This is going to sound stupid... and I'll try to be brief.
I've spent the most intense week of work with a particular colleague, I had never met him in person until this week. I've had similar situations in the sense of being thrown in a different country for a week or two with a colleague I had never met before, but never with this conclusion.
Long story short we got along really well, we talked about everything and anything and it all was going pretty standard, until last night.... it turns out we both share some very, very unique thing about our past, a traumatic event that at I had never openly talked about apart from my DH.
It was so liberating and I felt like for the first time I could openly talk about it with someone who actually could empathise because we've been exactly through the same thing.
The immediate feeling has become confusing to say the least. We didn't say properly good bye to each other BUT we we talked over the phone for the last time and said our good-byes I started crying and realised I'm gonna miss him. I felt like an idiot. I also felt like I'm not alone somehow and that I'll always be there for him and he will be for me.
As I write this I'm still crying, mostly because I think the feeling is overwhelming. We both agreed our lives have been touched by each other, and they will never be the same.
So is this some sort of emotional affair or just a natural reaction to bonding over sever me trauma?