The problem as I see it is being triggered now by something in the past. The reaction/response now is intense, doesn't matter "when" the actual triggering event took place or how much of it was the now event/trigger or the then/old event?

I went to the grocery store and bought 4-5 items and I swear, the clerk put them in 4-5 bags! I happened to leave one behind, the cat food I'd gone to the store for in the first place. So, I get home and I had no cat food which I was out of. I was really pissed. So, I called the manager of the store and let him have it. He was kind and apologized and promised me new, etc. just come and get it but, of course, that is what pissed me off most; I'd already paid but it was half an hour there and back to get it "again," all for pennies a can. The time and effort weren't worth it, the convenience store down the street would do for now.

After I hung up I realized how angry I'd been about "cat food" (at mere pennies a can :-) and realized I'd kind of overdone it? I had ended up no better off then I started which got me to thinking about the poor grocery manager, what had I wanted from him? I then realized I'd only wanted to yell at him and that's not particularly me so I looked harder at what had happened previously during the day (at work, I'd stopped by the store on my way home from work) and found an incident where I did not fare very well. So, that incident had unconsciously triggered the call-and-cuss-out-grocery-manager and now I felt a bit foolish.

Not as "big" as your friend pain but perhaps similar. It didn't matter to me at the time that I was giving someone a hard time about cat food (and potentially getting an "innocent" clerk yelled at because I wasn't paying attention and hadn't told her what I wanted or made sure to collect all my bags); I sincerely/really felt angry, disappointed, frustrated. That Ifigured out that most of it was left over from a previous negative encounter during the day, at work, doesn't really matter; I felt what I felt when I felt it! I did what I did when I did it, etc.

I think that you can't hold on to the percentage of missing friend versus old missings is not what is important. You miss your friend and that hurts. I don't think you would miss your friend "less" you just might respond a bit differently if you had figured out what you were missing from before.

I think there's layers or a couple of things happening at once. I think if I had dealt with the problem at work, I still would have been angry from the store result, I just might not have bothered to call and tell them how I felt. However, is that always a good thing? I only figured out how I felt and what was "going on" by having the extreme reaction. I often still have to be hit in the head with a 2x4 in order to get important things across to me.

What have you learned about "missing" and missing T by having such a strong reaction to the breakup with your friend. In the past, would you not have "not cared" and/or gotten angry (as I did following the hurt from a work interchange, I got angry at the store, correctly, but too intensely)? Ripple effect backwards is not a bad thing to happen. I think eventually, as we get better at taking care of things when they happen, the intensity of things will calm down. But feel what you feel when you feel it, just check the intensity and if it's set too high, look elsewhere for additional information.