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11 hours ago, Jason said:

 

I know it's been less than a week but ugh, it feels like it's been a lot longer than that because of what a rollercoaster my emotions have been. :/ I'm not completely overwhelmed like I was on Thursday, and I'm not TOTALLY dead like I was when I woke up on Friday, but I still feel numb and listless a lot of the time, and still feel like I'm forcing myself to eat a lot of the time. And again, I know it objectively hasn't been a very long time and that it's therefore not shocking to not be over it yet, but on top of still not being able to get how things went down out of my head, it feels like this sense of everything just dragging is creating this feedback loop of feeling like I can't stop feeling miserable that in turn is making me feel even more miserable.

Eh, you feel how you feel, man, and I don't think there's a right or a wrong time frame. It sounds like it really bothered you how things went down, and that's perfectly understandable; it's perfectly normal to be upset! That would have really upset me, too! To make sure I understand it more fully though, what specifically bothers you about the situation? 

 

Personally I think you should give yourself permission to grieve the loss, without adding extra guilt or other expectations on to yourself. Give yourself some time and have some patience and understanding with yourself. It'll get better! :hug:

 

 

37 minutes ago, marioandsonic said:

I should really get into the dating scene.  I'm so lonely.

 

But I just can't.  I have a huge fear of rejection.  Not to mention pretty much zero confidence and self-esteem.

Where did this fear of rejection come from? Is it only for romantic partners, or even with possible friends?

 

Maybe it's a good idea to work on the confidence and self-esteem, while at the same time getting involved in something that gets you some contacts with people? I noticed that I needed to work on my own self-esteem after several incidents in the last couple years, and after getting cheated on last week, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I realized now was finally the time to fly solo and work on myself for a while. I bought the following books which might be of interest to you, too:

 

Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David D. Burns, M.D.  - I read two of his other books (Feeling Good and Feeling Good Together) which were tremendously helpful in getting me out of a funk in the past.

Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay, PhD. - This one was on a list of the top self-esteem books I found so it's a bit of an experiment. 

What A Time To Be Alone by Chidera Eggerue - This one was also on the list of best self-esteem books and seems to be a lot less "clinical" than the other two. 

 

The books just arrived at my place yesterday so I haven't started them yet, but maybe something like that would help you, too? I'm not a therapist and I don't even play one on TV :p but hopefully these books could at least be useful. 

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3 hours ago, Jose said:

Sorry to hear about your breakup Jason. I have been on your end of this situation so many times in my life. Hell, the night I met my wife I decided I needed to eat tacos at 5am because I had gone with my cousin and his girlfriend to some club, spent $100, and looked like a nerd that can't dance to the girls his girlfriend had brought to the club. But guess who passed by my favorite taco joint on 23rd street at 5am with her friends? My wife.

 

Don't second-guess yourself over dumb stuff like why didnt you send the "How's your day" texts. It's pointless and for all you know, the next girl you'll date won't be into that. 

 

2 hours ago, Nokra said:

Eh, you feel how you feel, man, and I don't think there's a right or a wrong time frame. It sounds like it really bothered you how things went down, and that's perfectly understandable; it's perfectly normal to be upset! That would have really upset me, too! To make sure I understand it more fully though, what specifically bothers you about the situation? 

 

Personally I think you should give yourself permission to grieve the loss, without adding extra guilt or other expectations on to yourself. Give yourself some time and have some patience and understanding with yourself. It'll get better! :hug:

 

What bothers me boils down to the fact that I'm pretty sure we actually wanted the same thing out of the relationship—for it to get more serious—and just weren't communicating it properly to each other. When we spoke it sounded like we'd even been having similar concerns about the relationship. I was holding back on some things I wanted to say to her because I was worrying about overwhelming her and scaring her off, but from what she said I think I probably actually held back too much, making her think this wasn't going anywhere serious. 


For example, she said she felt like never talking about our families was a reason she felt like our conversations were staying superficial. But I actually had been thinking more than once about how things were moving along in a way where I'd introduce her to my parents when they come to visit me in August. I didn't bring this up with her when I'd have the thought because I was thinking that maybe that's moving way too fast to bring that up after just a month or two. Whereas it sounds like that she probably would have actually been happy I already felt that way. 

