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Hi, I\'ve replied to a few other posts and thought I should take the time to explain my own situation.  This coming September I will enter my senior year of college.  Toward the end of my freshman year of college, I met my ex, who was like a dream come true.  We hit it off really well, but he had cold feet about dating someone that wasn\'t right by (I live outside of the city, he lives in new york city).  So we did that really crappy \"dating but not officially going out\" thing for about six months.  I was completely head over heels for him.  Well, in December of 1999, we started going out.  It was golden.  About a month after we started going out, one of our closest friends committed suicide.  It caused a lot of tension in our relationship, which never really got worked out.  In March of 2000, he decided that he wanted to go to England for school the next semester.  I totally freaked out.  Actually the way he told me was \"I love you, but I want to go to England\" (that was the first time he told me \"I love you\", so it really sucked).  I told him that he should do what he wanted, but if he went, we wouldn\'t be seeing each other anymore.  I wasn\'t going to pretend at a relationship for the five months before he left.  I wasn\'t trying to be manipulative, but I didn\'t feel like it was right to tell him that it was \"okay\", and then dump him as soon as he decided to go.  He ended up not going.  Our relationship, already strained by our friend\'s death, went straight downhill.  I can\'t explain to you how much I love(d) him, and it was only love that kept me there.  He lied to me, broke promises, and acted completely immature.  We fought over the stupidest crap, and we fought over it all the time.  I was horribly insecure, a result of feeling inadequate and all of his lies that I was uncovering.  I was terrified he was going to leave me.  He never talked to me about anything in his life, everything I learned I heard from friends.  Our sexual life was even a nightmare, as he would never initiate anything and never seemed interested in me that way.  We kept going though, and in December 2000 (a year after we started going out) he came to visit me at home in Texas.  He was there for two weeks, which were very good.  We had fun, got along great, and only had one fight.  Of course, during that fight he punched me, but we\'ll ignore that little fact for now.  We also lost our virginity to each other at this point in time.  Well, in January we went back to New York and school, and two weeks later he dumped me.  Said that he\'d been thinking about it for a long time, and he just didn\'t like me anymore.  He said that he loved me, that he would always love me, but he couldn\'t go out with me anymore.  Yes, our relationship had been improving, but all the time spent fighting and struggling had killed his interest in being with me.  I wanted to die.  He did this over the phone, by the way... exactly a year to the day of our friend\'s suicide.  I couldn\'t understand why he was giving up then, when things had been improving.  I hated that I wasn\'t worth giving it some more time.  I hated him for having sex with me and then dumping me three weeks later.  Anyway, I had to be put on anti depressants and sleeping pills, and I spent three months more depressed than I knew it was possible to be.  I had to lighten my course load, and there were plenty of days that I simply could not get out of bed.  This guy was it.  I can\'t explain that, because people look at our relationship and they see how he treated me, and they don\'t understand why I can\'t let go.  *shrug*  It\'s like I\'ve had my arms cut off.  I can\'t ever really forget the loss.  Music hurts. Movies hurt.  Books hurt.  New York City hurts.  My whole life as I knew it was over.  Is over.  I don\'t know.  I haven\'t talked to him since March, but the pain is still very fresh.  I had a dream the other night that I met his new girlfriend and woke up and cried for an hour or so.  I must admit that I was doing far better toward the end of the school year, and I know that grief ebbs and flows, but this is awful.  I can\'t imagine the rest of my life without him.  I don\'t even want to imagine it.  It\'s been seven months, why can\'t I let go?  Why doesn\'t it get better?  Has anyone else had this go on for so long, so badly?  Tips?  Suggestions?  Hey, if you watch sex in the city, just recall Carrie and Big\'s relationship.  That is exactly like my relationship with my ex.  Perfectly. I feel her pain.

Sorry about the ridiculously long post, but I think the whole story needed to be told.

-Jessica
__________________
There is writing on the wall, I know because I wrote it; It says \"it\'s okay to dream and it\'s okay to promise - just don\'t promise what you dream\"

I\'ve tried the therapy, but it just doesn\'t seem to work for me.  Maybe I haven\'t found the right doctor, but I just can\'t seem to open up.  I\'ll babble about totally meaningless crap, and I don\'t feel like I\'ve gotten anything out of it when the session\'s over.  I know I need help.  Trust me, the problems go a lot further back than this one guy.  He\'s just the newest in a long line of deep hurts.  I\'m going to try a new therapist when I get back to school, but I\'ve been to three different therapists before, and it just doesn\'t work for me.  I was only on the anti depressants for a few months, I hated the way they made me felt.  However, you do bring up an interesting perspective, which is that the problem isn\'t the situation as much as it is me.  I do have a new boyfriend now, but he\'s completely aware of the situation, and I\'ve already told him that the relationship is not going to get serious for a while, because I can\'t commit to anything seriously until I get myself sorted out.  That has to come first.  

In some ways, I can answer the question of how I became so tangled up with someone that treated me so badly.  I haven\'t been a whole, healthy person emotionally for at least five years now.  With my ex, I let him become everything.  By putting myself into him, I achieved a sort of false wholeness.  So when he was gone...  I was splintered again.  Now I want the wholeness back, and for a long time, the only thing that made me feel that way was him.  So I want him back.  Understanding it that way doesn\'t really make it hurt any less, which is the problem.  I didn\'t just love him, I was obsessed with him.  Probably clinically obsessed, if there is such a thing.  

-Jessica
__________________
There is writing on the wall, I know because I wrote it; It says \"it\'s okay to dream and it\'s okay to promise - just don\'t promise what you dream\"

Jessica,
I still think therapy is the way to go. It does sometimes take a few attempts to find the right person to talk to, but it\'s worth it. When you go, don\'t try to spill everything at once. Write some things down when you are alone, that you would like to talk about. Try to focus, when you\'re there, on a few different things, but not too many.  Ask yourself some questions too, consider your background, and childhood, were there things that happened when you were little that could be affecting you now? Lots of times when women have a hard time with relationships, or consistently pick the wrong guys, it has roots in their childhood relationships, especially with family members. It\'s just something to think about. Finding out why you do things goes a long way in helping you understand yourself and keeping yourself from repeating destructive patterns.
It\'s obvious that you can\'t pull yourself out of this, so you do need help, but remember that its still basically up to you. You have to want to change things.
I would be careful of any new relationships with any guy, until you get started on healing and pulling yourself out of the funk you\'re in.  
I really wish you well, if you want to talk more, PM me, or email me, erinm2001@hotmail.com
good luck              hunny