[AnthonyofKazoo]

So this evening I went to a friend's wedding, and found myself most the entire time wishing I was dead. I couldn't even muster the energy to do much more than sit there in back of the church, I congratulated them both as I left, and smiled, but all the while I kept thinking inside "I wonder if I should go home and kill myself tonight?" I didn't want to sit with anyone, I didn't want to engage in conversation, I just wanted to not exist.

I understand that much of this feeling must have to do with my current grieving process involving my transition out of an 8 year relationship, and that weddings often force people to reflect on their own current love life, but just how much it affects me surprised me a little. I found myself seeing all my friends as couples more clearly and vividly than I ever really had seen them before, and the feeling of utter loneliness enveloped me like some kind of 'Venom-like' black ooze, blanketing me in a depression that was as shocking as jumping into ice cold water.

I did all I could to not spoil any feelings of happiness and contentment that my newly married friends were experiencing, but all the smiling and congratulations and talking with other friends and their families was emotionally exhausting in the worst possible ways. I tried to remain pleasant, and amused, and entertaining, but all the while all I thought was "maybe I'll get lucky and die on my way to the reception. Some horrible car accident, then I won't have to worry about it looking like suicide."

My ex was invited to the wedding as well (my friends are also her friends) she made a brief appearance at the ceremony, but left shortly after, I didn't talk with her. I'm pretty sure as I type this she's currently out at a new friend of hers home (she still lives in the same apartment as I for now but she's never home now), she's probably having carefree sex with some guy who's 10X better than me and she probably hasn't given me a second thought since she said she was leaving me.

I made it to the reception without incident and did my best to mingle, tried to remain positive, but found it very difficult, I drank very little (to keep from drowning myself in a liquid depressant) and did what I could to keep to topics that had nothing to do with relationships, sex, love, or my ex. Occasionally I could have moments of forgetting that my life was currently complete rubbish, but then couples would kiss, or some other kind of PDA, or maybe someone would ask where my ex was (not knowing we just broke up, because it's still only been two months) and I have the joy of awkwardly explaining she's leaving me and I'm alright (when really I'm visualizing how many pills I have at home that could put me out permanently). Sure I can talk to some of my friends about how depressed I am, and sometimes I do, but I can't justify dragging everyone down to my pity party at such a celebratory occasion. I'd just rather suffer in silence. I left the reception fairly early (I just couldn't take the happy much longer) unfortunately coming home to an empty apartment gives me a new set of challenges. How do I convince myself to get ready for bed and not just lay on the carpet in my living room weeping brokenly while thinking about how great other's lives are? Once in bed how do I fall asleep (as tired as I am) while I try not to think about who my ex is screwing this night and how unaffected her and other's would be without me around?

I did not fully realize just how much physical pain goes into my negative emotions as well, just feeling as sad as I do seems to create some vast amounts of exhaustion, sharp pains in my head and chest, a general feeling of weakness throughout the body I can only compare to when you are trying to get over a cold or flu, just a kind of dull ach.

I think the worst part of all of it is you can't identify when these feelings will come on either, sure a wedding could be a catalyst for feeling sad about being alone, but to have moments of "ok, I think my grieving process is coming to a close, maybe the worst of it is over, I mean I cried for like two weeks straight, so it must be out of my system, right?" then you find yourself at home one night and BAM! You're facing a level of sadness that makes you question the very existence of happiness itself, like maybe positive feelings for you are all gone, or were never there to begin with?

I truly do try to watch happy things, or do stuff with people, or focus my mental energy on things other than my former relationship or being alone, but none of that REALLY works all that well, it's just fleeting moments before diving into another sudden feeling of despair that makes your last feelings of despair feel like they were only the movie trailer to a much deeper, darker, director's cut of sadness with 6 hours of never before seen footage and a 'making of despair' you haven't even looked at yet.

