New to Forum...Hello

Hello to all. I'm so glad to have found this forum. Please allow me to introduce myself.

I am 27 and have been suffering from depression for 7 years.

The last three months have been almost unbearable. My boyfriend of 8.5 years told me in April that he would not be returning from a 9 month-long relocation. He moved across the country last August for school and was supposed to return at the end of April for a job placement. However, he decided to take an internship there and now he can't tell me when he will be coming home.

When he delivered the news to me in April, I broke down. I thought I had everything under control and was coping with him being so far away, but when he told me, I immediately began to blame myself for his decision to stay away. To top it all off, I started thinking that he may have started a relationship with someone else and that was the reason he didn't want to come home. I began getting very obsessive, calling and texting way more than usual, to the point where he said he couldn't take it anymore and decided that we needed a break from each other.

So since early April we've been on a break and I've been so alone. I've pretty much lost all my friends in the past 7 years, and now I've also lost my boyfriend. I keep fixating on the fact that we were headed for marriage and now we don't even know if we can work things out. Yesterday would have marked our 9 years together.

We've only recently began to talk on the phone again and he explained to me what I wasn't comprehending in April, that he had no choice but to follow the job and that he was not seeing anyone else. The words he said at the end of one conversation keep resonating in my head. He told me to "work on loving yourself and you'll realise that I love you too." For so long, I've hated myself for the decisions I made that led to my depression. I am seeking help and slowly learning to let go of the past and love myself again.

I apologise for the long post. Thank you for reading.

I hope to be a regular visitor/contributor to this forum. It is a wonderful outlet.

I agree with Getting By. If you can learn to love yourself, there will always be someone in your life to love you back...maybe your boyfriend or as you grow, could end up being someone else. Either way, you will have someone to share your life with. TThere is this philosophy ( for lack of a better word) we can only attract someone who is as healthy as we are. In other words, the more you end up loving yourself, you will attract someone who loves you at the same degree. The higher your self esteem, you will attract someone who also has high self esteem....and so on. This why it is important you work on yourself as challenging as that might be. as a counselor, I all the time see couples in very messed up relationships and when it boils down to it, they are attracted to each other in a very unhealthy way, mainly because they are at the same low level of relating to each other and other people in their life. Many times I separate them for awhile and see each in individual counseling to work on themselves before they can be in a relationship where they can work on issues as a couple. The biggest problem as individuals is they don't have self-love. Just remeber, only you can fix you...someone else can't do it for you.

I agree take it one day at a time. Avoid looking too far into the future since that is so unpredictable. Hope I made sence. Take care and use the forum for support on your road to self-discovery.

I don't think that they know that you are hiding a deep dark secret. I think that you feel that they do because of what you are going through. People can't read us as well as we feel they do. I think that when we know that there is something going on with us, we feel that the whole world knows, and they don't. So keep trying. You will make friends, but true friends are few and far between. If we have two in our lives, we are lucky. And that comes with time. I have some freinds that I haven't talked to in ten years, but I know that they are still friends. I will see them sometime in the future. One keeps moving and I can't keep up with her. But I know that she loves me and that is what matters.

I hope that you are having a great day. Keep posting and know that we are here for you.

Hugs, Karen