I'm not over her; help me deal with her presence.
July 24, 2011 7:13 AM   Subscribe

I've accepted that I likely won't be completely over my ex until after we both graduate. Considering that, how can I deal with being around her?

We're both rising seniors in college. I don't want to give a whole lot of detail, but suffice it to say: we dated for most of sophomore year, she treated me very badly and broke my heart. I know I'm better off without her, but emotionally I can't seem to get past it. I still dream about her several times a week, etc.

We're not friends, and I don't want to be friends. But we do have a social group in common, and usually at least one class together (small school, similar majors), so we're superficially friendly. This level of interaction is fine with me. The problem is, when I see her unexpectedly, my chest constricts like I'm a cornered animal. Talking with her, or even being in a group conversation with her, is kind of surreal. It's like I'm on autopilot, and all my brain can do is hope I don't say anything too stupid or betray my inner turmoil through body language. Usually I don't succeed and the memory stings for days. Occasionally I do succeed, and then if I say something especially witty or smart, she looks at me the way she sometimes used to (aaaaaaaaaah, intermittent gratification!).

I feel like at least half my fear comes from a negative feedback loop: I'm afraid that I'll be afraid and awkward, so I am, and my fear is reinforced. I would like MetaFilter's advice on breaking this pattern. My strategy last year was to just try to power through it, but it never got significantly better.

Please do not suggest finding another girlfriend. I am open to being with someone else, but again, it's a tiny school and my senior year, and I think I should be able to handle this on my own. Also, please don't suggest that I phase out our mutual friends (I like them!) or talk to/confront my ex (we've already had the exit interview).

Throwaway email: anon724 at gmail
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (12 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best thing for a broken heart is time. Since that's an ongoing project, the other thing that works is someone new. Don't necessarily get a new girlfriend, just someone new to have a little fun with. Or even to just obsess over. This will force the ex into a smaller part of your headspace, so she won't be able to mess you up as much.

Surely there's townies you can hook up with?
posted by notsnot at 7:53 AM on July 24, 2011


Meditation during non-stressful times can help make stress easier to cope with.

You can also write a self talk script for bedtime outlining for yourself that you will fall asleep easily, have pleasant dreams, and wake feeling rested and refreshed. That might stop the ex from popping up in dreamland.
posted by bilabial at 7:54 AM on July 24, 2011


"I've accepted that I likely won't be completely over my ex until after we both graduate."
So, you have actually decided that you will allow yourself to let go of this woman when you graduate. If another school year seems too long to live with this discomfort, decide something else. Although it may not feel like it right now, it is 100% up to you.
posted by txmon at 8:15 AM on July 24, 2011 [5 favorites]


What helped for me was moving on...and when I say moving on I don't just mean getting someone new. I mean concentrating on moving my life forward So the last bad breakup I made a list of everything I wanted to accomplish and the I spent all my waking time accomplishing those goals. I challenged myself to go on a certain number of dates, try a certain number of new activities, run a certain amount of miles, and soon my ex sort of faded into the background.
posted by bananafish at 8:29 AM on July 24, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's like I'm on autopilot, and all my brain can do is hope I don't say anything too stupid or betray my inner turmoil through body language. Usually I don't succeed and the memory stings for days

Not to be all proselytizing Buddhist here, but I'd suggest that your pain here comes from setting a standard you're not up to achieving and then punishing yourself for falling short. So why set that standard? Allow yourself to be challenged by it. Stop demanding of yourself that you be perfectly cool about it. If she or anyone else comments on it you shrug and say "enough stuff happened while we were dating that its tough for me to just pretend she's just any other person."

You don't have to be a jerk about it and lay blame or say anything beyond that. Just allowing yourself to be someone in the process of getting on with your life relieves you of this pressure to both do that AND pretend you're not doing that. You're human. Maybe you should have set this down before now - from the timeline I gather you split a year ago - but you work at the pace that's right for you.
posted by phearlez at 8:48 AM on July 24, 2011 [3 favorites]


Set aside some time. Close your eyes, picture her, practice looking at her. Practice her looking at you. Observe what you feel — don't try to squelch it, don't try to convert it. Just observe it. Observe what happens in your body, what happens next in your thoughts. Do this with slowness and care.

Your goal is to feel what you're feeling without letting it overwhelm you. You may try to hang all sorts of misbegotten feelings on top of your experience of her: Sentimentality, longing, weltschmerz, an apprehension of beauty (sigh). Feel those, too, but get a clear enough sight of them that you don't have to defer to them.

Practice this. Soon your response to her should become familiar to you, a routine you've encountered many times before. Then while it's happening in life you can say "this again."

I will tell you that quitting smoking — although I wish I'd never started in the first place — was a rigorous training course in self-awareness. My thoughts were full of indefensible bullshit, the stuff that kept me smoking. But the only way to be free from the bullshit was not to try to eliminate it but by looking at it intently, calmly, and in detail, just to see it clearly. Once I was able to accept it as part of my daily life, as a commonplace, I could opt to ignore it if I liked. I could stare at a cigarette, watch someone smoke — in a movie, even — and feel no attachment to my wish for a smoke. I would suggest something similar for you.
posted by argybarg at 9:23 AM on July 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


New things may help. Don't abandon any key support system, but try adding one or two new things that might really be up your alley.

