This is what my therapist is talking through with me as I battle with a maelstrom of emotions triggered by my girlfriend leaving me 3 months ago.

The end came out of the blue. We live in different cities but saw each other as often as we could. These times were happy times, filled with love and laughter and fun. My family loved her and she was so supportive of me when I was processing my emotions after my Dad died. The 2nd anniversary of his death is this week. She told me she truly loved me and looked forward to a time when we could be together permanently. So when she called to say it was over, it was like being hit by a truck. After that call, I didn't hear from her for weeks. She cut off all contact and left me in total limbo. I almost went out of my mind with grief, questions whirling about in my mind and getting not one single answer. Just a wall of silence.

When we finally managed to meet about 6 weeks later, she said she'd had some kind of meltdown and was a totally broken person. She said she needed professional help, which she was in the process of getting and that it was going to take her a long time to put herself back together again. On hearing this, I suspended my own grief at losing her. If she was ill I wanted to support her and help her in any way I could. So I backed off to give her space. I didn't ask her any questions. I sent her supportive messages (none of which she replied to) to let her know I was thinking about her. Yet as each day passes, I know she's moving farther and farther away from me and any hope I have of us getting back together is dying.

To protect her privacy, I haven't talked to my own friends much about our break-up. I've told them it was one of those things and that I'm fine. But I'm not fine. Inside I'm slowly disintegrating as I love her so much. To help me cope with my pain, I drink. I'm sleeping badly and I've gone from eating virtually nothing in the early days of our break-up to binge-eating now, mainly on carbs such bread. I guess I'm drinking about a bottle to a bottle-and-a-half of wine a day. And I started self-medicating with 5HTP in preference to regular anti-depressants. Anything up to 600mg a day. Although my mood lightened quite considerably, it made my skin itch; like hordes of ants crawling under the surface. The itching scared me enough to stop taking it. As a result, my mood has crashed to the ground. I'm tearful nearly all the time, reclusive to a large extent and existing on maybe 4 hours sleep a night and copious amounts of alcohol.

And now, it seems (although I have no real proof as we're not really speaking), our break-up might have had less to do with a meltdown (although she WAS stressed to the gills with work and a couple of other personal issues) and more to do with another woman I don't know. It's just the way disparate bits of information seem to indicate another woman and untruths about her seeking professional help. It may be she's fabricated much of her breakdown so she didn't look like the bad guy in our break-up. But, as I said, I have no proof and, very possibly, it's all immaterial now anyway as she definitely isn't up for a reconciliation. But I now feel my protecting her and hiding my own pain from her over the past 3 months has been for nothing.

Which brought my therapist to talk about my inner child and why I always put myself at the bottom of the pile. We're exploring the instances in my life where I've been rejected or neglected and how my modus operandi appears to be "suck it up and bury it".

My childhood was one of being trailed in the wake of a sick sibling. She's been ill or in severe crisis in some shape or form all her life. And as a result, our parents' attention has always been on her, with no exception. So many times I was the child sitting quietly in a corner with a book so's not to be any bother to anyone. It's something I've carried into adulthood. Even when I struggled with my own sexuality, coming out rather late in life, I did it largely on my own. My Dad died without knowing I am gay. I didn't think he could cope with the knowledge so I protected him from it.

And I didn't want to be a bother to my girlfriend when she was in so-called crisis. Everyone's crisis is always more important than my own. Everyone's problems, depression, illness etc are far more important than my own because I am perceived as being the strong one, especially by my parents. Only this time, I'm tired of being strong. I want to say to her "What about me?" She told me I "only" had a broken heart to mend while she had an entire shattered person to fix. And I believed her pain was more important than mine. Which may be the greatest irony of all as I'm the one who's ended up all over the floor while she may not be in crisis at all. Or at least not in as much of a crisis as she led me to believe. I just don't know the truth about anything anymore. And if I'm wrong, I'll feel terrible for not trusting her and maligning her on here. All I know for sure is that my feelings of loss are manifesting themselves simultaneously on more levels than I'm ready to deal with. The loss of my gf, the loss of our love and our dreams, the loss of my Dad, the loss of the childhood I never really had, the loss of my hard-won lesbian identity (starting over again is not something I want to contemplate). Ugh! Too.much.stuff

My doctor now wants me on commercial antidepressants but I'm reluctant as I don't think I'm depressed. I'm just sad about my breakup. Aren't I? And I'm just on here wasting everyone's time.