Confessions of a Crazy Ex - A letter from S

I received an email from "S" the other day that went like this:

“I never thought I would be a crazy ex but it just happened and I didn’t realize until after. Basically my ex started seeing another guy a couple weeks after we broke up but she’s clearly just using him for hook ups because he’s going to be leaving May 16 to go to the military and she’s only known him for about a month and Snapchat has wonderful thing that you could see peoples locations. I saw she was at his house for hours and I got upset and started sending her her location and saying “how could you” and “I’m never going to be your friend”. And all she did was just block me on Snapchat and then Ignore me. So the next day I went to her college which is about three hours away for me to apologize and I bought her a rose and when she saw I was there when I knocked on her door she didn’t answer and I waited for hours for her to show and during that time she started blocking me on Instagram and Facebook and she wasn’t answering any my messages. Until she sent her friends to tell me to go away and go home. I didn’t do anything else after that but send her a message saying that I was basically they are to apologize and she was making me look bad by not replying to me. I know this sounds crazy but I just wanted to get a second opinion on how bad it is?”


Operational definition : Crazy Ex
A person whose actions, triggered by a the emotional fallout from a recent breakup, go above and beyond the normal response to save a relationship that has already ended. In other words, doing entirely too much.

As with all undesirable behavior, the first step to addressing it is to identify it. It is very positive and encouraging that you have self-identified that you may have gone a bit batshit here. While that does not make any unstable behaviors acceptable, it will go a long way towards making sure that you don't repeat such mistakes. Saying I'm sorry does so little in the real world of adults to heal emotional wounds. The most important piece of advice I give anyone is don't be sorry, do better. Words really mean very little in the big picture, but actions really do speak volumes.

You don't want to be on... either side of this really.

Now to address the reason why you wrote me, let's breakdown the tape, so to speak.  I think you already know what your first and biggest mistake was here; staying connected on social media. HUGE MISTAKE, but you have probably realized that by now. The entire point of social media is to let you know what someone else is doing at all times, whether they want you to or not. When you break up with someone, it is your responsibility to block them IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE. I cannot stress that enough. You must be swift, thorough and you must not hesitate. And we all know what happens if you hesitate; if you hesitate then you will become dead Marine. That's what they said in Full Metal Jacket, and I'm fairly certain that's relevant here. She blocked you, and once that happened any possibility of a future relationship with her, in any form, was gone. Block first if for no other reason than it feels good to quit rather than get fired. Trust me, I know what it's like to unintentionally glean information about an ex when you really weren't trying, which is why you have to be diligent about protecting yourself from any unwanted revelations.

We live in such a connected age you will find things that remind you of her everywhere. Here are just some of the places you have to block her; Google, Gmail, LinkedIn, Facebook (obviously) Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Spotify, Gchat, Messenger, everything. Clear all of your browsing data. Erase all search history. Erase and block not only her phone number but the numbers of all of her friends and anyone who may know how to reach her. You have to protect yourself from future you, because at some point future you is going to be drunk, or tired, or lonely, or all three, and will want to try to contact her and you have to take away all of his options. An undervalued facet of any breakup is protecting yourself from yourself. You had two weeks to burn all bridges. If you had done all of the blocking immediately, you'd have saved yourself a lot of time, heartache, and gas money. If you haven't done so yet, please burn everything (figuratively speaking) immediately.

The next error you committed is in reconstructing her motivations for her current actions. It is none of your business what (or who) she is doing now, and here's why; how is anything you learn going to help you? It doesn't matter if she's seeing this guy for sex, for a relationship, or for paving her driveway (not a metaphor.) There is no scenario where you knowing about her current activities works out well for you. Look at this from a cost/benefits analysis point of view. You and her are newly broken up, and one of the ways people cope with breakups is by hooking up with someone else immediately. A human mind in the midst of a breakup is a terrible thing; it will only replay the worst outcomes over and over, and the longer you dwell on your ex the more your perceived reality will conform to fit your fears. You have to save yourself from inquiring into her new life not for her, but for you. The best motivation to mind your own business is to avoid further pain. The chances are high that she won't be doing anything you're happy about, so why put yourself through further grief? On the surface you may say that you're trying to reach her out of guilt or to apologize for some offense, but really you are just looking for an excuse to see her again. By the way, a good way to figure put if you're engaging in obsessive ex-boyfriend behavior is if anything involving your ex takes “hours.” You knew she was at his house for “hours”, you drove for three “hours”, you waited outside of her dorm for “hours”. Nothing involving an ex should take more than 5 minutes, long enough to curse them out one last time or just say goodbye forever. Anything longer that that and you are probably straying into crazy territory.

Not knowing that you were out of control is a real thing. In my personal experience, there were many times that I didn't know that I was being crazy until after it was over, which is why it is very important to have someone in your life who is boring. A completely boring, average person is absolutely essential to the life of an emotionally adventurous person. Whenever I'm very upset about something I have friends that I talk to before I act just to make sure that my response and level of emotional excitement is proportional to the stimulus. In other words, I have people to tell me if I'm overreacting. We all need a point of reference for “normal” so we don't go off and do something stupid, kind of like a lighthouse in a sea of madness. When we are operating in a heightened emotional state, it becomes difficult to think rationally. Some people's neurons are wired so that their logical thoughts are interconnected with their emotional impulses in such a way that they literally cannot think straight when they're upset. If you don't have a person like that in your life, I highly suggest going to a therapist. In fact, go to a therapist anyway. I cannot overstate how important a good therapist can be is providing you with unbiased insight into your behavior.

Let's review; she blocked you so block her on everything. Engage and feel your feelings, remember they're your feelings and it's your responsibility to resolve them, not anyone else. Block her on everything. From what you've written you did go full crazy ex, but you can pull back before any more damage is done. Work on healing you. Read this article that goes into more depth on why breakups hurt so much. It helped me to know that a lot of the pain I was feeling wasn't heartache or missing love, but stupid brain chemistry. Good luck “S”, and remember; everything RomComs tell you is a lie and they should all be burned.