Hey Eliza,

I’m sorry to hear that you still carry that hurt in your heart. sounds like you’re in need of some TLC. Be gentle with yourself, it’s not always easy to let go of something we crave. It takes time to heal, but the key is letting go of someone who has already let you go. When you let go, you open yourself up to new experiences and new people. Take things one day at a time, that’s what I did well over a year ago. I have to say that it has been quite a journey with ups and downs, but it will get better, I promise. 🙂

Start by taking time to take care of yourself. Do what you enjoy. Talk to positive and caring people around you. You can totally do this Eliza!

Sorry, i hope this helps, even if just a little bit. You aren’t alone.

Lucia

One more thing that has helped me a lot is a book called “Daily Meditations for Women who Love too Much by Robin Norwood.” I believe it is still available in print and that helps me so much because I relate to it so much.

Good luck; if you find anything that is helpful to you, that might be helpful to me, please let me know.

Kathy

It’s easier said than done, losing the love of your life is worse than losing your life. It feels like a walking corpse, a zombie. You’ll get a ton of advises, you’ll try so hard to stay cool, but nothing works really, you are dying inside. It happened to me too, my soul was crushed, I was left alone in this scary universe, so dark. When you smile at people there’s a millions of insects eating you up in your mind, your eyes swell. Your faith laughs at you, you seem helpless. The only person you wanted to love forever, you wanted to build your future with, the one you had tied your life with, is gone, has changed, has forgotten you for good. You cry at night, you want to sleep forever, you want to eat everything, during the days, at work, your throat chokes for no reason, your eyes swell, and you have to look around and still smile. There’s actually no way out. . . Ok, but what I did, lemme tell you, I left the city for good, went home and lived with my family for a few months, it was terrible even there, I was reeling in pain every moment, couldn’t believe what had just happened, I left home, went to a different city, found a new job (I’m typing this from my new office), met some new people, read a book, read a millions of spiring quotes, watched great movies, joined tiny Buddha :-P. After a year I think little I’m better now, but not fully recovered. Well, I believe it’s all in the mind, and our mind is a stubborn baby, very stubborn one. We better not mess with our minds, no yoga, no meditation, no nothing helps. Give it time, mind is a baby, give it new and interesting things, The biggest reason why break ups are terrible is because we tie our life to a single person and when the person is no more there we crumble, Ok, for a moment forget that person and remember yourself, remember how great your parents were, remember your roots, your grandparents, you are great, come’on. Remember your life before you met this person, it was still great, ain’t it? Alright, people come into our life and change us, we are no more the same, read some Paulo Coelho here, It all happens for a reason. . . . get busy, wake up early mornings, groom yourself, quit smoking, drink occasionally, learn a new language, you’ll be better. And yeah, I haven’t told you the best thing yet. You never know when life takes you to new and amazing things, never know what it shows to you when. Ok, the best thing is to hope for a greener pasture ahead, the most powerful thing in our life is hope. You’ll meet someone new very soon, and it won’t happen the same way again, coz u r wise now, and life wants to test us, we need to be strong. When you meet new and the right love, you’ll laugh at the old one (I surely will). . . Go to a new place, and give it time, laugh a little, little by little, the demon will die, the seed will crack, again, life will begin!

• This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by tinybuddha.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by tinybuddha.

Kat, you need a major undertaking. you will foget the fellow – believe me.

If you dont have your degree yet, go pursue it. Go get an education.

If you already have your degree, start looking for that new job you want so bad.

In other words, look for a BIG needle mover – that will change your life and make you better.

Forget this fool. No one dies for anyone and believe me…you will fall in love again. AND NEVER accept less than what makes you happy.

I’m gonna tell you something pretty shocking so you may reject at first what I’m about to say, but please read it all, think about it a bit and then reply.

Romantic love is not real.
It’s something society had made up a long time ago, it’s just an illusion we cast upon ourselves.
In reality society took this feeling of ‘great affection’ and made it holy and special and unique.
It was done by inexperienced people who felt this ‘great affection’ for the first time and were overwhelmed by it. (people like Romeo & Juliet)
Always constantly talking about “The one” as if there must only be one person than you can feel like this for.

Take a moment and think for a few minutes, what is love really?
The way I see it Love = great affection + great fear
One can feel great affection toward multiple people, love comes from the fear you will not find another person whom you’d feel affection for.

I’m telling you this, so you’ll at least logically understand that you can make a new bond
with a new guy that would be as strong and even stronger than it was with this guy.
and you’ll feel the same emotion you felt again, this emotion that everyone and their sister made to a religion.

I know that losing a bond is difficult but you’re future love life is bright, believe in it, it’s true.

My recommendation for you is to start noticing when you’re thinking about him, and when you do immediately stop and think about something else,
also make sure to make yourself as occupied as possible this is crucial.
When you feel the time is right go out and meet new people.

so Eliza I hope after reading this you now feel super special awesome 🙂

You write things like “I understand this guy isn’t good for me” and “there were many things wrong with the way he treated me and the way I kept being sucked back in”. I’ve been stuck with the same logical reasoning, and I kept being confused as to how it didn’t correspond with the way I felt. Logical reasoning and emotional reasoning are very different and does not work together very well. Alot of logical reasoning is in fact not ourselves speaking, but things coming from outside of ourselves. It is a very objective and intersubjective way of looking at something that is in fact very subjective and private. Everything we see in things, events and other human beings are, to large extent, a product of our own imagination and . This is not to say that it’s not real, quite the opposite actually. It is what makes up your world. Think about this – When I think of my mother, I project some specific traits upon her. I love her as a son loves his mother, with all the memories that I associate with her. But when one of friends thinks about my mother, it will be in an entirely different way. Another example could be my father – even though I dont associate any form of romatic or sexual feelings with my mother, my dad does. In this way one person, object or event can mean alot of different things to alot of different people. While this is old news its easy to forget the consequence of this – that whatever feelings or thoughts we relate to different things in our life, theyre within ourselves and does not neccesarily reflect any objective truth. I urge you to stop focusing on him, and instead look into yourself. Why do you think you love him so? Why were you drawn to him in the first place. When you answer this, try to avoid anything beggining with “because he..”. Instead really look within and see what it was/is inside of yourself that he seemed to “fill up”. You express your dissapointment that he hasn’t been there for you, didnt congratulate you on your birthday, used your friends against you etc. Maybe he is just not the person you’ve made him into, in your mind? As I said before, rarely does our mental image of things correlate to their objective nature(whatever that is). You could also turn it against yourself and think that you deserve this treatment and that if circumstances had been different he wouldve treated you better. This thought of course, doesnt serve any other purpose than keeping you in an emotionally masochistic state – something that can be quite addicting, especially if you’re already struggling with self esteem and have a habit of negative reaffirmation. Sometimes it’s painful to realize that something or someone that we hold very dear, is in fact just a feat of our imagination, but it can be incredibly liberating too.
It can be hard if you dont have a strong sense of self. Ive been there. I am still there to a certain extent, and I am writing this for myself just as much as Im writing it for you. To my experience, the people that have been the most absent emotionally(These people often had ”a void” inside themselves too), have been the ones that really got my imagination going, and I created an idolized picture of them. When their actions didnt correlate with this picture, it hurt me. But that was all inside myself – all their “super powers” and the incredible feelings they sparked in me. Hope this helps, though I’m sure you’ve covered alot of things in therapy already. Every tiny step is a step nonetheless. Take care