Ever been so lovesick that it's painful?

[TimeChaser]

:(

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Before or after the breakup?

[sarcasmo]

2. It hurts like no other hurt.

[siligut]

3. Yes.

:hug:

[Deja Q]

4. Yup. And you know what?

It's their loss.

[Iggo]

5. Ohdeargodyes.

Forget the girl! Just remembering the pain is painful...lol.

[Bullwinkle925]

6. yes, yes and YES !

[Lucian]

7. Yes.

:(

[orleans]

17. hey--did you call her? any update? n/t

[MassLiberal]

8. Yes

Hard to think about it. :-(

[grannylib]

9. Oh yeah

[DarkTirade]

10. I feel bad for people who have...

...and far worse for those who haven't.

[Iggo]

23. Yep.

The asshole who said "It's better to have loved and lost..." was absolutely correct.

[Shakespeare]

39. That asshole would be Shakespeare.

From Love's Labour's Lost, specifically. :hi:

And I agree.

[LostinVA]

43. Ben Jonson really wrote Shakespear's stuff

Yes, I am joking!!!

Though the Bard did steal a plot or two!

[intheflow]

11. Every time I've been in love.

:hug:

[Connonym]

12. One time I literally felt like I was having a heart attack

I had intense chest pain whenever I thought about it. I lost 15 lbs. It was awful. Of course, in looking back I can see that the guy was completely not worth it but that insight is rarely available while you're going through it.

[Inspired]

32. That's why we call it a broken heart. It's more real than not.

[NanceGreggs]

13. Yes ...

It's a pain that reminds you how vulnerable you are, how human, how frail, how hopelessly hopeless ...

It eats away at you - it devours you whole. It makes you lose all sense of perspective, all sense of balance, all sense of reality.

It is an insatiable hunger that keeps you awake, night after night - you long for, you desire, you want, you need, you pray for, you bargain for, you will give anything to possess, you cannot live without ...

In the end, it becomes a part of you - who you are now, who you were, who you will be in the days to come.

Ultimately, it fades into memory - you come to forget the pain. But you'll never forget the passion that made you feel the pain in the first place.

One of the unexpected pleasures of getting old: Remembering only what was good about being young - and forgetting the pain of it all - like being love-sick.

[Dystopian]

44. That was beautiful...sad but true.

I will never forget the pain...yet thankfully can't feel it.


peace~

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. Yes.

NanceGreggs has said it perfectly.

[crim son]

15. I agree with Nance, except it's the pain and not the peripherals

that I never forget and which constantly fuck me up now. This is not say it's hopeless... the right person will stay with you and battle all the false impulses.

I know it. It's true. :hug:

[Indi Guy]

16. Where's YOUR story?...

...???

[Dr Fate]

18. Sure- in high school and shortly afterwards.

Now-a-days I just pretend like I don't give a shit. ;)

[Indi Guy]

19. C'mon TimeChaser...

...I'm very sorry that you're hurting, but you wouldn't have started this thread if you didn't want to be heard. You're among friends -- spill it.

[Bryan]

20. Yes. Earlier this year, in fact.

I met her at work. She had waves of chestnut hair and a retroussé nose and a thin Irish mouth that shot upward at the corners when she spoke as if in anticipation of a smile. Her eyes were as blue as a spring sky and her skin was as pale as linen. She was tall and very slender and it was a joy to watch her settle gracefully into a chair or walk across a room. Every time I spoke to her, my urethra burned and my stomach roiled with needles of pain, like I was going up the first steep rise on a rollercoaster. She was generous and she was polite and she listened to what you said, and she had the sort of acrid but unspiteful sense of humor you develop when you want to disguise how disappointed you are with people, and I liked that, because I have it. She was massively overworked, and she tried to be graceful about it, only showing annoyance by chirping out "Nice!" when somebody did something stupid.

I would have made a move, or whatever would qualify as a move in my feeble vocabulary, but she was my boss and she was married. I think, I think I was scrupulously careful in not giving myself away, except for the time her iPod earbuds died and I offered her mine because I was meaning to buy new ones anyway. She grinned and said "I can't do that!"

