feeling crazy about my ex (f26) (m28) long, long story.. insight needed.

I feel more than crazy for even saying this out loud but I feel completely shattered and tormented by the fact that I still think about my ex-boyfriend. It’s been almost 3 years since we broke up and we only dated on and on for 10 months.

I had met him in March of 2019, just turned 23. I was recently fresh out of a year long relationship with a 29 year old man in December. I hooked up with someone after that relationship finished and ended up getting attached. The dude was a total player, go figure. I ended up having a one night stand with one of my hook-up’s friends who, in return, gave me chlamydia. I never had it before so I felt very bad about myself but was doing my best to keep my head held high. I was in a very dark and vulnerable place in my life. I felt so lost and confused, I was pretty much just trying to swim by as best I could. I grew up with a single, physically & emotionally abusive mom and no dad so my self-worth was significantly low to begin with. I had (have) so much childhood trauma that I had to work through. I was young and dumb and my priorities lied elsewhere.

I was working at a vegan spot when D, (the ex I can’t get over, different that the 29yo man) and his friend walked in. His friend ended up asking for my number and I ended up getting both of theirs. I had texted each but only hung out with D. So I made plans to hang out with D, but then he flaked on me. We tried again and had success in our meeting.

The first time we hung out we clicked tough. We talked about everything. Our families, life, skateboarding, how we grew up, art, the whole nine yards. He made me laugh, had a good job and drove my dream car which I thought was so cool. I felt so inspired by the fact that he came from nothing and really built this admirable life for himself. He seemed very genuine and sweet and I quickly began to like everything about him. We both skate so our first time hanging out we lurked around on our skateboards. I brought him back to my house later that night and we fooled around but didn’t have sex. I told him I was really serious about not having sex unless I was in a relationship.

It wasn’t long after that we started hanging out frequently. He introduced me to his friends, we’d go out to eat and go skate places. Maybe a week later I tried to break things off because I ended up giving him chlamydia. I was scared, you know? I was fresh out of a relationship, a guy I got attached to during hooking up played me, I fucked his friend, then got chlamydia and then gave it to this new guy who I genuinely liked. Shortly after finding out I tried breaking things off with him. I told him I didn’t want to get involved emotionally because I wasn’t ready to be hurt again. He was super kind about the whole situation and because he worked in the medical field (x-ray tech) gave both of us medication. Then he pretty much begged for me to give him a chance, and despite this bad feeling I had deep down inside, I gave him one. After all, he had been so kind even though I gave him the clap.

D had all these qualities about him that reminded me of a guy my mom dated when she was my age. She was with him for 6+ years and he was the closest thing I ever got to having a real dad. I began to believe that D was my version of the guy my mom dated and I felt that it was universal that I met him. I became deeply and irrevocably in love with him. I couldn’t stop myself from falling deep in love with everything about him. I wanted to help him mend his mom wound and I felt he could help me with my father wound. I was willing to do anything and everything to help him emotionally.

We met in the middle of March, and were dating by April. Things were great. He introduced me to all his friends, he seemed to be proud to be with me. We had the most amazing sex. I felt so proud to be with him. I absolutely every detail about this guy. In the middle of April, his older brother’s best friend died. I was at the Goodwill while he was getting a haircut and we were going to hang out. He had broken his arm 3 days prior at a skate event so he couldn’t drive. I was driving his car and while we were on our way to wherever we were going, he gets a phone call that he had been hit by a truck, while on his skateboard. It was such a dramatic event that sent shockwaves through everyone who knew this kid.

After his memorial, later that night while we were in bed, I told him that if he ever needed anyone to talk to about feelings or life or anything I would be there for him and he could confide in me. He explained to me that he already had a best friend (who was a woman) that he could talk to about that stuff with. This was the first time where the red flags started really going off again since the beginning. I ignored it (of course).

The end of May, after spending 3 days with him, I got a text from him saying “I can’t do this anymore, can you leave my house?”. So, I grabbed all my things and left. I waited a whole fucking month before I ever said anything to him. He still followed me on instagram and was watching everything I did but never once said anything to me or gave me an explanation. This is where things started to get really weird. He would block and unblock my instagram and phone number. I would run into him around the city at bars and we’d both be drunk and I would practically beg him to let me come over. We’d have sex and in the morning he would harshly tell me to leave. If I got lucky, he would have coffee with me or go on a walk with me. Any time I tried to ask why he broke up with me he would threaten to leave. It was up and down up and down. He even went so far as to tag his graffiti name on the fence across the street from my house. Every time I walked outside my front door I saw it. This up and down cycle went on from the beginning of June- beginning of Sept. As you can imagine, I felt fucking insane. I didn’t sleep. My emotions were all over. I drove myself mad trying to figure out why he ghosted me. I couldn’t eat. I had NEVER felt so destroyed. I was slowly losing myself in the worst way possible. I couldn’t believe this shit was happening.

