Anyone else overreacted to a break-up?

[Venflon]

I've been stalking these forums for a while, never got around to registering until this thought creeped up my mind:

Well, basically, I'm 30 and I can say that I only had one real love in my life. It lasted about a year and a half, ended 3 years ago, and only now I've managed to come to terms with it.

After the break up, I went through a spiral of depression, substance abuse, isolation, sleepless nights with awakenings to dreams about her and it was basically pure hell for atleast 2 years. I barely managed to get through Uni.

I see my friends around me going through breakups from much longer relationships and I've never seen anyone take this long to bounce back.

In the beginning I just tried to keep it away from thought, telling myself I'm better off, but it just seemed to make it worse. After that I tried to make some logical conclusion of it, find some kind of closure, but it just sent me into a never-ending loop I couldn't get out of. Went through countless one-night stands, several long lasting relationships but none of it helped at all, even made it worse in some instances.

3 years in, I'm fine on a day to day basis but having seen her picture in an old album a couple of weeks ago brought back dreams about her the very same night. (I should really delete the last remnants but I just can't bring myself to it).

Anyway, my question to my fellow INTPs here, has something like this happened to you or am I just a pansy?
Is this because we supposedly don't have a spectrum for our emotions and it's just ON or OFF?
Is it just because it was a first love or is it likely to happen again? If so, have you found a way to deal with it better?

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Nothing about that is pansy
This is how it should be, in my opinion. Like Khalil gibran said, you learn the real depth of your affections at the hour of separation. People who move on quickly simply did not love.

 

[Venflon]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

I guess that's a very true statement.

However, according to psychology/psychiatry a normal bereavement reaction is defined as lasting up to 6 months...

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Fuck that, it takes however long it takes to move on

Finding a new object of affection ofcourse makes the process of bouncing back easier and quicker.
but otherwise, going through hell and yearning for years before finally moving on is totally normal if you were truly in love

 

[Cheeseumpuffs]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Anyway, my question to my fellow INTPs here, has something like this happened to you or am I just a pansy?

You're not a pansy. It happens.

It took me almost two years to get over a relationship that lasted a little longer than two months, and there are still echoes of it lingering in my head. I think it's normal, and I personally find it reassuring that I can affect and be affected by others to such a degree.

Is this because we supposedly don't have a spectrum for our emotions and it's just ON or OFF?

This is a way of looking at it. I know that I personally am very all-or-nothing with my emotions, so it's hard for me to disengage once I've decided I love someone.

Is it just because it was a first love or is it likely to happen again? If so, have you found a way to deal with it better?

I think the first love aspect definitely makes it more acute, as it's a brand new feeling that's very foreign to you, and thus it's harder to recognize and deal with. Moving forward it's very possible it could happen again, but I've found that dealing with it the first time makes one more mature and aware when handling similar situations.

The pain may be the same for later times - or maybe even worse - but your response to it (I've found) becomes healthier every time.

My main point being, it's okay to feel hurt and it's okay if the hurt lasts a lot longer than you'd like it to. It's a big wonderful, important, uncomfortable, beautiful part of life.

 

[Venflon]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Thank you both for the feedback, you've made some interesting points.

Cheeseumpuffs: I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind sharing, if that 2 months relationship you've mentioned stuck in your head perhaps because of mistakes you thought/think you've made?

Anyway, I do tend to agree with everything you both said, however, it doesn't really correlate with what I've seen/heard with my friends (None of whom are INTPs). So as I see it, either none of them really loved, or INTPs do handle this differently. Your thoughts?

 

[Grayman]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

The title gives the impression that someone died but your post indicates a breakup....

If they died it would be easier to empathize with you but if this is about a breakup then i would say that if you realy loved her and she is happy and doing well then you being upset isnt about your love for her and who she is but more about yourself and what you feel you need in life to be satisfied. Find satisfication in yourself and your own independence and you will eventually get over her.

 

[Venflon]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

The title gives the impression that someone died but your post indicates a breakup....

I agree, I could have worded it better, too late now though.

If they died it would be easier to empathize with you

I'm not looking for empathy and I am pretty much over her, I'm just trying to make sense of the whole experience, understand myself better, and make some conclusions to handle future events better.

but if this is about a breakup then i would say that if you realy loved her and she is happy and doing well then you being upset isnt about your love for her and who she is but more about yourself and what you feel you need in life to be satisfied.

Really? So in your eyes, real love has to be selfless to the point that you're happy that she's with someone else? It sounds incredibly nice and idealistic but it's hard for me to believe anyone can honestly be THAT selfless.

 

[Grayman]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Really? So in your eyes, real love has to be selfless to the point that you're happy that she's with someone else? It sounds incredibly nice and idealistic but it's hard for me to believe anyone can honestly be THAT selfless.

Ideals are goals so that we can be better people and have a better world. It is something you should work toward in a relationship in my opinion. No one expects perfection but they do expect that you move in that direction.

