Letters to the Editor
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Freethinker44 has the right approach
I think I dated the LW in high school.
Freethinker44 has the right suggestion. Think about other people. It isn't always "about you."
I would also suggest getting out into nature, doing some hiking, visiting some national parks and taking in the glory of the physical world. You don't need to bring along any friends or accomplices to do it-- just go in solitude, find a nice spot to and breath in the infinite beauty.
And stick with the therapy. I hope you find your happiness.
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The Monster is fed by Distance and Online Communication
Cary's advice is okay, but he overlooks a key element: this happened with an online, long distance relationship.
Online communication can be a major amplifier of all our worst tendencies.
It's mostly text and it's far harder to read intent and tone. You are reacting in complete isolation from the other person. This leaves you free to assume and say things you'd wouldn't in person or even on the phone (which can also create misunderstandings). Misunderstanding are a big risk, especially when you are upset.
Text is also a physical record. A freakout which exists in memory and gossip can still damn you, but can be healed with apologies and actions and the fading of time. A documented freakout can be worse as it's a record against any attempt to fix it.
Plus nothing can make ordinary desperation seem insane than multiple voicemale messages, emails, IMs, etc.
Which brings me to the other issue - a long distance relationship is a social monster trap. It's mostly absence and risks a variety of distortions, fantasies and excess emotions. Yes, some work in various ways, but many implode due to a lack of physical context.
Again what might seem like ordinary rancor in person can become something terrible when the participants are semi-strangers remote from each other.
Plus if you are getting older, are temperamental and have a stressful worklife, it is very easy to overinvest in a relatiohnsip with someone who isn't there. For needy people it's often easier to have a healthy perspective when you see the objects of your anxiety in the flesh.
So yes, you probably did act like a monster and need to work on that, but realize the situation probably made you seem and feel more monstrous than you are.
In the future, date people who live where you do and, more importantly, keep you online behavior under tight restraint. You'll be amazed at how much more sane you feel.
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That narcissism's a killer
When I catch my inner arsehole gaining too much traction for healthy social interaction, I always think about the time I tried to explain eating disorders to a young Javanese woman I met on a bus ride through Sumatra. She was a shit-poor rice farmer, funny as hell, kind and generous, sarcastic and cynical and flirtatious in a gentle, almost heartbreaking, way that sort of defines Indonesians -- probably comes from living under the same dictator for two generations.
Anyway, I'm trying to explain how all these well-off white chicks are starving and puking themselves to death back home, and she's just not getting it, laughing at me, calling me a bullshitter. I can't make her believe. This girl -- who, when she eats, eats healthily but lives hungry most of the time -- can't get her head around the notion of self-obsession. Her worries are soley about her family -- whether they had enough food, whether they were healthy, whether they could pay for their school uniforms and books and bus fare, etc. Indeed, the only selfish Indonesians I ever met were rich Westernized ones.
I guess when you think about how to make your friends' and family's time on earth more satisfactory, you end up, by default, a happier camper whose neuroses have no opportunity to infect your social life.
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Be cool
I think you must have been worse than you make yourself sound to get everyone to freeze you out. But, it is likely that causing the girl to dump you, and then dump you again online made her tell everyone what a loser you are, and they don't want to have anything to do with a loser. I just think you had to be more than "needy" for this to happen - you must have said mean things or acted a little scary.
Regardless, you just have to stop pressing. No one likes needy, pushy people in their lives. It's a turn off, and people can spot losers a mile away and want to distance themselves. That's an aspect of high school that people don't grow out of - no one wants to be stuck in the loser group. I know it sounds cliche, but you just have to be cool. Find something that calms you down and allows you to step back and be cool when you start feeling needy and pressing. If you can't stop yourself, then you need medical intervention.
You'll have to find new friends, and you will. A new job, new activity, something like that will come along and carry you to a new social group. When that happens, don't force it, and don't press. Let relationships develop naturally, be friendly and giving without desperation and without demanding anything, including attention, in return, and you will make lasting friendships and date wonderful women. Just be cool.
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Bravo
Great response from Cary.... Great, GREAT, GREAT response. Really lovely. Just stick with that, LW.
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I married this guy
Okay, maybe not this guy, but a guy just like this guy. Just reading his letter was enough to send me into a panic attack. A decade later, I can still feel the intensity of his need, how he would have been perfectly happy to completely destroy me if only it meant I would stay with him every minute of every day, protecting him from the horrible fate of having to spend a few moments alone with his thoughts. I know I should have some sympathy for the letter-writer, because he's writing a letter, he's asking for help, he wants to change! But I'm suspicious. I remember all the times I heard about the changes that were coming. And the drama of the letter itself - he has a monster in him! A monster!!! Not - I wrote her thirteen emails in one day and she must have felt terribly exhausted and pressured. Not the simple facts. Not what the other person must have felt. Just more drama - my monster! Ugh! Pathetic! I'm awful! I'm out of control!
My ex found himself losing friends in his thirties, and I suspect that has to do with people's willingness to invest time and energy in a draining emotional relationship at that stage of their lives. In the twenties it's one thing - the drama can be exciting. In the thirties, it's just not worth the work. And unfortunately, there's not much you can do if people have learned that this is how you are, how you handle things. They may come back around, they may not.
My best friend had also been a close friend of my ex, and they remained close after our breakup. She died two years ago, and while she was in the hospital, I asked if she wanted to see him (he had sent flowers and notes). She said she couldn't handle him at that point. I know he loved her very much, and I know it hurt him to be kept away when he was desperate to see her again before she died. But he had spent a lifetime focusing on himself instead of others, playing up drama instead of trying to achieve calm and balance, giving in to every passing emotion instead of nurturing detachment. And as a result, he was not the sort of person you want around while you're dying. I don't have advice really, except that you need to consider who you want to be.