Downward spiral again

[Butterfly_39]

Hi All

I was here a few years ago after a break-up & I was suffering depression due to it. On the day he broke up with me, I saw messages on his phone & he was texting another woman behind my back (I did not snoop, he opened his phone in front of me and texted her in front of me). I don't know any of the details of how long this was going on. He started acting strange about 3 weeks before we broke up & blamed it on his mental health. I felt sorry for him & was very worried about him. I can only pinpoint it to be at that time. It took me a few weeks after the break-up to ask him about the text messages. He has never told me anything or even admitted to anything. Instead, I got some standard response & got blocked everywhere. It was pretty devastating for me. I was heartbroken & in a bad way for a long time. I got no answers but they ended up together so I figure that's the answer right there.

Since then, I worked really hard to get out of depression. I have not dated since as I was not in the headspace to do that. Every time I tried, I backed away from the idea. The idea of getting hurt again scares me. I was also cheated on before my last relationship & stolen from, & my ex knew about it &, as he had been in a similar situation, I was silly enough to have thought he wouldn't do it to me if he had experienced it himself.

About a year ago I landed a job that I thought was great. It has been in the last few months that I have noticed a culture of bullying. In the last week, I have become one of the targets. Unfortunately, my mental health has started to deteriorate. This is not a knee-jerk reaction but a thought that I have had for a few weeks now before I started to get targeted. Nobody knows that I am looking at leaving so this is not the reason why I am being targeted now.

My mental health though is worrying me. I feel myself concentrating on how bad things are. During a moment of weakness, I went onto my ex-boyfriends social media & he is still with this woman & they recently got engaged. The overwhelming feelings of hurt I felt from that, I felt like a burden & a failure, & I was thinking to myself why does he get to be happy after betraying me with her? Meanwhile, I can't even go on a date after what he did to me. I felt my body get hot and I was shaking when I saw it. Lesson is, never look him up again. This has now contributed to my downward spiral. I thought I had moved on.

I am sorry for the long story and thank you for reading.

[Sophie_M]

Hi Butterfly_39,

We’re sorry to hear what you’ve been through. It sounds like it’s had some very serious impacts on your wellbeing and your mental health. We’re glad you could share this here, as our lovely community will have kindness, advice and understanding for you.

It sounds like you could do with talking things through, so please don’t hesitate to give the lovely Beyond Blue counsellors a call on 1300 22 4636 or speak to them on webchat here (11am-midnight AEDT). You could also speak to  Relationships Australia on 1300 364 277.

If you'd like to have a chat with one of the lovely people at 1800Respect to discuss how your relationship is going, and to make sure you feel safe and free from abuse within your relationship, they're on 1800 737 732, or you can reach them on online chat, here: https://chat.1800respect.org.au/#/welcome

We’re so sorry to hear that you’re being bullied at work. That must be incredibly hard to be dealing with amongst all of this. We’d really recommend checking out the Heads Up site for advice on mental health at work and dealing... The Beyond Blue counsellors are here for you too, if you’d like to talk this through.

Thanks again for sharing here. We’re sure you’ll hear from some other community members once they spot your thread. We appreciate your kindness and openness in sharing to the forums, and we hope you can be kind to yourself, too while you’re going through thisextremely difficult time.

Kind regards,

Sophie M

[therising]

Hi Butterfly

A warm welcome to you. Btw, not a long story at all. You've managed to condense as much as possible into a small space. Can be really hard to do.

Some people are so incredibly depressing. Quite often, such people will turn around and announce 'You're just way too sensitive' or 'No need to take everything so personally'. Being a sensitive gal and having the advantage of having lived in depression as well as living outside of it now, I can respond from personal experience. Regarding 'You're just way too sensitive', I would say 'Absolutely. I'm actually super sensitive which is what gives me the ability to feel when I'm around depressing degrading questionable people'. In response to 'No need to take everything so personally', I'd have to say 'Dude, of course it's personal. It involves me. How could it not feel personal?'.

Your ex took zero responsibility for his behaviour. Obviously, it was self serving behaviour. So, you could say he was an irresponsible self serving person who never considered the impact of your heartbreak. So, let's expand that to irresponsible, self serving, thoughtless and unfeeling. Unless he's changed, that's what his future wife's getting. If he hasn't changed, he and his wife having kids together won't stop him from cheating on her. He might make it all about him with a 'Poor me. I feel so trapped' attitude but we'll know the truth.

All bullies have mental health issues, in my opinion. If they think such behaviour is normal or acceptable...well...technically they're deluded people with mental health issues. When you consider mental health is partly about finding balance, a bully will be unbalanced, between the extremes of compassion and a lack of compassion (aka detachment). They are to the extreme, completely detached with no compassion at all. Good mental health can also involve conscious self observation. Are they conscious of their behaviour - exactly what leads them to abuse people? Most likely not. Perhaps it simply makes 'em feel good while offering them some deluded sense of power. You could be cheeky and question 'Do you know what led you to be so unbalanced?'. While I could imagine them saying 'What the hell are you talking about?', the response may be (with a sly grin) 'Oh, sorry, I didn't realise you didn't know'.

Some people are deeply depressing. Sadly, sometimes we can be surrounded by such people for years without fully realising. The ability to feel their nature can feel like a curse at times.