Losing my first ever boyfriend

[ezza2342]

In 2017, the first guy I ever dated committed suicide after nearly 3 months together. We were both 15. Only really knowing him for 3 months doesn’t sound like a lot, but I got lucky. He seemed like the happiest person in the world, and he definitely made things better for everyone around him. Our families are both so alike, but we only realised that after we lost him. It’s been 4 years, I’m now 19, and I still don’t understand what’s going on with me. Not long after we lost him, I fell in love with his cousin/best friend, I think it was because he was one of the next closest things that resembled him, but it nearly killed me. I was in love with his cousin for about 2 years, on and off sometimes, but it was so strong I didn’t feel like it was worth being alive if I didn’t see him. Finally towards the end of 2019, I was able to move past it. I’ve had 2 boyfriends since and I felt like I dealt with that normally, but neither of them compared to my first. I felt like I didn’t really have repercussions until this year, where my anxiety sky-rocketed as a “supposed” physical reaction to the grief years later. I have feelings for his older brother now sometimes, but maybe that’s because of the isolation of COVID19 and not meeting anyone new. I feel more isolated because I just moved to university and can’t really make friends due to lockdown. Recently it’s been hurting more than it has in a while. I miss him in a different way than I did before. I know that very very few will understand or have much advice, because what can possibly be said or done? But I needed to put this out there, and if you took the time to read this, thank you.

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[onlinecommunity]

Dear @ezza2342, welcome to the forums and thank you for sharing your experience with us here. Our hearts go out to you for the traumatic experience you were faced with at only 15 years of age – a time when you’re still learning to regulate your emotions. It must have been so difficult. We hope you had good support from family and/or friends at the time.

You describe your anxiety sky-rocketing this year and unfortunately, this is something we’re hearing more and more. COVID has been so tough on people your age especially in terms of socialisation. And it’s even worse for people who have unresolved grief because isolation and ‘stopping still’ has provided space for the grief to re-surface.

You talk about missing your first boyfriend in a different way and we wonder if this is a sign of your grief progressing into a new phase. Early on we can be numb to the grief but as time goes on the finality of the loss hits us. This is when we can feel a real emptiness because the reality of them never coming back sets in. Does this sound a little like what you’re going through?

The fact that you’ve achieved so much since the tragedy of losing your boyfriend including navigating new relationships and moving to attend university, indicates to us that you have many strengths – including resilience, drive and motivation. Sometimes when we’re going through so much turmoil we lose sight of our strengths but by tapping into them we feel empowered to find ways to move through these challenging times.

So if you feel up to it try doing the strengths assessment in our article “In Search of Lost Strengths 1”. It might open your eyes to how strong and amazing you are! And you’ll also find a ‘circle of support’ activity within Part 2 of the article which can be helpful in recognising the people around you who are worth connecting with to ease the isolation.

We hope this is of some help for now but please let us know how you are going @ezza2342. We are here for you. 🌸

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