Slowly Unpacking the Pain

Breakups suck. The emotional and physical fallout is taking its toll in the form of depression, mental fatigue, anxiety, and physical symptoms like pain flares.

At least I’m not crying as much now, but the random panic attacks can be debilitating. Thankfully I have medication prescribed to me to help.

Knowing it’s for the best only gets me so far. There’s a lot that I greatly miss.

I miss him reading to me. The intonations and emotions he expressed when reading, plus sharing the stories themselves, were a form of intimacy I reveled in.

I miss gaming with him. There’s new content coming out, and I won’t be able to experience the story and new places with him.

I miss his touch. His flexing fingers at me while walking indicated he wanted to hold hands. He’d hug me tightly when we hadn’t seen each other in a while. Wrap his arms around me when I was cooking. When he’d brush my hair. What kissing him felt like. And how well-matched we were in other areas of physical intimacy.

I miss the intellectual discussions and the ways we supported one another and grew individually and together.

I miss going camping, to the ocean, or wandering the mountains.

I miss hearing about his day and how he conquered challenges at work.

I miss his face.

I miss how we used to plan a future together.

I miss the support and help with projects around the house.

And as wonderful as all that was, on the other side of things were incompatibilities that made it impossible for the relationship to continue.

I don’t miss the broken promises, inconsistency, avoidance of responsibility or accountability, lack of self-understanding and emotional immaturity that made it impossible to give feedback or pushback and not be labeled “difficult to talk to.”

I’m not perfect, but I worked hard on the things asked of me. And I know I struggled to maintain emotional maturity when faced with invalidation or my unmet needs. Or the lack of genuine intellectual and emotional intimacy that comes with vulnerability. I tried to be someone who could give him that space, but I could not because I didn’t feel stable in the relationship or life.

Dealing with my feelings of resentment, anger, abandonment… I’m grateful for cats and therapy. My inner child needs more healing; it is difficult for her to believe that things will be okay. I hope to prove that I can care for myself despite my health issues and that there are people who care and support me that I can rely on, who are genuine and not looking to guilt trip me. And learn to trust myself when choosing people to be around.