Not coping well after breakup

Hi OP. Sorry for what you're going through. I have so much I want to say, so I'm going to organise my thoughts in paragraphs here.

First of all, get off the dating apps. Putting a plaster over a deep wound is not going to help here, nor is jumping into another relationship as an avoidance of dealing with your painful emotions and hurting someone else in the process of that. That's not fair on anyone and a surefire way of not healing or changing patterns that you have. You need time and space to process the breakup, and your earlier traumas in life. Decide, today, that focusing on yourself and your own healing is going to be your number one priority for now. Dating apps can come later.

Secondly, someone said this to me lately and I think it's relevant here: "the thing is not about the thing." I'm sorry for all the hardship you've had in life, with your mother's alcoholism, the bullying at school, the previous relationship trauma with your ex. Those are deeply painful and difficult things for anyone to deal with. You were a child with unmet needs, then trauma at school where you're supposed to be safe, then a mentally unwell and emotionally abusive ex partner. That's a lot. Those things needs to be re-visited so that you can go through the painful emotions of them and heal, and learn how to feel safe in the world again. That's therapy and that's time and that's developing compassion for your younger self so you can build your self-esteem and not repeat unhealthy patterns in life that just double down on the pain that you've already had. I know you liked this recent woman, maybe loved her, but I also know that this breakup is not just about losing her, but it's about the other things you've lost, your mother, all that previous rejection and abuse, it's another person walking away when you feel like you need her to survive (you don't.) It's another person not available to you, making you feel like you're not good enough to be loved well. I know this because it was a deeply painful breakup that led me to my own therapy and my own reckoning with previous trauma that I had buried and that was coming out in the way I was living my life 20 years later. Please commit to dealing with these things and not jumping into another relationship until your confidence is better and you feel safer in the world.

Next: if expressing emotion, being forgetful, drinking too much a few times and taking medication to support your mental health were crimes we'd all locked up for life. You couldn't control the eventuality of your girlfriend breaking up with you. She just wasn't feeling it anymore, which is her right. YOUR absolute right and responsibility to yourself is to hold out on relationships until you find a partner that accepts you fully for who you are. You can't be in a relationship where you have to walk on egg shells and worry that something you do or say will change her mind about you. You deserve someone that sees you completely and wants to build a life with you and sit in the trenches with you when things are hard. This recent ex is not that woman.

And finally: what I've read from your OP is not someone that got broken up with by the best person in the world because he was a fcuk up. What I've read is that you're a person that has been through a lot and has adapted a bunch of coping mechanisms in order to survive. What's next for you is to build up that inner resource so that you can learn how to self-soothe, how to feel safe in the world, how to deeply appreciate and love who you are so you don't need external things to tell you who you are anymore. That's therapy and that's a bunch of daily habits you can do to take care of yourself (fitness, eating well, hobbies that you love, boundaries with people, maintaining good friendships) and that's in the long term, making different decisions in life because they're coming from a place of self respect and self love rather than survival.

Dude I think you have underline issues, the relationship was 7 months and only good for 5 months. I’m not going to knock it because things affect us all differently. I would guess that you are suffering more than the other person in the relationship, but I’m an engineer not a head specialist. It’s good to talk >mod snip <

bur defo talk to someone, you are a good person, this happens lots of people,

Just reading this post shows your level of stress so if your ex picked up on this in your daily life maybe it was an influence on ending the relationship. I’m only trying to give you genuine feedback but 7 months isn’t a long time in a relationship and maybe the fast commitment scared her away. My advice would be to not contact her despite how hard that is, show her you have a life after her with dates etc. In my opinion it will give you the most chance of her getting back in touch with you in the future. If you’re just sat there waiting for her she’ll know that and I don’t think she will want you back.

When you're with someone, you think they're the best thing since sliced bread, but they let you down because they' can be selfish. She was never for you if she couldn't handle you and work with you. Unfortunately, life is like that, you run into different men and women and date them some of them work and some don't. There are a lot of people in your position. It's lonely because your reality is your own and your feelings for your ex come from within. Not lost but you could meet someone and your life changes and your ex is a distant memory. Getting out and dating is healthier than thinking and obsessing about your ex. I fell into that trap, like you, long time ago but meeting new woman and finally meeting the right one my partner i have a good life. You're trying to get someone back who let you down, if she has gone this long, and hasn't reconsidered, she wrong lady for you. You can show them the door if they don't value you.  

Oh wow OP I feel your pain, I went through something similar last year, got broken up with from a relatively short relationship, he was fine and I was a complete mess, it hit me like a ton of bricks, I cried constantly!

All I can say to you is time does heal but you do have to make a conscious effort to allow yourself to heal, that means catch yourself when you're thinking about her and think about something else, keep off her social media, don't be watching who she's following or trying to see if she's seeing someone else and most importantly do what ever you can to keep the stress levels down and cliche as it sounds, there's allot to be said for focusing on the positive and practicing gratefulness.

Sometimes breakups can be a shakeup that you need, I think people are often times more adventurous and outgoing when they go through something like this, id suggest you try bring in lots of positive changes into your life right now to give you something to focus on.