[emijec]

I got dumped three weeks ago. I could not compete with this man's urge to drink and do serious drugs. I did not know he still had this problem. He also lead me to believe he was interested in me and treated me like a proper girlfriend only to dump me the night after I met his parents for dinner by yelling at me that we were too different, he was too wild, and i was too good (boring?), we've exchanged emails me really trying to get a solid answer as to why he lead me on. Yes I did check with him that we were on the same page on what we wanted. I was ok with casual he wanted a girlfriend, met his family, his kid, went everywhere together. Now he claims to blame me for messing the relationship up, but it was b/c I confronted him twice about things he said when he was drunk that he missed partying with the boys, snorting cocaine, & in a vulgar word usage... screwing girls. so of course it made me insecure and that's why he claims now he dumped me. he said he is not the apex of what I'm going through, maybe the last straw, but he bears no responsibility in my depression.

I am depressed, its been 3 weeks and I'm fixated on everything that happened in the beginning until the end and I don't know how to stop it. I need help. How do I go day by day not obsessively thinking about every word, every look, every question, every interaction all the way until the end? I feel like this past I'm supposed to let go is just bleeding through my brain covering every inch of it. I can go to work pretend to be nice, I can talk to people but I immediately start to think of what happened and then i start with the negative thinking, i'm a loser, this happened to be again, i won't ever find anyone. I'm 33 years old, no kids, everyone around me seems to have what I want and it only adds to how i feel. i just want to erase this guy and what happened out of my mind. how do i stop fixating? I wake up every morning thinking about him and what happened and that's how i go to sleep at night too.

I feel trapped, I wish I could go to sleep for months and wake up normal. the pressure mounts as I have a state exam that I have to study for 2 months starting in December, its costly and time consuming and I'm so afraid I wont make it, I have 1 shot as that's all I can afford. this makes the pressure to get better worse. been working to this exam for 1.5 years.

....help *sigh*

I'm currently on 25 mg of zoloft, .5 ativan

[StartingFreshNow]

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through.

Unfortunately I can't offer on advice on how to work through this, but I can say that you're not alone. Earlier this year my almost 10 year marriage ended in divorce. I immediately started dating someone else. We're still seeing each other though it's a semi-casual relationship. I am rather pessimistic about relationships right now given I thought I found someone to be with forever and after 10 years of being together it all crumbled. So I'm not very optimistic about my current relationship lasting forever. That in mind, I think about how I'll act when it ends all the time. I'm quite certain I'll react exactly as you are. Even if it turns out the guy I'm seeing is a dirt bag, I'm going to replay the entire relationship over and over and over. I'm going to blame myself. I'm going to be crushed. The thought of it happening is already consuming me way more than it ever should, never mind how much it will consume me when it actually happens.

I don't know how to make those thoughts and feelings go away. I wish I could offer you advice on that. However, I do believe time helps. I have no idea how much time, but eventually it will.

Perhaps your exam will actually be the distraction to help you get through it. When you are forced to start studying (I had a similar exam situation earlier this year) and you know it's your only shot, you'll start spending more and more time reviewing your exam material and less and less time thinking about the break up and relationship.

Break ups are hard. Allow yourself some time to think about it and analyze it, but then try to force yourself to think about something else, even if it's it's only for a couple of minutes in the beginning. As you do this, it may get easier and maybe eventually you'll go 20 minutes, an hour, 2 hours, etc without thoughts of it.

Good luck!

[waterknob1234]

Hi emijec. I understand you are hurting and depressed from a broken relationship. First, it doesn't sound like you did anything wrong at all. The problem sounds like it is the guy you were seeing. If much of his world revolves around alcohol, partying, and drugs then you are better off in the long run to leave him. As he has a child to raise I certainly hope he can get his act together, for the child.

A broken relationship hurts and it takes time for the wounds to mend. You are not a loser, you are a good person.

Put in time to study for the exam. That will help take your mind off this guy.

Also, are you in therapy or do you see a counselor? That may help too. Best of wishes.

