My meeting went well, and I am going to try going the secrecy route in terms of study and shit though I might have trouble gathering data.  So, as a backup in case that is a fatality, basically, I need to come up with related areas of executive-legislative interactions and influences on foreign policy.  Which is my broader area of interest right now (I'm pretty sure I have settled into a niche, finally).  So, I have stuff I need to do this summer.

Session with Nancy was also awesome, and she told me that I looked like a completely different person than I did at the end of the school year.  It was a nice compliment, since I was stressed and sad and angry and all that, and now I'm just much more...relaxed.  At the moment, anyway.  I told her about my thoughts on the ex and our relationship, how I have come to start understanding that, even from the beginning, he was able to manipulate and control me using my own guilt and love for him.  And that that was a huge reason why I crashed as hard as I did when he dumped me.  That I did everything possible, I sacrificed myself essentially, to try and make him happy.  Except he said he wasn't, and then betrayed me and everything he ever told me.  And showed me that I wasn't needed.  He did not need me in his life at all.

I asked her about her thoughts on whether or not I should message him for an in-person confrontation, and together we weighed the pros and cons.  The pros include the fact that I finally could tell him face-to-face what I think of him, and how he fucked me up for a long time, and I could defend myself against all his shit to him.  I can see his reactions, and see how I can handle things, and maybe finally feel like I could close this shit.  Cons include reliving the breakup all over again (and thus losing a lot of fucking progress I've made over the past two years), losing sight of myself upon seeing him (since it has been...a long time), allowing him to manipulate me into thinking that what I have finally come to understand is not true at all, etc., etc.  But no matter what, I do know that what I experienced cannot be taken away, and I'm confident in all of that now.  He will not be able to convince me of things that did not happen or happened differently than I remember.  His bullshit will not take away my truths any fucking more.

It was suggested I sleep on it, because admittedly I am less inclined to the idea after best friend told me her thoughts, which are incredibly important to me.  So I'm going to do that, and I might later write a full thing outlining the pros and cons of asking for a meetup.


I have talked about how I felt about the women in ex's life after me, and how I rushed to poor judgments due to my anger and my jealousy and the desire to be mad at anyone but him.  And even when I recognized he was the root of my depression, I still took things out on the women who were in his life, hating them and being mean, as a defense mechanism.  I said they were crazy, they were weird, they were too into this or that.  It was unfair and juvenile, and I harshly judged two people I knew nothing about, and I hated myself for it.  I did not want to recognize that he was the entire problem, not them.  Not any of them.  They were and are wonderful, and I have come to realize this.  (Luckily, I finally have learned, and I have made no such snap poor judgments of his newest girlfriend.  I just kind of hope he doesn't fucking uproot this poor woman to Cali if he is just going to break up with her in a few months.)

A while ago, I found an ex-girlfriend's tumblr, and I might message her just to tell her that...idk, if she needs to talk about him, she can to me, or something.  It will be fucking weird and out of the blue, I imagine, but having someone do that for me was actually really wonderful.  I slowly began to realize (very slowly, I'll admit) that it was not me, or her.  It was him.  It was always him.  He was always shitty and manipulative, never changing his behaviour even after recognizing that it was terrible.

Maybe she will openly accept my offer, but...I don't know.  Perhaps it will come off too stalker-ish or shit, but...yeah.  I feel this weird need/desire to pay it forward, and offer to talk if she needs to rant or just have someone listen.

...Again, I have no idea if this will be weird as shit.  But now that I have the idea in my head, I think I'll do it.

God, she's probs going to think I'm such a fucking weirdo.