u/Acceptable-Moment192

Today was my first therapy appointment.

We talked about all the recent loss first. My dog. Relationships. The ghosting. The feeling of constantly having to hold myself together while everything around me keeps disappearing.

Then we started digging into my past and found a pattern I somehow never fully saw until today.

Sudden loss. Not just death. People too.

People making me feel safe, loved, wanted…then suddenly they’re gone. Sometimes physically. Sometimes emotionally. Sometimes they stay just long enough for me to believe them before ripping themselves away without warning.

And honestly? Realizing how many times that’s happened hurt worse than I expected.

Because once you notice the pattern, you start realizing why certain things destroy you more than they should. Why silence feels unbearable. Why ghosting feels like grief. Why distance immediately feels permanent.

I think part of me has spent years waiting for the moment people leave.

Therapy was hard today. Not because of one specific thing…just because I finally connected dots I didn’t want connected.

I found myself thinking about you today. Wondering if you made it home safe. If you thought of that box of little things I gave you when you went for Thanksgiving. If you remembered the flowers waiting for you when you got home. If for even a second you thought about me too.

I hate that those thoughts still exist. I hate that after everything, part of me still reaches for you without permission. I hate missing someone who could walk away so easily while I’m still over here carrying pieces of us around like they mattered.

And maybe that’s what I hate the most…knowing I still care this deeply about someone who found it so easy to let me go without a single word.

I think I’m finally learning that loving myself isn’t loud. It’s not posting quotes pretending I’m healed. It’s not “winning” a breakup. It’s not making someone regret losing me.

It’s smaller than that.

It’s laughing with my coworkers again.
It’s buying myself little things because I deserve them too.
It’s realizing I shouldn’t have to beg to be loved correctly.
It’s understanding that being ignored hurts, but abandoning myself to chase someone hurts worse.

I spent so long trying to prove I was worth staying for that I forgot I was already worth loving.

And honestly? I miss me.
The version of me that was funny and chaotic and excited about life instead of constantly anxious about whether someone cared enough to text back.

I’m still sad sometimes. I still have moments where I want to reach out. I still grieve people, memories, and the version of the future I made up in my head.

But I’m learning something important:
The people who truly love you won’t make you feel hard to love.

So now I’m putting that energy back into myself.
Into healing.
Into therapy.
Into friendships.
Into becoming someone I recognize again.

And slowly…through all the grief and chaos and disappointment…I’m starting to like myself again.

I’ve had a few comments saying they’d love to hear both sides of this mess. Honestly? Thank you. I love that. Because while I speak from the heart and I’m honest to a fault…you don’t actually know me. You definitely don’t know her. Truth is, I’d like to hear her side too.

I know I messed up. I’ve admitted that repeatedly. I said things I shouldn’t have said while drowning in grief and trying to survive days where I genuinely did not want to wake up. But people mess up. I have before. She has before. That’s what keeps replaying in my head.

When your world fell apart, I was there. Completely. Even while my own was crumbling. So why, when mine finally collapsed, was I suddenly too much?

Was it really because I messed up that badly?
Was it because being needed became inconvenient?
Was it because I pointed out that you somehow had endless emotional energy for your ex while leaving me stranded and begging for scraps of yours?

I don’t know.

And despite everything, I think that’s the part eating me alive the most. Not the silence. Not even the loss.

It’s knowing there’s another side to this story…and never being told what it is.

Today felt like me again.

It’s honestly amazing what happens when you stop letting one person control the mood of your entire world. I went to work today and instead of sitting there overthinking, checking my phone, replaying every hurtful thing in my head, I just…existed. And it was GOOD.

My coworker and I spent the day laughing, making dumb jokes, causing minor workplace chaos, and acting like complete idiots. Honestly? It felt normal again. It felt light. Like the version of me I thought disappeared somewhere in all this stress and sadness finally walked back in wearing sunglasses and carrying googly eyes.

I forgot how much fun I am when I’m not emotionally babysitting someone else’s behavior.

For the first time in a while, my chest didn’t feel heavy all day. I wasn’t waiting for a text. I wasn’t wondering if I mattered. I was just living my life and laughing until my stomach hurt.