 

[Venflon]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Hmm... Well said.

 

[Ex-User (11125)]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Reducing the lamentation of loss to just "selfishness" seems like a facile and insincere attempt at rationalizing something so incrinate. Sure, I have trouble disputing what you said, but that's because the proposition is shallow as hell. you can rationalize emotions this way and attempt to reduce them to more basic elements but in doing so you are obliterating the complex delusions and metaphors that are an integral part of what emotions really are. Mourning loss is an amalgalm of many things and motivations, selfishness is only one of them

 

[Grayman]

Re: Anyone else overreacted incredibly when losing a loved one?

Reducing the lamentation of loss to just "selfishness" seems like a facile and insincere attempt at rationalizing something so incrinate. Sure, I have trouble disputing what you said, but that's because the proposition is shallow as hell. you can rationalize emotions this way and attempt to reduce them to more basic elements but in doing so you are obliterating the complex delusions and metaphors that are an integral part of what emotions really are. Mourning loss is an amalgalm of many things and motivations, selfishness is only one of them

Emotions are highly subjective and personal. I cannot possibly pass judgement on them or fully define them in their complexity. I can only offer him/her a perspective based on experience that has helped me to mold a sustainable, long term, and successful relationship. Perspective can slowly shape our emotions and as our emotions in turn shape our perspective. I offer a point of interjection. A new path for the rolling complexity of feeling to follow. A small thing but perhaps small things can grow.

If you don't like it then you can reject it. I am not here to convince you of my truth.

 

[Hadoblado]

I agree, I could have worded it better, too late now though.

Fixed.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Thanks for your replies in this thread @zerkalo, I found them helpful. Gotta love that Fi!

 

[Venflon]

Fixed.

Are you a wizard???!!!

 

[The Gopher]

Are you a wizard???!!!

Yes Hado is our resident wizard.

Also to answer the OP no. Admittedly I've been the breaker however I can't imagine being socially unaware enough to not realize a breakup is coming. If someone wants a boyfriend for a month feel free to breakup with me.

 

[Jennywocky]

My second relationship only lasted about 2-3 months and I was the one dumped. It took me about three years to get over it; it was exacerbated by the fact my ex wanted to still be friends but kept giving me mixed messaging, so I could never really heal from it. I eventually found someone else and moved on, and then ex seemed devastated (hey, whatever).

It's oversimplified to see a residual pain as some kind of selfishness. Everyone is different, every situation is a bit different. Sure, it can be selfish if you are not willing to let someone else go who is happy with someone else and so you are actively inserting yourself and undermining their relationship; but it's also just part of the debris left in a breakup. If you are just struggling to move on, then that's just part of real life. Pain lasts however long it lasts. It takes time to accept that something is over and so on through the five stages of grief (which can't be taken verbatim but are useful to generally look at how you are reacting to loss).

As far as other relationships, it's all different. yOu might have a different experience later on with other people. I was the dumper in my first relationship and moved on as far as the emotions but what lasted longer was the anger at myself at having compromised my rational ideals when I had been in the throes of love and not being able to uphold my promise to "love someone forever." (Yeah, I was 16.) Like others have said, when you have a first serious relationship, you have nothing to compare it to and no tools via which to explain what you are feeling or help you work through it -- it's all new ground.

When my marriage ended, it was over a far longer period of time, we both worked towards over a few years once it was decided, and the only thing that upset me later was when our continuing friendship got jettisoned from the other side. So it's all different kinds of stuff that can hurt, depending on the relationship.

 

[Happy]

I have to agree with the other posters and say you're not a pansy. These things are experienced differently by all people, and I've known people who have moved on in a week and others that have taken years to move on.

No need to beat yourself up, as long as you're at least trying to make progress. If not, perhaps the pain you're still going through is a sign that you need to make a more concerted effort to move on and occupy your emotional bandwidth in other ways, whether moving on with another partner or learning to be more in touch with yourself.

On another note:

I see my friends around me going through breakups from much longer relationships and I've never seen anyone take this long to bounce back.

The key thing here is that you've never 'seen' anyone take this long. This was a realisation I encountered when one of my good friends went through a breakup, and I remarked some time later how I'd noticed his lack of emotional fragility during the period. His response was that he was in a living hell for a long time and still was, but he never showed his emotions. Since then I've realised this is true of most people.

 

[EditorOne]

Could be it hits INTP personalities harder because we have fewer and deeper relationships. You're not alone. I went through the same thing as a teenager, lacking any self-awareness of INTPness and without any input that would have "normalized" what happened. Went through the whole self-destructive thing, and the whole episode made me leery of such relationships for a long, long time. Just too much potential for pain. That wasn't healthy either.

Looking back, it's one of those times when I wish there had been this forum, but of course there were no personal computers at the time, let alone a Web. Technology has opened a lot of good doors.