Lemme first start off by saying I hold no ill will against her. She is a good person and maybe this is more of a reflection on my character. I am fully aware I am not the best person but I need to say this somewhere.

I (19m) was in a long term relationship with my ex (20f) in high school. We were together for a little under a year (that’s long term to me lol) and I will shamelessly admit I was head over heels in love with her. To a small extent, I still am. It didn’t really get reciprocated by her due to how much she was going through and that’s completely fine. I was going through a lot and I think I relied on her for support far too much because after a while of my behavior she became distant. I guess I wanted to feel loved by someone and I leaned on her far too much.

She broke up with me 2 weeks before prom and there have been very few periods in my life where I felt more hopeless than I did here. She went to prom with one of her friends’ buddies and it was very obvious he had a crush on her. I was still friends with her and her friends at that point and seeing that was a tipping point in my mental state to the point I almost took my own life. But because I’d get beaten by my dead family members for killing myself over a significant other, I didn’t.

We graduated high school and I still stayed civil with her despite how angry I was. Even when she got with her new (and current) boyfriend I tried my best to stay civil because I still wanted to be friends and I didn’t want to make our other friends feel uncomfortable. I was very much jealous and I know I had no right to be jealous but I was, I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to admit to myself that it just wasn’t meant to be.

The part I’m the most upset about at the moment is how much better she is at this whole relationship thing than me. She has stayed with this wonderful guy for almost 2 years and I keep bouncing from person to person, getting hurt in the process because I guess I’m prone to that. They seem to have a perfect relationship and my problem isn’t that it makes me look like the problem between us (I know that already) but it’s just so hard to see someone who was once in the same position as you seem to do better.

I have worked so hard to get my mental and physical health to an acceptable level since we ended things. She is an accomplished member of her college’s band and I have had numerous near death experiences over the past year and my body has continued to get worse while I can’t keep a relationship to save my damn life. It is so tiring. I am so happy that she seems to have her shit together but I am also jealous. I have no right to be jealous of what she has worked hard to attain but I am because I’m still angry at how things ended. I know it’ll get better eventually, I have so much hope but I feel like I can’t get better until I move on. And I haven’t been able to.

So much has happened since then and maybe I’m just dwelling on the past but is this normal for like anybody? I don’t feel like it is. I know it’s not healthy but yknow I can’t help the shitty things I feel. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.