I just don't know how to be 'OK' alone yet? I don't know how to feel good about MY life when all I see around me are others who are having a generally better life, at least in relationship terms? Everything feels like "sure your friends are there for you, but they're not really 'there', they've got other stuff going on in there life that doesn't involve you as well." I know for some being on there own can feel liberating or exciting, because their world and all the options in it have opened up to them, they can go in any direction they'd like. For me however all I feel like when there is nothing holding me back is that all that means is nothing will truly be impacted by my not being around. That if my friends woke up tomorrow and I was no longer here, they would probably be sad, and they would grieve, but it truly wouldn't affect anyone's life profoundly in the long term. I would be just another paragraph on a page in a never-ending novel called life, maybe not even a full paragraph. That is where I am emotionally when I am alone, no amount of hobbies, or movies, or game nights, or 'helping others' or hanging with friends truly changes that feeling for me. The few times that I do not feel like that is when I'm linked emotionally to a significant other, to love and to feel loved in return seems to be the only thing that satisfies this void of loneliness inside me. Learning to be ok on my own and by myself (without a partner in life) has, and possibly always will be, the most difficult challenge I face in my adult life.

I know this feeling of despair will pass, because this feeling has come and gone in the past, so it passes eventually, but I've no idea how to truly deal with this feeling when it's here? How do you deal with such sadness and take it on, and accept it for what it is, when it's so mentally, emotionally, and even physically painful? And how do I get all these negative feelings about myself and my life out of my head? Or at least dissipate them to a manageable level?

[danvb]

Anthony my friend, what you're going through really sucks the big one. There's no question about that! Yes, despair will pass... and will return... and will pass... and will return... and will pass... In fact, that's the way it's going to be for a while, for QUITE a while. ALL of those really, really, really crappy thoughts and feelings will come and go like that for a long, long time. That will become the normal state of your life for a while. You can be doing just fine at 1:00 PM but by 2:30 PM you find yourself sitting in a big pool of your own tears, trying to figure out how to make the agony go away. **sigh** And yes, you CAN actually feel physical pain from your emotional distress... when you're so distraught you don't think you can go on. I don't know about you, but when I was going through the sort of trauma you're going through now, I would experience wave after wave of a dull ache that swept through my whole body over and over and over again... Lonliness and emptiness and emotional trauma WILL be with you for a while. I don't know of anything, other than time, that will make the pain go away. I wish I could give you some good news. I wish I could tell you about something that you can do to make things better. But... I don't know of any such thing. I'm so, so sorry that you're suffering so terribly. My heart goes out to you... I remember the pain...

Have you spoken with a grief counselor about what you're going through? You MAY find some help there...

Anthony, the sadness, lonliness, self recriminations, anger, pain, despair, agony, emptiness, isolation, depression and ALL of the emotions you're feeling WILL dissipate over time. You WILL get through it all, even if there are times that feel like you can't take it anymore. You live your life one DAY at a time... one HOUR at a time... one MINUTE at a time... or even one SECOND at a time if that's what it takes for you to carry on with your life. You must try to live in the PRESENT. It takes practice, but I'm sure you can do it. There can only be NOW! There is no past for you to agonize over and re-live and re-live and re-run through your mind over and over and over, re-living the pain and agony of something that WAS. There is only NOW... This very instant. There is no future to worry about or fantasize about or fret over. There is no need to make any plans for the future. The PRESENT is all there is. It will get you through to the next instant of NOW... and the NEXT... and the NEXT and the NEXT. There is ONLY one moment at a time.

Anthony, that's the only advice I can share with you... You can't make the pain go away, but if you stay in the PRESENT, you might have less chance of experiencing the pain from the past and the uncertainty of the future...
Try to stop thinking about your loss. I KNOW what that's like! It's bad Ju-Ju!!! It only causes pain and serves no other purpose. STOP IT! Focus on staying in the moment and living in the moment.

I hope that you find respite from your agony, and that you find peace and well-being from STAYING in the present.

Dan

[FrayedEnds]

everything dan said is perfect.

also...don't you think the fact that she's still living there is making it much harder on you? It's right there in your face when she doesn't come home. It's only natural that you'd be thinking about where she is and what she's doing and who she's doing it with. I think it will be easier to move on when her behavior isn't right under your nose. sure, she'd probably be doing the same things, but you wouldn't know that.

[lightinthesky]

We all said it before, that you need to start having separate lives. Time to take care about yourself and honestly.. if i had to go to a wedding I would no doubt kill myself there, would take pills in the bathroom or smth, so I'm proud of you that you WENT there and you stayed alive especially that she was there, so proud of you!!
I am going through the same pain and same problems just like you, for example yesterday morning I was actually in a good mood, I went to the animal rescue for charity, when I came back home I saw 2 suitcases which my friend left brought for me (she kept them after I had to move out from our place) I opened it and I got this smell from my clothes, it was smell of OUR HOME if you know what I mean, I cried for so long and I had to wash all my clothes to get rid off that smell...

