Sudden loneliness and depression

[SunshineRainflower]

I’ve really been struggling this weekend. I was meant to go to an event but a man I met recently through networking who has been asking me on dates was going and I felt too depressed and anxious to deal with him in case he started flirting again. I feel like I need to sort myself out and have therapy, understand my pattern of terrible relationships before I date again, and I’m worried I’ll just attract another abuser. It’s hard to notice red flags when you’re so fresh out of an abusive relationship, I can’t work out if I’m paranoid about him due to trauma or whether he is showing red flags or not (mostly he just seems very keen on me so far which is making me nervous and uncomfortable).

But then the loneliness hit me! God the loneliness is just unbearable. Friends all busy, nobody to text or meet up with (apart from this man), no plans apart from the event I didn’t go to, so I’ve spent the whole weekend alone.

For some reason thoughts of my ex have been haunting me more than usual. He’s on my mind for much of the day every day. I’ve remembered that this is PTSD, after a therapist told me I scored highly for it. It seemed to get better but has returned.

It’s the little things that at the time I didn’t notice but which all point to cheating and deceit and feel like lots of little cuts on my skin – his face down cheaters phone, social media messages constantly buzzing, strange behaviour concerning his colleague, stuff that didn’t add up. It’s the way he acted like a perfectly normal, regular, honest, genuine man who wanted a relationship, when there was so much evil going on beneath the surface. It makes me want to cry, scream and vomit just thinking about what he was getting up to behind my back. I also hate having my neck touched now because he put his hands around the front of my neck more than once then denied having done it and got angry at me for asking him not to do it again.

I feel silly even calling him an abuser and accessing the services because I wasn’t with him for long, didn’t live with him or have children and I left him before he started to really physically hurt me. I can just see his incredulous face and hear him laughing if he knew I was telling people he’d been abusive, he’d just say it was all in my head, down to my mental health and say I was completely irrational.

I feel suffocated living in my area now. We went to a lot of my favourite places together, at the time I thought I was in a normal relationship, and wanted to share these things with him. Now I feel like there’s hardly anywhere I can go that doesn’t remind me of him I just want the memories to fade, the PTSD to go away and to move on and heal but I feel like I’ve gone backwards this weekend.

I’m not speaking to my parents anymore as I had several dawning realisations after the relationship ended that my family have been abusive to me for years. I think my mum is a n********t, my brother the golden child and my dad is just downright creepy around me and the way he talks about and looks at women. I was the scapegoat. I feel like they primed me for an abuser because I didn’t even recognise a lot of the behaviour as abuse until I told someone about it, behaviour like that is familiar to me and sadly just seems normal.

I feel like ‘what’s the point?’ I’m so alone. I don’t have a job because my parents encouraged me to stop working (a type of abuse). I don’t have anyone to tell about my day. I am looking for work but I feel depressed about it. I still live with them because I can’t afford to move out. I’d love to move out but working full time has ended up giving me getting severely depressed and having panic attacks in the past so I’m not sure how I’ll cope and be able to afford full rent all by myself?

I keep thinking I could go and live in another place, start life anew but I dont’ feel positive about it, I’ve lived in other places before and always felt terribly lonely. I still like this place and the people here, it’s friendly and affordable, it just feels a bit suffocating at the moment due to lots of PTSD triggers, I guess life here feels a bit sad, tired, hopeless, pointless and triggering.

I’m not sure why I’m writing this but I just feel so alone and feel like I need to get this stuff out, thanks for listening.

[Ayanna]

Did you speak to the helpline?
I think you need to get away from your family and live your own life.

What about a council flat and going on benefits for a while?

What does your GP say?
You need therapy to free yourself and that is what you should fight for first.

Start a part time job and work up to full time.
Why does your job depress you?
No job is perfect but as long as it can pay the bills it is fine.

You could also rent a room in a shared accommodation.
Some room mates are nice and it could be fun.

I agree that you should wait to get in contact with another man.
As you were abused by your family and probably they still abuse you, you have never learned to set your boundaries and you will be easy prey for another abusive man.

You could aim at moving to a completely different area with time.

Write down what you want.
Make plans and formulate your wishes.
Then make a tick list and work on your plan.
Take your time.
Rome was not built in a day.
Our development is life long and some plans take years to become reality.
As long as you work on yourself you are fine.

I take several years to recover from abuse. I set myself a goal of five years. Unless I have not passed these five years I am not going to pressurize myself into any hard studies or profound life changes. Men are ruled out anyway. I have a plan and I follow it very slowly. Whenever I come back to it I have done some things and I progress.

Keep posting!

[SunshineRainflower]

Thanks for your reply Ayanna.

I had a very stressful job which resulted in me having a breakdown, I’ve been retraining in a new field but it seems to be taking forever and my ex took over my life so it was put on hold. I’m looking for part time work in a lower stress job in the old field and am continuing to work on changing careers through study and hope that one day I can work in the field that I enjoy and be able to support myself.

I’m scared of being on benefits and getting a council flat, scared I’ll end up in a rough scary area surrounded by abusive people, drug addicts and prostitutes etc. and struggle to have enough money to live. That would be terrible and make me suicidal. I think I’ll try to get a job and then look for a flat. I have a cat so couldn’t get a shared room in a house, I also had a bad experience with an awful housemate years ago who used to shout at me if I cooked anything or used to washing machine then she’d suddenly act normal again, she was unstable and a nightmare to live with so I’d prefer to live by myself or with someone I know well.

I’m going to write out some goals to help me. Some days like today I just don’t feel like there’s much point, I don’t know why I’m here, I feel so alone with no partner or children and an abusive family, I have friends but I don’t like to burden them all the time and they have their own lives and partners etc.

I met a abuse specialist therapist today, she seemed nice but was young, I hope she will be able to help me as I am so sick of ending up with these controlling abusive men and want to heal my childhood trauma and pattern of bad relationships. I’d love to meet a good healthy man, fall in love and start a family and worry that time is running out for me, the future feels very bleak right now, I have a migraine which is probably not helping my mood today.

[Author]

Posts