Turns out peace is a lot louder than anxiety when you finally stop feeding the anxiety.

And wow…I missed me.

I finally feel like me again this morning and honestly my poor coworkers should probably prepare themselves because I suddenly feel like significantly more office items need googly eyes.

For weeks I’ve felt like some haunted little cryptid wandering around pretending to be a functional human being. Just surviving off caffeine, emotional damage, and staring into space while my brain played sad music videos against my will. But not today. The real me is back.

The sarcastic one.
The chaotic one.
The one that laughs too hard at her own jokes and starts harmless workplace nonsense for enrichment.

And wow…I missed her.

I missed waking up with energy instead of dread. I missed wanting to play music loud in the car and dramatically overhype my errands like they’re side quests in a video game. I missed laughing at dumb things. I missed feeling light instead of feeling like my brain was held together with duct tape and caffeine.

This morning I woke up and my personality just…reappeared. Like some kind of feral woodland creature returning to civilization.

Suddenly I want to do things again. I want to bother my friends. I want to flirt with life a little. I want to be funny again instead of emotionally buffering 24/7.

Honestly the biggest sign I’m healing is that my first thought this morning was:
“You know what this office needs? More googly eyes.”

That’s when I knew.
She’s back.

So if you work with me and you notice tiny plastic eyes appearing on printers, staplers, someone’s emotional support water bottle, or random objects that absolutely do not need human features…mind your business. This is growth.

Anyway. Good morning world.
I missed being this version of myself.

For a while I really sat there wondering why you were so obsessed with your ex. Comparing yourself to her, stalking the idea of her, constantly writing about her, revolving your entire emotional weather forecast around her existence.

Then I saw a picture.

You literally dated yourself.

Same face. Same vibe. Same expressions. At that point it stopped being heartbreak and started feeling like advanced narcissism.

Like damn girl, were you in love or just using another human being as a mirror?

But honestly? I’ve had my fun with all this. I’ve laughed. I’ve poked fun at you. I’ve gone through the “what even was that” phase and made it out alive. I’m healing.

And unlike you, I don’t sit around obsessing over people who clearly do not want me. That sounds exhausting. Miserable even.

I’d rather put that energy into myself, my friends, my life, and actually enjoying things again. I’ve had my fun tonight so onto brighter better topics!

I’m happier. Lighter. Meaner in a fun way again. Positive. The spark is back.

So have fun with your doppelgänger situation I guess.

Meanwhile, I’m back and better than ever.

Welcome back me!

You walked into my life like a natural disaster carrying caffeine, unresolved trauma, and seventeen unnecessary side quests.

Every day was something.

Someone looked at you weird at the store.
Your neighbor sighed too loud.
A cashier said “have a nice day” with suspicious energy.
You heard two people laughing in public and somehow knew it was about you.

Meanwhile I’m standing there like:
“Babe… they literally do not know you.”

And somehow every story circled back to your ex like she was the final boss of your personality.

I swear that woman paid rent in your mind.
Front row seats. VIP parking. Loyalty rewards card.

The funniest part?

When I was actually with you…
nothing happened.

No chaos.
No dramatic confrontations.
No secret enemies recognizing you because you were a cop ages ago.
No cinematic betrayal in the frozen foods aisle.
No ex following you.

Just peace.
Quiet.
Normal life.

Which honestly makes me think you weren’t surrounded by chaos…

You WERE the chaos.

Like a tiny emotional support Chihuahua barking at invisible ghosts while everyone else is trying to buy eggs in peace.

I think the funniest part of all of this is realizing what you actually lost versus what I lost.

You lost someone who would’ve fought for you through damn near anything. Someone who showed up. Someone who loved loudly. Someone who stayed patient while you changed the rules every five minutes. Someone who tried to understand your chaos even when it was cutting them open.

I lost someone who only knew how to care about herself.

And honestly? That’s a much easier thing to recover from.

The more distance I get from this, the more insane it becomes. Everything revolved around you. Your timeline. Your feelings. Your ex. Your space. Your needs. Your confusion. Your disappearing acts. Your ability to hurt people and somehow still act like the victim in the story.

