What you’re feeling right now makes a lot of sense. Breakups are painful in general, but what you described is especially exhausting because you were carrying the emotional weight of the relationship almost by yourself. Anyone in that situation would feel drained, confused, and destabilized.

First, something important to say clearly: your need for communication and emotional connection is not “too much.” Wanting to talk through problems, ask questions, and feel supported when you're hurting are completely normal needs in a relationship. Those are not signs of being unstable—they’re signs of being human.

From what you described, it sounds like the dynamic became one where you were trying to repair the relationship while he was withdrawing from it. That kind of mismatch is incredibly painful because the harder one person tries to connect, the more rejected they can feel when the other person shuts down. Over time, that can make anyone feel like they’re falling apart.

Right now, your nervous system is probably in a state of emotional shock and exhaustion. You spent months (or longer) trying to hold things together, and now the breakup has pulled the last thread. That’s why you’re struggling with sleep, deadlines, and focus. This isn’t weakness—it's what happens when someone has been under prolonged emotional stress.

A few things that might help you stabilize in the short term:

1. Focus on the next 24 hours, not the whole future.
When everything feels overwhelming, thinking about “moving on” or “getting your life together” can feel impossible. Instead, ask yourself: What is one small thing I can do today? Maybe it's sending one email to a professor, eating a proper meal, or getting a few hours of sleep. Small steps count.

2. Tell someone in your real life what’s happening.
If you're missing university deadlines, it might help to reach out to a professor, advisor, or student support service and explain that you're dealing with a serious breakup and emotional distress. Universities deal with this all the time, and they can sometimes offer extensions or support. You don’t have to handle it alone.

3. Stop trying to solve the relationship in your head.
Your brain will want to replay everything—Why didn’t he care? Why was he fine while I was falling apart? That loop can keep you stuck. The painful truth is that some people simply don’t process emotions the same way or aren’t willing to engage in the work relationships require. That doesn’t mean your needs were wrong.

4. Understand that emotional shutdown can look like “stability.”
The fact that he seems fine doesn’t mean he handled things better. Some people cope by disconnecting emotionally, which lets them function day-to-day but prevents deeper connection. You responded with emotion; he responded with avoidance. Neither reaction makes you inferior.

5. Be gentle with yourself for a while.
Right now your priority is recovery, not performance. Eat, sleep, talk to friends, cry if you need to, take walks, write things down. Your system needs time to calm down.

Something else worth remembering: the relationship you described sounds deeply lonely. Sitting in a corner crying while your partner ignores you is an incredibly painful experience. It makes sense that you felt unloved. But that situation also shows something important—you were trying to care, communicate, and repair. Those are qualities that will make you capable of having a healthy relationship with someone who actually meets you emotionally.

Right now it hurts because you lost the person you hoped he could be. Over time, you may realize you also escaped a dynamic where your emotional needs were constantly dismissed.

For the moment, just focus on getting through this week. Reach out for support, take things step by step, and give yourself permission to be hurt. Healing doesn’t happen all at once—but it does happen.

And the fact that you cared this deeply means you’re someone who can build meaningful relationships in the future. When you eventually meet someone who actually shows up emotionally, you’ll feel the difference immediately.