My story...

I was in a relationship for almost half a year, with a guy I knew for over a year. I know this won't sound like a lot and I suppose it isn't, but I loved this guy with all of me and even now that he is no longer in my life, I never stop telling the people in my life how good he was to me, even if I know deep down that it's better in the end that we broke up. But he was truly good to me for the time being, until everything just started to fall apart and he decided to break up with me over the phone... I have to say I am guilty of breaking up with someone over the phone as well; I was in a relationship with another guy before him, my first boyfriend, and I'd been thinking of breaking up with him for some time already, but he kept threatening things such as cutting himself and stuff like that. Then I met the guy who later became my new boyfriend and my feelings for him grew stronger the more I talked to him and saw him.

My first relationship was a very unhealthy one, we were very young (I was sixteen, he was fifteen) and after all this time, I regret what we had very much; it was a lot of sex - and looking back at that I really wasn't all that ready for it, I was in physical pain very often, which would annoy him and he would get off on calling me a slut and things like that... it was very rough and I'm not going to accuse him of sexual violence or anything like that, but I did not always enjoy it and I also felt sort of pushed especially in the beginning - and a lot of fighting, which brought out very volatile behavior in me. It was very stressful because I loved him very much and I didn't want to lose him, but I felt emotionally neglected and disrespected and like he just didn't listen to me, and often felt like he didn't express that he loved me.

Basically, I met my second boyfriend (who is now my ex...) because of my new classmate, a girl I quickly befriended because we were struggling with some similar things like depression, and we just sort of clicked. We talked to each other about serious things and also about our relationships. When she introduced me to her group of friends on Skype, I met her boyfriend, and his best friend, whom I developed feelings for eventually; me, my classmate, her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and some of our friends (from both social groups) went swimming together one day and then I met her boyfriend's best friend. At first it was nothing but superficial feelings, I liked how he looked very much and found him attractive. But later on, we started getting in touch while my boyfriend at the time and I were already experiencing a lot of problems in our relationship. I could talk to this guy for hours on end until it was like five in the morning and we realized we should sleep...

Eventually this caused me to fall in love with him because we were so supportive towards each other, with my relationship at the time falling apart and him going through the break-up of his mother and her partner (not his father, his biological parents were already divorced).

Long story short: I broke up with my first boyfriend, and about half a year later, I was in a relationship with that other guy.

I became very involved in that new group of people and hung out with them a lot, got to know them, went to a fantasy convention with them, played video games with them, had sleepovers. At the sleepover (at my classmate's boyfriend's place), the new guy and I first became physically involved - nothing sexual, only cuddles and falling asleep together... We weren't in a relationship yet at the time - as I said, this took us about half a year because I had just come out of a very unhealthy relationship and this new guy and I were trying to sort out our feelings for each other (while I also tried to sort out my feelings for my ex, whom I almost got back together with at one point... oops, very bad decision, but new boy and I weren't as close yet at that point, we only liked each other and had expressed this to each other already).

The one thing that made this new relationship so incredibly complicated, even when we weren't a couple yet, was my struggle with mental health. I stopped going to school at some point (special education, high school) because my issues were that bad, and it prevented me once again from being able to go to school.

New boy had expressed that he liked me as more than a friend, but was unsure whether or not he would be able to deal with things like my depression.

Eventually, we did get together. And even if you ask me now, I'm still going to tell you that it was mostly a very safe, secure, healthy, loving, comfortable relationship. But I would also tell you that it could have been better, we could have communicated things to each other better, because we barely did communicate anything at all. He was a very caring and nurturing boyfriend, and even when his friends and I started experiencing issues between each other, he would not pick a side, but he would defend me and be there for me. When we weren't a couple yet, his friends arranged a LAN party, and everyone except for me was invited (even people's classmates - just not me...), and this triggered very extreme feelings in me. I messaged my classmate's boyfriend (new guy's best friend) to ask him about it, ask him why they had decided to not invite me to the party. Instead of replying to this message, I got messages later that night on League of Legends (which we all played together at the time) sending hentai links and joking about it. Somehow, this was the last that I could handle; I had been feeling horrible all weekend because I thought I had finally found real friends, I had finally found people who understood and accepted me for who I was, and they suddenly left me out for seemingly no good reason at all. I couldn't deal with these unbearable, overwhelmingly dark feelings of loneliness and how I thought they shut me out, and I broke down in tears in my room, abruptly ending the call I was in on Skype, logging out everywhere, lying down in bed in the dark and crying my eyes out and wishing it would all just end already, not understanding why I deserved to feel this way.

At that point, the boy and I weren't together yet, but it was at that point that he first expressed his "I love you" to me through text, assuring me that his friends had not meant it like that and making me feel loved and wanted...

Then we got into a relationship after months and months of trying to figure it all out, and we decided to give it a go. The following months were wonderful, I'd never felt so connected to someone so much before, emotionally, physically, sexually... I was so comfortable with him and he was so loving, so caring, so serene and grounded, so much better for me than my first boyfriend ever could have been.