Meanwhile I was over here asking for the bare minimum like:
“Hey can you maybe act like I matter for five consecutive minutes?”

Wild concept apparently.

And the sad part is…I really did love you. Or at least the version of you that showed up just enough to keep me hoping. The good version. The soft version. The version that made me think maybe underneath all the selfishness there was someone capable of loving me the way I loved her.

But that version of you was like a movie trailer. Short, convincing, emotionally manipulative, and nowhere near the full film.

Now that I’m stepping back, I’m realizing something terrifying:
I spent so much time trying to prove my worth to someone who wasn’t even capable of appreciating it.

That’s not a failure on my part. That’s a limitation on yours.

I’m still sad sometimes. Of course I am. You can’t rip your heart out overnight and just laugh about it immediately. But mixed in with the sadness now is relief.

Relief that I no longer have to beg someone to care.
Relief that I don’t have to compete with ghosts from your past.
Relief that I finally stopped shrinking myself to fit inside your emotional availability issues.

You missed out on someone rare.

And I walked away from someone who made loving them feel like an unpaid full-time job with no benefits and occasional emotional terrorism.

So honestly?
I think I came out ahead.

Today a friend brought me my favorite snacks and favorite drink to work and gave me a hug.

Such a small thing, right? But when someone knows you’re struggling and shows up anyway, it hits different.

We started talking about everything going on in my life lately. The ghosting. The confusion. The hurt. The constant feeling of trying to matter to someone who keeps making me feel disposable.

And then she said something that made me stop and think…“What about us? What about your friends? We’re here. Why aren’t you listening to us when we say we love you?”

And I swear something in my brain finally clicked.

I’ve spent so much time obsessing over one person not loving me correctly that I completely ignored all the people who already do.

The friends checking on me. The coworkers making me laugh when I’m barely holding it together. The people hugging me tighter because they can see I’m struggling without me even saying it out loud.

Meanwhile I’ve been destroying myself over someone who can disappear for days knowing I’m hurting and still stay silent.

That realization hurt. But it also healed something a little.

Maybe love isn’t always the person you’re begging to stay.
Maybe sometimes it’s the people who already did.

I wish I could forget you.

Not the good parts. Not your laugh or the way you looked at me when things were good. I wish I could forget the part of me that keeps loving someone who can hurt me this deeply and sleep peacefully after.

I wish I could forget what it feels like to beg for the bare minimum from someone who once made me feel so loved.

You know what hurts the most? It’s not even the fighting anymore. It’s how easy it seems for you to disconnect. How I can sit here drowning in everything I feel while you go silent like none of this touches you at all. Like I never mattered enough to haunt you the way you haunt me.

And maybe what finally broke me was realizing how differently our pain was treated. When you hurt me, and it’s happened a few times, it was never supposed to be a big deal. I was expected to understand, forgive, move on quietly. But when I mess up? Suddenly it’s catastrophic. Suddenly I’m the problem. Somehow your wounds deserved gentleness while mine were expected to survive unattended.

I replay every conversation trying to figure out where I became so easy to leave alone.

And the worst part is I still look for you in everything. Every notification. Every song. Every quiet moment at night when my brain refuses to shut off. I still catch myself wanting to tell you things before remembering you stopped caring a long time ago.

And maybe that’s part of why this hurts so much. Because I never cared about expensive things. Spending money on me never meant what holding me did. Loving me did. Being there when I was falling apart meant more to me than anything you could ever buy. I would’ve traded every fancy thing in the world just to feel wanted, safe, and chosen by you.

I don’t hate you. I wish I did because hate would probably hurt less than constantly loving someone who can watch me break apart and not even care.

I think that’s the cruelest part of all this.

You became a lesson I never wanted to learn:
that someone can love you in moments and still leave you bleeding in between them.

Lately feels like grief stacked on top of abandonment and I honestly don’t know how much more of it I’m supposed to carry before I finally break.

A few weeks ago I still had my dog. I still had her. I still had pieces of myself that felt alive.

Now my dog is gone and so is she.

