I am on a desperate roller coaster
I don't know what to do and my anxiety has grown debilitating. Coronavirus affects it very little apart from the new circumstances and problems created due to the pandemic.
I'm in an 11 year relationship. I want to get out. I realized I can't be myself with my boyfriend apart from other things. We live together and this is an instance where the virus makes it harder. I don't know if I was ever really in love with him because he and I got together during an emotionally traumatic time for me
I don't feel that my boyfriend loves me. In fact, I don't feel like anyone's ever truly loved me minus a couple friends and some family. I've fallen for a different guy as well, and he claims to have fallen for me and I can't tell if he is sort of blowing smoke or if he's just more normal than I am and I'm creating issues where there aren't any. Essentially, I am Joe Goldberg from the Netflix show "You", minus all the stalking, kidnapping, and other criminal behavior. But the obsessive devotion and quick emotional attachment he describes are what I tend to experience. I've fallen for a guy who is much younger than I am, half my age, and has a bright future ahead that I've so far only talked to online. It kills me to know in my heart that the chances of us being together are slim to none. I could see us having a fun week or two together but not surviving long term. And if they did somehow work out, I still don't think it would work out to the point I'd like it. Still, he's perhaps the only person who I fell for because of his personality and not because he showed a nominal interest and/or seemingly needed my "help".
Likewise, there has been no "need" or "help" aspect involved and he is not incapable of getting girls his own age or anything so I don't detect the air of desperation leading me to assume its genuine.
The problem right now is that my brain reverts to thinking about him to derive happiness and peace but right now he is responsibly taking a technology break and I feel like a fish out of water. My thoughts run wild. My mentality and emotions change with the breeze. I feel paralyzed and near tears at any time. I honestly wish I had just had an interest in him that was never reciprocated because I can't handle myself, but then I also want nothing more than to be with him. I realize there could be a host of things I don't know about him that would drive me nuts but at the same time there is so much i put up with now I don't know if it would phase me.
In all this, the problem obviously isn't my friend, it's me. It's that I can't force myself to live in reality, I can't force myself to stop caring about him. He has all my cards and I can't get them back. The problem is that I need to be able to find peace and love and joy apart from him and I can't right now. I just end up frozen and I don't know what to do. If he goes, I don't feel loved or wanted at all. I only feel misery. If he stays, my emotions rely on his presence and interest. I feel trapped by my boyfriend and trapped by my own mind. I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to try to work on getting over this guy, but I did that once before - I forced myself to pull away for several days (before I realized he liked me back). However, no matter what I value him as an amazing person and I think the world of him. So I reached out to him again after my brain "reset" and then the feelings just got stronger.
I get it that none of this is really about this guy, it's about my lack of love for myself and my inability to see my self-worth and that's what I should really be focused on regardless. But right now I can't think beyond myself and beyond him, like an addiction, and I don't know what to do. I'm a black hole of neediness and it's hard to talk to anyone because I can't be a good friend right now since I need so much help myself.
@DesultoryTh0ught
I think the hardest thing we (everyone) have to do in life is to be okay with ourselves. We compare our looks to others, our fortunes, our houses, our cars, our relationships. We measure ourselves by how much others like or dislike us. In all of it, we just need to remember that it really matters what we think of ourselves because, inevitably, we have to live with us. No one else does.
Years ago I went through the struggle of feeling I was only valued because someone had interest in me, and if that person was gone, I was going to be alone, and what would I do, and everything would be awful. When that person left, I realized something. Life kept moving forward. I still got up in the morning, went to work, saw friends. I realized I was okay. Did it hurt? Yes. But it gave me time to understand myself and who I was. I got to spend time with an incredibly important person - me! It was nice. For the first time I focused on myself, my needs, my health, my happiness. It was probably the first time I really had done it, and I came out a much stronger person for it in the end.
I know it's hard to focus on yourself. But you can do it, and you can start small. What is one thing that you can do today that is just going to be for you? Be a little selfish to start. You are worth caring about.