I told myself that I should be thankful to have an experience like this in my life, that it was a blessing just to go into work with a light heart every day, and it was, but I never really believed it. One day in March she took me aside and told me she was quitting. When I asked her why, she said, "It's a lot of things", and her tone was utterly flat and defeated. I struggled with the idea that I should let her know how I felt in some way or another, and I told her she was the best boss I'd had at this company; fortunately, it was the truth, so I could skate by with it. On her last day, we had a perfunctory at-the-shoulder hug (and thank Christ for small favors, because I had an erection), and I told her that I felt I had grown since I had worked for her, and that was actually true, so I didn't feel mendacious about it. I'm bad at reading people's reactions, but her hand moved up to her collarbone and her mouth hung open when I said it, so I think there's a chance that she took it on board.

I am convinced that I behaved properly, and I have regretted it almost every day since, and I have wondered if I gave up a chance at a more meaningful friendship for fear that I might have tipped my hand. She's finishing her BA this year, and I've been wondering whether I should go to the graduation ceremony or not; it's open to the public, and I can slip in and slip out without talking to anybody, and if not get closure, then have made an effort to get closure. At every point in this saga I have felt awkward and unsavory and pathetic and I have probably actually been so, but there were moments of what I can only describe as joy, and I have felt an emptiness at not being able to share them.

Sorry for the long response, but you never know what question is going to set a person off.

[regnaD kciN]

73. If she was married, you did the right thing...

Leaving aside the power structure at work, unless she and her spouse were in the process of splitting-up before you came on the scene...well, had you expressed your feelings towards her, let's just say the fact that she was, after all, in a committed, ideally-lifelong exclusive relationship would probably have been the first big problem to come up. (And, if it wasn't, that would be the sign of another problem.)

[Bryan]

77. Thank you for the perspective

I've been telling myself that I was taking the most sensible course and preventing an even greater degree of insoluble pain, but I have not found my rationale convincing. Thanks for listening.

[Indi Guy]

21. TimeChaser???

:shrug:

[TimeChaser]

22. Fine, fine.

I'll post. Just a minute

[TimeChaser]

24. Okay, you want my story?

It was about a year ago that I realized that I was in love with a friend of mine. He's smart, funny, and has similar taste in books, anime, manga, etc. However, there are a few things that could be an issue. Namely, religion. And he's not one of those asshole fundies. He's an honestly good person who practices what he preaches. I don't feel like I'm good enough for him. I'm too messed up, not attractive, just... not good enough. Somedays I feel like there's something there between that could easily become more. Somedays, like today, I feel hopeless. I wish I could get up the nerve to tell him, but I have this horrible fear of failure in everything I do. I've never had much self esteem.

On top of that, some part of me believes that I blew my one chance at happiness. I was in a relationship with a guy for three years, we were engaged. And he got bored. It ended over a year and a half or so ago, but it still haunts me in someway.

[Indi Guy]

25. Thank you for your openness...

...I haven't done well in relationships either (for similar reasons).

I wasn't given a good send-off into the real world by my parents. They always expected more than any child could give. They were (as I now understand) emotionally dysfunctional before I was born. It wasn't their fault, but the pressure came down on me.

I lost Mom a few years ago & I was afraid I wouldn't cry at her funeral -- I cried like a baby throughout the entire process because I got that she loved me ...even though she was inhibited to show it while I was growing up.

[Indi Guy]

26. Worse than anything, I screwed up every intimate relationship I ever had...

Because I had no peaceful center, I attracted & was attracted to people in chaos. Those not in chaos were not attractive to me.

[Danger Mouse]

33. Never believe that you're not good enough. Never.

:hug:
Try.
You might be surprised by the result.

[demnan]

46. I'm in a relationship now with a genuine Christian

We are getting closer all the time. I used to feel the way you do, I wouldn't even let myself fall in love with him but now we are progressing in the relationship. I've known him longer than a year and turned him down the first couple of times he asked me for a date for the same reason you state. I'm glad I finally accepted. I don't know where it will lead, but I am enjoying this relationship, and I haven't been with anyone since the beginning of Clinton's second term.

Try calling him.

[kwassa]

55. There are multiple chances at happiness

Good thing, or I would never be married, and it took me a long time to get here, years after a heart-breaker.