[vital]

Originally Posted by emijec

I got dumped three weeks ago. I could not compete with this man's urge to drink and do serious drugs. I did not know he still had this problem. He also lead me to believe he was interested in me and treated me like a proper girlfriend only to dump me the night after I met his parents for dinner by yelling at me that we were too different, he was too wild, and i was too good (boring?), we've exchanged emails me really trying to get a solid answer as to why he lead me on. Yes I did check with him that we were on the same page on what we wanted. I was ok with casual he wanted a girlfriend, met his family, his kid, went everywhere together. Now he claims to blame me for messing the relationship up, but it was b/c I confronted him twice about things he said when he was drunk that he missed partying with the boys, snorting cocaine, & in a vulgar word usage... screwing girls. so of course it made me insecure and that's why he claims now he dumped me. he said he is not the apex of what I'm going through, maybe the last straw, but he bears no responsibility in my depression.

I am depressed, its been 3 weeks and I'm fixated on everything that happened in the beginning until the end and I don't know how to stop it. I need help. How do I go day by day not obsessively thinking about every word, every look, every question, every interaction all the way until the end? I feel like this past I'm supposed to let go is just bleeding through my brain covering every inch of it. I can go to work pretend to be nice, I can talk to people but I immediately start to think of what happened and then i start with the negative thinking, i'm a loser, this happened to be again, i won't ever find anyone. I'm 33 years old, no kids, everyone around me seems to have what I want and it only adds to how i feel. i just want to erase this guy and what happened out of my mind. how do i stop fixating? I wake up every morning thinking about him and what happened and that's how i go to sleep at night too.

I feel trapped, I wish I could go to sleep for months and wake up normal. the pressure mounts as I have a state exam that I have to study for 2 months starting in December, its costly and time consuming and I'm so afraid I wont make it, I have 1 shot as that's all I can afford. this makes the pressure to get better worse. been working to this exam for 1.5 years.

....help *sigh*

Hi emijec,

I have a view about this that might help you. Think of what you're going though now as potentially a very important clue about your underlying problem.

Right now, you are fixating on this guy. You probably can't go 30 seconds without thinking of him in some way and having a shot of unpleasant emotions that goes with it. This may be an extreme version of this kind of fixation, but if you think back in your life, I think you'll remember other times in the past when you were fixated on other things. A past breakup perhaps, or something someone did to you similarly caused you to fixate on that for a while. If someone insults you or hurts your or treats you without the proper respect, does it bother you for a long time? Have you been slighted in a social circumstance and thought about it A LOT afterwards? Has that happened to you for even relatively small things? For depressed people, the answers to these questions are usually yes. I think of this as the giant sneaky trick of depression. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to realize when you're in it as you're in now, but I think that the essential underlying problem you have doesn't have anything to do with this guy or with the particular thoughts and feelings you're having about him. I think that the essential problem is that you are in pain, and when depressed people are in pain, they unconsciously go into passive autopilot mode. They stop deciding what they think and feel and that is the true underlying problem. The problem isn't the guy or whether your thoughts are insightful (they usually ARE) or whether your feelings are justified (they usually ARE justified), the underlying problem is the way thoughts and feelings are coming to you in general.

If you think that I might be right, here are some notes explaining how this works and a recipe for escaping:

http://egg.bu.edu/~youssef/SNAP_CLUB/BA.pdf

At least sometimes, this works very quickly. See Freewilled's experience here for instance

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4715237-post156.html

- vital

[emijec]

Thank you for all your advice! I'm waiting to get a call back from the clinic to see if they can assign or refer. I'm sure it will help. This is my 2nd round of depression. the last one was worse with a worse person. But, the way I got over that person was through therapy and meeting this guy that recently dumped me. I guess this will be the first time I don't do that and just focus on the counseling without meeting anyone.

I guess I would like to know what kind of things you or anyone else has done to get your mind off of things that you habitually fixate. That's my problem. I'll space out and it comes back, I busy myself with a task and as soon as I'm done its there, waiting for me to run it all in my head again. Logically i know its ridiculous and maladaptive thinking but emotionally, its an anchor.

[emijec]

Thank you! you hit the nail on the head. I know its low self esteem and distrust in men mixed with choosing bad men. I guess I also carry the dissapointment of making the wrong choice for the 2nd time. the fixation is just no understanding why it worked out. He said I was not hard to date, I didn't ask for anything other than... put us first and dont have me compete with drugs or alcohol, he agreed and he did it anyway. Also, trying to wrap my head around why he said he wanted to be with me when I gave him the option to end it if partying was what he wanted. its just ... i'm doing it again. im just shaking my head at this point...

