Post by BookishMiss on Jan 20, 2021 1:32:37 GMT -8
Hi all. I just discovered this site due to so much time stuck indoors due to the covid situation. I was searching for unrequited love quotes when I chanced upon the term torchbearer and think I meet the definition.
I am 35 and have held a torch for the same person since I was 16(?!)
I dont want to bore anyone and apologise for the length of this.
My background is quite a repressive upbringing with a dad who was pretty absent (even though he was right there) due to his severe depression and a mum I've tried to please my whole life. I am the oldest child and I think I've always felt lonely my whole life.
I remember as a child longing for something I couldn't quite name (i have quite a vivid long term memory)
My torch is for a boy I met and never managed to untangle myself from in college. I think he was my first serious crush, super cute but was incredibly rude, and over time his animosity developed eventually into friendship. I confessed my love for him a year later and he said no sorry but we remained friends and I continued to hold this torch for him.
Over time I grew more confident within myself having witnessed and got over a suicide attempt by my dad and also my granny passing away. It helped I had so many things going on work and education wise as I was able to begin to move away from the pedestal I had put him on.
My torch began to be put to one side too as I started speaking to another guy (I didnt get the chance to learn if I would hold a torch for him or not) but HE didn't like the sudden lack of my attention and came back into my life telling me he had liked me all along and began dating me. It was like a dream. It didn't last long at all. Once I was back under his thumb (all my attention solely on him) he ended things saying we were better as friends. It was devastating and I remember how ill I was physically over it and I guess from a torchbearer perspective I began to idealise those few sweet dates we had been on to the point it was all i could think of but couldn't quite marry this ideal id developed of him up to the reality of HIM (saying and doing things I found quite abhirrent) and I'd get the courage to move on and he would do this cycle again. I was like a moth and he had realised how to control his flame lol. This went on until I was 22 by which point I was seriously addicted to him when he dumped me in the cruelest way possible (left me on a road in the middle of nowhere after telling me he had fallen in love with someone else.) I struggled with my mental health badly at this point and vowed to get him out of my system. I began to try put myself out there (so hard for me to do as I am super shy) as I felt I needed to get on with my life when, you guessed it, he returned (6 months later) suicidal and now saying the word love etc and I felt duty bound to help him. It took him longer to break through the damage and the walls I'd put him but when he did he began to distance himself (me not realising he had a girlfriend he had moved in with) This toxicity went on for another 4 years in which time he secretly got another girl pregnant and had a child with her. I had kept justifying and rationalising everything until then as I had lived with my dads severe mental health issues for so long and seen my mum put up with it, I just couldn't give up on him. But the baby was the end of it. Learning about this destroyed me as nothing had. Unable to bear it I ended things and deleted him off everything.
Was happy in my own company for a while (about a year). Convinced myself that I didnt have the issue it was him.
Eventually met the man I would go on to marry and have had a lovely 6 years.
The torch should I call him kept trying to make contact and eventually gave up after about 3 years. Except by coincident we ended up working in the same place 2 years ago and he caught me at a bad bad time. I was suffering with depression as I had lost my dad to suicide, I had mild PND and I was vulnerable. We spoke as he said he needed closure and wanting to apologise, and telling me he regretted everything. I shouldn't have listened but it made me realise my torch was still there but that I also deeply loved my partner and wished to have nothing to do with my ex. and then he kept contacting me whenever he could eventually breaking down my walls. I thought I was wiser as I realised although I still held a torch for him after all this time but did not want to do a thing about it because it was the idea of him not actually him. The longing I felt was something I've always felt my whole life long and it just had transferred and never moved away from him when I met him all those years ago. But he was not worthy of bearing a torch for and yet I still have one for him.
I moved from my workplace and have ensured there is no place he can contact me from now. As there's nothing he can say or do to me that will make me as I was before as I am happily with someone else and will never cheat. My torch is firmly in my head where it has always been.
But this realisation has torn me as I bear this torch for this unsavoury person even though I am happy with my partner but I think we definitely have had a communication breakdown in the last few years leading to my feeling not understood and lonely which may have contributed to my picking this torch back up (i love my partner but in a 'REAL way as its hard idealising or torchbearing for someone who you see every day, it is very different to my feelings for the person I hold a torch for, and I am glad and wouldn't want to given how destructive being a torch bearer has been for me. Its also so hard to have this idealistic view of someone you live with on a day to day basis whereas the torch bearer love was always based on daydreams and what ifs. It was not real.
But in many ways so bizarre.
Like the first time I met him after all those years of no contact (he had occasionally crossed my mind) he was unrecognisable yet when he walked past me it was like my body recognised him first as I just felt this wave and then I turned around to see the back of him and realised how familiar the head shape was and then I realised it was him. I hate that I do this.
I just feel depressed because I feel I've wasted so much time holding this torch and missed out on so many chances and opportunities. 19 years of my life. I've lived in my head.
I don't want to bear this torch if that makes sense.
I do this with friends as well in my head I just think we are better friends than we actually are and then am floored when I realise I may see someone as a good friend and they regard me as an acquaintance. Its made me so unsure of myself and the people in my life
I am worried that I will always hold this torch or start holding on for someone else unsuitable.
A quote i read made me so sad about it it went something like
'I was just a sentence to you and yet I have filled libraries with thoughts of you.'
From what I've read on torchbearers in this last day I'm stuck like this for life.
