[Aedyne]

Hey you guys, I'm back for some more drama

I thought I was doing okay and moving forward, but I'm actually not. I know it's been only less than 2 weeks since I wrote here; at first I felt determined to look strictly realistically at how things are and move on for real and it appeared as if I was, especially after speaking to a few friends face-to-face; but I can't make my mind stop getting the wrong thoughts...

I used to think of the guy in an all positive way with an attractive unreachable factor, but since the whole attempt to move on, the thoughts turned to all negative and that's messing me up... Even things like imagining him turn me down in many different ways; I'm sure he's most probably very happy with his life and partner of many years and I should be happy for him, I am glad he's happy, but it doesn't make anything easier...

There's more to this story of mine than I wrote initially:

During the past year I've accomplished quite a few things within my own goals and career dreams, and in every other aspect of those, there has been a thought of him as inspiration, or assistance, or ideas of how to do things in a better way.. in a way he has helped me a great deal without knowing and I wish I could tell him, because I believe people should know when they've done something nice for someone.. this case being very different, of course... so now he's a little part of a lot of the things I've done, both professionally and personal hobbies and choices... But since I started trying to get over him, many of those things lost their meaning in a way, I lost some excitement of a hobby I've taken up, which I had so much passion for and now it's just too difficult to pick it up... I find it hard to find meaning in some of the things when I take him out of the picture, in fact I still can't imagine that picture at all... And that picture is all my life, my everyday world, what I do, what I aim for and I don't have the luxury to start doing something else, not even bring an element of variety... It's like being a doctor and there's an element of the person you don't want to see in every patient that comes many times a day... So how do I do the exact same things I've been doing, but without the thought of what is a part of them?!

I'm having other trouble, too: for the past months since I've taken this interest in him, he's been a kind of a mental 'safe haven' for me: whenever something else was wrong, I think of him for comfort and distraction; for example when my parents come to stay together with me and sometimes they argue a lot early in the morning, thinking I'm asleep, I shield myself with thoughts of that man, I've done that before when I was younger with an imaginary person and it has always worked great for me, but there's something different about this one being real.. and now I am having a really hard time accepting the fact then I don't have my dreams anymore, it's like there's nowhere to hide all of a sudden...

A friend of mine is having a birthday party on Friday, it will be the first time I get a chance to go out in weeks, and I know I will have a good time while there, but I'm a bit scared of coming back home on my own! I don't like the way I need to walk from the station to my place in the dark, but more importantly, I don't like crying in public, especially on trains, I'm afraid when the party is over and I will have to travel home on my own for over an hour, I won't be able to not think about all the wrong things and that thought is bugging me right now...

I was so hoping I will be in a clearer state of mind by that event, but obviously a few weeks aren't nearly enough. I am afraid that I'm not getting better.

[TskTsk]

I recognise the symptoms of depression when I see them - Please seek out some sort of professional help.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything like that, but I think that your issues are beyond the scope of these boards.

[CHANDLERS WISH]

I think because you were determined to get him out of your mind, this "imaginary person" who is real because you've met him, has become someone you now "don't trust" and so your gaining negative thoughts.

You don't trust, because your trying to get him out of your mind.

Because you are so remote within yourself, have a fear of being alone, enjoy going out but suffer anxiety after on the way home and you don't want the happiness to end, this person enabled you to move leaps and bounds, with your goals, because of a "belief".

You've survived on "imaginary friends" to succeed. That means there is a fear, of the real world.

I don't see depression at all. I see, that you hold fear and imaginary friends, imaginary boyfriends, allow you to get out of yourself.

In that you get depressed, when you let go of that imaginary friend but that's the end symptom.

You need to find the cause of why as a little girl you needed the imaginary friend and you still need an imaginary friend to be free, no fear...

Have you ever spoken to anyone about your fears?

You seem to have a lot of success there to build on and become...

Could it be that as a child and still now, you can't handle your parents fighting and so comes the imaginary friend to make you safe?

CW

[annagirl]

Hi I'm not really sure what type of life you had coming up, and I don't know what type of religious background you have, but i too was deeply into someone that i could'nt be with since I was 13 and I am close to 40 now, I had been that way for a long time and about five years ago i made up in my mind that what i was feeling for him had to be over, my only solution was to pray and ask God to take every thought of him away, even down to the neg things. and fkor five years there has been no thoughts of him or us being together. I do know this that if you don't seek for a solution to get him out of your head you will find your self depressed!!! When i read your first message I thought this was me all over again, and I had to really make up in my mind that I was not going to let this thing consume me or keep me from living, I did tell him how i felt, and he felt the same way about me, and he had even admitted to having thoughts of us together, but we knew it could'nt be because we where in two different parts of the country.{he was in the military over seas}., but i cried to be with him and almost lost myself in wanting to be him so badly, but reality sat in and I had to be FREE FOR ME!!!!
my advice to you is to FREE YOURSELF and start enjoying YOUR LIFE!!!!

[Aedyne]

Thank you all again for your willingness to help! Okay, starting in order:

TskTsk,

I can't afford professional help. Plus, I was brought up in an environment where we don’t really believe in ‘professional help’, you know, the old fashioned ways when psychology wasn’t so big and everyone’s supposed to hold all the healing power within their own mind. I know times have changed and it’s not embarrassing to have a therapist, it’s like having a gp now, but my mum still thinks therapy is ridiculous… I have been curious what a doctor of that type would say to me, but I simply can’t afford it.

