Need somebody to validate that I'm not insane after a breakup [TW] Suicide, Self-Harm

Hi Reddit.

I was in a relationship for three years during college. I've got another two years left. Out of those three years, we lived together two of those years and we went on exchange for a semester. I've got a lot to say about the breakup, so I'll break it up into sections.

During the relationship

I figured out she wasn't for me. She was an anchor on me, and I wanted to not be with her. At the time, she had an ideation to self-harm and for suicide, and I stayed around for a good year and a half to 'fix it' (dumb-ass me). She had horrible thought patterns that were alien to me, but after being around long enough, I started to feel how she was feeling as well.

The issue was that I invested myself in her fully, 100% backing. If she'd have a bad mood, I'd sit there and talk it out with her. If she didn't want to go to a job interview, I'd sit there and be her personal cheerleader.

I feel that I was a fundamentally happy, content person. I started working at a law firm at the age of 19, was juggling volunteering and other financial, social and study commitments. My ex just wanted to not do anything and be unhappy all day. However, her attitude made me question all of that.

I gave her good habits. I got her into gymming, dieting properly & counting calories. She went from stick thin to now (excuse the language) thicc af. I spent so long invested in her happiness, only to realise that she wouldn't reciprocate.

This is despite her constantly abusing me, belittling me; and even worse, hitting me physically (started happening in our second year together). I knew it was time to leave, but I couldn't because we were living together at the time.

Towards the end of the relationship

Towards the end, I realised that she was literally sucking the life out of me. I wasn't myself anymore, and there was no happiness for me left to give. I needed some warmth from her.

I started self-harming again at the time (old habit from when I was 16). I didn't tell her until one time it was obvious during sex. She thought it was gross, and instead of comforting me and asking what's wrong, she gossiped to all of our mutual friends about it.

As you can imagine, mutual friends distanced themselves from me.

Break-up

I broke up with her February of this year.

As I was breaking up with her, I told her that I was feeling legitimately suicidal and she didn't want to help me. Now I want to pause this story and tell you that I have struggled with thoughts of suicide before as a result of being on Roacutane as a teenager.

I was expecting that she would help me as I helped her before. I stuck it out for one fucking year with her to help her. I told her, clearly, it was a matter of when, not if.

She just laughed at me, and again, gossiped to our mutual friends about it. Nobody really cared.

Post Break-up

People believed I was a horrible person for breaking up with her. She made up so many stories about how much of a monster I was. People avoided me. People in my old social circles all hated me. It was horrible and very triggering seeing her with my old friends, and it still is today.

I didn't have any friends or family to talk about it. This made me feel incredibly alone, isolated, and ready to do what I needed to do.

This conflated my depression & suicidal ideation. On March 24, I tried to commit suicide by (a) self-harm (which didn't work); (b) strangulation (rope broke); and (c) xanax + alcohol overdose (which meant that I ended up at hospital). I am alive today, and I don't know if I regret what I tried to do to this day.

Today, I am feeling better and am getting back my old self-confidence back that I had during the relationship. I felt that I "gave her" a part of me because I genuinely loved her and didn't want to see her struggle, but I realise, I cannot make a person happy who is fundamentally miserable.

People really have the wrong idea as to what happened. I don't know what the fuck to do about this situation apart from "move on" from people. There's at least 60 people I met in my year group during my college days, and almost all of them act extremely distant towards me. I don't get invited to any events anymore, and sadly enough, most people don't talk to me anymore.

Every time I see my ex I see her as a different person - happy on the outside, not what she was when I was in a relationship with her. Every time I see her, my thoughts are is that she's incredibly happy that she managed to ruin me socially. Every time I see her with friends, they're whispering to each other and laughing at me. I see it in my lectures, I see it everywhere I go.

Please, Reddit, someone tell me that I am not crazy. I don't know what the fuck to do about this, I feel that people will not believe a "guy's side of the story". It's incredibly hard to just "drop friends" that I had invested myself in.

Today

I have made new friends and moved into a different share house. Some new friends are in lower years. However, it doesn't compare to the old friends which I had (which turned out to be shit).

I am writing this post because I woke up at 6AM with a nightmare. The nightmare was that the ex agreed to meet up, and when I got there, she organised some old friends to just sit there and laugh at me. They were blocking my way to her to talk. Then as I tried to escape, they blocked my way out. I woke up screaming.