I think you should find a way to let your friend know how you feel about him. If he is not interested, that you will feel rejected. If you don't try, though, you will feel rejected anyways, as you do now, without the possibility of success.

[XemaSab]

65. If you really like this guy

you have to make a move somehow.

I made my move way, way, way too late. :(

[Fire Walk With Me]

87. My friend, self-esteem is an inside job...

...a lesson I'm still working on in middle age. No one and no thing can make you truly, lastingly, feel good about yourself if you do not already. The good news is, when you do, and go around having fun being yourself, you'll attract interest. A teacher of mine said that you could be happily playing with your big toe and -someone- will eventually ask with real interest: "What are you doing?" :rofl:

There are tools to examine and disgard fear. Fear of not being enough, of being found out, of rejection, of being alone, etc. all come down to some lack of happiness about ourselves. That can be changed through cultivating the things you enjoy. Stick to your interests, stay in happiness, and that will bring the right people into your life.

I myself am not there yet, but the ice is breaking. Best luck to you and please share yourself more with us!

[Broken_Hero]

27. Yep, always, nt

[elleng]

28. I fergit!

edit: Sorry to be so flippant, after reading some of your stories.

Yes, it ALWAYS hurts. MAYBE more than any is my husband, whom I left after he hit me. Emotionally abusive for several years, and now separated, daughters ages 20 and 23 SO EXCITED about possibility we'll all spend Thanksgiving Dinner together, and I fear some sort of unpleasant confrontation (not physical.) The hurt is thinking of the 'girls.'

[Withywindle]

29. Yes, I'm there now.

Weepy hormonal threads about it and everything.


My ex. Still not even close to "over it" two years later.

[Indi Guy]

30. It's painful to not feel good enough, I've lived this myself...

You showed your courage by spilling your guts here ...and I openly confessed things I've never told.

Thank you for reaching out.

[Systematic Chaos]

31. Way too many times to even count.

My pattern was that every girl I loved wanted NO PART of me, but the ones who would give me the time of day for anything more than casual conversation were either completely nuts or worse.

I was convinced by my early 30s that my only purpose in life was to provide a roof for my mother until she croaked. And then, just before I either ate myself into a heart attack or just took every pill in the house to end it all, along came somebody on match.com whose profile sounded so much like what was going on inside my head I thought it had to be a joke.

Now I'm married and even though I'm in a mess of health problems and dirt poor, I'm happier all-in-all than I ever could have been before meeting this wonderful woman, and it's been over 6 years since we met. :)

[Guava Jelly]

34. Sure have

I think it isn't that rare of a thing.
Never give up.I mean ever.

[applegrove]

35. I was when I was about 24. It was awful. Plus I made an ass of myself.

[mopinko]

42. me, too.

but i was struck by lightning. hung on for a long time. made him tell me to my face, instead of just blowing me off, and figuring i would get the hint. took being an ass to make him say it.
someone had a thread a while back about googling an ex. i did that, and found out that he had recently died. i was happy and sad both to see that he had settled down, with a wife and kids, and the same job that he had when i knew him. always thought he was going to self destruct.
it was nearly 3 years of crushing pain. still a sore spot there 25 years later.

[redqueen]

36. Yes. (nt)

[Tektonik]

37. I've always have massive crushes on people who I could never be with

Makes me crazy.

[LostinVA]

38. Yes

I'm married to her now.

Being lovesick isn't always a rejection thing, remember that.

[Shakespeare]

40. Excellent point.

I'm in a similar situation, so I know what you mean. :loveya:

[LostinVA]

41. I can't believe he's a Redskins fan

[Shakespeare]

48. EEP! No. Broncos fan.

Hardcore, too. I could never be so unevenly yoked, as the bible says, as to partner myself with a Redskins fan. That would NEVER work.

[LostinVA]

49. GO THEISMAN!!!!!!

[Shakespeare]

50. You mean like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i_bJv_0z-k

Courtesy of the NY Giants, too. :hide:

[LostinVA]

51. I KNEW YOU WOULD POST THAT

Taylor should have been kicked out of the NFL for that.

