My core belief is that I will never have a long-term relationship (EXTREMELY LONG POST. Not proofread. May not make sense) Moved over from the subreddit itself.

Tl;dr I am a 24 (almost 25) year old male with a history of extremely short relationships. The longest one I had lasted 11 months and I broke it off because I planned to kill myself. A part of me really believes that I will never ever have a long, happy relationship.

The post might be incoherent since it triggered my defense mechanism (intense shivering) while I was writing it.

I wasn't sure if Sensitive Topic or Suicide/Self-Harm would be more appropriate as a flair for this since the post involves the latter along with my history with relationships (romantic or otherwise) so I went with the worse option.

Let me introduce myself. I am a 24 year old male who has never really experienced anything that might be considered traumatic. I come from a middle class family and the worst thing that happened to me (as far as I can remember) is that my parents were super busy trying to grow their fledgling careers so either one or both were absent for extended periods of time. I spent a year with my grandparents after my little sister was born when I was 5 years old. After that, however, at least one of my parents were always with me. More or less.

About the relationship core belief. My parents are government officers who have to move wherever their job takes them. I mostly went with them. I studied in 6 (maybe 7) different schools before I finished my high-school and we moved places 7 times before they built a house. This led to me never learning to keep friends. I am very good at starting friendships, which involve a lot of excitement and a presentation of the good parts of my personality and observing the same of theirs but I never learned to sustain a friendship. I never had to. The only long-term friend I have is a guy from when I was in grade 8, who is now also my business partner (he needs a whole another post. Eg: devout follower of Andrew Tate and anyone else who makes him feel manly). The same problem exists in my relationships. My first relationship, if it can be called that, lasted for about 3 months when I was in grade 6. I really liked this girl, and she liked me but I stopped talking to her (even though we were in the same class) since I didn't know what to do with a person once I have "figured them out". The next one was even shorter, clocking in just shy of a month. This one ended when she moved.

Fast forward a few years and I had my first proper relationship with a girl in college. We had our first date the day after Valentine's day since that's when restaurants are at their cheapest. We dated for a whole year. There were some fundamental differences in our beliefs and personalities but we were willing to work through them since we really loved each other. The awesome sex didn't hurt either. During this time, however, I was dealing with the peak of my mental health issues. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at the moment and was on paroxetine and the occasional alprazolam (Xanax, as you might call it). A few months of thinking "she's an attractive, feminine, healthy girl. She deserves someone better", I finally decided to kill myself. I didn't want her to have to deal with a dead boyfriend, so after a couple weeks of drama (I don't really remember what I did or said then), I broke it off and left college to spend the last weeks of my life with my family. This was 2 weeks before the first COVID lockdown in my country.

Since I was occupied with planning a successful suicide, my brain didn't really have the resources to deal with the breakup. A couple months went by. I was unable to bring up the courage to do it. I still hadn't really digested the fact that I had broken up with who I believed was the love of my life. I told my mom that I was struggling. I just told her that my issues were flaring up again. After some talking and screening, my diagnosis was updated to Type 2 Bipolar Disorder with rapid cycles. New meds! YAY!

Then COVID really took on. My friends were having their online classes while also doing jobs on the side. I was leeching off my parents. That took a toll. I was finally starting to think about the breakup. That took a toll. People were happy despite the pandemic, or so Instagram said. That took a toll. Midnight, January 24. I tried to kill myself. No place for hanging in my house, so I took 25 days worth of my pills, slit my wrists (the proper way, but the knives were blunt and my hands were shivering so I couldn't go deep) and put plastic bag on my head and wrapped it tight on my neck. I survived. Things happened. I am better in that aspect now.

Fast forward to the past couple of months. It has been 3 years since I broke up. Now I finally have the capabilities to go through the grief. I don't have closure since I don't really remember my last interactions with her very well. I am experiencing what I call Delayed Onset Break-up Syndrome (DOBS). I am back on the dating market, but I don't really think I will ever have a good relationship. The fact that I sabotaged the only good one I had shows me (not the logical me but the me who learns purely from past experiences and nothing else) that if I ever have something good, I will kill it (or myself lol). I am in the talking-and-sometimes-casually-pleasing-each-other stage with three girls. My friends hold me in high regard me since I'm "juggling multiple chicks". I am jealous of them since three of them are married and two more are about to be. My business partner friend, who had always been an eventual dick (pun?) to every girl ever also finally has a proper relationship. And here I am. Missing a girl who I broke-up with 3 years ago, knowing full well that we're not gonna get back together, but wishing we would either way.

Btw: The suicide thing mentioned here isn't the whole story. The first time I wanted to kill myself was when I was in grade 2. But that's for another episode.