Terrible pain of losing closest person in my life

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bee33
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19 May 2023, 12:25 am

KitLily wrote:
All I can do is give the best advice I know.

Prioritise yourself. Protect yourself. If someone hurts you badly, they don't deserve you.

I appreciate your advice, and everyone's. My therapist actually agrees with you. :)



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19 May 2023, 4:10 am

There is a quote i love from Welcome to Night Vale:

"Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community. While they're happening they feel like the only thing that matters, and you can hardly imagine that there’s a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the Glow Cloud moves on. And you move on. And the event is behind you. And you may find that, as time passes, you remember it less and less. Or absolutely not at all, in my case. And you are left with nothing but a powerful wonder at the fleeting nature of even the most important things in life – and the faint but pretty smell of vanilla."

Life is full of metaphorical storms like this, people you think are closer to you than yourself moving on, and you will move on as well. Time is the cure of everything



KitLily
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19 May 2023, 5:06 am

bee33 wrote:
KitLily wrote:
All I can do is give the best advice I know.

Prioritise yourself. Protect yourself. If someone hurts you badly, they don't deserve you.

I appreciate your advice, and everyone's. My therapist actually agrees with you. :)


I'm sorry if I appear harsh. I just get very angry when someone I don't know hurts someone I do know i.e. you in this situation. I always take the side of the person I do know, rather than jumping to the defence of the person I do not know.

And I've been there with an important person treating me like that, it was my ex boyfriend, the jerk.


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IsabellaLinton
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19 May 2023, 8:43 am

When I said “keep loving”, I don’t mean you have to contact them or even hope for them to change. I meant to love them unconditionally for your own sake, so you aren’t encumbered by the additional burden of trying to stop. Your heart doesn’t want to stop and it doesn’t need to even if you’re apart.

We can love people and forgive them even when they’ve hurt us, while we’re simultaneously letting go or respecting what they need. It’s difficult and seems counterintuitive, but I’ve found it’s better for our mental health and emotional energy to choose love and acceptance rather than resentment and rumination.


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KitLily
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19 May 2023, 9:25 am

There is a saying:

'Keep people who don't appreciate you in your HEART but keep them out of your LIFE.'

I try to do that: think of the person fondly but don't contact them anymore.


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bee33
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19 May 2023, 11:24 pm

It's a thing we do when we talk about emotional pain or depression or grief, we always say that it will pass. I think that's to help people who are in pain feel less discouraged, so it's a compassionate thing to say, and sometimes it's true that the pain will pass or at least fade. But not always. Sometimes the unbearable pain that has you sobbing every single day until you can't stand it anymore is permanent. Can we acknowledge that truth too? (Not intended as a response to anyone here, it's a usual response to someone who is suffering emotionally. And while it may be the best intentioned, it feels very alienating when it isn't the case for you.)



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19 May 2023, 11:33 pm

I cried for nine hours straight last summer while driving with two songs on repeat. ^ I cried for days which rolled into weeks and into months before I finally went numb. Then I only cried if I played a song or felt particularly sorry for myself and wanted to indulge. The person hadn't died and they were "only" a friend, but it was the most grief I'd felt in a long time if ever. It was actually worse than my divorce, although that's not saying much. :roll:

That's not a very common reaction for me. ^ Usually when my friendships or relationships implode I just freeze up a bit inside and shut off the feelings. This time was different, and that's why I relate so much to your thread. I went through the stages of denial and anger etc., because I didn't know how to be anything but authentic. It wasn't until the six month mark when I stopped trying to suppress my angst, that it finally started to subside.


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bee33
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28 May 2023, 10:56 pm

So much pain. I can't endure it anymore. I didn't know it was possible to suffer this much.



IsabellaLinton
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29 May 2023, 1:48 am

bee33 wrote:
So much pain. I can't endure it anymore. I didn't know it was possible to suffer this much.



{{{ bee33 }}}


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bee33
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29 May 2023, 2:51 am

Just unbearable pain. It feels like a bleeding chest wound. I no longer know what to do.

I've been seeing a therapist, I saw a psychiatrist for meds. I have been bothering my few friends by sobbing to them on the phone every day.

Even now, I took half a medical marijuana gummy, and two Klonopin, and the pain is still searing.

Not being in touch with my old friend is the absolute most terrible experience of my life. I don't know how to get through it.

