My life is improving and I was moving on - but yesterday I cried.

[ThisIsMyTruthTellMeYours]

Hi guys,

My life is improving massively. I have focused relentlessly on securing a new job and the distraction of forcing my brain to be productive meant I wasn't at all troubled by thoughts of my exwBPD traits in recent weeks.

All my strenuous efforts have finally been rewarded. After being unemployed for 6 months I have got a new job and will be moving to London next week for it. Within a month I should be able to move in with some friends I have know since school.

This is cause for jubilation, to feel confident that I am advancing and in control of my destiny, warmly embracing the myriad possibilities for new connections and experiences that lie tantalizingly over the horizon. And yet yesterday I felt that desolate, aching pain in the center of my soul, an agony I haven't felt for many weeks. I still miss my best friend, the only person I have ever given that title without gritted teeth. I miss the music, the mutual fascination with our niche interests, her love for the creative and whimsical that I found deep resonance with. I miss seeing something she'll love and instantly confiding in her.

I watched a certain sports game featuring a team representing her home country and it was all too much of a reminder. I bawled my eyes to oblivion for an hour and was all too conscious of the gaping void in my heart. I had to go outside, meekly describing my surroundings until I calmed down.

She is probably happier without me and that's fine. She seems to have decided her co worker is her new favorite person, gleefully reveling in that sentiment on social media. The oddest thing to witness, when she only ever lamented that same person's presence when we were together.

It's just so sad that in the process of becoming so intimately enmeshed we end as distantly orbiting objects, faintly aware of the past and as if we are too different for one another. I'm letting her come to me but the gap between contacts grows ever larger, even as my valuables remain with her.

Someone give me a big fat virtual hug.



 

[Nylem]

Hug dude from Australia.   Life is fun , crazy and informative

[Bhs]

It's just so sad that in the process of becoming so intimately enmeshed we end as distantly orbiting objects, faintly aware of the past and as if we are too different for one another. I'm letting her come to me but the gap between contacts grows ever larger, even as my valuables remain with her.

K, what a poetic and human post. I was deeply moved by your words which so accurately capture the remnants of loving feelings, loss, insight and the awareness of how the passage of time impacts us. It is sad and beautiful at the same time. I don't know your story in detail but I hope you realize that your ability to feel and articulate these sentiments is a special gift.  There's an honesty and a sense of melancholy in your words that's inspiring and also painful.

Virtual hug given.  At the end of the road these complicated feelings are what comprise the story of our lives. The mix of hope, pain, confusion, faith, desire and fear of letting go are the constellation of emotions that make us human. Do we ever make sense of it all?  I'm not sure.  Do we ever come to peace with it all? Again...I'm not sure.  My wish for you is that you find someone in your future who can appreciate the complexity and nuance of the feelings you express with such passion. My wish for you is that you think back on the experience that brought you here and realize that for better or worse it was part of what made you the person who is able to draw on and articulate these kind of sentiments. You're not alone in feeling these things. Breath it all in. For better or worse...it's life and you seem to be able to live it fully. Congratulations on the new job and the potential to start down a different road.  You clearly have a lot of depth and emotion to offer someone. 
 

[ThisIsMyTruthTellMeYours]

K, what a poetic and human post. I was deeply moved by your words which so accurately capture the remnants of loving feelings, loss, insight and the awareness of how the passage of time impacts us. It is sad and beautiful at the same time. I don't know your story in detail but I hope you realize that your ability to feel and articulate these sentiments is a special gift.  There's an honesty and a sense of melancholy in your words that's inspiring and also painful.

Thanks so much for your compassionate words, they give me much solace. Strange how sad/beautiful can be perceived as two sides of the same coin, different manifestations of the same core, human yearning. As in the lyrics of QOTSA's If I Had A Tail: 'tears of pleasure, tears of pain, they trickle down your face the same'.

Virtual hug given.  At the end of the road these complicated feelings are what comprise the story of our lives. The mix of hope, pain, confusion, faith, desire and fear of letting go are the constellation of emotions that make us human. Do we ever make sense of it all?  I'm not sure.  Do we ever come to peace with it all? Again...I'm not sure.  My wish for you is that you find someone in your future who can appreciate the complexity and nuance of the feelings you express with such passion. My wish for you is that you think back on the experience that brought you here and realize that for better or worse it was part of what made you the person who is able to draw on and articulate these kind of sentiments. You're not alone in feeling these things. Breath it all in. For better or worse...it's life and you seem to be able to live it fully. Congratulations on the new job and the potential to start down a different road.  You clearly have a lot of depth and emotion to offer someone. 

This pain will always be a part of me now i'm sure. The pain of feeling deceived, of feeling betrayed will pervade future nascent relationships and inhibit my ability to trust someone I feel comfortable with so easily. The pain of knowing exactly why I was so vulnerable too. Perhaps no normal, modest, steadily progressing relationship will ever compare favorably with the ecstatic heights of what came before.

For better or worse, I will learn, determined not to allow this tragedy the sustenance of tarnishing my faith in others. I cannot yet bring myself to hope for meeting someone new, even as I slowly accept this past r/s was quite emotionally abusive for me. I see now how everything survived on the basis of subjugating my needs for another and, no matter how unhealthy that was, I still miss the good times. Total detachment will come in time i'm sure. Thanks for giving me hope for this new road.

[Bhs]

Your posts remind me of a word my son taught me. When I was going through a similar phase in my life (and maybe still progressing through the phase) I was discussing my thoughts with my son...he looked at me at said...there's a word for exactly what you're describing...saudade.  I was stunned that a 21 year old could relate to the feeling enough to make the connection - and also amazed at how aptly the definition described the feelings in my heart.

Saudade is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. One English translation of the word is missingness, although it might not convey the feeling of deep emotion attached to the word "saudade". Stronger forms of saudade might be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing, moved away, separated, or died.

Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings together: sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past.

[ThisIsMyTruthTellMeYours]

Always loved that word, perfect for my current predicament. I am from Wales and we have a similar word in Welsh - hiraeth ('here-I-th').

I've just unfollowed the ex in question on fb so I don't have to see her posts anymore. She just posted what I can only presume is her face after some professional make up job, I could only see her name and the first whispers of her red hair but I couldn't bear to see her complete face. My heart rate soared in that instant and I know that gazing at her beautiful appearance would trigger a near panic attack with all the confusing feelings of loss and hurt contained by 'the love that remains'.

After three months I am still waiting for her to send my camera back to me, so I refuse to block her in case she pops up apologising about that debacle again. At least this way the channel remains open but I'm no longer subjected to the emotional torture of seeing someone who triggers so much pain/nostalgia.

It hurts but I know it's necessary.