breakup

It hit a few minutes ago. The tidal wave.

All I can do is stare at the ceiling in the silhouette of the outside light and cry. It’s a quiet but deep cry. Because it comes from such a deep place. I’m curled in a little ball.

In the dark I talk to him.

Why did you leave?

Do you think about me every day too?

I love you so much. I don’t know how to hold that. I don’t know how to let it go.

I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life. Did you not want that?

You never told me why. You haven’t asked if I’m okay.

You have no idea what I’ve been through since you’ve been gone.

I wish more than anything in the world that he could hear me right now. I don’t know how to explain how much I wish that. I know there are billions of people on this planet. But I wish for only one of them.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #breakup #Grief

It has been 10 weeks since the break up. Today was Day 65 of no contact. I have completed 32 days of IOP. Today was Day 15 of school. There are 165 days of school remaining.

Tonight, I got home from a late practice and discovered that he’s unfollowed my personal Instagram account, which was the last remaining social media connection that we had. I had unfollowed him the night that he broke up with me over the phone, but he continued to follow me.

I can’t explain why this is so upsetting to me. Part of me wants to feel really stupid for being so upset, but I am really sad. He would check up on my stories every day. I don’t understand why it took two months for him to do it. It seems like such a trivial thing, but to me right now, it is a huge blow. The grief has been muted since I’ve gone back to work. I still feel really sad about everything.

My latest goal in IOP is to work on feeling sadness without judgment. I’m not sure how to not judge myself for feeling immense sadness about this. A social media thing.

I wish I could paint for you how big my love is on one canvas and how big my grief is on another. I feel like they’re inside me and not many people understand them.

I have found some comforting influencers who focus on break ups on Instagram. One of them talks about how lonely a break up is because no matter how many people are around, your experience is extremely personal. No one person, except yourself, can truly feel that pain. I wish there was a more relieving way to express my pain other than crying. But crying does bring some relief.

Living through this break up has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I wish this pain on no one. With that, I leave the rest of my expression to my tears.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #IOP #Grief #breakup

I am really good at not checking his social media but I came across a new picture of him today. He’s beaming and looking really happy.

I’ve forgotten what his voice sounds like and I don’t have a consistent picture of him in my mind anymore. So now that I have one again, I feel like I’m dying. My insides want to crawl out of my body. And all the thoughts and statements.

He looks better off without me.
He looks healthier without me.
He looks better because I’m gone.
Being without me is better for him.
He’s happier without me.
He’s not thinking about me.
He got over it quickly.
Why can’t I be doing better than he is.
Why did he get to leave.
Why did he get what he wanted.
He has no idea.

He has no idea that I didn’t really eat for days after he made that call. He has no idea that I’ve been to 30 intensive outpatient sessions, each 3 hours long, filled with tears and exhaustion. He doesn’t know what it’s like for me to curl up in a ball on my couch crying. He doesn’t know what it’s like to just want him to come back and find safety in me again. He doesn’t see me now in these moments, crying in the pitch black room in the bed where he used to be, but where I’ve forgotten what he feels like.

So many potential truths and lies in the one picture. So many assumptions I made. But how many could be true. And why do I care?

Because love, I guess.

Tears don’t stop in moments like these.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Grief #breakup

It took two months for a therapist of any kind to finally say something that made sense. In my IOP program, I participate in a mixture of group therapy and private sessions with a therapist and a nurse practitioner who manages my meds.

I have a nurse practitioner named Lisa. Initially she gave me some advice and asked me to question why I’m not reaching out to my partner after all this time. Today, I told her that it feels like I can’t and we explored it and she told me exactly why I don’t

“Because he failed you,” she told me. “You have a strong sense of value in self-worth and you believe that you are someone worth wanting. You don’t want to go crawling back to him because you believe that you deserve for him to come crawling back to you. You believe you deserve for someone to want you.”

I’m on the tail end of 23 years old. People tell me I’m really young. This pain has made me feel older. I juggle my job, the gym, my program, and the daily reminders of the person I loved the most. Still do.

But through it all, I’ve had this shred of self-worth the whole time. I’d do anything to get him back, except give up my pride and who I am and beg for something that he may never want. My greatest revenge is doing what I’m doing while he considers how much time he has left to figure things out.

This is the first time I felt OK with being strong in quite a while. It’s because I refused to be strong and not sad or vice versa. I’m both most of the time.

