Love to see so much support here in asklemmy. This community is really great.
I went through divorce at the age of 27 and is one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. It is a lot like a death. Obviously not of a person but a dream and perhaps an identity. It’s the type of thing that can feel like a personal failure and really leave you feeling hopeless and in despair.
In the first months I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that the feelings will just go away or even lose their potency, and they can be extremely powerful. Perhaps they just become muted more and more as time passes and you fill your life with other people and activities. Hell, to this day (now I’m 45) I still think about her occasionally and wish it could have been a different outcome, but so much of my life since that time never could have occurred had I stuck with her. In other words I’ve come to learn that while I’m grateful for the good times we had, I’m also grateful that it ended and I too could move on.
The most important thing you have to do now is find out who you are as a single man - and as a human - by nurturing and taking care of this new found sense of loneliness. Find your new identity. I think you really have to lean into the pain you’re feeling and express it deliberately. Let it move and let it get out of you.
It especially helps to fill your time with activities you love that also nurture you. Maybe that’s being outdoors, maybe that’s gaming, whatever it is you know it better than anybody.
We really need healthy people around to support us during this kind of time and it’s a shame that the people you thought would be there aren’t. Maybe they can still be your buddies but now you know they’re not the type to really have your back when the shit hits the fan. But those kind of people are out there and now it’s your mission to go figure out where they are.
If only it were still easy to participate in society without doing business with some of the bigger ones