The Three Stages After a Break-Up

One thing seems to hold true, no matter the subject: people are, for the most part, going through similar life experiences.

There’s a reason that it’s hard to formulate an idea that someone else hasn’t already thought of. There’s a reason it’s borderline impossible to do something that someone else hasn’t already done.

All the efforts to be original or break records are, at their simplest, attempts to solidify some form of individuality and uniqueness — something worth remembering. People just want to have an unrepeatable moment. Most people fear insignificance.

But the harsh truth is: break-ups have been done before. And they’ll happen again, maybe even to you.

If you’ve made it even this far in this article, it’s most likely because the title spoke to you — so I want to also start off by saying that I didn’t open with this concept to belittle the gravity of your scenario. There’s nothing worse than when you’re going through something monumentally challenging, and someone says, “other people do this all the time.”

I open with this concept to settle your mind and ideally provide you with at least a little bit of hope. Because after a break-up, your whole world implodes from the inside out. You’re most likely riddled with anxiety. And from personal experience, anxiety often stems from being unsure about the results of a highly important question or a future potentiality.

So I tell you that it’s perfectly okay to go through these formulaic stages of a break-up because it’s best to have some predictability when you’re anxious and depressed. Those feelings come from a lack of control — a seemingly insurmountable disparity.

But we all think, move, and operate in somewhat foreseeable, rational ways. That’s why standup comedy works — it’s relatable. Comics are expressing thoughts that we’ve all had, but they’re phrased in a hilarious way. Comics take these formulas and articulate them with expert acuteness.

I’m simply taking these experiences that we all have and putting words to them. Will it be funny? Probably not. But I know that you just might need to hear it right now — even if, deep down, you know what’s coming and what you need to do.

This is just your reminder on how to break up “successfully.”

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The “Break-Up Depression” Stage

The “Break-Up Depression” stage is inevitable for either party, but it’s often more prevalent in the person who got broken up with.

Your whole life just got uprooted. You were most likely tethered to your former partner in a variety of ways. Now you have to change your Netflix accounts, go to a new gym, pretend you don’t like artists that you both used to listen to, etc.

You’re stuck trying to figure out who you are because a huge part of you has been removed. And meanwhile, you’re mad at yourself (and your “other half”) in the process. So this is obviously a highly unrealistic undertaking.

You can’t find out who you are when you hate upwards of 50% of yourself.

Plus, you don’t know what you’re going to do. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Suddenly, there are all of these unspoken rules surrounding who can contact who, who gets what jurisdiction and where, whose friends are whose — there’s a perpetual list of unanswered questions.

This creates a deep, dark hole — a hole at the bottom of the already massive crater that your departed partner left you with — and you’re at the very bottom of it.

And thus begins the slow crawl out, and at this point, you only have one, stupid, shitty tool: time. All of your other tools got divvied up in the break-up.

You’re looking around for something, anything. But all you see is a toothbrush with no toothpaste, and it only makes you think about how your partner used to make that weird, cute sound when they rinsed. And even if you were left with a shovel, you wouldn’t have the strength to use it.

You were never much for excavating, anyway.

Days, weeks, months, and maybe years pass — as if you had something to do with it — and your shitty little tool somehow gets you to stage two.

The “Pretend You’re Okay” Stage

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the “Pretend You’re Okay” stage. You didn’t starve, wither, or die in stage one.

In this stage, you start to realize that you’re actually a pretty dope individual. I mean, shit, you just made it out of a deep, dark hole with nothing but time and a toothbrush (which currently sits by itself in what was a two-brush container, but hey, at least you’re brushing your teeth now).

Here, you’re doing fantastic. You’ve lost weight (though some of it was from the depression, anxiety, lack of appetite and poor grocery shopping), you’re starting to work out, you’ve started to go out with friends again, you’ve made a few impulse purchases — you know, retail therapy.

