The Break-up Survival List...
It hasn’t escaped my attention that the posts you all seem to appreciate the most are the ones where I share how I'm managing whatever it is I’m going through. The more I post about skills, the more popular my posts seem to be. While I don’t consider myself an expert on anything, I do know that I have more than an average level of experience in dealing with heartbreak and rejection. So, I figured I’d share with you my little list of things that I do each time to help me get through it. So share, reblog and add suggestions, let me know what works for you or anything I’ve missed, but for me this is what surviving a broken heart usually ends up looking like...
Give yourself 48 hours to just give up on everything. Dramatic, yes? Self-indulgent? Yes. Healing? Also, yes. I’ll admit that I’m not great at this one, but as I already mentioned, I stayed in bed hours later than normal this morning. I haven't looked at a single note of the study I should be doing. The bathroom needs cleaning and I don't care. Saturday came and went without the sheets being washed - it would be a decade since the last time that happened. I’m also eating whatever the hell I feel like when I feel like. And I’ll let this continue until I wake up for work tomorrow morning, because it just helps. I don’t know how or why, but just giving up on working so hard on all that stuff for a short period just helps. But only for a short period. Once it stretches out longer than that, the cycle gets harder to break. So cut yourself some slack for a little bit and just wallow. Get down and dirty and muddy and clog every pore in it. Feel every single thing that comes up and let yourself drown in it. Don’t move or do any task that you don’t want to. But only for 48 hours. Then you get started on the real stuff.
Give yourself permission to cry. I know. It sounds completely wanky, doesn't it? My clinical psychologist talks about this a lot though, taking time each day to “dip into and out of the sadness.” The trick is to stop before you get overwhelmed and to have a plan to escape it. Set aside a chunk of time each day where you lie on down in the muddy depths and roll around, forcing yourself to feel everything that is happening inside you. Cry hard. Then, when it is getting close to the point you can’t take anymore, move on with your day. Repeat daily until you no longer need to.
Create two playlists. Yup, two. Set them to private so that they can be the most embarrassing songs of all time, the songs that you would never be caught blaring out of the speakers at a red light. Those are the songs you need right now. One list of happy songs and one of sad. Play each every day. It doesn’t have to be the whole way through, but make time to connect with each daily so that you feel the weight of what you’re going through, but also so you get a burst of what’s waiting on the other side of healing. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music - whatever it is, set it to private and don’t hold back. If this blog wasn’t anonymous, I’d share mine, but I’m talking tragic tunes. My sad list? Think songs like Think Twice by Celine Dion. My happy list? Songs that can get everyone in the room tapping and singing along, like Sugar, Sugar by the Archies. Reach way back to songs from your childhood singing into a hairbrush and dancing in front of a mirror. Remember your first heartache and the song that got you through it - make sure that’s on there. That’s the kind of magic you need right now.
Don’t drink alone. If you want to drink, fine. I’m definitely not in a position to be telling anyone not to, but no sad drinking solo. It only ends in more pain, and not the helpful healing kind. Call your friends, do the cliche, say their name a million times accompanied with the obligatory ‘but I care about them so much’ followed by ‘I hate them so much’ and let it just happen. Get it all out. If doing so requires shots of tequila, then more power to you, I say. Just don’t do it alone. If you end up drunk dancing on a table at 3am while your friends look on with concern in their eyes, that too is okay. Drink it down and get it out if that’s your style, just don’t do it alone. Have friends that let you get to that drunken ugly place where it all just comes out, and who don’t judge you because they recognise its what you need to do to heal.
Dance. This one is self-explanatory. You’ve heard me say it a million times, but dancing is one of the short-cuts to happiness. So dance. Close the blinds. Crank the music. Just move. It doesn’t have to be pretty or coordinated or worthy of an audience, but move your body. Jump and twirl and pop and two-step until you collapse in a heap. Do it and you’ll know why it’s important.
Watch romantic comedies. I know. But hear me out. Yes, they are typically written by women, and yes they typically hold-up an ideal of love that is unachievable, but isn’t that nice sometimes? Isn’t it nice to think sometimes that there is something better out there? In those moments, I think it is. You can get back to realistic versions of love when the darkest days have passed. My suggestion? Definitely, Maybe. Although, I know that’s self-indulgent and relevant to my current circumstance (two people fate keeps trying to push together but he’s a dumbhead and it takes him a decade or so to work it out... What? I’m not over-identifying... Much...), but in the darkest moments I know this movie is going to give me hope that he will get it together and come back to tell me he made the wrong choice. That for me will help me to get through this until I don’t need it to anymore.
