Absolutely distraught - relationship ended and I cannot cope with anything

[FreckledLeopard]

For various reasons it was probably a sensible idea that the relationship ended. We'd been having counselling for the past three months and hadn't got very far. There were too many stumbling blocks that couldn't be overcome - finances, pulling apart from each other when things were difficult, wanting different things in life and generally making each other miserable. We decided to call it a day at the weekend. DP has moved out and is moving all her stuff out at the end of next week.

But - even though on paper it's the right thing to do, I am absolutely broken. I cannot stop crying. I cried all the way to work and have been welling up at my desk all morning. I cry at home. I cry to my friends (who are being wonderful but must frankly be sick of me and my problems). I'm taking leftover prescription co-codamol and tramadol to try and numb myself in the day. I can't eat. I can't sleep, even with sleeping tablets that the GP gave me. I can't focus on anything and the slightest thing sets me off. Just looking at DP's stuff at home, and remembering all the things we won't do together. It doesn't help that Christmas is imminent and I don't know what to do for that either.

Poor DD is having to see my sobbing every day (she's 14 - she got on well with DP and is being quite stoical, but I know she's upset). My mother has dementia, so when I told her I'd broken up with DP she was upset, but I know she probably won't remember, so I dread having to tell her time and again.

I know I'm probably depressed - I've started on antidepressants but they've not kicked in yet. I know, or at least I think I do, rationally, that things will improve. But I've never felt this awful before. When my marriage ended it was so much easier - I was quite matter of fact about it. This time, everything has fallen apart and I can't see any future. I don't want any future. I miss DP (despite all the arguments and the horrible things). It feels like the wrong decision, yet on every rational level it's the right thing to do.

Normally I'm quite good at getting on with things and getting over things. This time I literally cannot function. I am in pieces. How is this the right thing to do if it feels so ghastly?

Not sure why I'm posting really - maybe if anyone has been in a situation like this and got through it, and has any pearls of wisdom?

Janaus good call - did that when I woke in the night - helped to stop writing it in my head & removed (at least for now) inclination to send it as a message to him
Have had fun with friends & their lovely cycling group this morning - I'm not a cyclist(!) but fresh air exercise & good company - perfect! Began to see that eventually I will get through this... by and by...

You will Ocelot and you'll get more and more, longer and longer glimpses of how you'll get through this.

I cannot cope. I cannot stop crying. I can't bear a future without DP. My dreams are about the break up. It's all consuming to a level I have never known before. There is no escape.

I just went into Facebook which is showing me my memories from a year ago which was DP's birthday. We were in Amsterdam. And happy. How can it have all gone so wrong?

It is all-consuming and it's all you can bear to keep breathing. But we can promise you that it gets better. Nothing this painful can last forever.

I found it helpful to live my day in short chunks. Sometimes I could manage 15 minutes, and sometimes only 5 minutes. I broke my life down in to small tasks, wrote a list and ticked each one off - brush teeth, take rubbish out, walk to the shops, buy thank you card etc.

I did things inefficiently so that they took longer.

I made myself listen to three happy songs each day.

Keep talking

Also, How can it have all gone so wrong?

Soon you will realise that you can't understand this, it's not something to be understood. It's something to be accepted. Let go of your desire to understand it.

Hey freckled, I just saw your post. My H left 6 months ago and moved in with OW.
The first few days were almost impossibly difficult, was shocked to feel that much pain. After about a week, I got a numb kind of plateau and it was possible to get on with things again.

The pain does come and go - you deal with it, then you get a numbness reprieve for a while.

On a practical level, I listen to Johnny Wilson nature sounds on YouTube to go to sleep or the Harmony meditation app - they really help.
Cry, let it out. Write it down, always feel a bit calmer after.
If you're in a situation where you're welling up, but it's not the right time to cry - keep your head still and looking straight ahead but roll your eyes upwards it stops you producing tears. Honest, I use that trick a lot at work!
I'm still on the journey too, but I promise the strength of the pain you're feeling now will lessen.
I'm also heartened to hear that so many other people make it to the other side of this and come out happier.

There's no two ways about it, this shit is hard.

Freckled I was you in the summer, my eyes had a life of their own, shedding tears uncontrollably, I could not function, wanted to cease to exist, couldn't bear the days going by without him. I was very fortunate at the time because I was (am) in psychotherapy so had some solid help. When I was going through it my therapist could see I was broken and saw me twice a week. My therapist told me that I was grieving for other, very painful losses that I had not fully grieved for. In my case it was the death of my mum 14 years ago (I was with a Narc husband at the time and had a miscarriage and then a baby within 18 months so had no chance of grieving healthily although at the time had thought I had grieved ok).

