I’m Too Dysfunctional to Process Grief

I should be a certified pro

I wrote a massive article this morning about my unexpected breakup last night. The TLDR is that the guy I’ve been seeing for eight months, without any fights, dumped me immediately after an amazing date.

I want to hate Jeremy. If we fought and had disagreements, then I’d make sense of it. If I questioned being with him because of compatibility then I’d have a sense of relief. My rage is how he did it, not the why.

He should have told me as soon as he walked through my door. He also should have told me last month when he realized it. He should have told me that was even on the radar. There are a lot of “should haves”.

Since my last post, I sent some long babbling texts to Jeremy. I know better; no contact is the way to go. But I’m going on 24 hours of no sleep so my brain isn’t lucid. The things I went off were:

• Don’t use the bullshit “not fair to you” line. I have a Ph.D. in that line.
• He could barely schedule a date a day in advance but never even bothered to disclose what he was thinking years down the road.
• He fabricated a future using his imagination and he’s only one-half of the relationship. If he wants to future cast, then I should have been provided half of it as well.
• If he just doesn’t want to date anymore because he doesn’t feel the vibe anymore, then that’s fine. But don’t lie to me that things are great now but it’s the future that’s a problem. The same goes if he wants to date others. He’s free to leave.
• I gave examples where he was surprised at my responses over things in the future, like if he couldn’t afford to take us out or if he stopped working out.
• For nine months of dating, I was enamored with him and was excited about the future. Up until 10 pm last night, I was in bliss. It breaks my heart that he didn’t feel it as well.
• If he thought that what we had today was great, then he should have discussed his concerns for the future.
• I didn’t get a voice, he didn’t want the relationship bad enough, and the amazingness of us as a couple didn’t warrant even a 1% effort to talk about it.
• If we’d been able to go through his concerns, we could see if the solutions are something either of us are willing to do. But that wasn’t even on the table.

I deleted our entire text history. Over 8000 texts.

To my surprise, Jeremy texts me, “I couldn’t agree with you more on everything you said. Let’s do this: Let’s call it a break and check in with each other on Wed? And between now and then, focus on that work project and remember a) you are smarter than everyone there and b) you don’t give a fuck (say that to yourself, your answers will come quicker)”.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I send a Friends gif of Ross yelling “We were on a break!” I then asked what the difference is between now and three days from now. It’s not like we had a big talk to mull over.

Jeremy texts, “I think what you said is right and we can process for three days and then put our heads together and have a proper conversation about the whole thing including all the points you mentioned”.

Dammit. Even in a breakup, he’s taking my words seriously.

I feel like four decades of trauma leave me ill-prepared for heartbreak. I try to tell myself that he’d struggle to find anyone like me but then I think of all the divorced soccer moms. I typically think that the guy always comes back, months later. But he isn’t like that. He wouldn’t come back because he’d tell himself that he was already a jerk, reaching out would be a dick move.

My house feels like a cavernous warehouse. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or sad that it wasn’t my weekend with the kids.

I’m not in my twenties. I don’t have a group of girlfriends squealing about how I deserve better while eating ice cream tonight. Weekends are family time for my friends, as they were with me when I was married. I’d have to tell them that I’m struggling before they get their husbands’ signoff to watch the kids while my friends leave to console me.

I’m not ready to tell anyone and I’d never say, “I’m struggling and could use someone to hang out with tonight”.

To tell myself there are other fish in the sea, I re-download Hinge. My profile is disabled but I turn it on to view profiles. Fuck. Men in my demographic are the worst. I look at the ones moderately attractive and can’t imagine wanting to see that face. None of them are funny or sound like anyone worth meeting.

As a further distraction, I change my age range to include anyone over thirty. Holy crap, those guys are significantly better. I wouldn’t date anyone that young but hell…if someone wanted a fling, I’m down.

Is this a healthy activity? Hell no. I crumble and sob. I knew even before I met Jeremy that he was my person. Months later, I’m still enamored. That never happens.

I don’t want to do online dating ever again. I don’t want to learn about someone new and the stupid small talk before anything meaningful occurs. But I don’t want to be alone. It’s wonderful dating someone I like.

It was wonderful.

I have a major project at work unrolling this week. Jeremy had it wrong, the big presentation is in three weeks but this week is a shit ton of work and meetings for work I haven’t done. This was a procrastination catchup weekend.

My brain can’t focus. This is a make-or-break moment with my job and I can barely think. It doesn’t help that I’ve binge-watched Succession all day. Every episode is full-on angst. My house has never heard so many “fuck off” curses.

Why am I so bad at this? I’ve seen therapists for over two decades. I’ve read a billion books and websites. Conventional wisdom says to lean into the pain, allow myself to grieve, but stay away from the source of the pain. Be kind to myself, blah blah.

Instead, I sit hunched over on my couch sobbing like a dying hyena. My body feels cold (well, I’m always cold, I blew a fuse with a space heater yesterday). With normal anxiety attacks, my fingers tingle on the edge of going numb. Now the tingling radiates from my fingers to my body, stopping at my heart.

My heart, suspended by trembling biological supports, feels like it’s simultaneously frozen while fluttering a mile a minute. I cover my face with my ice-cold hands like I need to contain the emotions within my head or else it’ll explode beyond repair.

Isn’t that what trauma is? Holding dozens of delicate marbles with your bare hands while running? Trauma is the daily struggle of keeping your shit together so the outside world doesn’t see the falling marbles. I have small hands. Sometimes I’m able to keep it all in but days like today leave my fingers weak, struggling to maintain the searing pain as I carry the mental load of marbles.

You’d think that never receiving emotional support when growing up (or now) from the people in charge of protection would leave me emotionally armed to the hilt. I’m used to this. I’m used to this. It’s only been nine months, that’s a blip in my old age, why is this getting to me?

The older I get, the weaker I become. Maybe having kids softened my hard candy-coated shell. I’m convinced the 25-year-old version of me would bitch slap me today for my inability to withstand emotional pain. I need to toughen up.

My nerves are shot. I never drink by myself but right now, I could use a shot of vodka. Unfortunately, the only bottle I had came from Jeremy; it went in the trash along with every other reminder I had of him after this quasi-breakup.

I haven’t eaten in two days so on the bright side, this has been a great weight loss aid.