How To Ride the Breakup Rollercoaster Without Throwing Up

I’ve never really loved rollercoasters. They have their thrills, but I can’t say I enjoy the dramatic drops and intentional fear.

Lately, the rollercoaster I’ve been on has been a breakup one. I would really prefer not to experience every possible emotion within a week, but this is my life right now. One day, I am feeling positive about my life, accepting of my breakup, and motivated about the future. The next, I am despondent about the recent turn of events, terrified of the future, and utterly despairing that anything will ever end differently than this.

Breakups are exhausting.

There’s not even a clear enough pattern to provide a warning sign of which kind of day it’s going to be. If I experience bad dreams and restless sleep, there’s a good chance it’s going to be one of the challenging days, but otherwise, it seems like my moods change on a whim. While I’m trying to hold space for all my emotions, it can be a bit overwhelming.

Still, this is by far my healthiest experience of grief. I’m not trying to deny it. I’m not trying to distract myself with dating or frantic activity. I’m simply allowing the emotions to come as they will and to go the same way. If that sounds peaceful, I can tell you that it’s anything but. I’m just not resisting the full experience this time. I’m hoping that this will be healing, but right now, it just feels like a rollercoaster I’m desperate to exit.

While I’m hardly an expert on moving through the grief of a breakup, I am a former therapist and have plenty of life experience in this arena. While I cannot predict my changing moods, I can prepare for them and offer a few suggestions for those who are wading through this challenging experience.

We need to pay attention to our thoughts.

In the past, I really went down the rabbit hole after a breakup. If my thoughts went in a destructive, unhelpful direction, I went with them. I didn’t even feel like I had a choice. I would wallow in misery and assume that’s exactly what I was supposed to be doing. All I could feel was the hurt, and everything else was unclear.

This time, I’m paying attention to what I’m thinking. I’m not making negative assumptions about my ex, and I’m not drawing negative conclusions about myself either. I try to make sure I’m not catastrophizing every thought simply because I am filled with grief and disappointment.

Keeping our thoughts in balance with reality actually helps keep grieving healthy. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier, but it does keep us from believing the worst about ourselves or someone else as we process how we feel.

We need to focus on the big question.

What do we want? There is no bigger question when we’re going through a life change. If the first thought is, I want them, that’s relatable. I feel that on a soul level, but that’s who, not what.

We need to consider our priorities and what we want for our lives. We need a big picture idea of where we’re going and how we’d love our lives to look. Being able to focus on our dreams can help give us direction at a time when we may feel somewhat unmoored.

We need to remember ourselves.

Beyond the direction we’re going, it helps to touch base with who we are as humans. Remembering what we enjoy and directing some of the time we used to spend on the relationship back to a personal interest can actually help us redirect our energy and process the changes. We may have lost someone we cared about or loved, but we don’t actually have to lose ourselves.

Following my breakup, I asked myself the big question, but then I also focused on all the ways I enjoy spending my time. I started using the time I used to pour into the relationship to give back to myself. One day, that looked like listening to a record while cleaning up my office. Another day, I spent hours diving into a delicious read. It doesn’t matter what we do, only that we enjoy doing it.

We need to take stock of the relationship.

I have never come out of a relationship more grateful than I am today. Despite the rollercoaster of emotion, I am immeasurably better for having known him. I have new experiences and interests from the relationship, but I also grew into my best self just by being with him. That’s not nothing.

I cannot say this about every relationship I’ve had. That’s why taking stock is so important. Sometimes, we come out on the other side of relationships with lessons learned and little else. Whatever we’ve gotten from the relationship is something we can take with us in the future. Bad relationships have their lessons; good ones have their memories.

We need a reality check.

I am in pain. Most days, I’m high-functioning and probably seem like I’m completely fine with the way things worked out. I’m not. I don’t love the experience of loving someone who is choosing not to be with me. I can accept it, but some days, it’s hard to wrap my brain around the fact that I’m back in the experience of unrequited love.

This is where a reality check helps. No one is “The One” or our “soulmate” or whatever lingo we choose to use if they don’t choose to be. I have to remind myself of other things I once wanted that didn’t work out and how grateful I am now that they didn’t.

Breakups are opportunities. We can wallow, get angry, and stay immersed in the pain, or we can embrace change even though it’s an uncomfortable, even excruciating experience. Reality checks help remind us that someone not loving us doesn’t mean we’re not worthy of love, someone not choosing us doesn’t mean no one ever will, and that sometimes relationships aren’t meant to work out because we’re being directed down another path.

We need to increase self-love and self-care.

Because of the pain, it’s time to increase self-love and self-care in equal measure. Lately, I’ve spent more time focused on fitness. I love to workout, but I took it to the next level. I’m not looking for a revenge body. I just want to feel my best, and I have a lot of emotion to work out when I exercise.

I’m also taking more time to check in with what I need. Some days, I need to take a nap or eat a cookie curled up on the couch in my favorite pajamas with a good book. Other days, I need to go for a hike or play with my dog or do something special with my kids.

Sometimes, I need to cry. I do what I need to do because I deserve as much love as I put into that relationship. Regular self-care just won’t cut it while riding the breakup rollercoaster.

I’m really hoping one day I can get off this ride and just enjoy the regular emotions with the occasional jolt of PMS thrown in. I look forward to the day when a random memory doesn’t send me careening into grief. I look forward to being able to smile at memories and be grateful for the experience without simultaneously being sad at the ending and terrified of ever attempting to love again. One emotion at a time, if you please.

Until then, I am resigning myself to an onslaught of feelings. This was never going to be easy. But with a little bit of intention, I don’t have to make it harder on myself either.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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