Dear PIxiemom 13,
Welcome to the parents' forum. I have a 17 year old son and a 15 year old daughter. However, I'm going to base my response on my own experience as a teen, who used to get very obsessed and probably more so in the lead up to a relationship or potential relationship, but wasn't good at letting go either. I used to almost research them and go into fine detail and go over things they'd said to try to work out whether they were interested or not. I see a lot of circular thinking there. I used to write poetry about them, and much of it was pretty bleak. Fast-forwarding, these personality traits were part of a bigger picture. I am a history researcher/writer and that requires very detailed analysis. I am very loyal as a customer. I do not change. I've lived in the same house for 20 years and we've never changed our mortgage, and my kids have some friends who they have known all their lives.
In terms of dealing with breakups, each of my kids have had a breakup and they weren't too traumatic. However, my daughter's ex-boyfriend announced he had a new girlfriend on social media two days after they broke up and that was hard. I noticed that she was following the new girlfriend and still the ex-boyfriend on Instagram, and I did speak to her and advise against it. Her friends also jumped on the new girlfriend's intstagram and they were all blocked.
I drive my daughter and her friends around a bit and pick up on chat in the car directly and indirectly. One of her friends has painful and fairly frequent breakups, and I do have concerns about her, and give her the opportunity to talk, but she doesn't.
The only other thing I wanted to share is something I picked up from my son's friends. One of their mate's girlfriend apparently two-timed their mate, and this girl was completely cut off. They refused to go to McDonalds for example if she was working there. They were so fired up and it really concerned me. I keep up with the teachers at the school and I let them know. I wondered how that reaction was affecting the girl concerned.
Getting back to the obsessive thinking, I'd encourage her to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. This is another way of saying "there are plenty more fish in the sea", which Dad used to tell me and it drove me crazy. I didn't care about all those other fish. I only wanted one fish. That's an issue I noticed with my own outlook. I'm into photography and for example I'd be photographing a house and when I get home, I'll find I don't have a picture of the entire house. I'll have zoomed into the door, or even the keyhole, the windows, the reflection on the windows.
Now, when I find I'm stressed about something and I still have that obsessive thinking, I go for a walk to the beach or somewhere with an expansive outlook and literally expand my horizons. I think this could also be why so many doctors and dentists play golf and get out on that expanse of green.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what the Reachout staff have to say about this, and I hope you find it helpful.
Best wishes,
Birdwings
