Anonymous 123234
What is the difference between love and mental illness? Because my friends tell me I'm unironically nearing the latter; to keep it short I seemingly can't forget about my high school ex bf for some reason even though I'm nearing 30, we talk on and off very sporadically over text but I'm the one that always starts the conversation and I my friends tell me I'm coming off as almost begging for him to come back with me but he always tells me no, in fact I know very little of him after we turned 20. Yes I have dated other men, yes I know it's pathetic, no he's not manipulative, but every time I keep making this alternate reality in my head about going back in time and having this idealistic life with him; I had this cringe moment with my mom some years ago because he came up in the conversation and I told her I would come back with him if he wanted and she just gave me this look of me being silly lol
Anonymous 123239
i wouldn't view it from the perspective of mental illness but rather from how short life is.
you waste your time trying to be with someone who clearly doesn't want to be with you back and that robs you of precious time that you would be wise to look for someone who likes you back.
being in fantasy about someone becomes a dangerous habit that makes you disregard reality and reality is already under assault culturally anyways so you just accelerate the denial of it with the endless wishing.
if life was endless, sure waste a few years on hoping for someone but in this finite dimension time is so precious.
Anonymous 123247
Go no contact, at least for a while. Life's too short to be stuck on people who don't feel the same way as you. Letting yourself talk to them keeps all those memories fresh; you need a clean break for perspective.
Cautionary tale: I convinced myself I was still in love with my ex for like 5 years. Long story short it ended with him having a meltdown and me feeling like an asshole. Probably would've ended a lot better had we just stopped talking for a while from the start, but it was our first relationship and neither of us knew better.