Is there any advice or guidance for how to move forward and live a fuller life with people who aren't just people I am a torchbearer for.
I am 35 and have held a torch for the same person since I was 16(?!)
I dont want to bore anyone and apologise for the length of this.
My background is quite a repressive upbringing with a dad who was pretty absent (even though he was right there) due to his severe depression and a mum I've tried to please my whole life. I am the oldest child and I think I've always felt lonely my whole life.
I remember as a child longing for something I couldn't quite name (i have quite a vivid long term memory)
My torch is for a boy I met and never managed to untangle myself from in college. I think he was my first serious crush, super cute but was incredibly rude, and over time his animosity developed eventually into friendship. I confessed my love for him a year later and he said no sorry but we remained friends and I continued to hold this torch for him.
Over time I grew more confident within myself having witnessed and got over a suicide attempt by my dad and also my granny passing away. It helped I had so many things going on work and education wise as I was able to begin to move away from the pedestal I had put him on.
My torch began to be put to one side too as I started speaking to another guy (I didnt get the chance to learn if I would hold a torch for him or not) but HE didn't like the sudden lack of my attention and came back into my life telling me he had liked me all along and began dating me. It was like a dream. It didn't last long at all. Once I was back under his thumb (all my attention solely on him) he ended things saying we were better as friends. It was devastating and I remember how ill I was physically over it and I guess from a torchbearer perspective I began to idealise those few sweet dates we had been on to the point it was all i could think of but couldn't quite marry this ideal id developed of him up to the reality of HIM (saying and doing things I found quite abhirrent) and I'd get the courage to move on and he would do this cycle again. I was like a moth and he had realised how to control his flame lol. This went on until I was 22 by which point I was seriously addicted to him when he dumped me in the cruelest way possible (left me on a road in the middle of nowhere after telling me he had fallen in love with someone else.) I struggled with my mental health badly at this point and vowed to get him out of my system. I began to try put myself out there (so hard for me to do as I am super shy) as I felt I needed to get on with my life when, you guessed it, he returned (6 months later) suicidal and now saying the word love etc and I felt duty bound to help him. It took him longer to break through the damage and the walls I'd put him but when he did he began to distance himself (me not realising he had a girlfriend he had moved in with) This toxicity went on for another 4 years in which time he secretly got another girl pregnant and had a child with her. I had kept justifying and rationalising everything until then as I had lived with my dads severe mental health issues for so long and seen my mum put up with it, I just couldn't give up on him. But the baby was the end of it. Learning about this destroyed me as nothing had. Unable to bear it I ended things and deleted him off everything.
Was happy in my own company for a while (about a year). Convinced myself that I didnt have the issue it was him.
Eventually met the man I would go on to marry and have had a lovely 6 years.
The torch should I call him kept trying to make contact and eventually gave up after about 3 years. Except by coincident we ended up working in the same place 2 years ago and he caught me at a bad bad time. I was suffering with depression as I had lost my dad to suicide, I had mild PND and I was vulnerable. We spoke as he said he needed closure and wanting to apologise, and telling me he regretted everything. I shouldn't have listened but it made me realise my torch was still there but that I also deeply loved my partner and wished to have nothing to do with my ex. and then he kept contacting me whenever he could eventually breaking down my walls. I thought I was wiser as I realised although I still held a torch for him after all this time but did not want to do a thing about it because it was the idea of him not actually him. The longing I felt was something I've always felt my whole life long and it just had transferred and never moved away from him when I met him all those years ago. But he was not worthy of bearing a torch for and yet I still have one for him.
I moved from my workplace and have ensured there is no place he can contact me from now. As there's nothing he can say or do to me that will make me as I was before as I am happily with someone else and will never cheat. My torch is firmly in my head where it has always been.
But this realisation has torn me as I bear this torch for this unsavoury person even though I am happy with my partner but I think we definitely have had a communication breakdown in the last few years leading to my feeling not understood and lonely which may have contributed to my picking this torch back up (i love my partner but in a 'REAL way as its hard idealising or torchbearing for someone who you see every day, it is very different to my feelings for the person I hold a torch for, and I am glad and wouldn't want to given how destructive being a torch bearer has been for me. Its also so hard to have this idealistic view of someone you live with on a day to day basis whereas the torch bearer love was always based on daydreams and what ifs. It was not real.
But in many ways so bizarre.
Like the first time I met him after all those years of no contact (he had occasionally crossed my mind) he was unrecognisable yet when he walked past me it was like my body recognised him first as I just felt this wave and then I turned around to see the back of him and realised how familiar the head shape was and then I realised it was him. I hate that I do this.
I just feel depressed because I feel I've wasted so much time holding this torch and missed out on so many chances and opportunities. 19 years of my life. I've lived in my head.
I don't want to bear this torch if that makes sense.
I do this with friends as well in my head I just think we are better friends than we actually are and then am floored when I realise I may see someone as a good friend and they regard me as an acquaintance. Its made me so unsure of myself and the people in my life
I am worried that I will always hold this torch or start holding on for someone else unsuitable.
A quote i read made me so sad about it it went something like
'I was just a sentence to you and yet I have filled libraries with thoughts of you.'
From what I've read on torchbearers in this last day I'm stuck like this for life.
Is there any advice or guidance for how to move forward and live a fuller life with people who aren't just people I am a torchbearer for.
