A breakup can be excruciatingly painful. The more meaningful a relationship, the more painful its demise. Your entire routine and all your future plans, they all change in one instance. At once everything becomes different. It feels unreal. And then, you go through different phases.
This is how I have categorized those stages:
Denial
Stage one: the break up doesn’t feel real. Regardless of who ended it, there is usually some array of disbelief between you both. You try your best to save your relationship even if it means sacrificing your own peace. You postpone your grieving into trying to save your relationship. You’re left with inflated delusional hopes of reconciliation. But reality sinks in sooner or later and you plummet or coast towards phase two.
Isolation
You just want to be alone. You feel tired and unstable, you don’t want anyone to see you like this. So you wear your pajamas and binge-watch seasons/movies all day. You try not to use your mobile because then you’re tempted to text her or check up on her. You avoid all human contact as much as you can.
Depression
Everything begins to remind you of her. A song on the radio, a movie, a show, it can be anything that’s related to her. Everything that reminds you of her depresses you. And trust me the more serious you were the more things you associated with her. I’ve seen many people get feverish or ill during this phase. Some eat too much and some eat too little.
Recklessness
You become somewhat cold to the world and a bit selfish. I tried parties, drugs, random flirting – all ways to cope with the loss. To make myself feel better, to somehow numb the pain. You drive faster than usual. You have that “fuck-everything-and-everyone” vibe in your head. Like a dark cloud that’s always surrounding you. My grades fell, my health declined, I was smoking like a chimney and on top of it all, I couldn’t care less. You do a lot of damage in this stage.
Acceptance
Now you finally accept that it’s all done and gone. You accept that it was fate that tore you apart and you think less often about her, The thought of the past doesn’t bring you down anymore, You stop blaming yourself and her. All you ever wanted was the pain to be gone, for it to be bearable to live again because everything else was out of hand. So when it gets bearable enough you accept what has happened and try to move on.
Moving on
After months, a day finally goes by when you don’t think about her at all. That’s when you realize everything will be all right. You stop flirting around or avoiding girls, depending on your way of dealing with your breakup. Basically, you don’t mind being serious again at some point, But only if it’s the right person.
Grief comes to you in all emotional traumas – breakups included. It can happen over the course of seconds, minutes, days, months or years. But it’s important to fight back sooner or later because grief consumes you. So I’ll leave you with this bit of advice: time heals all wounds or at least fades them away slowly. Take your time. The stages come differently to some people and some stages last longer than others. So to anyone going through a heartbreak, trust me, you’ll make it through.
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