Hi. I am seventeen years old; going into my senior year of high school. My girlfriend of two years broke up with me two weeks ago. I would like to note that this post will probably be full of what will seem to you like hyperbole and melodrama, especially given my age. I'm posting this because I don't know what to do and because I feel that getting it out in writing will help somehow. I intend to be honest about my situation and how I feel. I am slightly nervous that this will make me the subject of ridicule or dismissal so if that is your intention at least pay me enough respect to keep it to yourself.
So anyway, here is the tale.
Two Mondays ago, July 18, my (now ex) girlfriend admitted after inquiry that something was wrong. I went over to her house to discuss this with her and she told me she thought that we should break up. To me it seems that nothing caused this, we had had a disagreement the previous day but nothing more serious than things we had worked through in the past. I picked up my friend and drove around essentially rambling in hysterics. At this point I wasn't entirely convinced it was over. A year previous she had broken up with me only to text me the next day asking to get back together. I thought this would happen again.
It didn't. The next day I invited one of my (female) friends over. I pretty fully intended to hook up with her. I think I was trying to grasp at the good parts of no longer being in a relationship. We went up to my room and started hitting my bong. I took too much. I had a panic attack and had to lay on my bed for an hour before I could calm down. My friend left and while still shaken up and only just coming down I called my ex. I asked her to make me understand why this was happening. She essentially told me that she just didn't like me anymore. Just a week or two before we had cuddled on my couch and watched movies, we had fucked in my car on the fourth of july twice, she had comforted me through my anxiety, she had sent me long Facebook message when I was out of town telling me how she missed me. I couldn't - I can't - comprehend how that had all changed so quickly. It literally seems like overnight we just lost all of that. That she transformed into some new person.
That night I slept two hours. I went to the mall with my friends the next day. I tried to be out of my house as much as possible. A few days later we swapped the books we had lent each other. We had a pleasant conversation as I was no longer in hysterics. She texted me afterwards complimenting my hair cut and we chatted a bit. Us hooking up still came up in conversation. I knew it was a bad idea, I just wanted it so bad. A few days passed and I said hey to her on facebook. I just asked how she was doing. During the course of this conversation it was revealed to me that she had attempted to sleep with someone else. Apparently she had gone to a party and while drunk attempted to have sex with this guy. I know him casually but he had been friends with her for a while. She told me that it was terrible, that he had been too drunk to get it up and that she had cried afterwards. I called her and we talked for an hour. I told her that she meant a lot to me, even if we weren't dating, and that I would be there for her. She cried and told me I meant a lot to her too. She admitted to having issues with anorexia again. She said she missed me and asked about being friends. I told her I couldn't make myself stop having romantic feelings for her and said that I didn't know.
That was it until tonight. She texted me asking just casually about some things. Then my friend (let's call him Jim) told me that my other friend (now named James) had been texting her in a very sexually explicit way. He told me that she had sent him nudes. I messaged James and told him to never talk to me or look at me again. I was furious. I called my ex. I said angry things, she said she was allowed to do whatever she wants. Several of my friends called me. I eventually answered the phone for my female friend from before. I broke down crying talking to her about what had happened. Jim told me James wanted to talk. I called him. He told me he was sorry. He meant it. I've never heard him sound so upset or ashamed. I told him it was fine and explained why it had affected me so much. I talked to Jim for a while. Then I called my ex. I told her that it would be the last time we talked for a long time. I told her that I had no problem with her wanting to end our relationship if she no longer wanted it but that her actions had shown a complete lack of respect for how I felt. I told her how much her actions were hurting me. She mumbled some sorry's and then asked "what else do you want me to say?". I hung up. I deleted her number from my phone. I unfriended her on Facebook. I unfollowed her on Twitter.
And that brings me to the present. For the past two weeks I have been unable to sleep in my own bed because I need a TV to distract me or my thoughts keep me awake. Food holds no appeal to me. I don't eat until my stomach starts hurting so bad I can't stand it and even then I have to force myself to choke down a meal. My anxiety has been bad. I wake up every morning with a knot in my stomach that won't go away. When I hang out with my friends I feel distant, like I have to force laughter and smiles. This girl was a huge part of my life for two years. I told her everything. She was my best friend. I lost my virginity to her and her to me. I have spent the last two years of my life feeling like I was wanted and loved and now it's gone. I am completely baffled. Everything seemed to change so fast, this person I talked to tonight isn't the one I was dating. I feel like my best friend and girlfriend has died and been replaced with this emotionless alien being who wants to fuck my friends. I literally feel the worst emotional pain I have ever felt in my entire life. I feel worse than when my grandma died. I don't know how to cope with this. I don't know what to do. I don't know what has happened or what is going to happen.
So there. Typing that out has already made me feel a lot better. I guess I don't have any specific questions. Just whatever advice you have is welcome. Thanks for your time.
Posts
The number one most important thing to do is continue avoiding contact with her. It sounds like you're already on that track, so good job. The rest of it is just living your life. Distractions are good, hanging out with friends is good, exercise is very good. The crippling emotional pain is normal, but it will fade quicker than you can believe right now.
