ColdWinterForest

Another thing, what I find strange now.... reflecting upon the entire situation... is how fast it all went by. I knew the girl for five years... practically 1/4 of my entire life... and it all seemed to go by so quickly. In many ways, I am back at where I first started, and that's alright. She came into my life at a particularly vulnerable time for me, but I have grown passed that now. I know what I want now, so I don't have to take gambles and risks or even depend upon one person for the validation of my own existence anymore. I realize that self-esteem is not external, it is internal. I don't need her in order to feel good about myself. I want to build up my self-esteem... and I realize that I have to learn how to walk on my own again... Perhaps, I have never truly walked on my own before and the break up was the final catalyst I needed in order to open my eyes and realize that I finally need to grow up. I am twenty-one. I am no longer a kid anymore. In any case, thanks for the support.

Yeah, I have needed this for a long time. It just took the break up in order to make me realize that I needed this change.... I still feel betrayed and hurt and all of that jazz, but I am also curious as to where my life is going to go from here. It's not so predictable anymore. It's not going into the direction I once thought that it would go in and has instead gone into a completely different direction. I feel like I have an opportunity to redefine myself and to take a hard long look at myself.

What I meant by that... is that I want to reduce the importance of her in my mind so that she is next to nothing to me. It doesn't mean that I want to wish her harm, or that I even want to wish her well. I just don't want to care anymore. I want to let go of her.... At this point in time, I don't know if I will ever be able to talk to her again. Certainly, I am never going to break NC, so if she decides to contact me someday... Well, let's just say that I really don't have anything to say to her.... Let's just say that things ended terribly between us and in the past couple of months I've come to some harsh conclusions that perhaps I wasn't even truly in love with her anymore anyway. It still hurts, though. She was like FAMILY to me. I don't think I have ever been that close to a single person in my entire life. But, I can tell that I am getting over this -- it has just been a long hard road out of hell. This has been the hardest thing I have ever been through, and I think that I can see some light at the end of the tunnel, but I still feel like I have a long way to go. I feel like I have to let go of the person I once was and change myself in order to let go of her... And I already know that I will always have an emotional scar from this... but that's okay. I just hope that someday I will be able to look back on this as a test of endurance.... Like getting through something horrible in order to get to a better place. It seems to me that last month was a lot harder than this one has been, and that the one before that is unfathomable to reflect upon, so I can tell that things are getting easier. Each day that I make through maintaining NC is a new conquest over this.... And I feel fine today, but I know that I may be thrown back into feeling depressed tomorrow. The ups and downs are kind of hard to deal with because they are so inconsistent... I never know when I am going to be feeling depressed again.

I have a question... is it normal to feel a lot of emotional ups and downs... sometimes I seem to even be happy, but then I am slammed back into depression again. It is like I have bipolar disorder, and I know that normally I was never like this before, but since I broke up with my ex... And also, lately I've been having a lot of childish fantasies about "showing off" to my ex... or getting revenge through self improvement and whatnot. Basically, I have been working on improving my self-appearance among other things and I fantasize about being better than her, or becoming a better person... I know all of this is very childish, but I cannot help but to fantasize about it... and it keeps me going. I just hope that this isn't considered lingering on the past and not moving on mentally because I very much want to move on with my life. I am tired of her being so important to me in my mind. I just want to reduce her to nothing. The thing is, the only way I can do this is to change myself and my lifestyle drastically, which I have set out to do... I cannot be the same person I once was anymore. Now, this is hard. This is actually harder than moving on from our break up because she left me in this place and now I have to find a way out alone. Hm, that's all.

Another thing, music has helped me through this tremendously. I find myself listening to more and more nowadays.

Luckily, my ex didn't even like music. She did ruin some good movies I used to enjoy, though.

The thing is, I was actually okay a couple of days ago. It seems like it happens in cycles now... some days are better than others, but today has been bad for whatever reason. I woke up in a bad mood. I am angry for a lot of reasons. I am really angry at myself, too, because I was a fool to stay with that girl for as long as I did... and I feel like I threw a lot of things away -- my time, friendships that I could have focused on more and developed further, and even the social life that I could have had to a degree. I just put all of my faith into her and everything that I had into her and I fell flat on my face. I was really stupid to think that I could depend upon her so heavily. Recently, I have come to a lot of conclusions... and I have grown not only to understand myself better but to understand her more and what I was to her... if that makes any sense at all. I think that at this point in my life I don't need her anymore. I need to move on, but I still feel angry over it, and it isn't something that I can really control. I wonder if there is ANYTHING of value in this world. If we put value into other people and fall flat on our faces, then what can we really value? I guess maybe ourselves.

