< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

I feel kinda silly but here goes. I need help. Not just with my recent breakup (about a month ago), but basically with every breakup I have had over the course of my lifetime. I'm almost 30 and still can't seem to get the hang of the whole dating game.

First of all, I am an oversensitive person. I get hurt and my whole world collapses around me. My appetite goes, I can't sleep, I lose weight, become totally withdrawn, and don't want to do ANYTHING. I just sit and mope and go over all of the mistakes I have ever made in my life. Almost as if I want to feel worse. This I don't understand.

This is where I am at the moment. I know from past experience that this will last anywhere from six months to a year (sometimes more). This explains why I am so skinny (110 pounds, 6').

The length of the relationship does not seem to affect the amount of time that I am in this depression. Whether we were dating for a month or 7 years--I still feel the same amount of pain (incredible pain), anger, depression, and all the other symptoms that I have listed.

This has made me very careful about going into relationships, as you can well understand. I make friends first and won't make a move until I am almost 100 % sure that there won't be a breakup. (Obviously this hasn't worked.) Then, while in the relationship--even though I can see that it is going to lead to a breakup, I will do my best to keep things going. Often for months at a time--even though I am not happy anymore I will pretend everything is fine--just to not have to go through a breakup.

Then eventually when it inevitably boils over and I breakup with her, I feel totally shattered and be back the next day (sometimes sooner) begging for forgiveness and asking her to take me back with all kinds of promises that "this time" things will be different.

After a few times of this (and probably almost a year later), she will eventually get fed up with this (as she has a right to be) and not take me back. Then, of course, I am adamant to have her back and will stop at nothing to achieve that--just to fall into the same cycle again.

I think of myself as a fairly attractive guy, financially secure, good manners, neat, and a good sense of humor. I get a fair amount of attention from women, so it is not out of desperation that I try to keep these relationships going.

I have been to see a therapist about this, but I could not get help there. The things she suggested sounded pathetic ("get yourself a hobby") and after about 6 or so visits I declared myself cured for the therapist's sake and got the heck outta there.

Then I went to see a doctor and now I am on antidepressants. I have been taking these religiously for the past 2 months and although they have given me a better sense of self being, they have done nothing towards my oversensitivity. As a matter of fact, I think this time I feel even worse. I have a constant knot in my stomach/chest which will worsen when I see her. If I speak to hear it gets even worse--to the point where I will get pins-n-needles in my upper chest and both my arms. I will tremble and start getting nauseous and dizzy with my heartbeat getting very heavy.

I have been to a doctor to have my heart checked out, but everything is physically fine with me. This, of course, I absolutely hate. Thoughts of suicide will run through my head when I am alone at night. Not that I would ever go through with that, but I use it as kind of a fantasy--this seems to ease my pain. (Weird.)

Now onto why I break up with them. It seems that the same things that I found so desirable in the beginning of the relationship (or friendship) slowly turn into the very things that start irritating me.

Her outgoing, spontaneous manner that I loved so much soon turns into an irritation because she never wants to just stay at home and relax together. Or her cute little laugh that used to give me a complete warm feeling of love grinds on my nerves after a couple of months. It seems that the more I loved the characteristic, the more it irritates me later on.

This leads me to believe that I will never be able to have a successful relationship and be single my whole life. This is unfortunately not the way I want to go. I want to have a successful relationship; I want to be able to get married one day; I want to have a family. So what do I do?

--Derick

Derick, my man,

Your height/weight -- are you sure that's not a typo? The word on the street is that even a small-framed person should, at 6', weigh at least in the 150s. Wow, Derick, wow. I weigh more than you do and am pretty fit, and I'm short enough to be your mother.

It doesn't take a medical doctor, or even a feelings doctor, to see that as far as your Derickish figure is concerned, there's something unhealthy, psychosomatic -- and vicious-circular -- going on; but since my advanced degree is in the humanities, allow me to throw in a literary reading for good measure. Bingeing on angst: it spoils your dinner. You feel bad, and you feel weak, and then you don't eat. And then you feel bad, and then you feel weak. There's the circle; there's the "dizzy." You've lost your appetite for fuel, nourishment, strength, sensual yum, the buzz of caffeine, the high of sugar, the comfort of comfort food, the flavor of feeding your body. Of making it and your mind work best. Of weighing your feet down on the ground. Of making yourself take up space. It's as if when you turn aside, you vanish. Which is the point, yes?

And now over to our very own feelings doctor, Belleruth. "Sounds like you a big-league loss in your life at an early age. Your mother? Probably. Or the caregiver who loved you. Your consistent, over-the-top, deep pining reaction to these breakups, regardless of who, when, how, why, speaks to something earlier and much more devastating; this is what gets kicked loose every time a relationship ends, and this is why you're afraid of relationships and why you sabotage them. (Really, who wouldn't be?). You, my dear, need therapy, but not the "get a hobby" kind. That's counseling. I suggest deep dish, individual, twice-a-week, wring-out-your-kishkes head-shrinking -- the nice old fashioned, psychodynamic kind. And it would be even better if you could be in a group situation at the same time. You can can can fix this, but it will take some real work."

As in, you have to want to do it. As in, you have to hunger for it. The pangs are in your last paragraph. Now go eat.

Love,
BR and BG

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >