Blocking your ex – a concept that is probably the most common approach once you are finally ready to move past your breakup. It’s an approach that your ex or even to others in your life may tell you that they feel that it is a petty thing to do. However, for me, it was a necessary step to temporarily delete my ex off of all forms of social media that I use, simply just for peace of mind. What’s wrong with that?
Nowadays, social media is such a big thing for how we express ourselves, show what we’re doing, who we’re with, what we’re eating – you name it! It is so fun to automatically stay up to date with our friends, family or celebrity crushes without even having to ask or wonder. This, however, is probably the worst aftereffect of a breakup. As petty as it sounds, blocking and/or unfollowing your ex is such a necessary step! Now maybe not for everybody, as we all handle breakups differently as humans. But, for me, it was needed. It allows you to scroll through your Instagram or Snapchat feed without having to worry about seeing his/her face just pop up and stare right at you. It’s truly tormenting and just another way of bringing back all the memories that you are trying to push back in your mind.
I will say that taking this step should be thought out and done with the right mindset. Once you do it, you need to stick with it for a certain length of time until you are ready to welcome that person back onto your social media feed. Don’t do it while thinking super bitter thoughts, don’t follow them back or stalk them if their accounts aren’t on private when you’re feeling lonely or creepy – just leave it alone and be ready to commit.
When going through a breakup, you are not just losing that person as your significant other, but as one of your best friends. It’s hard to fathom all of that emotion in a reasonable time span. Once blocking them or unfollowing them, I kind of forgot about this person’s existence for that temporary time span, simply by not having social media as a crutch to stay semi-up to date on what he/she was doing on a daily. Whether we realize it or not, social media is a slight obsession, and you may not realize how much you rely on it or how much you rely on it post-breakup to still feel like you are apart of that person’s life.
Keep in mind that unfollowing and blocking does not have to last forever. Then, when is the right time to follow them back, though? Well, to me this was the easiest part of the process. I did not even have to think twice when I was ready. It may seem super dramatic and thought-out, but it is sentimental. This means you are officially moved on and ready to have this person back in your life, even if it’s in the smallest instance. For me, it means a lot because it’s a very rare thing to cut someone out of my life unless it is truly necessary. This step is different for different people and depending on how your breakup went, you may never want that person back on social media or in your life at all, but that’s for you to decide and know. Just know that if this step comes to you, it comes with time.
Image Credits: Cover Photo, 1