It has been a while, and yet on reading my previous post, I realized my thoughts are circling around the same realizations again. A short while ago, I experienced the most painful, shell-shocking thing of my life thus far. I felt betrayed, devastated, hysterical, cheated, broken, desperate, regretful, worthless, confused. I still do, and will for a long time to come. But I am also learning things, about myself and others and life. Here are a few things that have proven especially helpful, from someone still very much wading their way through the thick of heartbreak.
1) Love your body. Since my heartbreak, I've been having panic attacks and lost nine pounds in a week because of a complete lack of appetite. The thing I realized as I was gasping my way through another attack, though, was that even though I felt like I was going to suffocate and have a heart-attack, I didn't. Even though my brain cortex was telling me I should be dead, I'm as good as dead, I want to be dead, my brain stem stubbornly kept my lungs and heart going. And there was a comfort in that realization. I've been going to the gym, and even if I cry minutes before the instructor turns the music on, my body still moves the same. It keeps me grounded, it picks up the slack when my mind can't. It's stronger than it ever has been, and it will keep me alive even when I don't have the strength to.
2) Love your friends. I'm not very good about asking for help, especially emotional support. But with utter misery and despair comes surprising shamelessness. I found myself reaching out to friends, to acquaintances, to people I hadn't talked to in ages. And a miraculous thing happened. I went from feeling like my support network of one had been yanked out from underneath me to feeling ashamed about not realizing what wonderful people I have the joy to coexist with. As a friend said, "Once you've been there, you want to do anything to help others going through it." And people do. I haven't been coping well with quiet or alone time lately, but instead have had coffee, chats, and cries with people I kept at a distance for ages because I was too tied up with one person. I might be rubbish company right now, but I shall cherish all of them to my dying day.
3) Love your own company. I'll admit I'm still working on this. It's strange, how you lose your independence and self-sufficiency in a relationship. But my friends assure me it's like riding a bike: it'll come back to you after a couple of wobbles. And they're right. I have a few very vivid memories from years back, of my lonely adventures. Sometimes they would take me to places that were a bit scary, a lot foreign, and sometimes overwhelming. I also distinctly remember shedding a few tears, having a little inner dialogue with myself and assuring myself that I would be fine. Like that awkward pat you guiltily give yourself on the back, only mental and actually highly effective.
When I was in a relationship, I got used to outsourcing my comfort, and that's why it was so horrible having the person you rely on for comfort being the one hurting you and pulling away from you. But already, I'm having tiny glimpses of my former self. Fleeting moments when I feel present in myself, when I feel alright. A little squaring of my shoulders against a new day and its challenges, a plan to order delivery from IKEA instead of having him drive me, and a glimmering speck of actually believing myself when I tell myself, "Hey, it'll be alright. We'll be just fine. I've got your back."
4) Realize it's you, not them. The other night, as I was bawling to my mother again, she said, "You need to understand that everything that is happening right now is happening inside of you. It's all you, not him." In my desperation, I was convinced that if I just got the right answers from him, if I just was miserable enough to change his mind, if I stubbornly refused to believe this was happening, it would make a difference somehow. It makes sense, on a sad level: in a relationship, you feel so close to someone you're convinced they share everything you're feeling. But they don't, and even less so once the relationship is over. I have no control over what he did, felt, does, or feels, no control over why or when or how. I only have control over myself and how I deal with the situation. I will never get the right answers, I will never know what was or is going on in his head, and I will never be able to change it. All I can do is accept his decision and choose how I'm going to move on. It's not about him, it's not about us. It's about me.
5) Realize pain does not equal love. I feel like this might be my peculiar delusion, my very own flair of insanity. One night I was getting myself riled up again, having an inner monologue about how horrible everything is and how I'll never get over it and I'll never stop loving him, never ever. And I realized I was latching onto my pain in a distorted, messed-up belief that if I was in enough pain, I would stay in love, and I would somehow maintain a connection with him. I might be ruined, but I would be forever tattooed with the scars from him. The thing is, getting over the pain does necessitate getting over him. For the pain to lessen, you have to start letting go, start that slow crawl towards the ability to look them in the eye and feel a mild fondness rather than insane, desperate love, or hatred, or longing. But see point 4). They have made their decision. Now it's up to you. And I realized that actively making myself miserable wasn't going to bring him back, and it wasn't going to keep my heart lyrically bleeding after him like in Lifetime movies or Bon Iver songs. All it was doing was keeping me miserable. Full stop.