It's important to cut off contact with your ex as much as possible. Yes, it will feel like there's a huge hole in your life where she used to be, but trying to cling on to something that isn't there will only make things worse.
It does get better. It may feel like the end of the world, but many of us have been through what you are going through, and we all survived. We are scarred perhaps (I certainly was), but those are scars that are worth bearing.
This is good advice for all H/A threads.
It's very possible to be friends with your ex, just give it quite a bit of time. In a few months you'll feel differently about her and your relationship (though you might not think it possible at this juncture).
Nothing about how you will feel in a couple months will seem possible to you now. Time is really all that can help in this situation, and that can't be rushed or forced. It just...happens.
It's ridiculously overwrought, but I remember a rough breakup I had long, long ago. This excerpt from Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" really helped put things in perspective, and give me a little hope. Who knows...maybe it will do the same for you?
You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
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Also, I see you're a fellow anxiety sufferer... please don't hesitate to go talk to a counselor/psychologist about this. They can help give you strategies for coping with how personal tragedy compounds your anxiety, and at the very least can help get you back to eating and sleeping right. You'll be amazed at how much taking care of your physical needs properly can help your emotional state as well.
First off... listen to the advice here. I tried to fight it and "follow my heart," but more often than not ended up flat on my face and worse off than before. We've all been through something like this and know that (as cliche as it sounds) that time heals all wounds.
It's rough, it sucks. You're going to feel like shit before you feel like sunshine.
Now coupled with all of the drama intertwining with friends, it's gonna be a little more rough.
I think that unfollowing her on Twitter/FB/deleting her number might have been a bit much, but I can see that you'd not want to be reminded of her when looking at your phone or whatever. Probably a good move.
Just echoing everyone elses sentiment, I feel for you -- I do. Especially with another year of school left. This is a time to harness negative energy you might have and go be productive. Go hit the gym, write, get more involved with things. My girlfriend in highschool was the same. We were very involved with each other's lives and lost our virginity to each other just like you and your ex. As much as I thought she was my true love and that I'd be with her forever time has shown me otherwise and that while as great as it was, it does get better.
Whatever happens though, it will work out someway somehow. Maybe not immediately, but it will.
If you don't feel like you can/should talk to her, don't. It will only make things worse. Talk to her when you are ready. At this point, neither of you owes each other anything, and if you aren't ready to talk to her don't. Just leave it as it is.
I'm sure that you are feeling like a bag of shit, and I'm sure you have heard this before, but man, once high school is over, it's over. Get through your year. Graduate. Go to college. Then look back on this, and realize that, while it certainly sucked, it wasn't the end of the world.
And this sounds like an excellent set of alarm bells telling you that you're doing the right thing concentrating on getting over her and taking care of yourself. The very act of declaring a self-diagnosed mental illness on Facebook is the kind of destructive behavior that shows that not only is being in a relationship with her bad for you right now, being in a relationship isn't the right thing for her, either. She needs to be relying on her other social networks (family, friends, physicians) to get her own head on straight rather than trying to get the person she just broke up with to take her back. And yes, that's the exact advice I'd give her if she were writing here instead of you. Don't take the bait; it's not your responsibility in any way to take care of her.
Glad to hear that you're starting to clear your own head and are feeling a bit better. Your instinct to keep away from her drama is exactly right; keep listening to it!
-Ancient Dwarfish Proverb
Then it turns out she never wanted to get back with me. it was a connotation i read in her letter that was neve there. She was just trying to set things straight because she felt bad. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach repeatedly. Then she started trying to ask me when i would be emotionally ready to accept her getting with my friend because she really likes him.
I feel like a recovering heroin addict who was told heroin is actually perfectly fine for you and binged on it and then found out heroin still kills you and is now addicted to heroin again.
So i don't think spurning her advances will be a problem for me.
Sorry for completely ignoring all your advice after asking for it. My desire to have things not suck got the better of me. Also, celibacy is driving me insane.
Don't beat yourself up over not following all this advice. In these situations I find that I always knew deep down that I should do what my friends are advising me to do, but when you are still in love/feeling the breakup pain it's so easy to slip.
Now hopefully you have some closure even thought it sucks.
Six Month Rule: After breaking up with an EX do not contact them, write them, hang out with them, or speak with them if at all possible for six months. After this point, one or both have likely moved on or, if not, that will be sufficient indicator that the couple should try again.
Note: This does not mean be a dick. If you have your Ex's stuff, for example. Give it back. Common sense, after all.
It happens man, and usually the results are like this. I completely understand not holding grudges against people, I feel the same. Life's too short. But. She's hurt you twice now, keep your guard up at least. Don't lose the same way twice and get burned by getting too chummy with her too soon.
AC, keep trying to reassure yourself that you are not alone, and that many people who've had traumatic break ups had the same feelings you've got right now. Its the middle of summer - try to find an outdoor activity to keep your mind off of the crippling emotions that creep up - bike riding, outdoor pools, etc.
Mmmmm....toasty.
Not the one directly above...the one two above. The one above is perfectly worth heading.