 

Now, I think a huge reason I couldn't get a good read on whether I should bring that thing about my parents up is that I'd been wanting to have a conversation with her about "are we exclusive" but kept feeling like I couldn't find a good moment to have that talk, so I felt like skipping directly to talking about meeting my parents was maybe jumping the gun. I'd been planning on bringing this up the night she mentioned being busy for a couple of days because of a guy friend staying at her place for a couple of nights. I didn't realize the guy was gay so I didn't initiate the conversation I'd intended to because I was worried that asking her "are we exclusive" RIGHT after she mentioned her guy friend staying with her was going to come off as insecure, or implicitly accusing her of planning to fuck him, or something else that amounted to making her think I didn't trust her. Then I kept punting on having the conversation because as more time went on I figured it was less necessary ("why would we still be doing this if we weren't exclusive?"), but like I said, in hindsight I feel like not having had the "are we exclusive" conversation made it so I was having a hard time gauging whether to bring up other things. I also suspect that having the conversation would have given her an opening to express her doubts/concerns before they reached a boiling point. 

 

Another one is that I did have a couple of times I wanted to ask why we were still only seeing each other a couple of times a week, but I didn't want to come off as trying to force her to choose between me and her friends. I think I would have been more comfortable bringing this up if we'd had the "are we exclusive" conversation I kept punting on, but I think this one also wouldn't have happened in the first place if we'd had that conversation, because she would have started making more time if she'd felt like the relationship was going somewhere more serious. Meanwhile it sounds like she would have taken this as an indication I agreed on wanting something serious, she said she didn't see the point in making more time if it wasn't something that would get more serious. So this is what I meant with little communication problems self-perpetuating and snowballing into bigger problems. 

 

The "how's your day" text messages might have helped and it sounds like that was one thing she was missing, but I'm not sure it was a HUGE thing that was missing for her, I think feeling like our conversations were mostly superficial was the real problem. I brought up the texts more as an example of how it's the sort of thing that's so easy to meet someone in the middle on that it's stupid that it festered as an undiscussed problem. 

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2 hours ago, marioandsonic said:

I should really get into the dating scene.  I'm so lonely.

 

But I just can't.  I have a huge fear of rejection.  Not to mention pretty much zero confidence and self-esteem.

 

 

Focus on working on yourself and it will come. Getting your job situation improved and getting your own place is a big step. You'll soon feel a lot better about yourself. I didn't move out of my dads house until I was 30, so I know what it's like to be a late bloomer. Also hit the gym to help build up that self confidence. 

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11 hours ago, Jason said:

@sblfilms why confused as your reaction? 

My bad, sad face intended. Your experience reminds me of how my wife was before she got on anxiety and depression meds. They really helped her a lot, mostly with avoiding the out of control death spiral of negative thoughts.

 

Have you ever talked with a doctor about how you feel?

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2 hours ago, Nokra said:

Where did this fear of rejection come from? Is it only for romantic partners, or even with possible friends?

 

Maybe it's a good idea to work on the confidence and self-esteem, while at the same time getting involved in something that gets you some contacts with people? I noticed that I needed to work on my own self-esteem after several incidents in the last couple years, and after getting cheated on last week, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I realized now was finally the time to fly solo and work on myself for a while. I bought the following books which might be of interest to you, too:

Not just for romance, but for friends, family, coworkers...basically everyone.

 

The biggest reason is due to a failure of a job offer I got back in September of 2016.  I left my old job as I was hired to be a software engineer somewhere else.  The promise of higher pay, better health insurance, the ability to move out, and so on where all just too tempting.  When I was hired, I was told that I was to shadow one of their head engineers to start with and learn the ropes.  But as soon as I was brought on board, they told me that they wanted me to help set up their new office building that they were moving into, and they assured me it would only be temporary.

 

For the next two and a half weeks, I spent the time there doing things like setting up cables in wall outlets, running cables through the ceiling, cleaning a vacuum cleaner and vacuuming up the area, and changing ceiling lights.  All thing that I had little to no experience with, and was not hired for. Then, in the middle of the third week, they told me I was being let go because they didn't think I was a good fit.

 

I spent the next few month languishing in unemployment, only able to get a holiday shift at a Best Buy.  It was absolutely miserable, and it wasn't until February that my old job was able to take me back.

 

Its because of that, that I was extremely reluctant to even take this current position, as I figured it was just good to be a repeat of what happened before.  And while it has worked out so far, I keep expecting every day to be last, for my manager to just pull me aside one day and tell me I'm out.  And thats despite that everyone has told me they're impressed and happy with how I'm doing.

 

30 minutes ago, Dodger said:

Focus on working on yourself and it will come. Getting your job situation improved and getting your own place is a big step. You'll soon feel a lot better about yourself. I didn't move out of my dads house until I was 30, so I know what it's like to be a late bloomer. Also hit the gym to help build up that self confidence. 

