First and foremost, I want to preface this by saying that I am not a relationship expert, nor am I a mental health professional. I cannot give any of you any legitimate advice based on what is “objectively correct.” What I will do is speak on my own experiences and provide some basic tips based on what I have learned throughout said experiences, what has helped me and what I think can be generally good tips to get you through your own breakup.
I was with my boyfriend for only four months before we broke up, and it was the most devastated I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It sounds so dramatic, given that the relationship didn’t last long, but it was my first relationship and I had put a lot of effort into making it work when it was never going to in the first place. It was very emotional, and I will spare a lot of the details out of respect for him and his privacy, but I was completely unprepared on how to deal with something like this. There were many days where I struggled to get out of bed, and I couldn’t even look at reminders of him or places we used to go to without crying. Maybe some of you feel the same way. Some of you may feel blindsided, betrayed, angry and a litany of other emotions that we all experience. But now, six months later, I’ve come out of it with a better perspective. Even when that first month felt hopeless, I still was able to find moments of joy to remind myself of who I was, and I hope that with these tips, you will feel that way too.
feel your emotions, but Don’t lose yourself
Personally, I believe that one of the worst things you can do when trying to heal from a breakup is to suppress your emotions, trying to prove to your friends and yourself that everything is fine when it’s really not. If you spend too long trying to bottle up your feelings after a breakup, it’s going to hit you incredibly hard later down the road, and inevitably delay your healing process.
Cry for as long as you need to. I know I did almost every day for weeks, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. A breakup is like a death in a way. Your once safe person, this sense of normalcy in your life, was all just stripped away from you in the blink of an eye, even if you knew that inevitably the relationship wasn’t going to work out. You go from talking to your partner almost every day to no contact, which can be suffocating. Please go easy on yourself. Yes, you’re mourning a loss. Don’t put pressure on yourself to pretend to be okay.
With all of this being said, I’m not saying you should spend every day in bed, not going to classes and not taking care of yourself. It can be very easy to spiral into a depressed state if you don’t take care of yourself and your well-being. I understand how hard it can be, believe me I’ve been there. If you have no appetite, at least try to eat something. Go to the dining hall and pick up something quick, even if it is ice cream or fries. If you’re worried about people judging you for your puffy eyes or disheveled appearance, trust me that nobody is. They’re in their own little world, just like you’re in yours. Lean on your close friends and family for emotional support. The amount of hours I was on the phone with my mom after my breakup is astounding, but it really helped me. Overall, try to find the balance in between feeling your emotions as needed, and making sure your mental and physical state is taken care of as well.
reflect on the relationship thoughtfully and carefully
Depending on your situation, this could look very different for any one of you. But in general, this means reflecting on why the relationship ultimately didn’t work out and the roles that both you and your partner played in its conclusion. But of course, if your partner was toxic or abusive, then that’s just that. You did nothing wrong and you didn’t deserve to be hurt in the ways that you were.
As for me and my relationship, as distraught as I was that it ended, I understood why it needed to end. Throughout most of our relationship, I spent more time being sad than happy. What it ultimately came down to was me begging and chasing for the love I deserved when I knew deep down I was never going to get it. This may be your situation as well, and it’s difficult when you start to realize that you aren’t mourning the relationship itself, but the idealized version of it you made up in your head. That was a truth that took me a long time to come to terms with, even when I had my mom saying it to me on the phone every day.
It can also be difficult to not think in extremes, and it’s important to approach your situation with nuance. There is a balance in between defending your ex partner to your friends no matter what they said or did to hurt you and unjustly villainizing them for things they had no control over or for just being human. There are certain behaviors that went off in my head as red flags but I ignored them because I didn’t want to face the reality that this person wasn’t right for me, and now I realize that I’m better off not dealing with that anymore. If there is one lesson from those four months that I learned and believe is so important for everyone to know it’s this: you should never have to teach someone how to love you — the right person will simply just know.
remember who you are and give back into yourself
You lived a life before your ex, so remember who that person is. You may be completely different from who you were before you dated them, and maybe that’s because you spent so much time trying to figure out how to alter your life to live for another person. That was the case with me, and because of this, I have spent a lot of time figuring out who I am independent of somebody else, and I am in a much better place now because of this. This may take several weeks or months to build up to, and that’s okay. Everybody’s journey is different, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation.
I would encourage you to try a new hobby or skill that you’ve always wanted to try but never got the chance to. For me, that was karate. I have been wanting to try it for years now, and I was always scared to because I felt like it was too late in my life to start and I thought it would be too difficult. But I put those fears aside and decided to try it out and I’ve fallen in love with it. It’s completely outside of my comfort zone, but right now, that’s what I feel like I need. It’s something that I’m doing for myself, not for anybody else, and even though it’s hard I push myself to keep going because I actually want to be good at it. There are so many hobbies out there. Finding one that sticks with you and improves your mental health and sense of self is a wonderful feeling.
But the first step before any of that is remembering that you are your own person. You have so many unique qualities that make you the amazing person that you are, and your worth is not determined by your past relationships. And even through this new journey of self discovery, it’s okay to have moments or days where you feel like you’re back at the beginning and you just want to cry. Don’t worry, this doesn’t erase any of the progress you have made — you are only human. Trust me, as the weeks and months go by, those days will become less and less frequent. You will be okay, you’ve got this.