< indulgence >

I haven't posted on Mudcat for absolutely ages, and I'm being a bit indulgent with my first post for a while - please forgive me!

As some of you may know, I split up with my best-friend-and-fiance a year and a half ago. We were living in different places as I was studying in England and he was working in Ireland. The distance was just too painful and to cut a long story short, we couldn't cope.

Fast forward about a year and I am diagnosed with clinical depression. Life is unlivable for me, and I can't find a single cause - just a collection of things that hurt (work, friendship, relationships) and the fact that the world is a horrible and nasty place. I never understood depression before I got it - and I never want to go through it again.
Six months on, I've seen a counsellor and been on the anti-ds since November, and am expected to keep taking them til Christmas this year. But things are so much better, I can focus, I can think, and I don't want to hurt myself (or others) anymore. I can actually get through a day without obsessing about death (usually mine).
I have formed a wonderful friendship with a bloke I was dating, and he has helped me through so much, but I can't face another relationship like the one I had with my ex-fiance. I feel like I'm betraying the memory of what I had before.

Trouble is, now that the depression has faded, I'm suddenly hit with an overwhelming wave of grief at losing a relationship that meant so much to me. I'd do anything to try again with him. Only problem - he has a new girlfriend, and tells me he's moved on. I'm happy for him, but my god it hurts.
The worst thing is I now think that when he and I split up I was actually depressed before that - in retrospect I can see all the symptoms - but I didn't think to seek medical help, and I couldn't cope alone, so the result was me and my fiance breaking up as he couldn't physically be there for me, and I couldn't handle the pain of separation.

So, this is my self-pitying whinge plus a word of advice, as all the best folk songs have moral last verses:
I still don't believe that love is all-conquering and that fate will decide, but I do know now that if something is worth fighting for, do it, because you might not get a second chance.

(p.s. It's really not the done thing to start a petition to get him back, is it? ;-)

< /indulgence >