Not distant. Not “busy.” Gone.

And somehow that hurts almost as much because while I was drowning she just disappeared. No comfort. No reassurance. No fighting for me. Just silence so loud it started eating me alive.

And the worst part is I know I messed up too.

I said something I didn’t mean while I was hurting. I let grief and panic and feeling abandoned turn into words I wish I could take back every second of every day. So now on top of losing everything, I get to live with the guilt too. I get to sit here replaying the moment over and over wondering if one bad moment erased every good thing between us.

That’s what’s killing me.

Not just losing her, but knowing part of me handed her the match.

People think heartbreak is screaming matches and dramatic endings but sometimes it’s much crueler than that. Sometimes it’s watching someone slowly stop choosing you while you desperately keep choosing them anyway.

That’s what this has been.

I lost the one soul that loved me through every version of myself. The one that stayed beside me during nightmares, grief, panic attacks, loneliness, all of it. My dog never made me question whether I mattered to him.

People do.

I keep replaying everything wondering how someone can say they love you and still leave you alone at your absolute worst. I can’t understand it. If she said she was drowning I would’ve been there immediately. No hesitation. No pride. No disappearing act.

But maybe that’s the difference between loving someone and loving someone only when it’s easy.

Now I just sit here in a quiet house that doesn’t feel like home anymore trying to survive memories, grief, and the feeling that I was abandoned the second I stopped being easy to carry.

I barely sleep. I barely feel like myself. Half the time I just stare at my phone knowing it’s not going to light up anymore but still hoping I’m wrong.

That’s the pathetic part about love I guess.

Even after everything leaves, hope stays behind to haunt you.

I’m sorry I messed up again.
I’m sorry I said things I didn’t mean just because I was hurting and didn’t know where to put it.

Years ago when my boyfriend passed away, the only thing that kept me alive was that dog. He was there through every nightmare, every panic attack, every night I thought grief was going to swallow me whole. If I cried, he was there. If I couldn’t sleep, he stayed close. He became my safety after death ripped everything else away from me.

And even now, all these years later, he still took care of me.

On my worst days he somehow always knew. He stayed near me when my mind got loud. He made the house feel less empty. Less cold. He gave me a reason to get up when I didn’t want to. He loved me in that quiet unconditional way animals do, where they don’t need explanations for why you’re hurting. They just stay.

And while I was drowning in losing him, not seeing you started hurting more than I knew how to explain. Every cancelled plan, every day without you, every silence… it started convincing me that maybe I was alone again. Truly alone. I know you tried. I know I overreacted. I know grief turned me into someone exhausted and scared and difficult to love.

But I wasn’t fighting with you because I hated you.
I was fighting because I was terrified of losing you too.

And now I have.

That’s the part killing me.

Because I wanted it to be you. Officially yours. Labels and all. I wanted the boring things and the big things. I wanted road trips and airports and grocery store runs and falling asleep next to you after bad days. I wanted to travel the world with you. I wanted one day to marry you.

I was alone for such a long time before you that I genuinely forgot how to be loved properly. Forgot how to not panic when things felt distant. Sometimes when I’m hurting, I run before someone can leave first. Sometimes I say things I don’t mean because fear gets louder than logic.

Not that any of it matters now.

You’re gone.

And I keep sitting here asking myself the same question over and over again:

Why can’t I keep the things I love?

Why do the people and things I love most always die… or disappear?

I don’t understand how someone can go from making you feel so loved to treating you like you never mattered at all.

Not angry. Not hateful. Just…nothing.

Like I’m suddenly so easy to ignore. So easy to leave sitting here hurting. Like my sadness, my loneliness, my existence itself can just be muted until it’s convenient again.

Why am I never allowed to be upset?

I know I’m not myself right now. Trust me, nobody misses the old version of me more than I do. I miss the happy, goofy, caring person that didn’t feel heavy all the time. I’m trying so hard to claw my way back to her, but it’s hard to heal when you feel completely alone.

And what hurts the most is that when I need you most…when I need your arms around me, when I need you to look at me and say “I love you, we’ll get through this”…you leave me here alone with my own thoughts.

