Over a year since the breakup and I'm still scared.

[IAmIAmIAm]

Hello,

I came across this forum while searching for what to do when your ex is slandering you on Facebook. My ex-girlfriend and I have been broken up for over a year, though we still lived together for several months until she found a new girlfriend, fell madly in love with her in the course of 3 weeks, and moved in with her. After I moved out of the city we were living in together, she started posting about me online. She called me abusive, which I believed for a long time. Now, many months into therapy with a lot of reassurance from my therapist, I don't think that's really true. I definitely made mistakes in the relationship too. We both went through periods where we struggled with addiction, but the only time I lashed out or called her names was when I was drinking to the point of blacking out 4-5 times a week. I'm now 3 years sober--two of those sober years were while we were still together.

Though she told me over and over again that she was "trying to forgive" me for drinking, she brought up my drinking almost any time we had any conflict--whether it was asking her to pay her half of the rent or asking her to do dishes.

Finally, I told her I thought we needed to take a break from each other (even though we were living together), and after just a few days of living our separate lives I wanted to end it. When I told her she said she wanted to end it too. I asked if we could make it work as friends through the end of the lease because apartments were hard to find and neither of us had money for a down payment. She said we could (but ended up leaving me with some extra months of rent and moving out early once she found the new partner.)

I asked her, and then her partner because I couldn't get in contact with her, a few times politely to return some things before I moved away, but after a few requests she lashed out, calling me manipulative and saying I threw a tantrum every time something didn't go my way. I am now realizing that she told me I was overreacting often when I was just expressing a normal amount of concern or frustration about something.

Since we've broken up, I've tried very hard to make a life for myself, but all of my old friends have stopped speaking to me. I can't imagine what she's told them about me or what they've seen her say about me online. I was so tempted to tell them my side--to tell them about how she told me she had been raped then told me a few days later that it wasn't true and she'd made it up, to tell them about all the times she locked herself in the bathroom after a fight and cut herself then came out and showed me what I'd done to her. I didn't though. I feel like they won't believe me anyway.

Our friend group was very into the online activism scenes, so there's definitely a mentality of believing victims at all costs, and she's definitely convinced everyone she was the victim. She's also accused other people of attacking or harassing her even when it seemed like it was just a simple conflict, and 80 percent of her exes are "crazy".

I'm living with paranoia that she's checking up on me even though I've deactivated some social media sites and made the rest private and stopped posting. I'm pretty sure she's still talking about me online. I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm afraid this will never stop. I've been depressed even though the life I've created for myself is better, and I wonder what the point of going on is if I'm always worried she'll come out of the woodwork and ruin my reputation.

Am I really crazy? I feel like very few people who know me and have stuck by me would never describe me as a scary or unstable person. But it's hard to get her voice out of my head. Will I ever stop being afraid of what she's going to do next?

Has anyone ever been through this before?

[Mutt]

Hi IAmIAmIAm,



I'm sorry that you went through that.

We can't control what our exes do. I recall the intense anxious I felt after my ex left and I she told everyone that I was financially, emotionally and physically abusive to her and the kids. I as you, lost all of our mutual friends and her family members of course, the people that remained were people that loved me unconditionally my family and friends. Anyways, I told my P what was going on and I i'll tell you what she told me "Mutt, that's on her if she's going around telling stories, it's not for you to worry about" My P was right.

You mentioned depression, are you seeing people that love you unconditionally like your family and friends? Do you have a hobby? What do you do for self care?