How can I stop obsessing?

Question by Sydney Crain: How can I stop obsessing?
Okay so here is my situation in full. I’m not sure what the connections are. I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. So please, If you want to help, or have a large amount of time to read this, please do. I have talked to friends, my boyfriend, therapists and such and I have my ideas of what I should do but I’m really not sure. Please help.

Okay, so I have been dating a boy for about a year and a half. The first 10 months of our relationship were pretty damn near perfect. I felt so much love for him. I had my problems with him, we had our fights, our differences, but we always worked it out. He is my first relationship and I was sixteen, so was he. I was never concerned about having a boyfriend but he was different. I was able to be completely open with him and we just fit together really really well. He was my best friend. We were so close. There were no secrets between us. I was so damn happy.

Thanksgiving I went to Oklahoma to visit my family, I had not seen my mother in ten years and my grandfather cornered me and made me spend the night with her and my half brother that I did not know about until that day. I did not break down or freak out about this. It was strange but I sort of shut myself off, everything felt like a movie and it was even kind of funny to me. My boyfriend was very supportive and great throughout the whole thing.

When I came back from Oklahoma, everything was normal. I wasn’t really thinking about it or anything. I was just coasting along happily. I got that surreal feeling from time to time, but not badly. A week or two later I got really sick with mono. I was stuck in my house for like two weeks, completely bed ridden. My boyfriend came an visited me but no one else. I didn’t sleep much, I started feeling really depressed surreal and weird.

When I got better from mono, I was hanging out with my boyfriend and all of the sudden, while we were in the middle of a conversation this movie-like feeling washed over me and I did not feel close to him anymore. He looked like a stranger. I was so scary. From then on stressed about it 24/7 I worried that we were going to break up for some unknown reason, that I was falling out of love, that I could not connect with him anymore or what not. The more I worried about it the worse it got.

In addition to all of this, I was not sleeping, was not going to school, having panic attacks, crying spells, etc for no apparent reason. I felt like a completely different person. I didn’t enjoy much anymore and I just wanted to cry and be alone. My parents finally sent me to a psychiatrist and she determined that I was depressed due to the indecent with my mother. She put me on a low dose of Zoloft.

It comes in waves, I will feel like my boyfriend and I don’t connect, don’t work, like everything he does annoys me, and that I must have to break up with him, everything will be cloudy and I won’t sleep well and feel incredibly unsettled. Then I usually feel incredibly overwhelmed and cry and freak out. Usually after that it is like someone takes my blinders off and I can see clearly, like everything is okay and I’m just causing problems. I feel all of my love for him, I feel connected with him, and life other than that usually makes sense.

I am just so confused. Is this depression messing with my head? How do I fight it? Or am I just fighting my true feelings? Sometimes I will just wake up with this insanely unsettling feeling and not know why. I don’t know what to do. My heart want to be with him. The idea of not being with him breaks my heart. I know that we wont be together forever. I know that we are young. But I don’t think that that means that I should not treat this like a real relationship… So please, just give me your opinions about what the heck is going on in my head. I am currently in a “bad” state and I miss him like hell.

Best answer:

Answer by Jody
You know, it takes up to a full year to recover from mono, and it takes months for it to show up too. So you have a fairly long term illness to contend with. If your malnourished, lack the B vitamins, or are dehydrated, you can get that disconnected, surreal feeling.

Let yourself love your boyfriend. Be a good friend to him and let him be your best friend. If you’re meant to be together you will. Meantime enjoy the fact that somebody cares about you. If you miss him call him. If you keep sending him away and being unhappy, he’s probably going to have to fall away from you. Stop being so obsessive. Just relax.

Let it sink in about your mom and half brother. Don’t force anything, just let it sit on the back burner of your mind for now. You know you’re depressed and that depression has side effects that can wreak havoc, so just deal with what’s in front of you, one day at a time and enjoy your summer. Give yourself more time to recover.

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