This is limbo

[homefree]

The days pass, but my heart is still holding on.

December is such a terrible month to start rebuilding a life. Cold, rainy, dark early.

I walk through the motions of the day, the evenings are like cold empty rooms I need to walk through, over and over.

I had a life, my heart keeps telling me. I was happy. I could be with this person that made everything seem better.

I know it's a lie. I'm moving further away each day from what was an unhealthy and painful time.

But my heart is still holding on to the dream that it always had. Telling me over and over how great it could have been. How great it was.

And how hopeless and dark the future is without her. Its whispering never seems to stop.

Time is so valuable. We only have so many days. But I'm just trying to throw these days away. Hoping for months to have gone by. Wishing I could discard part of my life just to get past it all. I don't even know how long it would take.

And after all that time has passed, all that time of not really feeling like I'm living it, in exchange for all those precious days of my life, what do I have to show for it?

If I'm lucky I will be wiser. I will have a better understanding of who I am and what I want. Maybe I'll be better able to navigate the life that's left.

I don't want that! I want my life back! I want, even if it's just a taste, to experience the joy and peace and happiness I experienced with her.

But this is what you get kid. This is what it is, and nothing is going to change that. You're walking the plank now, and your only choice is to walk off into that dark water.

I know there is no choice, but my heart is still holding on. And the days just keep passing.

[steelwork]

I know that feeling of just wanting days weeks months to disappear and spit me out the other side so I don't have to live them.

And also, because I am 50 (and a woman, and yes, that is harder), feeling like I wasted the days and weeks and months and years and the joy and lust and love on someone who took them and threw them in a black hole and then disappeared.

[burritoman]

I was just thinking similar thoughts earlier tonight. I had a reality check that my last three breakups have happened roughly at the same time of the year, every three years, since 2009. Early November 2009, then late October 2012 (though we officially broke up over that summer), and now early November 2015. All three women had their problems, although I can say that this one has been the most mentally disordered. This one had BPD, although I'm comparing this one to the breakup of 2009 and noticing similar patterns. Perhaps now with the new year coming up it's time for me to really evaluate myself and the types of women I attract into my life.

That said, those past two breakups were ROUGH on me. I'm doing so-so with this one, considerably better than the other two. Both times I got over them, so I know I can get over this one. If I can do it, you can do it. Stay strong.

[Hopeful83]

The days pass, but my heart is still holding on.

December is such a terrible month to start rebuilding a life. Cold, rainy, dark early.

I walk through the motions of the day, the evenings are like cold empty rooms I need to walk through, over and over.

I had a life, my heart keeps telling me. I was happy. I could be with this person that made everything seem better.

I know it's a lie. I'm moving further away each day from what was an unhealthy and painful time.

But my heart is still holding on to the dream that it always had. Telling me over and over how great it could have been. How great it was.

And how hopeless and dark the future is without her. Its whispering never seems to stop.

Time is so valuable. We only have so many days. But I'm just trying to throw these days away. Hoping for months to have gone by. Wishing I could discard part of my life just to get past it all. I don't even know how long it would take.

And after all that time has passed, all that time of not really feeling like I'm living it, in exchange for all those precious days of my life, what do I have to show for it?

If I'm lucky I will be wiser. I will have a better understanding of who I am and what I want. Maybe I'll be better able to navigate the life that's left.

I don't want that! I want my life back! I want, even if it's just a taste, to experience the joy and peace and happiness I experienced with her.

But this is what you get kid. This is what it is, and nothing is going to change that. You're walking the plank now, and your only choice is to walk off into that dark water.

I know there is no choice, but my heart is still holding on. And the days just keep passing.

Beautifully written, homefree. Sorry to hear you're feeling this way - I've had many similar thoughts throughout this whole ordeal. I've wished the days away, hoping I'd just wake up months down the line and be back to 'normal.' If only it worked that way.

You mentioned rebuilding a life - what steps are you taking towards that?

[homefree]

I'm journalling.

I'm going to therapy (just started)

I'm reaching out to friends and trying to increase my circle of friends.

I just signed up for guitar lessons, which I always wanted to.

The problem is that I don't know what I really want my life to be like. This relationship woke me up and realized I was just drifting through my life, doing things in attempts to be seen a certain way by people, but not really living deliberately because it's what I truly want. I feel like my life could be so many things, but I don't have any experience in actually knowing who I am or what I really want.

That's what makes this so hard. I injected so much life into my life by feeling what she felt that now that she's gone there is not much of a person left in me to return back to.

I'm climbing two mountains as once. I'm saying goodbye to this love and then somehow trying to turn my life into one I truly want to live.

if I think about it I want to scream.

[C.Stein]

if I think about it I want to scream.

Then you should scream!

Eventually you will realize that you need to love and accept yourself and find your own happiness from within.  It appears you were looking to your ex to provide these things for you ... .perhaps providing these things for each other.   

You can't rely on someone else to provide love and happiness for you.  When you get involved with someone, ideally you both are whole in the sense that you are individuals able to share love and happiness with each other.  Once you can provide love and happiness for yourself then you are ready to share it with someone else.

[steelwork]

I'm climbing two mountains as once. I'm saying goodbye to this love and then somehow trying to turn my life into one I truly want to live.

Here is a truism: sometimes when you experience a loss it causes you to re-experience every other loss.  It took me months to understand that the loss of him hurt as badly as it did because it reopened some wounds from childhood.

I'm glad you're in therapy. Don't get frustrated if the insights don't come all at once. Stick with it, be brave, be open to your own thoughts and associations, and I promise you will come to what those other losses were. Then you can start addressing the big picture.

I say this because it's what I'm in the middle of, RIGHT NOW. It hurts worse before it gets better, I think.

Strength, courage, grace, luminosity to you.

[homefree]

Thank you.

That's really what I have discovered it comes down to. I need to learn to love myself.

And I don't think I've ever done that, not since I can really remember, anyway. It's such a complete change of what I thought I needed.

I'm hoping therapy will give me the tools to do that, because I have absolutely no idea how I go about doing that.

That's the real source of hopelessness for me at the moment. I know that's the key to all of this, and I know it's not a short road to get there, but I don't even know how to take the first steps or if I'm even on the right road.

I will do everything I can to get there though. Even if the pain subsides, I'm not staying here any more. Things already have been changing in the 3 weeks I've been free. The roller coaster is getting less chaotic. When things are good, they feel like they are better than previous times, and the frequency of feeling better is increasing while the bad is decreasing. When the paralyzing despair fades, I find that more and more hope, relief, desire, and possibly strength starts coming back.  I will keep moving. It's chaotic but I sense movement in a better direction already. I just need some more help to guide this, and I'm really hoping for therapy to provide that.

Just on a side note, It's positively cruel the way, when I feel the anguish and pain of this loss, my brain is utterly convinced that things will never get better. That my life will always be that feeling and basically everything is meaningless and always will be. I don't understand why it's like that. It's totally unfair for someone trying to move on. Stupid brain.

[steelwork]

Just on a side note, It's positively cruel the way, when I feel the anguish and pain of this loss, my brain is utterly convinced that things will never get better. That my life will always be that feeling and basically everything is meaningless and always will be. I don't understand why it's like that. It's totally unfair for someone trying to move on. Stupid brain.

This is depression. It's a health condition that needs to be taken seriously.

[Joem678]

I literally had no time to love myself.  I was too busy trying to reach her.  I was too busy worrying if I offended her.  I was too busy wondering is she was flirting.  I was too busy trying to be acknowledged.  I was too busy wanting to be a priority.  i was too busy trying to be loved by her.