Carrasco Psychological Health Services

It sounds like what you have been going through is becoming more overwhelming at times. My first recommendation is to look for as many possible resources in your new city. It would be most ideal if you moved to a city in which you have a support system such as family and friends already. It important to be around people who love and care for you at this time. Ultimately, isolating yourself after the break-up will make things worse. You can continue to ruminate more often and experience the suicidal thoughts more often, if you isolate. If you are experiencing increased suicidal thoughts or thinking of methods to kill yourself, you should reach out to the national suicide hotline (800-273-8255). This is especially important if you are thinking about ways to hurt yourself or have had a history of hurting yourself in the past. This is for immediate crisis in regards to suicide.

You will need to start the process of finding mental health resources provided in your new city. The therapy process can provide you an opportunity to process some of the thoughts you are having rather than ruminating. Also, you and your therapist can discuss possible techniques to begin to manage your anxiety better and have you develop a consistent routine.

I am unsure of all the details regarding your substance use but this would be something to address first in therapy depending on the severity of the use. After completing an initial intake session with a counselor, they will be able to provide the recommendation on what treatment you will best benefit from. In the meantime, you should continue to look for ways to reduce your substance use. Self-medicating with drugs will not help in the long-term. In my experience, people will tend to become more impulsive when using drugs. Thus, it is really risky to have the combination of suicidal thoughts and drug use. A free and useful method of maintaining sobriety has been AA groups which are free and happen regularly across the country. They have groups for specific demographics and drug of choice. It does tend to have a religious component to it. I recommend it because it’s effective and easy to get started without any cost to you.

Many of the things that I have mentioned to require time and energy. I recognize that some of these things can seem difficult to start right away. Therefore, you should at least start with meeting your basic needs and sticking to a regular routine in order to begin to feel more stable. The basic needs are going to involve eating, sleeping and hygiene. The breakup must be painful but the feelings will pass. In the moment, this can seem very intense and almost never ending. It would benefit to start to normalize the breakups just are sad and these feelings are going to be there for some time. The common response from people may be to “just get over it” or “just think positive” but it’s really not that simple. Instead of getting caught in the thoughts of this being “forever”, ask yourself are these even helpful thoughts to have? Continue to focus on developing your routine and social support in your new city.