Now the other friend thing, I would recommend talking with him about this and express to him how you feel about it. I had a situation happen to me in high school when a friend went out with my girlfriend while we were going out (which I know isn't the same situation you are dealing with), but I haven't spoken to him since.
However close you are with your friend who she's interested in, talk to him about the situation and if you're comfortable with it. If you don't talk to him about it, he might not know that it will really hurt your if he pursues and you could lose your friendship if that's how you feel.
Eh, I'd say write "James" off. Any guy who starts sexting your ex that soon isn't much of a friend and pretty goosey to boot. There's no point in trying to salvage that friendship and it will only remind you of everything that happened. If you really want to, keep him as an acquaintance, but after that kind of action, I'd personally have a hard time keeping someone like that close.
If this friend your ex wants to hook up with is the original friend mentioned in the OP (James I think?) and you've already had that talk with him, and he followed through and went after her anyway, then you know he isn't worth it and doesn't deserve your friendship.
Kinda echoing here, but the way I see it, if you talk to the friend about it and he respects your wishes, maybe you can salvage the friendship. He's already apologized for the texting business, and if he was genuine that, maybe he'll go ahead and back off from the idea of dating her after you two talk. If you don't, your friend will have the opportunity to date her under the justification of, "Oh, I didn't know it would bother you," as Lanchester mentioned, and you'll almost certainly resent him for it and then remaining friends will be unlikely. Really, your friend should already know that it would hurt you for him to date her, but people do dumb shit when they're that old.
And for what it's worth, I am going through some pretty weird relationship stuff right now also and know that debilitating, end of the world, stabbed-in-the-heart agony you're probably fighting with. It really does happen to everyone, which I know doesn't make up for how shitty it is.
Also, naporeon, that Rilke quote is so right on the money for people in relationship trouble. Thank you for that.
Also, I assure you I will not being hitting any bars.
I've started to see all these flaws in her too. Looking at her Facebook profile she just seems like such an idiot from the things she posts. I know she isn't but she has this thing where she feels like she has to please everyone. She's terrified of being herself. And beyond that she never really shared herself with me as much as I did with her. I knew she had problems and before I wanted to help her and fix her but now the prospect of finding someone who can just chill out sounds really refreshing.
Bad news - there's nothing you can do to get over this quickly. It will hurt, a lot, for quite a while.
Good news - it will stop hurting by itself, there is nothing you need to do to make it go away eventually
Stick to the "no contact" thing, that just makes it harder. There's nothing wrong with resuming contact at a later date but for now its the worst thing you can do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZMmIRzIzo4&feature=related
I brushed against those freckles that I hated so,
Life goes on and I heave a little sigh for you.
It's heavy, the love that I would share for you,
But it dissolves like it was just a sugarcube.
Now the little pain sitting in my heart
Has shrunk in a bit, but it really does hurt me now.
Those silly horoscopes, I
Guess I can't trust them after all.
If we could get further away,
I wonder what it would be like... ?
Yay!
I'd be so happy
Inside my heart.
All the memories I have are beautiful in my mind,
But they don't feed the hunger deep inside my soul.
And tonight I thought,
I'd be just sitting in my sorrow.
And now I must wonder why.
What did it really mean to you?
I just can't see it anymore!
I just can't see it anymore......
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhhhhhhh.....
--
Just singing this over and over is very cathartic.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm afraid my tastes are a bit more stereotypical for someone of my age and position though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSMHcT-TqJw
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
However, my advice regarding your friend... I do agree some dialog should take place. If nothing else, clear the air, let him know where you stand and leave it at that. Outside of that, it's up to him how he responds and what he does. In reality, depending on yours or his future plans you probably won't have much to do with this kid in the future anyway. Remain friendly/civil if you can, but don't strive to keep as a best friend to him.
And concerning or music choices - negativity breeds negativity. So if all you do is listen to sad, what-if songs, that's how you're gonna feel.
It is the worst, trust me. But you make it through. You may have -1 friend at the end of it buuuuut you get there.
Sorry for just basically re-posting my OP.
Man I remember my first break up. We broke up right when summer break started. My entire summer was ruined because of it. Didn't help that I sat around doing nothing, just thinking about it.
You can't do that dude. I don't know how you found out the details of that text, but avoid any further details. "Out of sight, out of mind" is a saying for a reason.
I know it hurts man, but it'll get better. I'm sorry it's happening to you. But hey, in a year you'll be in college. You don't want to be tied down anyways then. :winky:
If you spend all your time focusing on what you don't have or can't do, you're obviously going to feel pretty bad about yourself. Be positive (note: I did not say "try"). It may not seem like it right now, but there will be other women at some point, and then won't be backstabbing hoes. Go out and do things you like, preferably things the two of you didn't do together. You can be happy without her, you need to go out and find out how though.
If you really cannot feel better about this in the next week or two (by which I mean returning to you normal life, sleeping in your own bed, etc.), you need to seek professional help if you aren't already (since you clearly already know you struggle with anxiety).
This is so true. You might want to know, but it cannot end well. Realize that, and change course before it makes you feel worse.