Help I can't stop reminiscing the past.

[mythofsisyphus]

I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to manage incredibly painful feelings of nostalgia and reminiscing?

Over the course of a year I've lost a relationship after finding out my ex was cheating on me. This might not sound too traumatic, but it truly destroyed me. We were living together, had a little puppy... basically all I'd ever hoped for in life. The relationship wasn't perfect, I had doubts etc., but in some ways it didn't matter because I felt fully accepted, something I've craved and not felt deserving of my whole life. Finding out the truth truly shattered my worlds into a million pieces.

But I tried to put myself back together, to carry on and focus on my career (I was in a job I'd worked my whole life for) and trying to find happiness and fulfilment on my own.

Then I stopped taking antidepressants and a few months later got struck with horrendous protracted withdrawals.. akathisia, insomnia, unrelenting anxiety and flashbacks. So I reinstated a small dose and am now suffering from either PSSD or PFS. Basically, I've lost all sexual functioning (I'm male), I experience no emotions, have widespread muscle wastage and body pain, loose and dry skin and extreme cognitive difficulties and pretty much constant depersonalization/derealisation. It's impossible to know, but it's likely this is going to be permanent or at least extremely long lasting (years to decades).

It just feels impossible to not get caught up in reminiscing and ruminating on the past and all that I've lost. What's the point in doing mindfulness to stay in the present when the present is horrendous... where I'm loosing my dream career, where I don't feel real, where I can't feel love or joy, where my genitals and body are wasting away. How am I supposed to find meaning and purpose in these circumstances?

I beat myself up because I know the rumination and nostalgia etc. are making things worse. I know spending my time scrolling on this website is going to be making this worse. But also, it feels like it makes complete sense I'd do these things. It feels like I had my heart ripped out after my ex and then my entire mind collapsed, and I'm frozen, completely unable to move forward and heal. I try to go for walks, I try to see friends, I try to do some work... but I feel nothing, I feel totally disconnected, my mind is a blurry and confused mess that I don't recognise. Every single thing I used to enjoy and that used to soothe me is now tainted and brings up awful feelings of the past, and how amazing these things were in comparison to now. It sickens me how much I took for granted.

How do I accept this? How do I find peace in this?

 

[Valhala]

Memories are what kill me again and again all my life. Somehow it seems that the keys to the solution are always in the past, I ruminate constantly but it is very difficult to resist it. Unfortunately, I am not able to give advice for overcoming this state because I am also in this.

 

[Hvergelmir]

How am I supposed to find meaning and purpose in these circumstances? How do I accept this?

You don't find meaning or purpose in it. It's a bad setback. There's not much more to accept, than that.
Take any and all opportunities you have for meaning and purpose, moving on, though. There's no inherent reason for letting it affect the present and definitely not the future.
Some potentially meaningful future tend to pop up from time to time.

 

[trs]

Memories are what kill me again and again all my life. Somehow it seems that the keys to the solution are always in the past, I ruminate constantly but it is very difficult to resist it. Unfortunately, I am not able to give advice for overcoming this state because I am also in this.

Me too regarding the keys were in the past, I see so acutely now how things went wrong, which I was completely blinded to before which have caused the utter disaster I'm in now (without going into details) and literally having to necessitate/plan trying to leave my body. It seems so cruel to understand now and be able to literally do nothing about it.
I saw a reply you had on reincarnation/karma, so you seem like a very spiritual person, as I am, but I cannot spiritually reconcile any of this. It seems perverse and something inherently wrong about it, causing such suffering because of not being able to understand or make sense of why it happened like this. I mean this is our life which we are having to try to eliminate now, one which we wanted have, we didn't want it to be like this. It seems so horribly wrong.
Are you able to spiritually reconcile and make sense of this and if so how?

 

[Valhala]

Me too regarding the keys were in the past, I see so acutely now how things went wrong, which I was completely blinded to before which have caused the utter disaster I'm in now (without going into details) and literally having to necessitate/plan trying to leave my body. It seems so cruel to understand now and be able to literally do nothing about it.
I saw a reply you had on reincarnation/karma, so you seem like a very spiritual person, as I am, but I cannot spiritually reconcile any of this. It seems perverse and something inherently wrong about it, causing such suffering because of not being able to understand or make sense of why it happened like this. I mean this is our life which we are having to try to eliminate now, one which we wanted have, we didn't want it to be like this. It seems so horribly wrong.
Are you able to spiritually reconcile and make sense of this and if so how?

Thank you for your kind words. I agree with you, from our (I must emphasize limited perceptions) everything really seems wrong, which probably is if we mark as correct the goals we tried to achieve but things went wrong. One of the ways to make us aware of it is to try to look at everything from a different angle, no matter how difficult it seems, maybe everything was meant to be. Maybe it will teach us something, bring new experiences, one of which can be CTB itself. explanations for the multitude of life paradoxes that have created a whole tangle. It is paradoxical when similar emotional problems always repeat themselves throughout your life like a kind of Deja Vu and you simply, no matter what you do and how you act, are unable to get out of that circle of repetitive repetitions. Again I would paraphrase Nietzsche and his thought about the "eternal return of the same". It is absurd that very often, one seemingly small thing could in a moment, at least for a certain time, turn everything around and give everything a new meaning again. The problem of this existence is (except which is basically based on pain and suffering) that there are irreparable mistakes that are impossible to correct and solve, and those who think that everything is solvable in such situations simply give up on these problems and declare it the solution. Many of our mistakes could be corrected if individuals understood the power and magnitude of forgiveness, unfortunately people would rather destroy each other than try to understand and forgive. I would like to say a few words about existence itself. Many people do not understand that "being thrown into life" itself represents a battle already lost, everyone is born on this planet losers because everyone, in a relatively short time, will face the end of their existence. Heidegger defined human existence as "being-toward-death" and I have not yet come across a more precise definition of human existence than this. loss of meaning in life and planned CTB.

 

[Abandoned Character]

Talk therapy gets me out of my deepest pits. With a mental health professional or a trusted friend, a good cry with a caring ear goes a long way. It's hard, and you are fighting the good fight. You got this.