[Shakespeare]

52. That was really the only response.

The video, that is.

:rofl:

I agree--that was a nasty hit. As much as I hate the Redskins, I have total sympathy for Theisman (and what that did to his career).

[BarenakedLady]

45. Yes.

[Deep13]

47. yes. nt

[Bertha Venation]

53. YES. n/t

[kwassa]

54. yes, and sometimes it ended well, and sometimes badly.

It is what it is. Live it.

[harmonicon]

56. more than you would believe

[Callalily]

57. YES! n/t

[SalmonChantedEvening]

58. Rapturously So.

And in may ways, to this very day.

If she ever sees this, you know it's you. There is nothing I have known since, nor known before that approaches you and what you are in me.

Always.

MMSG. You. :loveya:

edit: the four matter.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

59. I've had unrequited love, yes.

It blows chunks--worst feeling possible. Nothing can beat that yearning...I don't even mean to yearn, but I do. It's as instinctive as breathing, and it flat-out sucks.

:(

:hug:

[redqueen]

61. I like yearning.

I do agree it kinda sucks... but... this person put it beautifully:

The best antidote I have found is to yearn for something. As long as you yearn, you can't congeal: there is a forward motion to yearning.
Gail Godwin

[LanternWaste]

81. Wow.

Wow. That quote just struck me hard in ways I don't even understand.

"...there is a forward motion to yearning."

Wow.

[redqueen]

84. Isn't it great?

:)

[redqueen]

60. *SIGH*

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

[sakabatou]

62. Sometimes I feel I have a physical link to Mia, my SO

but no, it's never been painful.

[redqueen]

64. I don't think you can be lovesick if you're with the person you love.

Can you?

[sakabatou]

67. I dunno

It's a long-distance relationship. She's on the other coast presently.

[redqueen]

68. I didn't mean physically with...

just that your love is requited.

[sakabatou]

71. I don't understand

[trof]

63. Like a puppy.

Glad that's over.

[ceile]

66. I remember throwing up when he told me he loved someone else.

That was 10 years ago and we're now engaged, but sometimes I think back on those days and it's still painful.

[KansDem]

69. Yes, and it's going on 40 years now...

My One and Only Love

The very thought of you makes my heart sing
Like an April breeze
On the wings of spring
And you appear in all your splendor
My one and only love

The shadows fall and spread their mystic charms
In the hush of night
While you're in my arms
I feel your lips so warm and tender
My one and only love

The touch of your hand is like heaven
A heaven that I've never known
The blush on your cheek whenever I speak
Tells me that you are my own
You fill my eager heart with such desire
Every kiss you give sets my soul on fire
I give myself in sweet surrender
My one and only love

:(

[TrogL]

70. I'd be lusting after my best friend and walk into walls and doorframes

Ouch

[NNadir]

72. After some decades, it seems totally puerile. I can't believe I ever gave a shit.

The funny thing was that this is what my parents told me, that some day I'd just think it was amusing.

I was so angry at them for treating that super serious matter like puppy love. If they were still alive we could have a great laugh over it, since they were so damn right.

To paraphrase Amiri Baraka, it is "a single specious need to keep what you have never really had."

You will survive. Trust me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x6302762#6302848">Life sucks and then you live.

[Sebastian Doyle]

74. Yes.

So much so that it hurt for years. And the only way to stop hurting was to go numb, and feel nothing at all. :evilfrown:

[grasswire]

75. yes

Haven't seen him for fifteen years, but think about him every day. It was one of those Harry/Sally things with miserable timing that never had us both unentangled at the same time. I finally gave up waiting for that to happen and moved 3,000 miles away. It still hurts.

[SarahB]

76. Yep, and inevitably a waste of time.

In my past, I had that feeling over a couple of people. The thought of how miserable I would have been IF the relationships actually went further make me cringe. Sometimes you really have to chock it up to the concept of "if things were meant to work, they will". Plenty of fish in the sea.

[Ellen Forradalom]

78. Oh hell yes.

ooooooh yes.

[LanternWaste]

79. Empty. Alone. Dark.

In '93. We were so involved that we were planning the wedding. Then "poof", she split, left me for another guy. One of those burly guys, driving a motorcycle who looking sickeningly good in tight shirts.