What I am saying is this is massive. The pain is enormous but the only way is through. My therapist told me to not allow myself to polarise it feeling only the lovely bits of us, but to visualise both the good and bad parts of him all in one, because that is the reality of your ex, not the idealised version represented in those Amaterdam pics.

What really helped me at the time is a book my friend leant me called, 'How to Survive the Loss of a Love'. It's very comforting and makes you feel a lot less alone.

The only way is through the pain.

Your post makes my heart hurt. I was in your position 5 years ago. It was the absolute worst time of my life. I couldn't function, I cried at work all the time, I remember wanting to punch someone in Morrisons because they bumped into me. I kept turning up on my parents' doorstep crying.

There is no quick solution. It hurts. And somehow you have to embrace that, go with the feelings rather than fight them. It's a process, grief, and you have to let it take you where it wants, even if that is to a horrible place.

Eventually, things do get better. Sometimes they get worse again, and that's fine, just go with it. But, little by little, the pain will become more dull.

Some things you never get over. Some things cut you so deep that they take a chip off you and leave a scar that will never heal. You may always feel sad about this, but that is fine. It will become bearable. Don't strive to feel "over it", that is unmanageable at this point.

I now have a wonderful DP. In fact, it was meeting him a year after my breakup that helped kick start my recovery. There will be happier times. But for now, just do what you need to get through the day and ride it out.

Big hugs.

I feel as if I've exhausted talking to my friends. They have their lives - why do they want to listen to me cry? They're all in couples - married mostly - and having babies. Their lives are so different.

My mother has Alzheimer's so I can't talk to her and my father died when I was a teenager. I'm trying to sort out a care home for my mother and getting nowhere fast. I'm an only child and her siblings are leaving it to me. I could barely deal with it before this happened - now I don't know how anyone expects me to do anything.

I can't even breathe normally - my heart rate is shooting up. I keep getting lost. My memory is going - I don't know what I've said to whom and am repeating myself.

I can't eat. The antidepressants are only giving me side effects at present - I have a history of depression and can't take SSRIs so am on tricyclics and my mouth is bone dry. I need something to shift. Something has to change. This is untenable.

When a relationship breaks up you can go through the greiving process, a bit like when someone has died. its really gonna hurt now, but it will get easier as time goes by. Think of your child at this time, when my maam died around 6 weeks ago it was really hard, but ive had to hold it together for the sake of my children, i know this is not possible for everyone, but try your hardest, even if you have a cry in bed.

In the long run after a while you will probably realise it was for the best, i know at the moment it doesnt seem like it, but you will get through this, it just takes time xxxxxxxxx

Are you and your ex actually both sure about breaking up? It might help you to answer this question in your head, because if it is the right thing, you'll reinforce to yourself the reasons why. And if, actually, maybe it's not the right decision, you can both decide to review the situation.

If things stay as they are, you need to do a couple of things to help you through this worst bit:
Sleep
Go for walks, get outside and walk and breathe, walk, breathe, make yourself go out and walk.
Eat. Soup, cereal, toast, easy foods, anything you can bear to swallow.

Donatellla, what an interesting post. I often feel like that.

Op, I hope you are feeling better and more able to face things.

Got home from weekend away. All DP's things are boxed up ready to be moved out next weekend. The place echoes. I've been crying now, mostly non-stop for nearly seven hours.

I just can't cope. I don't know what to do. Saw DP earlier and was mostly hysterical for the majority of the time.

DD trying to be reassuring and telling me we'll be OK and we don't need her. I wish I could be convinced.

My best friend has been brilliant and reiterates how unhappy I was before the break up and how many problems we had. But that seems now to pale into insignificance compared to the horror and total despair I now feel. My fingers are bleeding from where I've bitten the skin down to the quick and my knuckles are bruised from biting them. I want to scream and scream. This is hell.

Freckles read Donatella's post.

Breathe.......

Can you go off sick for a few days? Can a friend come and stay?????

Iamloved its so funny how it all turns out isn't it?
I should have left my ex far sooner as he wasn't a good man yet I still thought I wouldn't recover.
I look back now and think wtaf?
The laptop is shocking.
OP you sound exceptionally low. Can you go to your GP? I know you are already on meds but they may be able to help.
Your GP will have heard it before. I had to see my GP over my last break up as I wasn't coping either and they were fantastic. I had beta blockers for the panic attacks.
You will get there. I promise you

I don't know about GP. I need to go to work. I've only been in this job for five months and I need to show that I'm reliable and competent. God knows what they already think - I've been welling up or crying every time anyone is remotely nice to me. I don't want to test anyone's patience or take time off.