6) Let go. All the above points lead to this. And it's the hardest fucking thing.
1) Love your body. Since my heartbreak, I've been having panic attacks and lost nine pounds in a week because of a complete lack of appetite. The thing I realized as I was gasping my way through another attack, though, was that even though I felt like I was going to suffocate and have a heart-attack, I didn't. Even though my brain cortex was telling me I should be dead, I'm as good as dead, I want to be dead, my brain stem stubbornly kept my lungs and heart going. And there was a comfort in that realization. I've been going to the gym, and even if I cry minutes before the instructor turns the music on, my body still moves the same. It keeps me grounded, it picks up the slack when my mind can't. It's stronger than it ever has been, and it will keep me alive even when I don't have the strength to.
2) Love your friends. I'm not very good about asking for help, especially emotional support. But with utter misery and despair comes surprising shamelessness. I found myself reaching out to friends, to acquaintances, to people I hadn't talked to in ages. And a miraculous thing happened. I went from feeling like my support network of one had been yanked out from underneath me to feeling ashamed about not realizing what wonderful people I have the joy to coexist with. As a friend said, "Once you've been there, you want to do anything to help others going through it." And people do. I haven't been coping well with quiet or alone time lately, but instead have had coffee, chats, and cries with people I kept at a distance for ages because I was too tied up with one person. I might be rubbish company right now, but I shall cherish all of them to my dying day.
3) Love your own company. I'll admit I'm still working on this. It's strange, how you lose your independence and self-sufficiency in a relationship. But my friends assure me it's like riding a bike: it'll come back to you after a couple of wobbles. And they're right. I have a few very vivid memories from years back, of my lonely adventures. Sometimes they would take me to places that were a bit scary, a lot foreign, and sometimes overwhelming. I also distinctly remember shedding a few tears, having a little inner dialogue with myself and assuring myself that I would be fine. Like that awkward pat you guiltily give yourself on the back, only mental and actually highly effective.
When I was in a relationship, I got used to outsourcing my comfort, and that's why it was so horrible having the person you rely on for comfort being the one hurting you and pulling away from you. But already, I'm having tiny glimpses of my former self. Fleeting moments when I feel present in myself, when I feel alright. A little squaring of my shoulders against a new day and its challenges, a plan to order delivery from IKEA instead of having him drive me, and a glimmering speck of actually believing myself when I tell myself, "Hey, it'll be alright. We'll be just fine. I've got your back."
4) Realize it's you, not them. The other night, as I was bawling to my mother again, she said, "You need to understand that everything that is happening right now is happening inside of you. It's all you, not him." In my desperation, I was convinced that if I just got the right answers from him, if I just was miserable enough to change his mind, if I stubbornly refused to believe this was happening, it would make a difference somehow. It makes sense, on a sad level: in a relationship, you feel so close to someone you're convinced they share everything you're feeling. But they don't, and even less so once the relationship is over. I have no control over what he did, felt, does, or feels, no control over why or when or how. I only have control over myself and how I deal with the situation. I will never get the right answers, I will never know what was or is going on in his head, and I will never be able to change it. All I can do is accept his decision and choose how I'm going to move on. It's not about him, it's not about us. It's about me.
5) Realize pain does not equal love. I feel like this might be my peculiar delusion, my very own flair of insanity. One night I was getting myself riled up again, having an inner monologue about how horrible everything is and how I'll never get over it and I'll never stop loving him, never ever. And I realized I was latching onto my pain in a distorted, messed-up belief that if I was in enough pain, I would stay in love, and I would somehow maintain a connection with him. I might be ruined, but I would be forever tattooed with the scars from him. The thing is, getting over the pain does necessitate getting over him. For the pain to lessen, you have to start letting go, start that slow crawl towards the ability to look them in the eye and feel a mild fondness rather than insane, desperate love, or hatred, or longing. But see point 4). They have made their decision. Now it's up to you. And I realized that actively making myself miserable wasn't going to bring him back, and it wasn't going to keep my heart lyrically bleeding after him like in Lifetime movies or Bon Iver songs. All it was doing was keeping me miserable. Full stop.
6) Let go. All the above points lead to this. And it's the hardest fucking thing.