For about three months I simply felt Lost and Empty and Alone and Dark. Every thought turned back to her, every sight reminded me of her, and every voice sounded like hers.

Nothing would heal me other than time, and I realized for the first time that healing could often be a violent, eruptive, painful revolution from within.

Music and poetry were ugly, my closest friends became shadows, and I myself became a close and consummate comrade of three-thirty ay-em.

But time somehow passed, I somehow lived through it, and life kept dragging me along with it whether I wanted to go or not.

Who's-Your-Pal-Big-Al (a balding prophet who's one hundred and thirty pounds when wet) told me some years later that it's so much better to be miserable because you're alone than it is to miserable because you're with the wrong person. He was right (but had he told me that at the time, I would have punched him in the nose)

The most unfortunate aspect of it was that I ended up building a lot of very strong walls that I have yet to deconstruct... but that particular sin is on my head-- not hers.

[Marrah_G]

80. Yes- it hurts like no other hurt.

[EnviroBat]

82. Going through it right now.

I've been "reunited" with a beautiful woman that I was involved with 13 years ago. I recently discovered we still love each other very much.

What to do now, what to do...

[Ava]

83. nope

and apparently i'm the only one here

[lightningandsnow]

85. Yes.

It sucks, doesn't it? But you never know how things will turn out in the end. :hug:

[Haole Girl]

86. Yes

And I wouldn't wish the pain on my worst enemy.

:hug:

[Inchworm]

88. Once

:hug:

[RFKHumphreyObama]

89. Yes

Quite a few times. And I've felt it agonizingly. There is someone for whom I still feel like that and it has been over a decade. I just can't let it go

[Swede]

90. My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

The Lonely Hunter
by William Sharp (writing as Fiona MacLeod)

Green branches, green branches, I see you beckon; I follow!
Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-tree hollow.
There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white flowers,
Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is sleeping now,
And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his moon-white brow:
And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow
Wherein he dreams I am with him -- and, dreaming, whispers, " Follow ! "

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring ?
What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?
Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;
White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved human face:
O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of failing breath,
Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of a sorrow olden,
But now it is midsummer weather, earth-young, sun-ripe, golden:
Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-tree hollow,
But never a green leaf whispers, "Follow, oh, Follow, Follow !"

O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:
O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing.
Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,
But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

[Forkboy]

91. Yes, to the point where I don't even consider love anymore.

The days of me putting myself out there emotionally for any reason are done. And you know, 90% of the time I feel pretty good about that decision. The other 10% sucks, but I just remember how it felt to have my heart ripped out and the loneliness passes toot sweet. :)

[fudge stripe cookays]

92. God, yes.

He was the one who got away before reprehensor. Beautiful and gentle and tender, and sensitive, and utterly cool.

We had both worked at the same CD store for awhile, but I thought he was kind of stuck up (although I did have a bit of a crush at the time). I didn't stay long (it was only part time). I always felt like he was out of my league anyway.

Two years later, I was at the peak of my physical perfection (had just lost about 20 pounds, and you could have bounced quarters off my thighs from all the walking I was doing). I was oozing confidence when I ran into him at a Bruce Cockburn concert with a friend of mine, and we realized we sort of knew each other. I was stunned when he took an interest. He was everything I'd ever wanted and more.

It turned out that when I'd known him the first time, he came off as stuck up because his fiance had recently left him. He was in his own personal hell.

We dated for six months, but he was still one of the walking wounded. I was his transitional woman. His friends told me I'd been so good for him-- all he'd done for two years was go to work and home, and had no life, but he'd bounced back to the old Randy. I seemed to be really good at that.

When he broke up with me, I was totalled. For about a month and a half, I was useless. I cried in the shower, in the car on the way to work, subtly at my desk with my back to everyone, in my car on the way home, while watching television, and cried myself to sleep. I lost another 10 or 15 pounds because I threw up just about everything I ate. I wasn't bulimic, I was just so heartsick I couldn't keep food down.

Yeah...it was miserable. I hope never to be back there. Ever.

[TroglodyteScholar]

93. Sure.

It wasn't worth the pain.