This is another problem.  I was making great strides with my weight loss over the past couple years, but then this new job happened, which meant a new schedule, new location, new gym, new everything.  As a result, I've now gained 30 pounds since this job started, and I absolutely hate myself for it.

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35 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

My bad, sad face intended. Your experience reminds me of how my wife was before she got on anxiety and depression meds. They really helped her a lot, mostly with avoiding the out of control death spiral of negative thoughts.

 

Have you ever talked with a doctor about how you feel?

 

I've had those out of control death spiral of negative thoughts when a girl ended things and the thing that becomes so clear looking back is that the issue had 0 to do with the girl in question. 

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I've been there man. Things got so bad that I was almost 30 applying to Mcdonalds, Carls Jr and Chipotle before I lucked out and got a decent job back in the insurance industry. Well decent is a stretch I was making $12 an hour but I thank the lord I don't believe in everyday I didn't get stuck working in fast food at 30. Actually I'll never forget it because it was election day 2012. I woke up and and voted for Obama, got a call for an interview that day. So I went and interviewed and was offered the job and started the next day. It's always darkest just before dawn and all of that. Just hang in there man, sounds like you're doing great at the new job.

 

I've had similar experiences, shit I've been fired without anyone ever bothering to tell me I was fired. Almost like Milton from Office Space. So I too had that self doubt every day that this was it, this is the day I lose my job and I'm back looking for a shitty retail job just to have some money to eat and put gas in my car. Things eventually got better for me and it sounds like they are getting better for you. Hmmm maybe I should stop dicking around the internet and get to work. 

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7 minutes ago, Jose said:

 

I've had those out of control death spiral of negative thoughts when a girl ended things and the thing that becomes so clear looking back is that the issue had 0 to do with the girl in question. 

 

Part of it, I think, is that I went into the phone call with her assuming she was totally decided. If I'd have known she wasn't totally 100% on her decision I'd have probably taken her up on the offer to meet in person. Plus I think a day after her text was just too soon for me to be totally clear headed talking to her, but like I said, I was afraid I'd drive myself even crazier than I would have been if I didn't talk to her. 

 

I got thrown for a loop when she said she wasn't sure if she'd made the right decision and because of how emotionally burnt out I was by the end of the day I couldn't manage to completely switch my train of thought from my initial assumption it was over. So that colored how I went into it right off the bat, and about halfway through the conversation I found myself starting to give up on trying to get her to understand why I disagreed with her assessment of our compatibility and just agree with her that we should end it because I had to say SOMETHING. I was out of steam on trying to figure out if she didn't actually want to be convinced or if I wasn't getting my side across properly or what, plus I felt like I'd dug a hole with how I'd entered the conversation that I couldn't figure out how to get back out of. I know that doesn't completely make sense as a reason for why I started verbally agreeing with her but I wasn't exactly thinking 100% straight either. This is the part of the conversation I'm ESPECIALLY kicking myself over. 

 

Now that I've had time to articulate to myself what I wish I'd said to her but couldn't articulate in the moment I'm kind of thinking about calling her one more time. I think the negative death spiral is 50% because I'm upset I'm losing her when I feel like we both like each other and it's all just mutual misunderstanding with no actual disagreement, and 50% because I'm just still kicking myself for dropping the ball during our last conversation. 

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1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

My bad, sad face intended. Your experience reminds me of how my wife was before she got on anxiety and depression meds. They really helped her a lot, mostly with avoiding the out of control death spiral of negative thoughts.

 

Have you ever talked with a doctor about how you feel?

 

I went out Friday and Saturday night to try to distract myself. It worked in the moment but I think I exacerbated my feelings by being hung over and sleep deprived (I was still exhausted yesterday). 

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I've been getting more into disability advocacy, mostly talking to young SMA adults and parents of newly diagnosed kids (who think their kid is broken), and jesus the level of bad choices on the part of medical professionals and families is mind blowing. I just got done talking to a 16 year old who's not doing Spinraza in hopes of getting into a Gene Therapy trial (which might not happen) and his doctor said to get Spinraza he'd need surgery to place a port (which have been a disaster because of infections and spinal fluid leaks) because the radiation from a CT scanner is too risky. That is MIND BLOWING stupidity.

