Hello everyone,

I came here for some help. I struggled a long time ago with panic attacks so I'm familiar with them.

I met a young and nice guy and we were close friends for 5 months, although there was a very strong attraction there. I'm older than him (I'm 30 and he's 23) and we worked together, he kept finding ways to be constantly next to me, in my office, seeing me after work etc. But his reactions were odd, he kept blowing hot and cold and admitted he had bad anxiety issues. He later admitted he had a girlfriend as well but it wasn't going good. I didn't insist and stopped being so close to him but he then decided to break up his girlfriend and we finally started dating after he said he couldn't ignore his feelings for me anymore. It was instantly very passionate and we could not get apart.

However, he was stressed out about our first night together and when the day finally came, he had an ED problem. I tried to reassure him but it blew out into a full on panic attack and he threw up multiple times. He then started to question the whole relationship and found many excuses and blamed it on me, that I put too much pressure on him. However, he was so passionate towards me that I didn't know why he was blaming me for acting the same.

He said he knew he was escaping and running away, and that he was sabotaging everything but he said he couldn't help it and everytime he saw me he was ashamed. He told me he was completely mentally blocked and everytime he saw me it created another panic attack. It broke my heart to see I was causing such a distress in him, he barely could talk in front of me. He said he had strong feelings and desire for me but he had this huge fear without being able to say what it was.

He broke up with me two weeks later, saying mean stuff, like he never cared, and disappeared. I sent him few nice messages but he never answered, although he still constantly checks my social media, not missing a single thing I post since the breakup two months ago.

Since that day, I play this episode over and over in my head and I'm wondering what I've done wrong. Everyone around me says he didn't care about me but this thought makes me so depressed. My panic attacks started again, though it had been years I hadn't had one. I keep blaming myself and thinking all those months of courtship, friendship and this deep emotional bond we had was a big lie. We have friends in common and they say he is doing perfectly fine, and he flirts with other girls. I know he's good at hiding his anxiety issues, nobody knew except me. But my own insecurities tell me I'm the only one suffering and he played me all along.

I decided to move out of the city and get closer to my friends and family in order to heal. He knows but never ever initiated contact, or explained what happened, even knowing we'll never see each other again. I can't believe I'll never hear from him and everytime I think about it, the panic starts again. I just want to know what happened. I want an explanation, I want to rationalise his reaction and it's driving me insane. What do you think? Have you experienced something similar?