As for seeing her, people have suggested ways to be present. Another option is to put yourself in "safe mode" around her. Mentally send away your more sensitive self to somewhere safe, and rely on your upbringing and your body to know how to behave in a calm, professional manner. This technique relies a lot on breathing and may leave you feeling like you're floating slightly above the situation. It is a bit fake, in that if you tapped into your feelings they would surely be a jumble, but it's only fake in a Fake It Till You Make It way, since you're actually trying to move into a mode where you feel calm and treat her with just politeness.
posted by salvia at 1:03 PM on July 24, 2011


What helped me with this was ritualizing it. I was torn up for months about a guy who'd dumped me, angry and sad, dreading every time his name would come up in conversation with mutual friends. And then one day I was at a museum with a lovely reflecting pool and I made my wish, and I actually meant it for the first time: "I want to be at peace with this." Not resentfully "over it," not dating someone new and hot who will Show Him, but just to accept that our thing was in the past and that I could acknowledge and even enjoy the memories without being pained. Tossed in my little coin and the chapter just closed.
posted by fingersandtoes at 1:11 PM on July 24, 2011 [1 favorite]


What tends to make the situations you describe (meeting/chatting to the other person, alone or with others) more awful is the feeling that everybody can read just how jumbled you are and how your heart beats faster... they don't. Even when someone is really wearing their hearts on their sleave (and most people don't), only very few people will notice there is something up - unless you DO things that are remarkable, like laugh way too much, or begin to shout, or ... you get the drift.

What can help you be more calm, and come across as calm and composed:

1. When you feel calm and composed - whilst reading a book, talking to a friend, your parents, whatever, try to take note of what the various parts of your body feel like. What does your face feel like when it is all relaxed? When you are at ease, what is the feeling from your side of the skin? How do your hands hang, if you're standing up, or how do they arrange themselves if you're sitting down? Basically, how does it feel when no muscle in your body is tense and everything just falls naturally? Try to take a mental note of this, and then, when you find yourself again in a situation with your ex - you bumping into her, her coming up to you in the library etc, make the effort to recompose the sensations you felt. Like: how do your eyes focus, wander around, fix ono things etc, what position do your lips have when you are mildly/politely interested or just relaxed, etc. This has three benefits: firstly, by knowing that you can recreate from inside out the impression of relaxation will take the pressure of "everybody noticing" off. Secondly, you learn to create a state in your body which will be in a positive loop with the state of your mind - you will BECOME more composed and less fluttery because your body is telling you that this is what is going on. And thirdly, you will be so absorbed in composing yourself that you will have less time to react to your ex's presence.

2. If you have time, find something absorbing and very satisfying to do. This can be reading up on a new topic or going deeper on one you are already familiar with, for instance, get someone to recommend you an accessible philosopher (unless you are studying philosophy) and read his works, or pick up the guitar, or take up physical exercising in earnest, for instance, you could go on a few really arduous hikes. I'd go with this latter - when you are working hard, physically, you have few resources to devote to other matters, such as grieving for an ex-girlfriend or being upset with her. That strange elation you get from hard-work-exhaustion lasts for quite a while, too. Also, you will probably see such incredible sights, that they will become a treasure in your heart that you will carry around for a long time, and which will be a trusted support during many difficult hours - now and in the future. In the face of beauty, your travails will no longer feel embarassing, petty, upsetting, they become poignant. And poignancy is a good and healing feeling - it honours your suffering and your failings, those of the other person, and allows you to grow from and through them.
Also, doing this, or any other challenging (but not impossible - you don't want to end up feeling incompetent!), horizon-enlarging, life-enriching activity will give you more stature in your eyes and those of others (it does actually show!). You will be able to look at your fears and your awkwardness and your anxiety without fear and awkwardness and anxiety.

3. When you meet your girlfriend and feel the fear and anxiety take over, imagine somebody else who it is OK to be fearful of. Imagine, for instance, that you are at an interview and are just about to meet your interviewer for the first time (this has the added bonus that it preps you for post-graduation interviews). Or she is one of the employees at the company you are applying to. Whatever. Do allow yourself to feel the pain once she is gone - I don't think it would be a good idea to entirely suppress it, this is just to handle face-to-face meetings.

4. When thoughts of her interfere with you when you are alone - let them pass muster in front of your mental eye, and then set about actively imagine a future life in which she plays no role for you. We know this is not now, but, let's say in five years, she will be a bit of a blip on your radar. What will you be doing in five years? What do you dream about doing? White-water rafting inthe Congo? Invent the cure for terrible disease? Travel the world? Meet interesting people and get involved in unthinkable exciting scenarios with them? Have good friends whom you regularly meet in a smoke-filled underlit bar? A smoke-free underlit bar? Dream it all out, and in detail, as though you were watching a film that has long camera takes for each scene. And then, when it gets most exciting and interesting, have her bumb into you and interfere with what is just going on. Do this as often as it takes.

I hope this helps. And good luck with your final year - hope you can muster all the concentration and work-power you need despite this.
posted by miorita at 1:50 PM on July 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


Please do not suggest finding another girlfriend

I know but, find another girlfriend, really.

It always works in your situation.
posted by mygoditsbob at 7:26 PM on July 24, 2011


Can you try to see her a bit less? Study in a new place, eat in a different room of the dining hall, hang out with people in your dorm if she lives somewhere else? If you surround yourself with friends in a new place, I think you will feel better and more confident; and who knows, if you encounter her, she may feel left out of the new connections you've forged while you enjoy yourself in the middle of them. Eventually worked for me in a somewhat similar situation.
posted by mlle valentine at 8:11 PM on July 24, 2011


you probably think you freak out when she's near because you can't get over her. she's not the issue. really its more like a physical reaction to fear (can't breath, anxious, cautious) of being walked all over.

you need another girlfriend just so that you can see that you can develop these feelings for other people. in love, you can't be afraid of being crapped on.
posted by skwint at 11:10 AM on August 25, 2011


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