Do you know how loud those thoughts get in silence?

The voices telling me I’m difficult. Too emotional. Too much. Not worth loving. Not worth staying for. Not worth comforting.

I fight those voices every single day.

Yes, I made mistakes. I know I did. I’ve apologized. I carry guilt for them constantly. But I don’t know how to navigate pain and distance at the same time. I don’t know how to heal while feeling abandoned by the person I want comfort from most.

I’m trying.

God, I’m trying so hard.

I was there for you in ways I don’t think you’ll ever fully understand.

When you needed me, I showed up.
When you told me things had to happen on your timeline, I accepted it because being with you mattered more to me than getting my way.
When one of the worst moments of my life got replayed two weeks later and ripped everything open again, I stayed because I knew you were struggling too.
When everyone else seemed to get your time except me, I was ok with it. 

Every single time something hurt me, I came to you wanting to fix it. Not fight. Not punish you. Just fix it because losing you always scared me more than swallowing my own hurt.

And when you said you needed time to work on yourself, I gave it to you willingly. I waited without complaint. I supported you the best I could. I was even preparing myself for the distance that’s coming because I loved you enough to endure it if it meant we still had us at the end of it.

But I need you to understand something too.

I rarely ask for anything from you. I don’t ask for constant attention. I don’t ask to be the center of your world. I don’t expect perfection. But the few times I truly needed you emotionally… somehow it became too much for you to hold.

That’s the part that breaks me.

Because if you had come to me hurting, confused, drowning, overwhelmed… I would’ve never left you sitting there alone wondering if I cared. Never.

I loved you in every way I knew how. Patiently. Softly. Loudly when needed. I bent around your fears, your timeline, your distance, your healing, because I believed loving someone meant meeting them where they were.

But somewhere along the way, I started feeling like asking to be loved back the same way was asking for too much.

And maybe that’s what hurts the most.

Not the waiting.
Not the loneliness.
Not even the distance.

Just the realization that I kept meeting you halfway while you kept moving the finish line.

I don’t care about expensive dinners.

I care that you saw my favorite drink at the gas station and grabbed it without asking.

I care that you remembered I like my fries stolen but not too many stolen because apparently I’m dramatic about potatoes.

I care about “text me when you get home.”
About sending me a meme because it reminded you of me.
About moving me to the inside of the sidewalk without thinking about it.
About noticing I’ve had a hard week and showing up with snacks like some emotionally supportive raccoon.

That stuff matters to me.

Not because it costs money.
Because it costs attention.

Anybody can throw money around and call it love. That’s easy. Effort is easy when people are watching. The little things? Those happen quietly. Nobody claps for those moments. Nobody posts them online.

But those are the moments that stay with people.

The “I saw this and thought of you” moments.
The “you looked tired so I made your coffee” moments.
The “I know you’ve had a rough day so come here, idiot” moments.

That’s the kind of love that makes someone feel safe.

Honestly, half the time the smallest gestures hit harder than anything expensive ever could because they say:
“I pay attention to you.”
“I know you.”
“You exist in my mind even when you aren’t standing in front of me.”

And maybe that sounds cheesy, but I don’t care.

You could hand me a thousand-dollar necklace and I’d probably lose it in a week.

But if you hand me a rock because it looked like a heart and said, “This made me think of you,” congratulations. I will carry that stupid little rock around like a cursed emotional support artifact for the next ten years.

I’m not going to force someone to stay beside me.

I’m not going to beg for effort, ask for crumbs of attention, or convince someone to care when caring should come naturally.

I’ll be okay.

That’s the part people misunderstand. I will survive this. I always do. I know how to carry pain quietly. I know how to sit with loneliness until it becomes familiar. But if you aren’t there when I’m drowning, you do not get to reach for me when I finally learn how to breathe on my own.

You have time for what matters to you. People make time for the things they truly want. And maybe that’s the hardest truth of all…realizing I just wasn’t as important to you as you were to me.

What hurts isn’t even the loneliness itself. You didn’t create that. Life did. Grief did. Exhaustion did.

But you fed it.

