Thursday, March 8, 2012

How To Survive A Breakup {Part 1}

"Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself."
-Deborah Reber

Today I am continuing my series on breakups, but this time I'm looking at it from the angle of the person going through the break up. Going through a break up is hard. In many ways, it can feel like a wrecking ball has smacked into you, tore you to pieces, and it is now left to you to put yourself back together again. Break ups can feel like you're grieving the death of someone, and essentially you are grieving the loss of a relationship. We can't do anything to make that grief magically vanish, but there are things you can do to grieve in healthy ways. Perhaps you felt like the break up came out of nowhere, and now feel powerless and hopeless. You still have power! You have the power to choose how you will grieve, and if you will choose a healthy or unhealthy route. Over the next few posts, I will be discussing some ways you can survive a breakup in a healthy way.

  •    Disconnect from your ex. Sometimes people try to jump into being friends with their ex almost immediately. Most of the time, this just complicates the grieving process and keeps you too connected to your ex. To grieve and move forward, it’s important to disconnect and put a distance between you and your ex. Maybe you can be friends at some point, but most of this time this doesn’t work right away. Another part of disconnecting is hiding the person from your facebook feed (you don't need to see constant updates), and forcing yourself to stop reading and re-reading texts and emails. Dwelling will only hurt you. 
  • Don’t jump too quickly into a new relationship. While it can help fill the gap where your ex once was, it really doesn’t help the grieving process. You need a chance to heal and be ok with yourself once again before you can make room for a healthy relationship. 
  • Don’t isolate. Some alone time can be healthy, but isolate tends to fuel depression. Isolation also gives you the space to ruminate on and dwell on the break up and your pain. 
  •   Create a strong support network full of people you trust. Don’t keep critical or non-understanding people in your closest ring of support. Choose people who can listen without giving advice, and who will be ok being a shoulder to cry on when you need. Rely on these people as a source of comfort.
Check back for more posts in this series. Previous posts from this series include:

Now it's your turn!
What do you feel is the hardest part of going through a breakup? 

1 comment:

  1. Those are good tips. I went through a really bad breakup when I was 21. We'd lived together for a few years and were going to get married. I was young and stupid, btw.

    He ended the relationship and I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. It took me 1.5 years of healing to get over it. Unfortunately I used food and gained a lot of weight during that time.

    I have much better skills now for dealing with stuff like that. Exercise, friends, staying busy, not dwelling, not turning to food...

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