4-5 months post breakup, dark thoughts keep reoccurring

I feel as though, despite what the people around me may think, talking this out is the only way to truly move past it. It's been five months now, but my ex and I kept in close contact after the first so I consider it more like four. We did everything wrong after the breakup, drove accross the country to see/ spend the night with each other. Talked everyday on the phone. I truly believed although the relationship wasn't a long one, he was my soulmate.

I'm 23, we met in a staff accommodation in the mountains and basically started living together immediately. He had some scars after his last breakup, that was always on my mind but I continued to fall in love with him anyway. This past summer we went to the yukon to pick mushrooms together, only 6 months in we went from living in staff accom to living in a small tent, literally spending every moment together. Things got difficult, we often faught over nothing, I complained about not being happy, but when the words came out of his mouth I was absolutely devastated.

I flew home to ontario the second he mentioned 'break'. What else could I have done? I couldn't keep sleeping beside this person, I couldn't even look at him. But we met up again at our staff acomm a couple weeks later so he could give me my car, we slept together... he told me he thought I was his 'one' and he wanted to work on himself, grow, and become the boyfriend I deserved. He mentioned marriage to me, he said this is 'us' and if were going to date again he wants it to be right as it will be the last time he dates anyone. Foolishly, I held onto this notion.

Things following this got messy. I was so alone, no friends, no family job or direction anymore. I was travelling around the country looking for something, that something I didn't know. I hate to admit this but I was suicidal. Dark thoughts filled my everyday, I missed him terribly, I reached out to him far too often and before long he told me he wasn't in love with me anymore. He started sleeping with a friend of ours we went mushroom picking with, and now believes she is his 'soulmate' only a month after he said this to me.

He's in Australia now, keeping in contact with her, she supports him in ways I never could. She's allowed him to go freely, no ties, with hopes he'll return to her and I think he will.

It's been five months. I was doing better for a while, but the longing, missing, wanting... the crippling depression. It's back. Things look differently, even the biggest most wonderful opportunities don't excite me. I have yet to meet someone like him, I'm worried it may be a long time before I ever do. I feel so alone, and I resent the fact that I still love him. I hate the thought of them together, so quickly after me. I can't stop thinking about it. How could someone give themselves to another so immediately. How could something so real to me seem so unimportant to him. I feel used and abused, quickly tossed aside. I wonder whether he still hurts or thinks of me. What I even meant to him.

I don't really know what to do with myself besides keep busy, and after reading some threads staying away from his/ her facebook for as long as I can.

From experience, when does your heart truly begin to heal? When does this light at the end of the tunnel appear. Never before did I think I'd be so broken up over a boyfriend, it's so cliche, I believed I was much stronger. But in all honesty, everything changed

when I met him, and everything changed when he left. He wasn't your average person, he was more interesting, kind, loving, I've never clicked with another on this level before. I miss him more than I can even explain.

You are idealizing him. He isn't all that and a bag of chips. He is a man who is clueless about love and commitment. He flitters from flower to flower.

That is who he is --- just as he gave himself to you so quickly. You weren't used and abused....you jumped into the pond with him.

And yes, you will heal and when you meet a healthy, mature guy you will realize how superficial this guy was.

You are idealizing him. He isn't all that and a bag of chips. He is a man who is clueless about love and commitment. He flitters from flower to flower.

That is who he is --- just as he gave himself to you so quickly. You weren't used and abused....you jumped into the pond with him.

 

And yes, you will heal and when you meet a healthy, mature guy you will realize how superficial this guy was.

So true.....well said!

I appreciate that. I know how easy it is to idealize, and how simple things look from the outside. I've given so much advice to friends in situations similar to mine. It's when you're going through your own and your mind is your worst enemy that things begin to seem bleak and unending. I don't know what's happened but I've completely lost myself over these five months. As he's grown, I've deteriorated, a shell of the old me.

I've never been the 'dumpee' the love you have for yourself dies a little bit when the person you care so deeply for decides to let you go. Especially when that person had been in a five year committed relationship before you, and I expect his next one to last a long time, if not a lifetime.

Thank you for that optimistic, kick me in the ass reply though

Well, I'm going through a painful break up myself at the moment. However, I have been through a couple of painful break ups with people I loved and I totally know where you're coming from when you say that you feel your ex is flourishing whilst you state you are simply a 'shell of the old you'. My ex who I went through heartbreak with before this current one was progressing alot in his career at the time, he was a musician in a band and very successful at the time, where as I was just a mature student at my local college with no money. However I got over it completely and got into a new loving relationship 5 months after (it lasted 3 years and I ended it, its very amicable with this ex) and I ended up going to university and being very successful there and felt foolish for ever feeling inferior. Life is a rollercoaster, without sounding cliche, downs of which he'll experience too. Of course you feel like a shell of the old you because you are grieving. As you slowly get over it, you'll become more productive and you start to build yourself up again, which in turn, speeds up the healing process. The quicker you can force motivation and productivity, the longer you keep up NC and the more skilled you become at not obsessing over thoughts of him, the quicker you will heal and the more you'll start to value yourself again.

Take it one day at a time, let these be your mantras:

I will not contact him or obsess over him

I will do at least one thing a day to work towards a goal that I can be proud of

I will do something with family or friends

I will keep active or get outside and eat well

Hang in there

You too! If you're in the beginning stages I so feel for you but it sounds like you have yourself together, as best as you can at this point anyway. Love is such a wonderful yet cruel thing. I do my best to think "whatever happens to me is the best possible thing that can happen" but it's hard to keep that attitude sometimes. Good luck with your healing, sending you positivity.