Long story short: my ex/best friend is my FP. We’ve been on and off (mostly on) since I was 15 and he was 16, we’re now 23 and 24. We broke up officially over two years ago but have spent the past few years living together and acting like we were together. We recently started living separately because we had an “off” phase and then quickly started being “on” again. Tonight he came by to tell me he wanted to just be friends again so he could see other people, he wants to try new things. 

I’m completely fucking torn, I don’t believe in souls or soulmates but this guy made me see why people do. I don’t think this is co-dependency, I’ve just been so in love with this kid for almost a decade. I have bad social anxiety and he is the ONLY person I hang out with outside of work. I don’t even know how to make friends, let alone move on romantically. There’s the BPD part of my brain that’s lying to myself, saying he’ll be back like always. But how many times are we gonna do this? 

I just killed my year clean from self harm over this, like I can’t wrap my head around how he can spend months telling me he likes “whatever this is” (in reference to our undefined relationship) and being amazing to shit like tonight where he’s leaving me to try things with other people. I keep trying to get him help also because his depression (typical male, outwardly showing with anger) and alcoholism causes the majority of issues between us. 

I guess I’m just looking on advice on how to start over coming my shyness and social anxiety so I can make friends (because right now my brain is screaming I want him as support even though he’s the one causing the pain), and someone to tell me it’s going to be okay. He made/makes everything feel okay and safe, now that he’s left I don’t know how to cope. 