Originally Posted by vital

Hi emijec,

I have a view about this that might help you. Think of what you're going though now as potentially a very important clue about your underlying problem.

Right now, you are fixating on this guy. You probably can't go 30 seconds without thinking of him in some way and having a shot of unpleasant emotions that goes with it. This may be an extreme version of this kind of fixation, but if you think back in your life, I think you'll remember other times in the past when you were fixated on other things. A past breakup perhaps, or something someone did to you similarly caused you to fixate on that for a while. If someone insults you or hurts your or treats you without the proper respect, does it bother you for a long time? Have you been slighted in a social circumstance and thought about it A LOT afterwards? Has that happened to you for even relatively small things? For depressed people, the answers to these questions are usually yes. I think of this as the giant sneaky trick of depression. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to realize when you're in it as you're in now, but I think that the essential underlying problem you have doesn't have anything to do with this guy or with the particular thoughts and feelings you're having about him. I think that the essential problem is that you are in pain, and when depressed people are in pain, they unconsciously go into passive autopilot mode. They stop deciding what they think and feel and that is the true underlying problem. The problem isn't the guy or whether your thoughts are insightful (they usually ARE) or whether your feelings are justified (they usually ARE justified), the underlying problem is the way thoughts and feelings are coming to you in general.

If you think that I might be right, here are some notes explaining how this works and a recipe for escaping:

http://egg.bu.edu/~youssef/SNAP_CLUB/BA.pdf

At least sometimes, this works very quickly. See Freewilled's experience here for instance

http://forums.psychcentral.com/4715237-post156.html

- vital

[Alone & confused]

Originally Posted by emijec

I got dumped three weeks ago. I could not compete with this man's urge to drink and do serious drugs. I did not know he still had this problem. He also lead me to believe he was interested in me and treated me like a proper girlfriend only to dump me the night after I met his parents for dinner by yelling at me that we were too different, he was too wild, and i was too good (boring?), we've exchanged emails me really trying to get a solid answer as to why he lead me on. Yes I did check with him that we were on the same page on what we wanted. I was ok with casual he wanted a girlfriend, met his family, his kid, went everywhere together. Now he claims to blame me for messing the relationship up, but it was b/c I confronted him twice about things he said when he was drunk that he missed partying with the boys, snorting cocaine, & in a vulgar word usage... screwing girls. so of course it made me insecure and that's why he claims now he dumped me. he said he is not the apex of what I'm going through, maybe the last straw, but he bears no responsibility in my depression.

I am depressed, its been 3 weeks and I'm fixated on everything that happened in the beginning until the end and I don't know how to stop it. I need help. How do I go day by day not obsessively thinking about every word, every look, every question, every interaction all the way until the end? I feel like this past I'm supposed to let go is just bleeding through my brain covering every inch of it. I can go to work pretend to be nice, I can talk to people but I immediately start to think of what happened and then i start with the negative thinking, i'm a loser, this happened to be again, i won't ever find anyone. I'm 33 years old, no kids, everyone around me seems to have what I want and it only adds to how i feel. i just want to erase this guy and what happened out of my mind. how do i stop fixating? I wake up every morning thinking about him and what happened and that's how i go to sleep at night too.

I feel trapped, I wish I could go to sleep for months and wake up normal. the pressure mounts as I have a state exam that I have to study for 2 months starting in December, its costly and time consuming and I'm so afraid I wont make it, I have 1 shot as that's all I can afford. this makes the pressure to get better worse. been working to this exam for 1.5 years.

....help *sigh*

I'm currently on 25 mg of zoloft, .5 ativan

I was in a similar relationship once. Since your obsessively thinking about him anyway, how about changing WHAT you're thinking about him? How about thinking how bad it might have been if his drug problem landed you both in jail? Or how much his usage might have cost the two of you? Or all of the other negative ways it could've affected you. That's what I had to do, and it helped me change my "what if" thinking into something that helped me get over one of my ex's.