I'm not sure if it's going to happen, but we do have a brief (10 to 15 minute) 3-way zoom appointment with a couples therapist next week. I think it will be bad, because the therapist will not be able to understand the situation and there will be little time to try to explain, and I can't imagine getting any words out over my sobbing, but just getting that one email from my old friend that just said "The therapist will contact you" made me so happy that I was well for a couple of days. But now I don't even know if it's going to happen. And maybe if it does he'll say he doesn't want to see me ever again, which will be like being stabbed by a thousand daggers.

I think I have Borderline Personality Disorder, which is characterized by intense fear of abandonment and the inability to regulate strong emotions. And that's exactly what I'm experiencing.



bee33
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29 May 2023, 2:51 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:

{{{ bee33 }}}

Thank you. :heart:



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29 May 2023, 2:55 am

bee33 wrote:
Just unbearable pain. It feels like a bleeding chest wound. I no longer know what to do.

I've been seeing a therapist, I saw a psychiatrist for meds. I have been bothering my few friends by sobbing to them on the phone every day.

Even now, I took half a medical marijuana gummy, and two Klonopin, and the pain is still searing.

Not being in touch with my old friend is the absolute most terrible experience of my life. I don't know how to get through it.

I'm not sure if it's going to happen, but we do have a brief (10 to 15 minute) 3-way zoom appointment with a couples therapist next week. I think it will be bad, because the therapist will not be able to understand the situation and there will be little time to try to explain, and I can't imagine getting any words out over my sobbing, but just getting that one email from my old friend that just said "The therapist will contact you" made me so happy that I was well for a couple of days. But now I don't even know if it's going to happen. And maybe if it does he'll say he doesn't want to see me ever again, which will be like being stabbed by a thousand daggers.

I think I have Borderline Personality Disorder, which is characterized by intense fear of abandonment and the inability to regulate strong emotions. And that's exactly what I'm experiencing.


Do you have a friend or support person who could be with you during the Zoom, even off-camera?
Also can you remind me why he's acting this way? Do you actually understand?


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KitLily
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29 May 2023, 11:37 am

Sending (((hugs))) to you. :flower:

I don't know how we get through these things, I wish I knew. My dad died when I was 13, I'm amazed I'm still alive tbh.

I'm glad you're getting therapy, although 10-15 minutes doesn't sound like long enough.


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bee33
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30 May 2023, 4:39 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:

Do you have a friend or support person who could be with you during the Zoom, even off-camera?
Also can you remind me why he's acting this way? Do you actually understand?

I don't really have anyone I could ask. My sister lives far away. I do have one friend who would do it but he doesn't understand the situation so it wouldn't feel helpful.

I don't really know why he's acting this way, except now, after a year of hell, I have been obsessively writing to him because I kept thinking that if I explained why I was so hurt he would understand and run to me to help me, and calling him because I couldn't bear not talking to him, so he can't deal with it. But I still write him several emails a day and sometimes texts, because I am just crying and crying and I wish he was there to comfort me or that I could run to him and he would hug me.

Anyway, that explains why he is overwhelmed now, but not why he acted the way he did in the first place, when everything between us was great and he even described it as "idyllic." I think there is something the matter with him, because so much of what he said and did has been wildly inconsistent. I guess it could be psychological but I suspect something neurological.



bee33
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30 May 2023, 4:42 am

KitLily wrote:
Sending (((hugs))) to you. :flower:

I don't know how we get through these things, I wish I knew. My dad died when I was 13, I'm amazed I'm still alive tbh.

I'm glad you're getting therapy, although 10-15 minutes doesn't sound like long enough.

Thanks. The 15 minute meetup is just a brief introduction with us and the therapist. But I still am very worried because what can I possibly say in such a short time. If I tell the truth about how devastated I am I'm worried it will make me look like I'm being dramatic or exaggerating.

I'm not going to get through this ever. That's just how it is. (I'm sure that sounds like me being dramatic too, right? :) )



KitLily
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30 May 2023, 7:48 am

bee33 wrote:
Thanks. The 15 minute meetup is just a brief introduction with us and the therapist. But I still am very worried because what can I possibly say in such a short time. If I tell the truth about how devastated I am I'm worried it will make me look like I'm being dramatic or exaggerating.

I'm not going to get through this ever. That's just how it is. (I'm sure that sounds like me being dramatic too, right? :) )


Can you plan what to say and make bullet points? Then just read them out to the therapist? e.g. I feel devastated that I've lost the most important person to me. Like what you wrote in this thread, that sums it up.

I thought I'd never get over my dad dying, but I did. Well, I learned to handle the fact that he wasn't coming back. I think that's all we can do: learn to accept something, we don't ever get over it. :heart:


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