You watched me struggle and simply told me I’ll be ok. You got to see what it looked like when I showed up for someone I loved, when I stayed, when I cared, when I put my own pain aside to make sure they didn’t carry theirs alone.

And now that I need someone?

You disappear again.

That’s okay. Really.

Because loving you and needing you are two different things.

I want you.
I always will.

But I do not need you to survive this.

I’m trying, love. I really am.
But right now I don’t feel like myself anymore.

I’m exhausted in ways sleep doesn’t fix. I lay there at night staring at the ceiling while my brain runs in circles until morning shows up. During the day I just…move. Work. Talk. Respond. Pretend. Autopilot has become survival.

You tell me stories about your day and the chaos around you, and I know I should react more. I know I should care more. But the truth is I barely even feel connected to myself right now, let alone the world around me.

You ask what you can do to help and I don’t have an answer because this isn’t something simple. There’s no magic sentence. No quick fix. No “you’ll be okay” that suddenly puts me back together.

I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize the person staring back at me.
I see someone cold. Quiet. Empty. Lost.
Someone trying so hard to keep their head above water that they don’t even have energy left to feel.

That’s the part nobody seems to understand.
I’m not pushing people away because I don’t care. I’m distant because I’m overwhelmed. I’m lonely in a way that closeness doesn’t even seem capable of fixing right now.

Some days I want someone beside me.
Some days I want the entire world to leave me alone.
Most days I don’t even know what I need.

I just know I’m lost.

And I know whatever this emptiness is… it’s going to take time before I find my way out of it.

The cruelest people are often the ones who speak the most about kindness.

They hold the golden rule in their mouths like scripture,
while breaking it with their hands.

They ask for patience
with storms they would never stand in for you.
Ask for softness
while speaking in blades.
Ask for understanding
while refusing to understand anyone but themselves.

And somehow,
the moment your wounds start bleeding instead of staying quiet,
you become “difficult.”
Too sensitive.
Too emotional.
Too much.

Funny how people call it love when they are the ones being held gently,
but call it drama the second you ask for the same hands in return.

That’s the thing about double standards.
They are built like uneven scales:
one person expected to carry oceans,
the other praised for spilling a glass.

The golden rule was never meant to be decorative.
Not something you quote when you want mercy
and abandon when someone else needs it.

If cruelty would destroy you,
don’t hand it to another person and call it honesty.
If silence would hollow you out,
don’t disappear when someone begs to be heard.
If abandonment would break your heart,
don’t teach someone else what it feels like.

People love to say,
“Treat others how you want to be treated.”

But the truth is revealed in the moments they forget
you are human too.

I hate being home now.

I hate the quiet. I hate walking through the door and not hearing nails on the floor or seeing you waiting for me like you always were. The house feels wrong without you in it. Empty in a way I can’t explain to people who think this is “just losing a dog.”

It’s not just that.

It’s everything.

I’m lonely in a way that’s starting to scare me a little. Not dramatic lonely. Not “I need attention” lonely. I mean the kind where you sit there staring at the wall wondering when you stopped feeling connected to anything at all.

And maybe losing you just ripped the curtain down on all of it.

Because the truth is… I don’t think I’m happy here anymore.

Not in this house. Not in this routine. Not in this version of my life where everyone grieves separately and silently and alone. I need closeness when I’m hurting. I need comfort. I need someone to sit beside me and say nothing while still making me feel less abandoned by the world.

But that’s not how everyone loves.

Some people disappear into themselves when they hurt. Some people lock the door and cry alone and call it healing. And I’m trying not to resent that even while I’m sitting here needing someone too.

I think that’s the part nobody talks about.

How grief can make two people stand in the exact same fire while somehow still feeling completely alone.

So now I’m sitting here looking at jobs in different states wondering if maybe I need a fresh start. Maybe I need somewhere new. Somewhere that doesn’t feel haunted by memories and silence and versions of myself I barely recognize anymore.

Or maybe I just want to run because staying still hurts too much.

I don’t know.

I just know I’m exhausted.

And lost.

And for the first time in a long time, I don’t really know what comes next or what to do.