Worried about my ex-boyfriend

lifeisbutadream · ‎23-02-2020

Hi guys,

About 2 months ago my ex and I broke up. At the time, he said that his mental health was not in the best shape and he needed time to work on himself. He suffers from clinical depression, at the time of the end of our relationship he was very closed off and wasn't really talking to me about what was going on. The main driver of our breakup was this and long distance. I don't know if he was taking his medication. The breakup has been immensely hard on me, and my own mental health has been struggling too. Since the breakup, I tried to reach out to him a few times but he ignored or left me on read for everything I said, so I figured it would be best if I stopped. He hasn't said anything to me since the breakup, the last time I tried to speak to him was 2 weeks ago.

I noticed today that he has deleted his Facebook, I'm a bit worried that he could be going through something and feeling alone/ struggling, especially given the context of our last conversation, I don't know what I can do to help seeing as he's made it clear (through his silence) that he probably doesn't want anything to do with me, but I feel awful about the prospect of him suffering through something alone and feeling like noone cares for him. What can I do if I'm worried about him? I don't want my presence in his life to upset him anymore, and I don't know if my own mental health could cope with another rejection right now. Maybe he deleted his FB for a totally unrelated reason but I just have a bad feeling.

Thank you for reading

Matchy69 · ‎23-02-2020

Hi Lifeisbutadream.I to am worried about your ex boyfriend as deleting his fb account does sound like he is severely depressed.Can you get someone to check up on him?I am concerned about his mental state of mind.

thetamind · ‎23-02-2020

Hey there, dealing with break up in itself is very hard and we all react differently. I'll tell little story of myself. I realized in my case, having depression made it more worse. My ability to think straight was gone, everything felt so intense and i was so hopeless, miserable and sad. I blamed myself for everything that happened and questioned my own existence. I deactivated my facebook account, put phone in either in do not disturb or off so that i don't have to answer people who often asked why and i was tired of justification. It's not that i didn't care about my family and friends, i did, but i simply couldn't act/ sound normal in front of them and i didn't wanna show them my vulnerability. Most of my friends assumed i was being selfish or simply didn't care about them; so they stopped calling or texting me, but i had one friend she always left a message one in the morning and one at night; and way she wrote a message was; it didn't seek any answer or expected any return txt. Therefore, i didn't feel any pressure to reply or experience any guilt of ignoring her and potentially losing her. This made me realize that someone out there genuinely cares about me without me being reciprocal to this relationship. I felt so grateful towards her for understanding that it's not me who has been ignoring her but the depressive voice inside me that just doesn't allow me just to be myself.

It's so nice of you to call him and get worried about his well being. Since you are dealing with breakup and your own mental well being so please don't burden yourself with thoughts that generates when he doesn't answer your phone. I understand it's very hard not to take "no response" as rejections as every text and call you make carries the expectations that it will be replied but depressive feeling is co consuming that even replying text & answering call demands lots of energy. I don't think he doesn't want you in his life or is upset from your presence, or text or your concerns; he is simply taken over by this overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and taking his time to deal with it. So Please kind to be yourself. And if you think his non answering is totally out of his character and you have bad feeling about it then try contacting his friends or families or work colleagues and ask them to go and check on him. I hope he will come out of it and contacts you.

lifeisbutadream · ‎24-02-2020

Hey thank you for your reply, I ended up asking a mutual friend to reach out to him. He hasn't replied yet to her and I am a little worried...

lifeisbutadream · ‎24-02-2020

Thank you so much for such a detailed reply and your own personal experience. I guess it's hard when you are surrounded by your own grief/ in your head, to think about how other people might be affected by your actions. It's really been hard for me because I love him very deeply and just want to be with him, it's been hard for me to accept that he does not want to be with me and to feel all of my attempts to talk to him are just met with silence; it kind of makes me feel like I never met anything to him - though logically I know that's not true. I know the best act of love for someone you can do is to let them go, but I never imagined it would be this hard.

I ended up contacting a mutual friend of ours, and she said she heard from him a week ago or so and that he has been sorting through and coming to terms with things on his own. So it could be a good sign if he is taking some time away from social media and dealing with his emotions. I know I have felt like FB has been damaging at times and I have avoided going on it as much as possible (ie seeing happy people or talking about relationships is triggering to me). She told me she expressed the concern for his wellbeing (asking him if he was okay, if he wanted to talk about things) and will keep me updated. If he does not respond to her I'm unsure of what to do, I don't want to push anything and make him feel unsafe or intrude on his healing; I also don't want to risk jeopardising their friendship when there is trust there.

mocha delight · ‎24-02-2020

I’m so sorry to hear about this lifeisbutadream but I’m pretty sure he appreciates your concern and that you’ll be there for him when his ready. And all you can do is let him know that your there for him is the most important thing and maybe he just does not want to bring you down with him to. Just take care of yourself and his friend most likely can see you’d like to be there for him & passed that on to him. So all you can do for now is respect his wishes and in time once his had enough space & healed he’ll reach out to you just have some faith 🤗

lifeisbutadream · ‎25-02-2020

Thank you for your reply mocha delight. I ended up sending him a little message letting him know he wasn't alone and there are always people who are there for him and support him, and even though we are not in each other's lives, I still care for him and will be here for him if he ever needs me; and that I wasn't expecting a reply. I'm not quite sure it was the right thing to do, and I hope it doesn't hurt his healing and progress too much. I will do my best to stop thinking about this now, and know I have done my best to support him, and trust that whatever happens will happen as it is intended do.

Matchy69 · ‎25-02-2020

Hi Lifeisbutadream if you really worried about him call 000 and call an ambulance and have them check on him and you have every right to do that.Someone did that to me in a simlar situation when i didnt reply to any msgs for over a couple of weeks and she called an ambulance and had been in bed for 2 weeks and hadnt eaten for 2 weeks from depression.It saved my life.