First I thought of how creative I could be with this find, maybe sticking it into a hat, or something of the sort. Then I searched up federal regulations on taking eagle feathers!!! So I left it in a nice spot.
Hi everyone, 22m here. I have a very anxious attachment style and OCD, and am coming off an unusually traumatic breakup with my predatory bpd ex girlfriend. This was in August 2025 and I’m still not the same but I’m ok. Was at my parents house for the weekend when she took our cat and moved out of my apartment she manipulated me into allowing her to live in I cried from the deepest cave of my soul looking up at my ceiling for the entire night literally an out of body experience I loved this girl and my little buddy Luffy the cat so much. She was my first gf, and we were together for a year where I experienced a general loss of self, incessant verbal abuse, and experiencing the full lovebomb discard cycle (she’d often go on breaks with me on like a Friday then text me Sunday saying she changed her mind, don’t have proof of cheating but I’m not naive) preceded this. Then was on and off again for months until recently. That wasn’t me looking for sympathy just context for what follows:
Fast forward to first week of may 2026, I am seeing a new girl for the first time since. She is the antithesis of my ex and I seriously don’t think I can handle this. I already know it is going to end by August and I just want to cut her off so bad before she does it to me which my mind is so certain of (I understand this is irrational). There are no signs of her pulling away which is why I’m so concerned by my aversiveness to continuing as we are. We’ve been talking for about 3.5 weeks now, I saw her Friday and it went amazing. Together for like 6 hours. We both want to pursue our phd in similar fields, both love outdoors, being active, align on morals and humor. I am able to handle myself with minimal projection that I have such debilitating dread regarding her, and I feel very guilty that I will never be able to trust this amazing woman. I also feel it’s unfair to her that she doesn’t know I am so anxious and checking her location, fucking sending our text threads into a Claude thread asking to rate how I carried myself, rate my lines, rate her interest etc it is so bad. I turned off my location so hers would turn off which im proud of and that has helped. Literally the day after the first date, she didn’t text me almost all day and I was so convinced she didn’t like me I didn’t even give it time I just accepted it was over and she didn’t have as good of a time as it seemed. Of course she responds just as she would later in the day and we continue to make future plans to go camping, paint, all this nice stuff that I am unable to enjoy in the present. All I can think abt is that there is a clock counting down until the day it ends and it will be even worse than my last gf because this girl is someone i could have a future with. I don’t really know what I’m looking for posting this, maybe if anyone can relate and tell me how delusional I am it would help. I’m sorry for being like this. Ok I’m breaking the fourth wall now I don’t even know why I said I’m sorry it’s a trauma response I get flashbacks to my ex and say I’m sorry I’m sorry out loud because I don’t want her to yell at me. And I’m being so hypervigilant over this girl and putting so much energy and I just want it to stop. I’m going to get a psychodynamic therapist because the last thing I want is to hurt this girl due to my issues I haven’t fixed if I am man enough not to cut her off