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[AnthonyofKazoo]

Feeling better tonight, maybe it's just the 'going to a wedding' part that really got to me last night. I know these feelings will come and go like emotional vomit, but in the moment when it's here it can feel pretty hard to concentrate on the present and not dwell on loss of past and future, but I'll do my best.

We are both in the process of us not living together, but she has no family here to move out to and even though I'm not renewing the lease I'm still beholden to my current lease. I've no one to move in with myself, we both spend as much time as possible not in the apartment and away from each other, but until she finally gets her stuff out of here I know there will probably be more nights of sadness and negative feelings. Being the dead of winter doesn't help (tons of snow and ice and cold weather up here in Michigan till sometime in April make everything more difficult mentally and logistically) the tentative plan now (after several fights) is her fully moved out by end of January. I'm still in the process of informing the rest of my friends and family this holiday, which the news still may not fully get around to everyone for a couple months after.

I've no idea if she's even informed her family, I know her sister knows we're broken up, but her parents still sent Christmas gifts for me through the mail recently, so for all I know they still think we're a couple. I plan on going through that awkward process tomorrow at my families Christmas get together.

I do see a therapist once a week right now to get through my sadness's and have someone to talk to about moving forward, so far the talks have been helpful and usually immediately upon leaving the office I feel a lot better about myself and my position, but I wouldn't say that feeling last much past a day or two. He's giving me some sound advice, which has kept me more level headed through these current arguments with my ex, but it's still not an easy process.

Thanks for your advice on here as always, I will do what I can to not give in to these sad thoughts and feelings when they arise, while trying hard to make myself live more in the present.

[Open Eyes]

(((Anthony))),

You are still a very young man yet and this relationship took place over a span of years where you were growing up a lot and this kind of breakup can be very hard to deal with.
But hun, while I know you feel very empty right now, you have so much growing to do yet and this stage is much different from before too. You definitely need to grieve this, but as you do so, remember, be thankful this is not happening to you when you are 45 or 50 and you invested so much more than you have. And just because you see friends get married and seem happy doesn't mean their relationships will stand the test of time either. Try not of disillusion yourself by assuming others have so much more than you do, because hun, that can change so much down the road to where you see a very different picture of those around you.

Hmm, you are in illustrator, how awesome, I hope you spend more time with that, develop yourself differently now too. Maybe go back to school, take a few classes where you may meet someone else into the arts?

Please do your best to not feed into these gloomy thoughts too. That is trying to punish others, punish self, and you have way too much life to live yet to take those thoughts seriously. The "right" soul mate may be just around the corner in your life and would be awful if you missed it, or that other person missed out on finding you too. Give this some time hun.

(((Caring Hugs)))
OE

[danvb]

... sometimes it isn't so much a matter of not giving in to sad thoughts and feelings as it is acknowledging that you're feeling sad and thinking sad thoughts... accepting that you're feeling and thinking sad... and then telling those sad thoughts that they can come back later, but right NOW... this VERY INSTANT... you choose to concentrate on the warm shower water that's spraying on your back... or being fascinated by the spider that's crawling up the wall... or focusing on reading the ingredients on the side of your cereal box... or noticing the way the sun shines on the windows of the building across the street... WHATEVER it is that's occupying that very instant is what you focus on... I mean, you have a whole lifetime to feel sad about what's happened. So, what's the rush? You can tell yourself, "I think my sadness needs to give me a little room right now... it can come back later, but right this MOMENT I choose to be elsewhere". Ya know, it's OK to bargain with yourself too... "Hey sadness and lonliness, I promise to invite you both into my heart a little bit later when it feels right for me, but right now, I want to be alone with myself without you bothering me..." And that's what you do. Later on, if you feel up to it, you can wrap yourself in your pain and allow yourself to feel really, really bad... but then, you know that that was part of the deal you made with yourself... and YOU are in control of when you will allow yourself to feel really bad. It's ok to treat yourself to a rotten feeling once in a while, but for the most part, you CAN let yourself know that you choose to focus on whatever is happening in the immediate NOW... and the next NOW... and the Next... for as long as it takes for the sadness and despair to pass.

I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul...

Those are meaningful words to live by.

Dan