CHANDLERS WISH,

Really good points and I have wondered about some of those before… I haven’t spoken to anyone about my true fears, as I didn’t see them as fears, I guess…

I was brought up in an environment with strict ‘wrong-right’, black-and-white value system and my parents have taught me particular principles and how to be a good Christian. I have had some rebellion phases against the idea of over-righteousness, but it doesn’t seem so much as to mess me up, even though it might have made it a bit more difficult for me to socialize properly… I still have my strong understanding of how to be a good person, but I am afraid I might have lost a little bit of my Christian belief, I guess I have been rebelling a bit more than the normal… I started analyzing everything and thinking too much, even though I am a kind of a free spirit, risk-taker, etc, but my mind is never quite free…

One of my issues is that I’ve always been a dreamer.
Other than going to church, since cartoons have principle lessons, I grew up watching Disney movies and that, together with disliking my parents’ idea of what my future \should be\ (and a strong desire on their part to make it so), I started dreaming of (all the normal things) – falling madly in love, moving to an exciting place, love and adventures and all the rest… Knowing myself when I was in school/college, I believed I would be married by 21, because I tend to fall deeply and quite fast… That, obviously, didn’t happen, I’ve had some bad luck with the type of people I meet (think proper stalkers and disturbed individuals), and I, in fact, have never been in a positive relationship, let alone long lasting serious one. But I never stopped believing that it will happen, and for me there is only one ‘right way’ - for someone to come along and take my breath away as much as I take his.. and the rest I can deal with when the time comes;

Then after some multi-cultural life experiences, and after getting a university degree, I finally got brave enough to pursue my professional dreams, thankfully there was an opportunity to give it a start and a chance, I moved to another country (where I’ve been living for the past couple of years) and began developing in that direction quite quickly, with a lot of work and hardships to get through, of course. And the pace and my determination hasn’t changed after meeting this guy, (and as you noted), knowing him brought a bit more excitement to the things I do, well except for the last few weeks when I started having a bit of trouble concentrating, and my work requites a lot of that and stamina, as well.

My parents fighting quite often has definitely been a part of my life, although the problem has never been the actual fact, but what they (almost always) fight about: us - the family, and also directly related – money; esp. more recently after the recession hit their employer’s company and they got fired and now we’re all struggling and I’m under a lot of pressure here; Every time they fight (in the past and whenever we get together in the same country at present), their arguments are kind of the same (I admit, I have eavesdropped sometimes), and whether the results are different or not, I never feel like listening to all of that yet again and I never like the presented arguments, etc, so I shield myself in dreams of falling in love and someone “saving me” just by taking away the loneliness and bringing some change of healthier social environment…

I am not so sure I am afraid of real life, I think I am dealing with reality okay and I understand it. I think I am more afraid of thoughts like never finding the love of my life or somehow missing it and never getting a chance to experience happiness in my personal life… I know I am quite young (25) and there are many life experiences in store for me, more heartaches for sure, but I am afraid my mind won’t let me ever feel free, I am a bit too self-conscious at times. I just don’t know how to change the pattern of the types of people I meet, the ones that take interest in me are very much the wrong ones, and the ones I fall for are always taken, but then I guess that’s almost every single girl’s story…

I somehow found something quite different in this man and I still believe that there’s more to my developing feelings for him than personal issues, I quite soberly see something special in him that I haven’t seen in my dreams even… and it is making it very hard to let him go and I want to tell him about all that some day in the future.

Annagirl:

I am somewhat relieved that I am not the only one with this particular problem, it feels good not to be alone in thin, so thank you for sharing your story!

I didn’t realize a thing like that could last so long. Talk about wanting to be faithful and not getting the chance to.

I come from a religious family and somehow I haven’t thought of praying. Well, I have, but for some reason it makes me very sad… something about God having a plan for all of us and I guess I am afraid of what that plan might be and whether it involves me being in a shared love relationship. Even though I am pursuing a big and exciting career, real love has always been my biggest dream. And the years started to pass so quickly, my mum keeps reminding me how much she wants and expects me to get married and have children (soon!) and settle for a nice Christian family and I am afraid of the idea of ever having to settle with someone I am not really in love with… I really wish I could tell the man the truth, just like you have done, even only to have him push me to get over him, but he writes back so rarely, and it’s not a thing for a cross-continent email talk… I don’t know how to free myself, I might easily get over the physical desires, but since he’s become a part of the excitement behind what I do, he’s a part of my life I crave to keep dear.

A friend told me once that the only way to get over someone who’s taken is to fall for someone new. Yeah I wish…

[CHANDLERS WISH]

A fear and a dream, the dream every little girl dreams, the fear because your older.

Just because you enabled yourself to not "see" in your previous dating experiences which resulted in "wrong" type of men, stalkers, doesn't mean that you can't "see" now.

Believe in that dream, believe in yourself and know exactly what you want as you do and get on with your other dreams, life and it will come to you.

To be clouded as a youth and to have so much love to give, only to give it wrongly, and be hurt, is not abnormal.

But, don't change who you are, because there is someone who will love that "love" you have inside of you, just what they have been searching for themselves.

Don't, let reality though, replace, imaginary, that is your dream, reality is real, use your dreams for sending it out to the Universe as that is what you are after, but know that it is just that, your desires and dreams.

CW