Complicated grief

[steelwork]

I really wonder how this might relate to what some of us are going through.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicated_grief_disorder

[VeraTrue]

I definitely relate to this, Steelwork, and found similar articles when I was in the worst of the detaching process. I remember telling a friend or two that it wasn't like a regular breakup, that I felt widowed, but that my ex had CHOSEN that experience for me. It really was like she died, in that she vanished into thin air, only to be replaced with this cruel stranger who didn't care about me at all. The discard was so sudden, and I went NC pretty soon after even though she tried to "be friends." I had to come to terms with the fact that the person I thought she was, never actually existed. So not only the loss of what (I thought) I had with her, but the horror of realizing I'd been wrong about her the entire time. Loss of her and the relationship, plus profound violation of trust meant the loss of any good memories as well. Everything was lies, so no fond nostalgia, no sentiment, just horror at her trickery newly evident as having been present in each moment, just the destruction of any trust in my own perceptions or ability to make good choices. It was like the death of everything about what I thought I'd been experiencing. Nothing about the relationship survived, it was just an emotional holocaust. More than a year later, I'm still healing and I still have my bad days. I absolutely think that what we on this forum experience is a form of complicated grief very much akin to bereavement. I can honestly say nothing has given me more grief in my entire life, and that includes divorces and horrific childhood abuse. Because unlike my childhood abuser, I chose her, I believed her, I loved her, I trusted her, and I really thought she loved me. And she was violating me the whole time, I was alone the entire time I thought I was experiencing the deepest love the universe has to offer. This is the compound loss, to lose the person AND the story you have of being with the person before the loss.