At the end of my rope

[ryder]

My boyfriend of 4 years dumped me in March of last year. We lived together for 3 years and discussed getting married and had many future plans together. The problem is I can't get over this unexpected breakup 10 months later. I was completely blindsided and was not prepared for life without him. I haven't had any contact with him for 4 months now and it gets harder and harder every day. I thought it was supposed to get easier.

I have since started drinking a lot to fall asleep at night and numb the pain. I also started cutting to feel something. I'm working with a psychiatrist right now but antidepressants and therapy don't seem to be making any sort of difference at all. New years eve I saw everyone so happy and got so down on myself that I cut my leg and ended up with a leg full of stitches that night. I've never been a dramatic/attention grabbing type of person but I just can't seem to get over this. I'm so tired of trying to cope. Any suggestions?

[lavenderdove]

Honey, try to recognize that you need to take care of yourself and avoid doing things that make this worse... Recovering from a breakup is hard, but alcohol only provides temporary relief and leads to depression and all kinds of other problems. So if you have trouble sleeping, ask the doctor for some sleeping pills rather than self medicating with liquor... you shouldn't be doing that and psychiatric meds at the same time either...

 

Make sure you tell the doctor if the meds are not working because there are many different kinds and you need to step thru the different kinds until you find one that works for you... you have to give that time to work.

 

Google 'thought stopping' and start practicing it to stop dwelling on your ex... you have to get him out of the center of your thoughts so you can think about other things and have a happy future. Also, don't sit around telling yourself 'they're happy and i'm not'... life is cyclical, and sometimes you will feel down and have bad times, as does everyone else, but not everybody is on the same cycle... someone might be having a perfect day of their wedding, and on the same day, someone else's loved one might die in a car accident... there are really good times and really bad times in everyone's lives, and you just need to learn to put that in perspective and fight to pull yourself out of bad times so you can have good ones again.

 

you just can't compare yourself to anyone else, and need to take responsibility for making your life as happy as possible. You can't control that your ex left you, but you can decide that you WILL make your life happy and start taking control by doing things you enjoy and not dwelling on thoughts of him or feeling sorry for yourself in reference to other people.

 

And be ACTIVE rather than PASSIVE in pursuing your own mental health. Go to the doctor and say, this is not working and we need to try a different medication and i'm not sleeping right and what can we do about that? Don't expect someone else to fix you, you need to help the doctor help you, and being honest about the cutting (and perhaps joining a support group for that and/or the drinking) might be a good idea.