Breakups suck. There’s no denying that rejection is one of the worst feelings in the world, maybe even worse than the feeling of getting hand sanitizer in a paper cut. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been exclusively dating someone for two years, or if you’ve just been seeing them for a short two months, either way, once feelings come into play, you’re left hurt when it comes to an end. Not only are you left hurt though, you’re left confused, and sad, and angry. For days, or even weeks after, you’ll run through every conversation you’ve had with this person and every moment you’ve shared prior to your splitting, and nothing will ever make sense. You’ll want to reach out and ask them what went wrong, you’ll want to do anything you can to see them again, but it’s only reality that nothing will change. The ugly truth of the matter is, if someone wants to be with you, they will be with you, and unfortunately, moving on is something that we all have to do at one point or another.
I’m saying all of this because I recently went through it. I know how horrible the experience feels, but I also know that moving on is extremely possible. I’ve dealt with situations like these in the past, however for some reason, I found that being away at college makes the experience harder at times. Maybe it’s because at school, the independence we have gives us the ability to seclude ourselves from the world around us, or because we don’t have the love and support of our families that we would have at home, or because we already deal with so many other stressors while in school, but even despite all of this, there’s still a way to make it through. So, I wanted to share three of my most important pieces of advice in helping to get through one of the most difficult times that many of us will face during our college experience.
- Talk It Out With Someone Who Cares
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It’s easy to become lost in your own thoughts and feelings, but this inevitably makes it harder to move on. I’ve found it very helpful to talk about how I’m feeling with other people, people who I know will be honest with me, because they care about me. Call your mom, vent to your friends. Not only will this help you relieve your mind, but by talking to people who truly care about you, you’ll gain insight that you might have been too love-blind to realize before. Your mom may say you’re being too naïve, and your friends will say that you deserve more, and while this may hurt to hear, they’re usually right. When you take a step back from the situation and consider the perspective of outsiders to your relationship, the fog will undoubtedly begin to clear, making you one step closer to achieving full clarity.
- Don’t Lose Yourself
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In times like these it’s also easy to lose motivation. You may find yourself becoming less involved in things that you once cared about. But, it’s important to remember that you had a life before this person came into the picture, and you have a life still with them no longer in it; don’t let one person change the path of your life, especially in a negative way. No matter how badly you want to stop going to the gym or skip class, just to lay in bed moping about what you’re experiencing, the reality is that none of that will help you. Although it feels like your life has paused, everything around you is still moving, you can’t let yourself fall behind. Continuing on with the things that have made you who you are is one of the only ways that you’ll be able to return to your true self again. So, get back into your gym routine, and go kill it in your classes, because these are the things in life that are constant, and it’s important to keep yourself in check.
- Remember Your Worth
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It can be tempting to blame yourself for the cause of a breakup. It’s far too easy to fall into the dark trap of believing that you aren’t enough, and to constantly wonder what more you could have done to make this person stay. But in reality, people will do what they want, when they want, no matter what, and while the actions of others may hurt us, we cannot let them define us. The opinions and actions of one person, do not say anything about who you are– your actions, your thoughts, are what define you. Always remember that you are worth so much care and commitment, not only do you deserve to be treated that way by others, but you owe it to yourself to believe it too. Treat yourself with care, and respect during these times– this means no second guessing yourself, no wishing you had done something differently, no running back to them in despair. No matter how hard it is to resist these urges, do not give in, you’re only disrespecting yourself and perpetuating the pain by doing so.
I hope that if you find yourself in a similar situation as what I’ve recently gone through, you take my advice and use it as a catalyst to your moving on, it only goes up from there.