I finally decided the best thing to do was move on, so I did. I had this guy friend, A, who I been very casually hooking up with before I started dating D. I began hanging out with him again and we were pretty much hanging out everyday of the week. We called each other “best friends”. He had been ghosted by his lover the same way D to me years prior so he was my shoulder to cry on. The only problem was that he was apart of D’s brother’s skate crew. It was a weird situation, I know. D had me blocked on instagram so it’s not like I had to hide anything. Things had gotten oddly serious between me and A. It just happened, but I feel like he knew I was missing D, deep down. One night while we were out, I posted a video of me and A kissing to my instagram story. Little did I know, that D had been lurking on my account from a secret instagram. He quickly texted me and asked me, “how could you do that to me?”.. as if he hadn’t ghosted me, unblocking & blocking me on instagram, playing all these games with my head. In the same message he admitted to me that he wasn’t doing good mentally and was coming down from drug induced meltdown. (he had just gone to burning man). He ended up telling me the reason why he ghosted me was because he had found these bumps near his dick and thought I had given herpes. During the months he ghosted me, he went to all these specialists only to find out the bumps were nothing. He told me he wanted me back and he wanted to try to make things work, so of course, I ignorantly agreed.

The months following, sept-dec. things continually got worse. I was a mess. He was more arrogant than ever before. We had gone to a show his friend was playing at and did some Molly. We were sitting on the couch, my hand in his lap and he thought I was flirting with the dude next to me, when I was really just asking him for his Soundcloud (he was a DJ playing a set and I wanted to hear his music). Without being able to explain context, he got up and left me in the middle of the club at 2 am by myself. Another time, while we were fighting, he refused to see me. I got really drunk at the bar and downed nearly a whole bottle of Benadryl in the park by myself. I don’t know how he found me, but he took me to the ER. I had been puking, was talking to myself, was just a fucking mess. While I was passed out in the ER, he went through my whole phone. Read all my texts, calls, went through my instagram. He even went as far as to used everything he saw in my phone as ammo towards me later (even though he had me blocked and wasn’t speaking to me during the time I was doing all that shit). There was no trust in our relationship. He had zero patience for the fact that he broke me and then decided to come back when he saw me with another guy. He expected me to just forgive and forget. Things in my personal life had gotten worse. I couldn’t keep a job and I got kicked out of my house. I had been coping with the roller coast by drinking and my drinking was costing me everything. I was fucked up all around and it just kept getting worse and worse. I started losing my friends because I was paranoid and didn’t trust anyone. Everyone was sick and fucking tired of hearing about him. Nobody wanted to be around me because it was all I talked about. My friends thought I was stupid for going back to him.

My drinking was rampant at this point. I had been kicked out of house shortly after getting back together with him and was couch surfing/ staying in single room occupancies. Not once did he offer for me to stay with him. He was going India for a month and posted an ad saying he needed someone to rent his room, not once did he ask, knowing my situation, if I was interested in subletting. My friend had to mediate a conversation between the two of us. I ended up renting his room for the month of nov. He had come back from his trip a few days early and we were staying together in his room for about a week. When he came back from India I asked if he was able to help me move into my new spot. I didn’t drive and only had a few things to move out of my storage unit. He denied because he had a snowboarding trip to go on. I retaliated by saying that I would ask A for help, since he had a truck. This resulted in him texting me telling me to “get the fuck out of his house” and when he returned home from work, he threw all my shit out of the window into the pouring rain. I got all my stuff and when he left the room briefly I locked myself in his bedroom door, because I was scared of him. I hadn’t had anyone act like this towards me since I was teenager. It was fucking scary. My aunt, who lent me the money so I could stay at his house, threatened to call his landlord and tell that he was subletting. He ended up giving me half of the money back for rent but coaxed me later into giving it back to him. After that situation he didn’t want anything to do with me. Again, I was left heartbroken and feeling stupid per usual.

Maybe 4 or 5 months after he started dating someone else. That’s when I lost it completely & tried to cancel him. It backfired on me & I had his new partner in my DM’s calling me a snitch. (They have since broken up, no surprise there). He came to have an in person conversation with me. We sat on the beach and I tried breaking down to him how I was feeling and why. He basically just said he was sorry and that he had a new partner. I will never, ever forget these words he said to me when describing her; “There’s just something about her, and I cannot mess things up with her”. but you could ruin my life? I drove myself absolutely mad trying to figure out what was so amazing about this new person. It was my unhealthy obsession for a very long time. That was the last time I ever saw him, July 2020.

This was all during COVID too, which didn’t help shit. There’s so, so much more context to it that I can’t even type out but those are the major details I can recall. I lost all my friends because I lost my fucking mind after this break-up. It was the lowest part of my life. I felt very suicidal during the whole ordeal. I have been to therapy about all of this. I have tried everything possible but I still fucking think about him. I still feel there’s a part of me that loves him. I still have dreams about him where I’m trying to find him and then I do, and he tells me he loves me too and he misses me. He blocked my number but I have used the text free app to try and reach him sometimes, which is fucking crazy I know. And his graffiti is fucking EVERYWHERE! I even went to Europe and his grafffff is STILL everywhere. I feel like I can’t escape him even if I tried.

I don’t know what the fuck to do at this point. I feel like a crazy person. I know he’s out there living his life. I know he doesn’t think about me or want anything to do with me.

What really blows my mind is that, I’m in a relationship currently. It’s been 2 years since I’ve been with my current boyfriend. It’s really healthy and I do feel very much in love with my partner. I have never had such a beautiful relationship. I am so thankful. He has listened to me cry about this whole situation. Never once told me to shut up about it and I feel like with his support I have been able to really do some healing, which is why I continually wonder about why I still think about this ex partner so much. I mainly think about him when I feel bad about myself or insecure. His face is the first thing that pops up. His voice is the first one telling me I’m worthless and I don’t matter and I will never be on his level. I wish that I didn’t act like such a fool over him. I wish that he didn’t see me at my worst and now I feel like I will forever have something to prove to him. These waves of grief have been hitting me hard lately. I just want this to end…..