Hi Daniella, I know you posted this over a week ago and I hope you are feeling better atm. I've lurked here for many months now but it was your story that finally inspired me to join, even though this isn't my first post.
I'd like to share something along the same lines. The full horror of my story can only be explained in the pages of a novel, a project I am slowly and painfully trying to undertake and that is the reason your post affected me so. I'll try to compress the main points as you have done.
I started university with a girlfriend. We had a fully adult relationship at the time. For 7+ Months. On day one I met lots of new people of all types. That night one girl, who had made a poor impression on me at the time, kept coming into my mind. When I thought of her I felt like I had taken a drug. Over the next few weeks I fell head over heels. Never before or since. She was heroin, cocaine and PCP to me. It was terrifying. My girlfriend wanted to experiment with other lovers. I jumped at the chance and pursued my hearts desire. I won her. Joy unbound. Trancendental, religious levels of Joy. Old girlfriend tells me she's pregnant. I Didn't care. She overdosed and lost the baby. I Didn't care. I had what I wanted and my happiness was bottomless. Best four months of my life followed. Then new girlfriend gets pregnant. Yes I know. You can't imagine how embarassed I was at this bit. Anyway, I panicked and reacted badly because she wanted to keep it. Eventually I relented because I loved her and asked her to marry me. She turned me down but we were OK for a little while. She terminated anyway after a few more weeks. She asked me to move in with her. A student bedsit. I was overjoyed again. At the threshold on moving in day she got cold feet. Said she needed time to think. Without me. I was sure it was over. I mourned. Started to recover. She called a month later. She came to see me. She was.. different. Things were going a bit weird but mostly OK and getting better as the day went on. I did something so stupid. So ill-considered and beyond the bounds of good judgement that I'm too embarassed to detail it here. The novel will be anonymous. She wouldn't speak to me. Not a word. She was gone. Forever. Even though the thing I did was stupid, I couldn't understand why she was so angry. She wouldn't say ANYTHING to me. I broke inside. Couldn't think, feel or breathe. The air had no mass. I wanted to die but logic told me it would get better in time and I didn't want my own family to feel any of what I was feeling because of me and I didn't want her to laugh at me. She'd laughed when my previous girlfriend overdosed. My weakness would have given her power. So I endured. After a short time I met my old girlfriend. She took one look at my ashen, expresionless face and knew what had happened. She took me back! I was in no position to resist. I was a hollow empty shell of a person. Old girlfriend was kindness personified. She never mentioned what had happened. Never criticised me or laughed at me and over the course of the summer she put me back together enough so that I could function day to day. Then she left. Still kindness itself she was lovely about it all. She was ten times the person that other girlfriend and I had been combined and I didn't deserve her attention or affection but she gave both lovingly. I think she may have saved my life. During this time I had learned that other girlfriend, who'd broken me was gay. She'd asked me to wear a skirt and I'd refused. Yeah, ironic much! I met a girl a few weeks later and she was kinda candy floss. Lots of fun and sex and she stopped me feeling bad when I was with her. Still cried when I was alone though. I met other girlfriend a few weeks later. She treated me as if I was just some guy she once knew long ago. I felt she had never cared for me at all. That I'd just been some grubby little experiment as she figured out her sexuality. She was really horrible to me in aindifferent off-hand way. If it wasn't for candy floss girl I know this would have broken me all over again. It was a close run thing.
That last meeting was 32 years ago this November. I want to cry right now, thinking about it. I married candy floss girl 6 years later. I still can't think about her without crying. I miss her every day. She is a hunger, an addiction that I can never satisfy. I think mostly because of how it ended. I still don't know why she was so angry. I doubt everything that happened. I feel betrayed. Used. I still love her. It would be easy if I could hate her but I don't. I have learned to live with it. Long ago. I have trained myself to push the thoughts of her away and focus on something else. I've had a great life despite what happened because I chose to. I'll always miss her and love her. I'll always wonder if any of it was real or if I was just a "thing" to her but I choose not to let it control what I do or how I live my life.
It wasn't easy. It took a long time. I couldn't speak of it to anyone. I still can't. I couldn't say these word out loud. I'd break down into an incoherent bubbling mess. I know because I've tried. So I did it alone but then I'm a little weird. Most people would probably benefit from counselling. It definitely helped my old girlfriend, and by extension me as well I guess.
I hope my story shows that even the worst heartbreak can be survived. It may never really go away but you can fill your life with enough pleasant distractions to get by and eventually you find you don't need them.
I think I really do understand how you feel. At times it feels that it will never end. Never get better. No one could possibly understand what you are going through. It doesn't help when they say "there's plenty more fish in the sea". I hate that phrase. I don't want a bl**dy fish, I want my one true love. The sea doesn't have plenty of those thanks. Or "pull yourself together" Check leverage in a physics book. It isn't possible to do this.
It happens so slowly and gradually that we don't see it happening. Focusing on the pain is like watching a clock with only an hour hand. It never seems to move. Find something to distract yourself. Loving friends and a great job finally did it for me. Then when you do glance at that clock now and again you'll see the hour hand has moved. You do feel a little better. You may never feel "Better" but you will, in time, feel much better than you do now and there will be other joys in your life that help keep the ever shrinking pain at bay. Try to remind yourself of that when the darkness comes. (Oh god I hope this doesn't end up making you feel worse)
Love and hugs B
