Break up!

[Guest guest]

Dear Group,

After about a year and a half of an unhealthy relationship (one

that I've somewhat alluded to in several of my posts) , my ex -

girlfriend left me for another guy about ten days ago. We each

treated each other badly, and broke up with each other numerous

times; now she has broken up with me and is possibly re - bounding,

while I choose to sit with my pain and loneliness. I see a local ACT

therapist and he has made several suggestions, including the one

that I am currently taking ('take a step back and don't communicate

with her for a couple of weeks.') What a difficult suggestion to

take (it's been ten pain filled days!) She has attempted to

communicate with me four times since taking this suggestion (she

tried to contact me while her new boyfriend was away on vacation; I

assumed that she no longer had the security of the re - bound and

tried to get it from me?) I know this is personal stuff I'm choosing

to put out there, and I don't really care if anyone judges me for

it. My therapist is suggesting to me that moving towards a

relationship based on two people choosing each other is more

gratifying and healthier than what has just ended, a relationship

based on " NEED, " and manipulation of each other's histories to

create two people that " think " they " NEED " each other. Oh how bad I

want to call her, text her etc. Instead I am choosing to create

enough space for life to show up differently; to allow her to choose

me or not! I still hope to get back together with her, and wonder if

that is even possible, since she has a new man. I never could

control her, even when I tried; now it hurts to think she has easily

gotten over me with someone new. I suspect and prefer to think

(since I want to know that she cares about me and I meant something

to her) that this re - bound, if that's what it is, is her avoidance

strategy for coping/not coping with her pain of the break up, even

though she left me. Why am I writing this? My mind says: " because I

don't want to be alone with this. So now I live alone; with my

history of abandonment, and wanting to be important to someone. I am

walking in the rain and using an umbrella or some form of cover

fewer and fewer times. I am allowing it to rain on me while living

as if the sun is shining and will shine again. LONELINESS, my

seeming enemy has nowhere else to go, so sometimes I say " okay, just

for right now I am having this feeling of loneliness and I feel it

right here (motion to the area in my body that i feel it), then I

say " you are welcome to stay here as long as you'd like! "

P.S. My therapist also suggested that I see a psychiatrist to get

started on anti - depressants. He suspects that there may be

something bio - chemical for me; that meds will help to make these

feelings more manageable. At first I was unwilling to take meds,

then I said I will as long as I can still feel my feelings, and not

have them be numbed nor overwhelming.