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5 hours ago, Firewithin said:

if @Jason wasnt all the way up in freaking santa monica id buy him a beer

 

Thanks dude. I wound up calling her tonight and leaving her a voicemail and got a text back 15 minutes later (she said she was at a work dinner and ran to the bathroom to listen to the voicemail so fair enough on the text reply) about talking in person on Saturday. So still no real resolution or guarantees or anything but I think if nothing else it'll be good for me to be able to talk to her about this while my head isn't spinning and I'm not trying to process everything on the spot. 

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@Jason I'm glad that you're getting to talk to her on Saturday. Whatever happens, talking about it with her honestly and openly will almost certainly give you more peace than you've got now. I really wish that for you. :)I don't have a lot of words of wisdom because it's hard to know what all of the factors involved are, but I really hope that it works out for you. If you can talk about it and not take it too seriously or personally, I think that's a great sign. Hopefully all it takes is just a quick conversation about what happened and where you'd like it to go and then you're all set. :thumbup: 

 

On 4/30/2019 at 6:08 PM, marioandsonic said:
 

 


Not just for romance, but for friends, family, coworkers...basically everyone.

 

The biggest reason is due to a failure of a job offer I got back in September of 2016.  I left my old job as I was hired to be a software engineer somewhere else.  The promise of higher pay, better health insurance, the ability to move out, and so on where all just too tempting.  When I was hired, I was told that I was to shadow one of their head engineers to start with and learn the ropes.  But as soon as I was brought on board, they told me that they wanted me to help set up their new office building that they were moving into, and they assured me it would only be temporary.

 

For the next two and a half weeks, I spent the time there doing things like setting up cables in wall outlets, running cables through the ceiling, cleaning a vacuum cleaner and vacuuming up the area, and changing ceiling lights.  All thing that I had little to no experience with, and was not hired for. Then, in the middle of the third week, they told me I was being let go because they didn't think I was a good fit.

 

I spent the next few month languishing in unemployment, only able to get a holiday shift at a Best Buy.  It was absolutely miserable, and it wasn't until February that my old job was able to take me back.

 

Its because of that, that I was extremely reluctant to even take this current position, as I figured it was just good to be a repeat of what happened before.  And while it has worked out so far, I keep expecting every day to be last, for my manager to just pull me aside one day and tell me I'm out.  And thats despite that everyone has told me they're impressed and happy with how I'm doing.

 

This is another problem.  I was making great strides with my weight loss over the past couple years, but then this new job happened, which meant a new schedule, new location, new gym, new everything.  As a result, I've now gained 30 pounds since this job started, and I absolutely hate myself for it.
 

 

That sounds terrible, man, I'm sorry you went through that. Have these feelings gotten any better since then? Have you been actively working on improving it? And have you ever considered talking to a professional about it? Therapy is tremendously helpful, and a few sessions could do you a world of good if you're not feeling like you're getting clear of it on your own. I've found even just a couple times with someone was tremendously helpful in getting a different perspective, which in turn was very helpful in getting out of ruminative cycles and anxiety. But of course they're there for any number of issues. :) 

 

 

For myself, a week after learning that the girl "cheated" on me, I feel like I'm in a much better place, though still hurting. I'm less sad and I can take it a lot less personally now, though I still don't like that this is the third time this has happened to me. I think it's time to focus on myself for a while. 

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7 hours ago, Nokra said:

 I'm glad that you're getting to talk to her on Saturday. Whatever happens, talking about it with her honestly and openly will almost certainly give you more peace than you've got now. I really wish that for you. :)I don't have a lot of words of wisdom because it's hard to know what all of the factors involved are, but I really hope that it works out for you. If you can talk about it and not take it too seriously or personally, I think that's a great sign. Hopefully all it takes is just a quick conversation about what happened and where you'd like it to go and then you're all set. :thumbup: 

 

Thanks Nokra. I guess we'll see if I'm singing the same tune on Saturday if the conversation ends with us still not getting back together, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about it a lot Saturday morning before seeing her, but right now at least I'm feeling a lot better about it. Like, just in the sense of feeling more zen about it either way it goes, and being able to do a better job of putting it out of my immediate thoughts, since at least I'll get to take a crack at this while I'm on a more even keel.

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8 hours ago, Nokra said:

How did it go, @Jason

 

It didn't feel quite like the unmitigated success I was hoping for but we agreed to give it another shot with communicating better, and then went back to her place to keep talking and have sex, so mostly positive I guess. I'm still processing some of what we spoke about...one thing she said is that she had taken some things as indicating that we were just in a casual fun relationship earlier than I'd previously realized we'd gotten disconnected on that point on, so on my end it giving it another shot means having to recalibrate my sense of where exactly we're resuming things from. I'll also say that she said that she had just gotten out of a year-long relationship when we met, and she said she stayed in that relationship for a few months past when she was already feeling like it probably wasn't going anywhere, so not that I can really do much with that information but it does at least gave me some perspective on her concerns.