You’ve started to embrace this new life a little bit. But the unfortunate reality is: the break-up stages still suck. Like SUCK suck. You’re starting to appear okay on the outside, but you’re still crushed on the inside.

This is the stage where you find yourself laughing in a public setting and then quickly catching yourself like, “wait a minute, I’m depressed; I’m not supposed to be laughing.” And your brain vanquishes any happiness, turning your smile to a frown.

Frequently, this stage is the backsliding stage because while you’re experiencing happiness in fragments, you are also living in the abrasive reality where your partner was the last person to actually make you happy.

But backsliding almost never works, and it’s not actually good for the healing process at all because while it’s true that they’re the last person that made you happy, they’re also simultaneously the last person that broke your heart. So, every time you see that person, you’re getting a rush of dopamine and a triggering of trauma at the same time.

And it’s addicting — but the moment that it’s not sustainable, or that you notice a downhill pattern, or that something is left up in the air, you crash and burn. And it fucking blows.

You feel like you’re breaking up all over — time and time again.

The “Pretend You’re Okay” stage is exactly what it says it is — you’re not actually okay. Neither of you is in a place to be a dependable partner yet, and especially not to each other. The truth is: you’re most likely hiding behind:

filling up your calendar
working out for the aesthetics
going on subpar dates
overlooking red flags
other shallow endeavors

And when those things don’t quite do it for you (because they inevitably won’t — they’re intrinsically flawed), you start to spiral and reconsider.

I’m not scolding you; it’s a perfectly fine rollercoaster to ride. But eventually, you’ve got to get off.

The “Actually Okay” Stage

Next up is doing the work and ACTUALLY feeling better. This is essentially the final stage: the “Actually Okay” stage.

It’s important to note, that we don’t call this the “Happiness” stage. Placing happiness as the end goal is ill-advised. Happiness is not a destination; it’s the name of a never-ending search.

In the “Actually Okay” stage, you’ll start to realize the practicality of placing your quest for happiness as a priority. You’re not selfish, but you begin to view anything that doesn’t make you feel happy or healthy as a waste of time.

Your workouts are now actually about feeling better instead of looking better. You watch shows that make you think or maybe classic heartwarming sitcoms. You’re working on freeing up your calendar instead of filling it. You only go on dates if it makes a lot of sense — maybe you’re even hypercritical, but you should be. It’s your heart after all. You start to find out what YOU like.

But the key here is that you’re the only judge. It’s up to you, because you will have gained the clarity, confidence, and emotional wherewithal to make that call. Once you’ve reached this stage, you don’t care what other people think of you, especially your ex. You may still value the opinions of those you admire, but not to your own detriment.

Any extraneous effort that doesn’t directly or indirectly go into your own well-being will be distinctly futile and ineffectual. Now, all of your initiatives are centered around being okay on your own — with your partner or without them, or anyone else for that matter.

That way, when you’re not afraid of being alone, you can more easily see who is worth your time and who isn’t. That feeling of “eh, I’d rather just go to the gym or watch my favorite show by myself” is not only sounding better, but it’s the correct feeling. If someone doesn’t garner more interest than an episode of Friends that you’ve seen a million times, then why would you bother giving them your energy?

And you see that clearly now.

In this stage, you’re not so drained by mistakes of this nature. So you have the bandwidth and capacity to focus on yourself in productive, fruitful ways. You know who is valuable and who isn’t.

The first people, by the way, will be your closest friends. Those that care about you unconditionally. Because they will have stuck it out through the other stages, maybe it’s even your family members. After that, it’ll be people and activities that you didn’t expect. You’ll find yourself captivated by things that you never used to give the time of day — like gardening, or painting, or writing, or some other art, perhaps.

But after that…

you just might find your person. Even if it’s someone you already dated, you’ll start to see things from new angles.

But now, you can approach relationships from a place of genuine interest and not dependence or filling a hole.

You already dug yourself out of the dirt, remember? Now it’s time to plant and grow.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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