losing my mind.

[rooster123]

i could write the longest post about the background but i'll stick to the main parts. my ex of 2 years and i broke up at the end of august. she is 29 and i am 27, we are both female. we met when we lived in a different state and i had to move across the country for graduate school. she followed me 7 months later, after a rough process of her trying to be okay with moving and me being telling her that if she didn't want to then she shouldn't because i didn't want her to come here and resent me. long story short she ended up moving in may. after only 3 months, she became friends with someone i introduced her to. i quickly became uncomfortable with the friendship because it was obvious the other person was in love with my gf, and was writing things on twitter and elsewhere about this mystery woman they're in love with and i knew it was about her. it got to the point where i was losing my mind about it. i felt like she was hiding her phone and being dishonest with me. i tried to have mature and calm conversations about how i was feeling and they would always end in her freaking out, leaving or just going crazy. she is not the most mentally stable person. during our relationship she went to rehab for alcohol and i stuck by her. she has always battled with anxiety and depression. our relationship has essentially always been tumultuous, but we shared a deep love and are fundamentally compatible about all the big relationship things like kids, the future, etc.. Anyway, it got to the point where i couldn't take it anymore. she was letting this other person disrespect me and our relationship and she did nothing about it. I was going crazy and i decided to move out after she told me she would not end their friendship. i moved out. two weeks later her and this other "friend" are dating. she tells me she never cheated when we were together and only developed feelings after. obviously, i don't believe this. we didn't speak for over a month and i was absolutely wrecked. the other person kept posting about them on social media and i was torturing myself reading about it everyday. she texted me after like a month telling me she didn't understand why i moved her out here and all this other stuff. i freaked out and told her that this was a result of HER choices, not mine. eventually she tells me how miserable she is and all this other stuff. essentially, she said she wanted to try things again slowly. at this point the other person had moved in to her apartment (MY old apartment). she kicked him out and we spent some time together but i learned later she never broke up with him. a few weeks of us hanging out and her going back and forth she tells me there's too much pain and she can't do it. she didn't want to get hurt again and she didn't want to end things with him because she was afraid she'd have no one if things didn't work out with us (she doesn't know anyone in the new state and her family is back across the country). that same day she was back to hanging out with the other person. obviously i'm hurt and did a little begging and pleading, but ultimately said it was fine and i wished her the best. two weeks later she texts me at midnight asking if i'm awake. this was on Monday. i text her back a a few hours later and she doesn't answer until the morning. she says shes sorry she contacted me she was just in a bad headspace and didn't know who to turn to. i told her it was selfish and that i needed to heal and couldn't do that while being in contact with her and said goodbye. she called me bawling saying she couldn't say goodbye. she said she was thinking about harming herself so i drove to her apartment to make sure she was okay. and she was, i saw her off to work. this interaction really took me backwards and with the holiday yesterday i was really missing her. i texted her and asked her if she really wanted to be with the new person over me. she said that she guessed so, and that there were things she needed in a relationship that she wasn't sure she could ever have with me. around this same time i see a picture her new lover posted and the caption was the same caption that was on a ring i had given to my ex when we were together. i know they did it on purpose to hurt me and i freaked out on my ex between the picture and her saying she'd rather be with the other person. i said some things that were hurtful. she called me screaming telling me to leave her alone and again threatened to harm herself. i was with family in a different state and became worried when i couldn't get ahold of her after she said that so i texted her dad and asked him to check on her. then i saw the new person posted about them being together so i apologized to her dad and told him she was fine. i feel really dumb about texting him now but i was worried and didn't want to be the reason she killed herself. this all sounds so ed up writing it out, i know. i really sound pathetic. and then of course today i felt guilty about the things i said so i texted her apologizing, saying that i didn't want our last convo to be filled with hatred, that i am okay with us being done and that i wished her the best. i guess she had blocked my number so i e-mailed it to her. i feel a little weird that i did that now but i think i feel better than i did if i would have left things off so terrible. i have such problems with regrets.

 

honestly i don't know what i want to hear. just anything from anyone. i have no plans to ever reach out again and its obvious i won't be hearing from her either since i'm blocked and i'm fine with that because i need to move on and heal. it was just so hard to finally accept that it was done because during this whole time she really made it out that she wasn't doing anything wrong, was trying to work through serious things in her head and was mentally in a bad place. she really didn't take responsibility for anything even when i told her i was committed to changing the things i did poorly in the relationship. there's something about her where no matter what messed up stuff she does to me, i always end up wanting to protect her, believe her, and make things better for her. it's so unhealthy. and i honestly feel like she really believes the stuff she is saying to me. it doesn't seem like she's trying to manipulate me on purpose, but she does because she has deeper issues.

 

i know that we shouldn't be together and that she isn't right for me. right now i'm in the phase though where all i can think about is what i did wrong and how she was perfect, which i know is just a lie that my brain is telling me. but i'm in such a bad place i honestly thought about killing myself and i'm not that type of person. i have so many good things going for me, i don't know why i'm so afraid i'll never find someone i love as much again. the worst part is in the depths of my brain i want her to reach out to me again. i want her to want me again and i know that's normal but i hate feeling like that. she told me she was confused and trying to figure things out and all this other stuff. which i know is just breadcrumbs. but then i beat myself up over freaking out yesterday because now i feel like since i did that i ruined any chance of reconciliation. yesterday was probably the worst it's ever been, especially since i got her dad involved and i'm sure he told her to stop being in contact with me as well. i hate that even though i know we shouldn't be together, i still want her back and regret instigating that fight. why do i believe all the lies she tells me? why can't i just accept that she is manipulating me even though i honestly don't think she realizes she's doing it. she's so good at rationalizing to me what she is doing. i know that in the long run i will be happier without her, but it's hard to imagine finding someone better when the lesbian dating pool is so small and there's a serious lack of quality people.

 

can someone just please talk some sense into me. i'll take anything. i'm in such a bad place mentally, worse than i've ever been. i would love if someone could make sense of the unhealthy dynamics of our relationship and where i should go from here. thank you for reading all of this.

[DanZee]

Well, you already know the answers that people will give you because you figured them out for yourself. It's not you who's to blame, it's her. It's she who needs to change, not you. Dating is difficult and the entire goal is to figure out if the other person it compatible with you because a lifetime is a long time.

 

Saying this, about 25% of the messages to ENA involve someone who is depressed, bipolar, OCP, etc. Having a condition like that makes for a very bumpy relationship. 75% of the messages involve emotional abuse of some kind. Usually bipolar also includes emotional abuse, and you've had that heaped on you too.

 

You got caught up in the natural response to this -- you tried to help the person with this condition and you tried to protect her. You also made a lot of excuses to yourself such as she didn't mean it when she said something nasty, and so on. All natural behaviors but in a way, it enables one partner to manipulate and abuse the other partner even more. The threats of suicide are the ultimate form of attracting attention from you. It's used to inflict punishment on you and sometimes it's used to have the other person come back. Posting pictures of the boyfriend again is a way to torture you. You should have gone totally NC to get away from her control.

 

I know dating is difficult and so is finding a new girlfriend, but trying is a lot better than settling for someone who's crazy. You don't deserve to be tortured. You deserve to be loved. Keep that in mind as you go forward.