Since my breakup I feel like I've lost my safe feeling

[MonsteraPlant]

It's a hard one to explain - broken up with my ex of eighth years who was a functioning alcoholic. A lovely man but so many problems after years of covering up that he was sexually abused. He still loves me but I can't be in a relationship with an alcoholic.

I left him at the start of the year. Ever since I have had a terrible hollow feeling in my chest/stomach. It's something I have to work on healing but wondering if you have any suggestions or can relate.

I've never had this feeling quite like this before and I'm 52. The only way to describe it is that the core of safe feelings I would normally have has taken a blow and I just don't feel safe inside myself anymore. I find myself thinking back to my past when I lived in a big city and I had friends around all the time and saw people more, possibilities felt in the air, a sense of activity. I long to be with friends I've know for a long time although I'm ok with new people and can make friends fairly easily even though I've moved country to country over my lifetime I've got good people I can rely on that I've met along the way.

This absence in me isn't just about the absence of him - and we see each other often for coffees etc and he pops in to check if I'm ok etc as I've been unwell with fibromyalgia for a few months so he will do a grocery shop for me sometimes or take my kids out. He's being very kind and it's not a contentious issue. So I know this core of safety as I'm calling it, isn't just about him not being in my life. It's something else and I can't seem to locate how to start to heal it.

Can anyone else relate? I'm working with a therapist on it but I would appreciate any insights anyone might have who has gone through this. I'm trying to visualise a healing light in my chest and stomach but it's the realisation I think that something deep in myself has been broken. I don't know how else to describe it. I've gone through breakups that were terrible before, this is a different feeling, in a way not to do with him but all about me and what's at the core of me.

I'm sorry I'm rambling but any insights would be appreciated if you have ever gone through this.

I can very much relate @MonsteraPlant. I posted about my situation earlier this month but in a nut shell, my ex who was a friend of 30 years, immediately after we broke up started a close friendship/relationship with my closest and longest standing friend who in turn used the situation as a stick to beat me.

They’ve both been blocked for 6 months now. I’ve been treated poorly in the past by ex partners, friends and family members but this time, something has snapped inside me and I just feel like the world is full of bad people and nowhere is safe. I’m in therapy too for the first time so rehashing a lot of past trauma which might also go some way to explaining why this time feels different.

I think in my case, I’ve never really felt that I fitted in, never found my ‘tribe’ and now time is running out, I don’t think I ever will. I’m very self sufficient and struggle to ask anyone for anything but I think after doing this for so long, I’m weary and broken and feeling very alone. Sometimes I think this world is just too cruel to bear.

I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling this too. I wish I had the answers or something insightful to say but just to say I can empathise. Also following for any advice