! I appreciate you framing it this way – depression is a very powerful time to learn about the self. I should treat it as a bizarre gift, rather than an affliction. Regarding my ex, we did have an interaction similar to the one you described: I apologized in person and sent two hand written letters. She is utterly shut off from me, she is so cold and weirdly distant that it’s almost like talking to a different person. She has her own traumatic experiences from growing up, and the ability to disassociate from feelings. I feel such guilt that I caused this state in her and that I broke a really beautiful relationship. It’s hard to forgive myself. Maybe I’m looking to her for proof that I’m not terrible?

    [Also, one small note, I am not a bro, I am a sis! 🙂 ]

    I just still don’t know how you reconcile with yourself, or forgives yourself… This advice is so helpful. <3

    #51408
    Happy Miracle
    Participant

    Hi Lavender~ 🙂

    I feel you’re such beautiful person! Please be gentle with yourself during this time as we all need time to go through our emotions. It’s normal to feel what you feel. The more we suppress and try to change what we feel, the stronger it becomes. So might as well allow yourself to take the time to feel what you need to feel 🙂 as it is also part of the healing process.

    Through all relationships, we can only do what’s within our control. If you’ve done everything you could on your side, then we gotta allow other people to take their time to heal and process their own emotions too. The relationship you guys had definitely was precious, but maybe certain things need to happen first and/or heal first before you could go further. When I was still dating my husband years back, something traumatic had happened between me and him, we broke up after the incident happened. It was the hardest break up I’d ever gone through. I felt like I was living in hell. I asked other people for help and guidance and finally I was able to get back up and forgive. As I was able to forgive, I was able to talk to him once again in a peaceful manner, and things just started to shift from that moment. Now we are happily married, I am soooo blessed to be able to marry to such wonderful man. However, that incident had to happen for the both of us to change and grow. Trust that what’s meant to be will always find its way. You’re not alone! You have all the support you need 🙂 Pray for guidance and help and the Universe will bring it your way.

    I’m sending you LOTS of love and light!

    #51409
    Happy Miracle
    Participant

    One more tips~
    I went to Robert Holden’s Coaching Happiness about a year ago, he said if a person you want to talk to is not ready to talk to you, you could try and send them a spiritual email 🙂 Send a spiritual email to their angels or that person’s higher self and tell that person that you’d really love to work things out with her, please show you when she’s ready to talk 🙂 and their angels and the Universe will arrange things to happen to help her be ready and send you the sign when she is ready to talk 🙂 And remember to send this spiritual email from a place of love 🙂

    #51410
    Matt
    Participant

    Lavender,

    I’m sorry for your loss, and can understand how disorienting grief can become. Consider that when we go through loss, no matter the circumstances that cause it, we often feel regret, shame, anger and a whole range of others. All normal, all usual, and they settle with time and our tender attention. Because you’re diving in to figure out what went wrong, a lot of that pain is being projected into your mistakes, making them far more agitating than they need to be. Look, we all make mistakes, and are tasked with the path of figuring out how to find balance, nourishment and each other. So, you made some mistakes… it happens. To all of us.

    But here and now, there is a lot of grief remaining, and so everything is painful to look at. This makes it an good time to intentionally set down the “figure it all out” momentum, and switch to self nurturing. We have to make space to process all those painful emotions, so we hop in a tub with candles, listen to soft music, connect with loved ones or whatever helps us unwind, relax, let it settle. This isn’t the same as avoidance, because we accept that we’ll look it over later, when our light is rekindled… when we feel a little less crazy with the pain of it.

    But there is that nagging thorn of her shutting you out completely. That is a harsh break, but maybe its for the best. Consider that perhaps the pain she is going through is attached to you (when she thinks about you, it pains her), and maybe you have been successfully campartmentalized. It doesn’t mean what you had was false, or invalid. Some people just suck at dealing with grief, and they shut it down instead of healing it. And, that’s her right… its not nice to shove or push if the signal is clearly go away. Maybe in time it’ll shift, but for now, she clearly wants space. Which is good, because perhaps that is just what you need too.

    Finally, please consider starting a metta meditation practice. Metta is an energy of warm friendship that rests in our chest area, and helps the mind become smooth and peaceful. This helps grow our space quickly, and is pretty easy to begin. Plus, the results are often quite quick, because our hearts really do long for peace and warmth. Much like a cool glass of water feels refreshing when we are thirsty, metta can soothe a fiery heart. Consider searching “Sharon Salzburg guided metta meditation” on YouTube if interested.

    Don’t despair, dear sister, there is always a path to joy. Consider that the vibrancy of your pain is from your love, just somewhat twisted around in knots. This means that as you settle, find your self love, your groove, and heal, you’ll be radiant and strong. Namaste, sister, may your pain settle and love blossom.

    With warmth,
    Matt

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