Hung up on this ex

[karrie101]

Long story short a few years ago I was with someone who had mental health problems, bipolar, we weren’t together long but the relationship was intense and he would self medicate with alcohol and weed. He was 25 and I was 23. Anyways he ended the relationship as he didn’t see a future, he had nothing going for him, and he said we were not compatible, he was also unstable. I never heard from him again. Fast forward to January this year I happened to be snooping on Instagram and saw him, he looks a like a different person now, he looks healthy, stable and has been going to the gym. I was triggered by seeing him like this and started crying as I felt so sad that he wasn’t like this when I met him and was there for him when no one else was. I never truly got over him and I don’t know why I’m still hung up on this person.
I don’t know what advice I’m looking for, I guess I just wanted to vent.

Being in a relationship like that is traumatic, and trauma does strange things to you

I was with someone similar in my early 20s, and 20 years later if I bump into her or see her across the street my heart still races and I get a fight or flight response. She's doing a lot better now by all accounts, I have absolutely no interest in her romantically but I still find myself having a look at her Facebook periodically, or asking friends about her. I have a need to check up on how she's doing, in a way I don't feel about any of my other exes.

Kindly this isn't about you. Good on him for getting himself better for himself and not for a partner and not staying in a relationship that wasn't working for him.

@CatCatCatCatCatCat yeah. I guess it just stings that when I first met him, I was a student and he smoked weed and drank all day but told me he didn’t see a future