I don't know exactly what made it all break down like this. I remember at one point I felt hurt and conflicted because of some of his behaviors that worried me and bothered me; he would rage in video games with his friends, insult people online, joke about things I didn't find funny at all, say mean things about overweight people multiple times... and I was starting to rethink the choice of being in a relationship with him. There was a point at which we struggled to make any progress in our relationship, when we were having the conversation of "I don't think we are as aligned as I thought" and me going "I have the feeling you are being influenced by your friends", to which he did not disagree at all... which may just be the saddest part of it all.

Because about half a year into our relationship, he decided to break up with me because he feared we were going to have problems in the future. He did not tell me this directly, but he told mutual friends and friends of mine that I had a lot of problems and it was apparently too much for him to take. To this day I still feel like his/our friends may have had something to do with his decision, because his best friend did some seriously horrible things in the time I still trusted him blindly and considered him my friend as well: when I was experiencing troubles at home, he called the police (anonymously) for advice, made things much bigger than they should have been; almost successfully got me to turn against my parents and turn them in to the police, walk away from home; and he later falsely rumored my father having a criminal record and that I had made my ex (his friend) depressed. When I tried to talk to my ex about what his friends were saying and doing (months after we were already broken up) and that he should remember to be careful, he dismissed all of this and basically said we shouldn't act childish and blame each other, just all act normal and friendly...

It's been over seven months since he broke up with me. Like I said, he did it over the phone. He has refused for months to have any real life contact with me, to talk about it face-to-face and to discuss what has happened. He never came to visit me when I had to move out of my parents' home and go to an assisted living facility; he promised it would be alright and he would come over, then later withdrew his promise when I confronted him about it through Skype chat and told him I had been waiting for him and he had told me it would all be okay... He said that he was afraid of having a discussion and afraid that he would leave my place with bad feelings, he was too busy with his education and internship, but "it's not like I don't care about you".

This was the last I have heard from him, this was in December. When he broke up with me so abruptly after a night of texting and finally properly expressing our thoughts, feelings and concerns, he basically erased me from his life wishing me a happy life and saying he believed in me.

I have never been through something so painful and even emotionally traumatizing in a way. I tried multiple times to contact him and get back in touch, get so much as an explanation as to why this had happened and why he was doing this, but all in vain. When he left me, I cried for days on end, "self-harmed" (biting myself when the pain inside became too much and I was overcome by despair), punched furntiure and violently scratched with a pen into the placemat on my desk (you can still see the mark on it, it's very deep), screamed into my pillow while crying heavily, had to fight the urge to self-harm more and had thoughts of suicide. I picked my social life back up soon enough because I realized I couldn't do this on my own, I needed people in my life and I needed to get up and get my life back on the rails.

Now, seven months later, I have friends and family who love and support me, I am working towards a better future and living more independently, I see a psychiatrist once every week and I've been put on several different medications. And honestly, even though everybody says I'm doing better, I don't feel like I am. I still have nightmares and bad dreams about my ex and his friends. I still get upset and I cry and I miss him and I miss the way he was with me when he was still mostly himself, when he didn't smoke marijuana yet and didn't hang out with his disrespectful friends as much, when he still defended me when people insulted me to him or around him (but he didn't always do this back then either). I still can't think about being intimate with another person, I still can't cuddle or have sex or kiss other people without thinking about him and wishing it was him and it had always been him. Trust me, I've tried. I had sex with a guy about four months after the break-up, it was horrible and I felt awful and gross and I almost panicked afterwards, I felt horribly uncomfortable and I spent the entire evening pacing through my room and tidying the place and continuously spraying deodorant to just get the smell of him out of my room and my bed and myself. I've kissed a few people, I've had cuddles. None of it was truly pleasant because I'm still not over my second ex and I think of him everyday. I can't go outside without fearing I will run into him or his friends. I've blocked all of them on Facebook because I'm too hurt and scarred to even see what they are up to, I am too scared of one day seeing that my ex has a new girlfriend and I tell the people who know him that I don't want to know when it ever does get to that point... I was going to go to the same educational institution for a different type of education; I had to cancel for various reasons, but I can't deny that being too afraid to see him and his best friend was one of them.

I have a feeling that you will advise me to seek professional help because the pain and the inability to deal with my past are getting out of hand. And I would agree with you, but I have tried CBT and it didn't work. I still see my psychiatrist every week and I try mentioning to her that this past is severely influencing me and my daily functioning, but all I can do right now is wait until they have found a more appropriate place for me to live and become happy again, with the right help and treatment and diagnosis and education...

Until then, I have finally posted my story somewhere, and I can only hope that at least someone will be able to hand me some valuable words of advice. The worst thing of all is I can't even identify what it is that I'm feeling, and what it is that has happened, and maybe it's just me and maybe I'm just hopelessly dysfunctional and I just can't be in a relationship with anyone. Whatever it is, it is driving me insane, I break down crying just about every night and I try to distract myself with music and friends and fun things as much as I can, but it only helps to some extent and all that remains is more pain and more suicidal thoughts and more heart-wrenching memories and things that remind me of him and of them. I seriously feel like I will never be able to romantically and sexually love someone again, I know rationally that there is someone out there for me who will align with me much better than either of my ex-boyfriends ever could, but it does not take away the fact that I have never loved someone as deeply and genuinely as my ex and I am grieving everyday and I feel so alone and so helpless, like I can never let someone in again or trust someone or feel comfortable in another person's arms the way I felt comfortable and safe and perfect with him...