Communicate exclusively in Taylor Swift lyrics for 24 hours. Okay, I know what you’re thinking, but again, hear me out... Who on earth (besides possibly me...? Depressing) has had the level of rejection and heartbreak that she has? And, whether you love her or hate her, you have to admit that converting that heartbreak and rejection into an empire worth millions wasn’t the worst idea... Plus, some of those songs are damn catchy. So, honour the Queen of getting through this by using her best lines. Honestly, you’d be surprised how quickly your friends join in. I first did this as a joke way back in 2012 following a breakup from a man known as Big Red (the long-time readers will remember him) and I didn’t even have to explain myself. I just started doing it as one of those things that was only funny to me, but people I did not expect to even understand the references I was making immediately switched to responding to me in her lyrics. In the cruelest and darkest moments of a breakup, this can still make me laugh.
Find your flow. Whaaaaaat? I hear you ask. Your flow. The thing that helps you to break from your thoughts. In our last conversation he told me that kicking a footy was for him what the ocean is for surfers. That’s the sort of stuff I’m talking about. The thing that helps remove you from the world and the constant babble in your head and gives you some moments of peace. The thing that helps you forget all the pain that you’re experiencing. Find your flow and allow yourself to be consumed by it. Writing, art, exercise, music; whatever it is. Give yourself over to it.
Exercise. Stop groaning, this is important. There's two types of exercise that help. Now, let’s not get drawn into the ‘is walking really exercise’ debate. For the purposes of this, I’m just going to say it is. You need to move your body. For me, I get clarity when I walk. It’s a trick I learned from my dad nearly 30 years ago when my parents were divorcing. God, he spent hours each day just walking, not really aiming for anywhere, just lost in his thoughts and his need to keep his body moving. It was scary how much weight he lost, but thankfully he then met my stepmother who gifted him with an obesity problem that he’s had pretty much since he met her - food is just love to some people. Anyway, slightly offtrack there, but moving helps. Sometimes I walk and I connect with my two playlists and other times I walk in silence. Sometimes he and this mess is all I can think about and sometimes I daydream about completely different things with no basis in reality. And it just helps. I also try to do something more challenging most days for no other reason than to get all those happy little hormones flowing. it may only be 15 minutes worth of other exercise, but it’s something that raises my heart rate enough to kick in all those little chemical changes. It’s a test of discipline to do so initially because of the despair you’re dwelling in, but find a way to move your body. Even just for 15 minutes. It will be worth it.
Shower. Daily. Yeah, you heard me. Do what you want in those first 48 hours, but after that self-care tasks are back to being mandatory. I once had a friend who didn’t shower for a full week after a breakup. Do you know how impossible it is to feel good when you have seven-day old dirt on your body?? You gotta do the basics. Whether you want to or not. You need to eat everyday, try to sleep well each night, and shower at least once a day. I’m not saying you can’t have ice cream for breakfast (I get it, I’ve been there) or wear tracksuits as a new uniform (haven’t been there, but have seen it happen) but you have to maintain some level of hygiene in the process. It’s hard to retain self-respect when you haven’t changed your clothes in a week. And it’s hard to feel good without self-respect.
Don’t date. For the love of, well, love, please baby I am begging you, do not date. There is enough madness and poor behaviour on the dating scene without bursting onto it with a suitcase full of anger, resentment, and pain about someone else. Take some time to stop and breathe and heal before you throw yourself out there. Don’t inflict the hurt you’re suffering on someone else. There will be time to date, but this isn’t it.
Allow yourself to hope, but do your best to move on. I’m not asking you to give up hope. I’m really not. Hope that he will change his mind and accept that he is happiest with me is one of the things that is getting me through this. Hope or not though, you have to keep moving and living your life, just like they are. So keep that hope alive if it helps, but also do the work to move on. Because I don’t have a crystal ball and I don’t know if this is the really real end or not, but he isn’t here and I can’t read his mind, so I can’t live a life waiting for a man who may be committed to never seeing me again.
Allow yourself to be happy. There will be a part of you that doesn’t want to accept new happy moments because it will suggest that you too are moving on and that person is drifting further into your past, but allow yourself to be in those moments. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t real or your feelings weren’t as strong as you thought they were, it means you’re accepting that they don’t want you in their life anymore and so you’re starting to build your own new life (or rebuild as it were). And all this is okay. Painful as hell, sure, but okay. Don't fight the happy moments and don't read too much into them. Just let them be what they are: a nice break from the pain.
It’s not going to be easy, it’s really not. I won’t lie and pretend it will. It’s going to take time and effort on your part. There’s also going to be times when you fuck up royally - like sending them a drunk text or calling to demand to know why they never loved you. Or putting a thirst post up on instagram so that you force yourself back into their consciousness even for just a few minutes. Or blogging the same thoughts over and over again because you know they read your blog and you need them to know exactly why they’ve made a mistake. Maybe it takes you 18 months to give up on the hope that they’re coming back. And all of that is okay. All of that is part of the process. Be kind to yourself on the journey.
And remember, in the ever relevant words of Shonda Rhimes spoken through Meredith Grey, “I make no apologies for how I choose to repair what you broke.” You don’t owe them anything anymore and you don’t have to apologise if healing from them gets ugly and messy. Just do your best to take baby steps each day and to keep your self-respect as intact as you can. You can get through this.