 

And we seriously continue to have the worst fucking timing. When we met she was about to go on a vacation with some friends to Mexico for a week. Now she's really busy at work this week and next week, her parents are coming into town on Friday for two weeks and the three of them are going to Arizona for a few days at some point in that, and then I think basically right as her parents go back to France I'm going out of town for Memorial Day weekend (but get back that Sunday night at least so hoping we can salvage the weekend with Memorial Day itself).

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Also running off her previous relationship, not sure if I mentioned it previously, but she's 34 (I'm 30) and when we spoke on the phone a week ago she was pretty clear that her concern about not wanting to fuck around with dead-end relationships is also being driven by her age and not just how her previous relationship went.

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On 4/25/2019 at 8:59 PM, Jason said:

she sends a second text that was longer than this but can be summed up as, "So I was gonna talk about this tomorrow, but I don't see that there's the spark for this becoming something more serious." 

 

Talk about whiplash. :/

 

https://markmanson.net/fuck-yes

 

Hate to drop pop psychology on you in a trying time, but this article has helped steer me through some rocky moments in my relationship history.

 

When it's the right person, it won't be this hard.

 

If she doesn't feel "fuck yes" for you very soon, I say rip this band-aid off and quit wasting time with someone who isn't going to end up being The Real Thing.

 

I pushed the decaying husk of a doomed relationship forward for a year or more, trying to convince both of us that it would work. Wish someone had slapped me in the face before I wasted all that time. Pull the rip cord, and let time heal the wound. Hit the gym, embrace a hobby, go for a hike, call an old friend. Put one foot in front of the other until you look up and forget what it was you were so upset about. Best of luck, amigo.

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@Jason Well congrats on the sex at least. :lol:

 

As @Scott seems to have implied, it does kind of sound like she's not that in to it, or is at the least kind of playing it safe and restrained. I'd say, see how it goes now that you've had some open communication, and if it doesn't seem like you're on equal footing after a short time, it's probably best to leave it. That kind of imbalance rarely seems to play out well. But who knows, now that you've talked, maybe you'll be more on the same page now. 

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Whelp, it's over again. My thoughts are still swirling around a little bit on some of the what-ifs, like what if we hadn't been trying to give it a second shot right during three weeks where her schedule is legitimately slammed (busiest period at work this past week and the next one-two weeks, plus parents in town for two weeks starting tomorrow)...I know it probably wouldn't actually matter. Let's say this really is about the shitty timing. What does it say about how things would go if she's willing to pull the plug over needing to get through another couple of busy weeks? But it's still hard to let go of, partially because it doesn't completely feel like a real second shot. 

 

Worst part though is still definitely going to be the impossibility of putting motherfucking AMAZON (where she works) out of your thoughts. 

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7 hours ago, Jason said:

The more I think about it, the more it seems like some kind of lulzy meta-accomplishment to get dumped by the same girl twice in two weeks.

Achievement unlocked! 

 

The Number 2A girl goes doodoo on your heart twice in two weeks! 

 

But seriously, sorry to hear about the pain you're experiencing. No matter what, breakups suck. :(

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3 hours ago, Nokra said:

Achievement unlocked! 

 

The Number 2A girl goes doodoo on your heart twice in two weeks! 

 

But seriously, sorry to hear about the pain you're experiencing. No matter what, breakups suck. :(

 

I think at this point I'm mostly just frustrated that it doesn't feel like we gave it a real second shot. Because since my last post we've only seen each other when we agreed to give a second shot a week ago and then went inside to keep talking and have sex, Thursday for a couple of hours, and yesterday when she broke up with me again. That's it.

 

Also, in addition to the Amazon thing, she lives half a mile from my office, which I live 1.5 miles from. So there's not much physical distance there, which would be helpful since my memory tends to attach a lot of importance to places. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I wound up at one of the bars we went on on our first date and I couldn't help myself on going out to the back patio and staring at the couch we wound up making out on on the first date, envisioning it. Stuff like just driving by the turn-off to her street is the kind of thing that triggers similar recall for me.

 

But while I'm sad about it and I can't completely put it out of my thoughts, so far it seems like I'm not really an emotional wreck like I was a couple of weeks ago. Like right now I'm hung over but I was able to get up and make myself breakfast, whereas two Saturdays ago I was hung over and didn't even want to get out of bed.

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