To cap it all my leg has been horribly sore for a week and is now making grinding noises and is swollen and I don't have the energy to even get that sorted. I feel utterly hopeless and a complete failure.

I don't know what to do or what the future holds. I'm terrified of everything. I can't focus or make the slightest decision. Throughout the end of the relationship I thought that DP and I wanted different things. Now she's gone I don't know what I want. I just want her to stay.

I think this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. This is worse than my divorce, worse than watching my father die, worse than my mother being diagnosed with dementia.

I need to get a grip. There are so many worse things in the world. I feel pathetic - millions of people break up every day. Why am I like this? Why can't I cope?

I have no resilience or fight left in me. I'm utterly broken. I just want to die but I can't bear the thought of DD suffering so I'm in limbo.

My friends all have jobs and/or small children. They can't stay. My neighbours must wonder what the hell all the wailing is.

DD wants to put the Christmas tree up next weekend. I don't even know how to face Christmas. I want to ignore it and just run away. I want to run away from life. Everything is such a fuck-up and I am the common denominator.

You need to get back to to your doctor. You're not coping because you're not putting support in place.

How old is your DD?

Please try and get your GP
I'm starting to wonder whether the divorce, illness your father dying are things you have battled through but haven't processed fully. The break up is the last straw?

Apologies for my sofa psychiatry! You need help.

It sounds like you are experiencing a breakdown sweetheart.
You really must go to your gp today.
Can your dd go to stay with someone for a few days as this must be very distressing for her.
I also experienced a very extreme reaction to a break up but as an ex mental health nurse it does sound to me as if this may be one step beyond this.
Please ring at 9 and get to see someone today.

Waiting for a call from GP. I don't want to get involved with mental health services. I can't go down that road. I need to work - I'm a single parent and I need to pay the mortgage. I just can't function. I don't know if they can give me something that can tide me over until the antidepressants kick in (if they ever do). Am absolutely desperate.

Slept for two and a half hours and was awake the rest of the night.

I don't know what support I can put in place. Most of my friends and family are in London - 100 miles away. The only support I had really was DP.

DD is 14. She's at school.

Freckle so sorry you are feeling like this, I was the same. I would def ask the GP to give you something to tide you over, lack of sleep is making things even worse so even if they can give you something to help relax then that would be a start. I promise it will get better you just have to keeping one foot infront of the other for now. I spilt with my ex of 22 years 2 weeks before Xmas so know what you mean but for your daughters sake you need to try. Keep talking here and take each hour as it comes. I found some wonderful people on hear when I was going through the same. Big hugs

Leopard having been in yr job such a short time is even more reason to have a bit of a break - because even though you are going in I doubt you are able to actually do the job right now, even take a couple of days leave if you don't want to take sick leave. A quite senior person at my work is frequently off with anxiety etc - it really is much more accepted these days.

Sleeping really helps too - my GP suggested & game me a few sleeping tabs - I mainly take 1/4 tab when I wake in the night to get back to sleep as can usually fall asleep when I go to bed. This way I get 2x3 hrs sleep and can manage on that for now.

I am feeling it is a bit more manageable now - a month in - so I'm sure it will get so for you too

GP called back. She's increasing the dosage of sleeping tablets. Other than that, there's not a lot they can do and no temporary magic tablets to take to ease things. Helpfully, she said that anti depressants might be making things initially worse, though it's hard to tell (and to be fair, I was fairly distraught before I started taking them).

I can't stop thinking about DP and why she is so much calmer than me and how she can just slot back into the life she had before we met. She's staying with friends of hers, then with her parents, before she moves back into her flat (it's currently rented out). I imagine her having nice meals with her friends, watching TV, having a glass of wine, chatting. It's her birthday on Wednesday and she will probably be going out to dinner with her friends. I cannot believe that it's come to this. That we're not together. That her stuff is in boxes. I just can't deal with the pain. I can't move on.

In the middle of the night I was reading a thread on Mumsnet about awful dates people have had. It was supposed to be funny but it just made me cry and cry. I don't want to date anyone else. I don't want to sleep with anyone else. I don't want to join a dating website. I cannot contemplate ever having any kind of relationship with anyone else ever again. I just want the problems that DP and I had to go away and to have a future with her.

I opened my drawer this morning to get dressed, and DP had put some of my stuff in there that she had had. Seeing it in there just set me off again. I want this to be a nightmare that I wake up from.