It’s been two months to the day since the breakup. Day 56 of no contact. 29 days of IOP completed. Nine days nine days of the school year complete. 171 days to go.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Grief #breakup #IOP

Motivated. Energetic. Engaged. Wistful. Mellow.

Tired. Confused. Sad. Grieving.

Productive. Organized.

Longing. Lonely. Questioning. Helpless.

I can have choice in so many things except for the thing I want the most.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #IOP #breakup #Grief

Day 57 of the breakup. Day 51 of no contact. Day 26 of IOP completed. Day 6 of school, 172 days left.

At the beginning of June, before all this happened, I put in for two tickets to see a show in the city. To my surprise, at the end of July, I was chosen to see the show. It really hurt to his name off of the list and request one ticket, one ticket for myself.

Tonight, on the highway driving to the show, I saw his car. I’m positive it was his, because of the distinctive license plate frame. I drove behind, next to, and in front of him for over 30 minutes. I think some point he realized that I was driving near him, since my car is also very distinctive, and stayed back, driving slowly. Panicked, I kept my eyes forward, and I refused to look through the window and see if it was him. I haven’t seen him, heard his voice, or been anywhere close to him since all of this happened.

I had a lot of fun at the show by myself. Reminds me how much I enjoy the city and visiting.

He lives in the city. We did a lot of things there together. It is really hard to do these things without him… sharing a really fun and beautiful night in a beautiful place without the person I want to share it with most.

All I can do is keep moving on. It’s so frustrating that there’s no better way. Hopefully you can see how torn I feel and while yes, I’m making progress, the moments that are beautiful are also so jarring and painful. I make so many choices on the daily and this is some thing I can’t choose. It’s as big as the city itself.

#Anxiety #breakup #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Grief #IOP

I haven’t heard from him in 50 days. It’s crazy to think that it’s been that long. I still feel all the things. Anything I’ve learned since has been in addition to those feelings. It’s been hard. I have been very tired. I have had a lot to work on in my IOP program. But none of it pushes him away or pushes my grief and longing out of my life.

I’ve reconciled the fact that not much can make things better. I sit with what I feel. I started to make my bed every day. I started journaling. I started working on a mental health skill journal. I redecorated.

All of that is the bravery I have. I’m not gonna let go of anything because I’m not holding anything that I don’t validate. I’m not holding myself back. I feel connection and feel control.

But it’s still sad. 50 days has been a lot. It’s quiet sometimes when I wish it wasn’t.

#Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #IOP #breakup #Grief

45 days no contact. 7 weeks since the three clicks of the phone hanging up. 23 days of IOP completed. 2 days of teaching complete.

It’s foggier in the back of my brain. It’s not less painful or less significant for me. I feel the same things.

I am so intensely focused on a morning routine, the gym, my planner, and my journal. Then teaching and my job. The six different courses (literally all different) every day for another 178 days.

And him. Because he’s still here.

I don’t really get any of it. The silence or the reasons. I want to think he’s struggling the more the days go by with what he did. He is viewing my Instagram stories every time I post what I made for dinner or the trip to the county fair.

I’m trying. Not sure for what but I’m hoping it’s the right reasons.

#breakup #OCD #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Anxiety #IOP

Tomorrow marks six weeks since the break up and today was day 35 of no contact. The worst part is missing all the small things that he did.

His order at Starbucks. His goofy voice. The way he doesn’t like cucumbers. How his phone was never charged. How he would sneak chocolate. How I loved him even more when he cried. What his eyes look like. His jerky acceleration when he drove his car. Tacos. The way his keys sounded on the belt loops on his pants.

All he told me is that it wasn’t working anymore and that he wouldn’t change his mind. It hit me just now that maybe I did something, or said something, in one of our arguments, one of our tearful, hard conversations, that convinced him that he could never be with me. That slammed the door shut.

In the middle of the night six weeks ago, he said “I’m hanging up now” and I heard the click. I didn’t fight. I would give anything to get him back and get back what I had.

To anyone who says I deserve better. That I need to move on. Explain to me what more I can do. The life that I chose and was proud of is completely gone, and I have to walk this path that I do not choose. I may choose how my day looks and what I do with my days, but I do not choose this. I want to fight for what I want so badly but I cannot. The way that I fight is by doing nothing.

I would give anything to have all of those small things back.

#Grief #breakup #Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #IOP