It is just one of those days when I am seething with anger. Even though I haven't talked to her in over four months, today I seem to be remembering all of the s**** that she put me through. All of the lies... the broken promises... everything. I am tired of her existing in my mind and I wish that I could just wipe her out of it completely. What a waste of time our relationship was... I wish I had never met her. The time that we spent together wasn't worth this kind of price. Bleh, sorry if this sounds immature. I just needed to get it out.

And also, it is very painful for me to see my ex after we broke up... or to read about her new relationship on myspace/livejournal... so NC is also a way of avoiding the pain of seeing your ex move on without you.

NC is absolutely essential. I have healed quite a bit because of it... and it is not something that you can just stop doing... I am going into perpetual NC. Is it sad that you can no longer talk to that person? Yes, but that's life... If the person who dumped you wanted you in their life, then they wouldn't have dumped you in the first place. THEY would have worked things out with you.... So, obviously, NC is the last and final resort.

Hey, I am in the same boat as you are right now (the in their early 20's trying to get their life back together group). My life is a complete mess right now, too, and I don't know "who I am either." I don't really have any answers for you, since I am trying to get my own life together... And this may sound unbelievably lame, but remember that you are not alone... there are other people out there who feel the same way as you do and only you can put your own life together... Focus on yourself. Personally, I want to start walking everyday and working out as soon as winter breaks. If your life is boring, try to get some new hobbies. Try to be more sociable and try not to worry about the consequences... even though that may seem hard to do.

I got cut off at first, too, and I had to practically beg for an explanation why. I suggest that you try once, and if he does not explain himself, then go into NC immediately... I really think that you have to embrace some of the pain... in the sense that you NEED to know the truth or else your mind is just going to dwell on the "why" while you are in NC. In all honesty, he probably has someone else in his life and decided to just take the easy way out by not confronting you and cutting you off.

It is extremely hard. It's easier said than done, and I am still struggling with some of these same exact issues, so don't think for a second that it's an easy thing to do... I just think that it is a necessary thing to do at this point in time because what good is holding onto the past doing for us? And also, I think that you are right to a certain extent. Maybe we are better off getting out of these relationships... We may believe that we have lost everything, but maybe this "new found" sense of freedom is really what we needed all along? Going through a break up seems to be a period of self-evaluation to me. You have to figure out what that person once meant to you, which can sometimes be much harder than it seems, and then you have to leave it behind... Those emotions and feelings will no longer do you any good. That doesn't mean that you should forget about that person, but you need to try to look towards the future (YOUR future) instead of dwelling on the past and what things were like "back then." At first, this new found sense of freedom is frightening to us. Like you said, you just got out of an abusive relationship and you were STILL mentally programmed to ask your ex for permission to go anywhere. I have also experienced something similar with my ex, who was not really abusive or anything, but was a controlling and almost obsessive woman. I also found it hard to deal with this "new found" sense of freedom... and having her ignore me to a certain degree when, even six months ago, it seemed like I was utterly important to her and was the most important thing in her life. But, that's the way things are now. This is your life now, so it is best to accept it rather than to fight it.

Maybe the best way to get over a relationship is to minimalize your thoughts and desires to be with the person you were once with... and, in that case, to let go of the person that you USED to be (meaning the person that you were when you were still with your ex) and "profoundly" accept the separation fully. Ultimately, this means that you have to accept yourself. This means that you cannot linger on why your relationship failed, or how disappointed YOU may feel about that failure. It means that you have to accept yourself as you are now with love and compassion... to be able to look in the mirror and say, "Well, at least I tried and maybe things didn't work out so well, but I tried my best and I have no regrets. I would do it all over again if I was given the opportunity because I like myself as I am here and now." Just a thought.

I would like to know myself... Sometimes I feel like I fixate on a particular thing too much and, like you said, make it bigger and more important to me in my mind than it is in actual reality. Getting over disappointment... I think you need to do some growing up in order to do it, which is what I am trying to do right now. You've got to realize that not everything is guaranteed to go YOUR way in life and that you have to make the best out of the situation that is handed to you.