Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth – or burn down your house, you can never tell. — Joan Crawford
I share my bed with a laptop and an iphone, not a person, so relationships might not be something I’m all that qualified to write about… but break-ups? Oh, I’m the doyen of break-ups. I’m a freaking guru when it comes to leaving a trail of human wreckage in my wake.
This time around though, the universe played a prank on me. I was the one who got burned by the love supernova, destined to fade-out like a white dwarf star (*snort* collapsing inward under my own gravity — sorry, bit of a self-indulgent nerd joke there).
If you’re familiar with the Five Stages of Grief (courtesy of Kübler-Ross) you may not be at all surprised by this post-mortem advice I wrote to help myself get over my recent heart-break:
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Stage 1: Denial
What you tell yourself: It’s not happening. They’ll come back to me. We were made to be together. It’ll be FINE, you’ll see.
How to move forward: Admit how you feel. To them. To yourself. You don’t want to waste your life pondering what may if happened if only you’d had the kahoonas to embrace the risk and tell them how you feel about them, or that you wanted to fight for the relationship. Yes, it hurts like hell when they don’t feel the same way, but at least you will have been true to yourself.
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Stage 2: Anger
What you tell yourself: How could this be happening to ME?! I’ll show them! Right, that’s it. I’ll punish them. I’ll punish myself. I’ll punish everyone around me. Pfft! I didn’t need them anyway! I’m over it (but you’re not).
How to move forward: It may surprise you to learn that striking out in fear, hurt and resentment at everyone who walks past isn’t the answer. In fact, a whole heap of those people want to help you. Take the time-out that you need to lick your wounds and find a safe way to discharge your negative energy. Take up a boxing class or some form of exercise. Avoid your happy-couple friends for a few weeks until the urge to puke and/or punch them in the face passes.
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Stage 3: Bargaining
What you tell yourself: If only I was smarter, funnier, prettier, thinner — THEN they’d love me.
How to move forward: The urge to make a deal with the universe for one last shot at it is irresistible at this time. We’ve all seen those messed-up mutually destructive relationships that get stuck in this cycle for months (or years) where they break-up and get back together over and over again. Once someone wants out, it’s just prolonging the inevitable. The relationship isn’t healthy, won’t last and you’ll ultimately wind-up even more emotionally down-trodden. It’s not about you. There’s nothing more you could have done; nothing better you could have been. It’s time to recognise that the relationship is over. OVER.
Which leads to…
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Stage 4: Depression
What you tell yourself: Romeo and Juliet didn’t hurt like this. No-one in the entire history of the WORLD has ever hurt like this. No-one was more perfect for me. I’ll never love again. There’s no point.
How to move forward: We all know this stage — chick-flicks, sad songs, ice-cream and tissues abound. Sometimes our friends try to cheer us up when we’re in this stage – or worse — try to set us up with someone else. Grieving is healthy. We must process and come to terms with the loss we’ve just suffered in order to be able to move on. While it can be difficult to determine a proportionate amount of time per relationship, if it spirals into clinical depression, as opposed to deep sadness and grieving, seek professional support. Otherwise, be gentle with yourself while you allow yourself to heal.
In this stage, it’s important to maintain routines and try to find pleasure in the everyday experiences that you would normally enjoy (walking the dog, painting, reading a book, spending time with friends). If you find yourself out socially (or on dates) and the ex is still your favourite topic of conversation — you’re not ready to date!
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Stage 5: Acceptance
What you tell yourself: I loved, I lost, I learned. I will move on, and I will love again, taking what I’ve learned with me. I’m over it (and you are).
How to move forward: You know you’re over someone when you’re no longer angry, no longer sad. Once you’ve reached the ‘acceptance’ stage, you’ve begun to comprehend the certainty of the situation. You know that the relationship is over. You know that you will get through this. Logic starts to creep back in, and you may well recognise the ways in which you’re better off without them. You may even come to realise that it’s for the best.
It’s time to find who you are outside of that relationship. It’s time to embrace all the things they didn’t appreciate about you! Enjoy all those favourite foods of yours that they didn’t like, or hobbies they loathed, that musical instrument you wanted to learn or dance class your wanted to take.
Having learned and grown from this experience, you are ready to move on. It’s time to step out of the cocoon and stretch your wings!
Your blog is one of a few that I follow and truly enjoy (even though I have sommented in quite some time). I would like to nominate this blog for the Liebster blog award. Check out my blog for more details…
Thanks Jeff!
well personally i liked having it all simplified into 2 paragraph bit size sections. Yes, you could write a book on each one, but this helps put what can seem like the world’s biggest drama into the bigger picture. like you said, ‘romeo and juliet never hurt this much!’…yeah yeah… it can be comforting to know that actually you’re NOT the only one that’s felt that way. Being somewhere within the cycle myself at the moment, its a nice kick back to some perspective…. i like reading this sort of blog so i can temporarily be reminded the universe does not, in fact, revolve around me… ha!
“You know you’re over someone when you’re no longer angry, no longer sad. Once you’ve reached the ‘acceptance’ stage, you’ve begun to comprehend the certainty of the situation. ”
you know what dude, its more complicated than that. it goes round in cycles. you can be certain of it, but still unaccepting. you can be accepting but uncertain. you experience all of these things and more, in a cycle that just randomly circles around itself no matter what else is happening in your life. don’t think you get to the point where you’re ‘over it’. maybe one day years down the track you get there, but it doesn’t happen soon and its not neat and tidy like that. meanwhile you have to figure out how to find meaning in your life in spite of that. and therein lies the true work of being.
You raise some good points. I didn’t mean for it to sound quite so linear. I certainly think we cycle through these stages, and none of the stages is quite so clear cut as presented here for ease of writing.
However, the mixed cycles you describe around differing levels of certainty and acceptance don’t indicate to me that the person you describe is in any way close to be ‘over’ the relationship.
Obviously, I only speak from my own experience, but I DO think that it’s only once we’re no longer angry and no longer sad when looking back on a relationship that we can be sure we’re truly over someone. And I DO think it’s entirely possible to recover from a broken heart. Certainly we’re not the same person, (just as we learn and grow from all our life experiences so should we from our relationships), but we once again become functional, re-establish emotional equilibrium and move forward.
Happy to discuss further privately if you’d prefer to PM me.
Okay. Just so you know the stages first, this is exactly how it went.
He likes me, I don’t like him. > He still likes me. I like him. I wouldn’t tell for the world. > A few months pass. >He doesn’t like me. I like him.
This happened over a course of September to well, today.
So… now I feel like crap. Just give me something that’ll make me happy. Something I can do alone. I hung out with my friends an hour ago and they helped… a lot. I don’t feel like eating chocolate…
If being with friends helped, it sounds like not being alone is a good remedy for you… but you asked for something you can do alone, so I recommend: exercise, painting, cooking, reading – and gaming (if you’re into that sort of thing). Anything that involves learning a new skill is good, because it exhausts a lot of brain-power, thus stopping you becoming consumed in your own swirling emotions. I advise avoiding movies for a while because most of them have romantic story-lines (documentaries and/or your fave sit-coms are ok, of course — but stay away from romances!).
Starting a project around the home, or a new hobby, is another good way of diverting your attention elsewhere while the heart mends. Also, many a break-up has led to a brave new makeover — hairdos, shoes and new looks are all quite popular post-breakup DIY therapies (just be sure to avoid seeking his opinion on any of the changes!).
Best of luck with the healing. Be gentle with yourself.