How To Survive the Post-Breakup Blues

I cried for two weeks straight every night when I went through a rough breakup a few years ago.

I couldn’t sleep well. I was highly sensitive. My best friend took me out after a whole week stuck in the room, and I just cried my eyes out again, right there, at the park.

I didn’t give a f*ck when kids looked at me weird or that old lady who judged me from afar.

Those mental breakdowns didn’t stop happening until three months later when I finally moved out of the city and restarted a new life.

Breakup sucks. It doesn’t matter whether you only dated for three months or a year — it still hurts. You have to survive the phase — there’s no other way around it.

The healing was rough, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything else in this entire world.

Believe it or not, breakups change you.

You either change to be a better version of yourself — or the worse.

Some people take a breakup really, really hard, and they end up not finding their way back to themselves.

They get lost in sorrow. They think life’s over.

When you’re really in your feelings, it’s easy to feel that way. How could you not, right? Your ex was probably the only person who “got you” or laughed at your stupid jokes.

So trying to convince your brain that it’s over is not the easiest thing to do. But you have no other option but to do it.

They said the acceptance phase is the hardest, and it’s true until you believe that there is no more relationship between you and your ex — you’ll be forever stuck in pain.

Take a baby step today and tell yourself you are on your own now. If you don’t take care of yourself — no one will.

Your life is already hard right now. You don’t want to make it worse. Go out more and spend time with those who still care a lot about you.

Journal your thoughts whenever your chest feels heavy.

Move your body a little more when you feel like sleeping and crying in bed all day.

There are no more reasons for you to let that door open — it’s over.

One of the main reasons why people take years to move on from their ex is that they don’t want to cut contact with them.

They want to stay friends; they want to entertain that idea in their head that maybe it’s better to live behind their shadows than lose them forever.

But do you actually want to be friends with someone who broke your heart and tore your life apart? Think about it.

I asked my ex to delete my number so he couldn’t reach out to me, and so did I. I refused to stay as friends until I healed completely from the breakup.

And it worked like magic.

It fastens the process, and I found it so much easier to move on with my new life without him.

If you seriously want to get over your ex, you need to choose that route where you shut down all doors — no more interactions between you both.

In a way, you make that decision because you think there are no more reasons why they’re still in your life. It’s not about them anymore — it’s about you and how you can survive.

So it only makes sense to be a little selfish and do whatever the heck you want.

This is a crucial step in your post-breakup because by opening the door for your ex still, you let your mind have that ‘option,’ you know, the “just in case they come back and apologize.”

That’s what actually makes lots of people fail to move on. They like false hopes.

Look, if your ex truly wants to make it work again, they’ll come back. In the meantime, don’t waste your time waiting for them to change their mind.

Hit that ‘restart’ button — you’ve got nothing to lose.

Let’s take a step back and see a breakup from another perspective. A perspective that makes you think, “hm, it’s actually not as bad as I think it is.”

As cliche as this sounds, I believe every breakup happens for a reason. And sometimes, it’s no one but us who doesn’t want to believe and accept that reason as it is.

My boyfriend and I once broke up because we didn’t think we could continue the long-distance relationship. We were basically stuck. No one was willing to move to another country in order to close the gap.

So in those post-breakup moments, it was hard for me to get over him because my mind loved the idea that we still had feelings for each other. And my whole life plan has revolved around him.

It’s easy for me at that point to think that there’s no way out of this mess. That I’d be stuck in the desperation for years.

But when I decided to look at a breakup in a more positive way, I realized it’s actually the best opportunity for me to rediscover myself.

Those who’re too attached to their past relationships are the ones who usually have codependency issues.

They’re too attached emotionally that they think their lives revolve around their partner.

That’s why when it’s over, it’s hard for them to stand on their own feet. They don’t get used to it.

If you’re one of them, it’s never too late to turn things around. This breakup happens because you need it to find yourself again.

You needed it to gain clarity of what truly matters to you. All breakups are hard, but not all of them are bad.

I learned one of the greatest life lessons during the breakup — and I hope the same for you.

Once you make it to the other side of the world, you’ll realize that you won’t feel the same ever again. You’ve changed.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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