I finally Blocked him

I'm recovering. Back in Aug '22 Ex told me he needed to unfollow me on insta because it was "too painful" to keep seeing me in his feed. Ik ik I should've blocked him when he broke up with me but I wasn't strong enough and was stupidly hoping for a reunion. Because he unfollowed me I never took the step to block him there as I assumed it would be the end of it. Big mistake. Ik ik. Fast forward Nov '22 his bday was coming up and I was getting feels again. Now I don't usually check who's viewed my stories and I don't post a lot but things lined up and I happen to be scrolling though the few people who viewed my story and low and behold (you already know) his little icon pops up. On his bday. What a sick in the head little ego boost I got from that. Thinking of his miserable single ass checking on me, his awesomeonethatgotawayexgf, on his bday. This action started an obsession that only ended up hurting me. For the next 3ish months I posted to my stories and obsessively checked if he'd pop in there. He wasn't following me, but he continued to view most of my posts. It was really messing with me. Did he miss me? Would he ever send a like? Would he ever reach out? The holidays were here and I kept posting thinking there was a slim chance he'd reach out with a holiday excuse. But it was just pure stalking. He never reached out. In my heart deep down I knew he wouldn't, but I couldn't bring myself to block him. It controlled what I posted. I would post with the hopes he'd see it. And I wouldn't post somethings because of the fear he'd see them. The worst part was I'd sometimes set an alarm for myself so I would remember to check at the 24th hour just before my story expired so I wouldn't miss it if he'd looked. I also made screenshots when i caught him in there so I could track dates/times/post history. Embarrassing af ik ik. End of Jan '23 and I had a mental week of anxiety (not bc of him, bc of intense work things) and for the first time since November I didn't post for 10 days. When things calmed down for me end of Jan '23 I posted again. Thinking I'd broken my habit of checking if he'd viewed it. And maybe being inactive for over a week he'd stop checking. But I checked. Ik ik.

He didn't view that post.

So I posted again the next day.

And that post he viewed. He was back. For the next few days, I posted daily. He saw them all. I felt that ego boost again. Told y'all I need therapy. I finally pulled myself together and blocked him on Feb 6th. So far I've felt all the feels all over again. I thought about unblocking him as soon as I woke up the next morning. Thinking he wouldn't notice since I'd done it late the evening before. I've had non stop thoughts about him. I even had a dream about him last night where we got together and talked about things but in the dream he told me he had a GF and I got that horrible sinking sick feeling in my gut in the dream. I kissed him in the dream and it was so vivid. Awful. I hadn't dreamt about him in a loooong time. So my obsession was recently triggered because of all this. My long ass point of this post is I know I did this to myself and I should've blocked him way back in August and I would have been so much further along in my healing by now.

It's soooo hard to come off of my obsession. He really did a number on me. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry I didn't listen to FDS. I'm living through the consequences now.