#heartbreak101

Do you ever get that intrusive thought when you’re laying on your bed staring at the ceiling thinking about something completely unrelated to the situation and then BAM, the intrusive thoughts hits you, Wonder what’s he’s doing? Let’s look at his social media and check.’

One key thing that makes me feel better on a bad day is ensuring my thoughts are worked through and processed, the best way through is what I call ‘sound-boarding’. We should all have someone in our lives that we can use as a sound board whether this be a friend, family member, colleague or even a pet - just someone to rant to and get those thoughts out there so you can actually work through them. I don’t know about you but when I start overthinking I can almost feel my head getting so cluttered that there’s then no room for anything else, in order to get through daily life we need to declutter our minds from those thoughts from time to time. The most useful way I do this is by talking to someone about what I’m thinking, not for their opinion or sympathy or a harsh reality but just to get them out of my head.

Just one thing to mention as a side note, when sound-boarding to someone remember you always have a choice meaning you don’t have to take their advice, you don’t have to listen to agree with what they say and you don’t have to do as they tell you to. You always have a choice, if you feel their advice isn’t quite correct or maybe it’s slightly negative you don’t have to follow it, you are your own person and ALWAYS have a choice in your actions and how you proceed.

It’s really hard being in love with someone that doesn’t love you or feel the same back. But tell yourself this, no matter how many times you over play everything that happened, how you first met or relive the nice times does that change their mindset? Does that prompt them to text you? Does it give them a signal to get in contact? No, you hope it does but it doesn’t do any of those things because the reality is if that person isn’t still in your life or reaching out then they aren’t thinking about you, they don’t have the same feelings of what if, they don’t feel the same about you back because if they did you wouldn’t be in this position. 

So how do you get out of this? You need to rationalise your own thoughts, so when you think about that person and the questions of what if? Or what are they doing? Or do they feel the same? Come into your head, rationalise that. A what if is a fantasy, it didn’t happen and it isn’t real it’s effectively a story you’re making up that you will never get the ending to which leaves you feeling frustrated, sad and angry because there is no answer. The human brain likes certainty and secureness and you are doing the complete opposite by making up what ifs. It’s the same sort of thing as thinking ‘what are they doing’, unless you have solid evidence by talking to that person you don’t know what they are doing, you don’t know what’s happening with their life. Your thoughts can escalate and tell you they are fine without you and they don’t care and all of those things that make your self esteem low and give you less self worth than you already have after the initial heartbreak but you don’t know these things for sure. Don't get me wrong, I am not now saying that this person is doing all those things and you should reach out, I am just trying to explain the reality is you have no idea. It’s like when you look at an instagram post of a perfect family or you see someone in the coffee shop with their friend laughing and joking, at home they could have extreme circumstances that make their lives difficult and complicated but they put a brave face, you just don’t know. This leads me to social media, ok so you’re stalking their stories and they are posting pictures looking happy, being free, living their lives but that doesn’t mean that’s their reality. Social media is mostly a facade, it doesn’t show reality 90% of the time, people only post the good things that happen to prove to others and themselves their life is great, it’s a boost for their own ego - when you get likes and comments you feel better and better about yourself. Have you ever seen a social media post of someone crying or showing their unclean home because they haven’t managed to get out of bed for days to clean it due to mental health or their bags under their eyes because they haven’t slept for weeks due to other circumstances? No, so social media also isn’t reality. All these things you think you know about this person you don’t. So when you are coming to conclusions in your head of what you think their reality is just ask yourself one question, ‘do I have proof?’ And I guarantee the answer every single time will be no and if it’s a no then the last 20 minutes of thinking about this person has wasted your time, energy and created feelings and emotions that have made you sink deeper and keep this suffering alive. 

Whether it happened in the last 2 hours or the last 2 days the pain is horrific and I mean horrific. You feel like you can’t be without that person, like your future has just melted around you, like you won’t be able to get through the next hour let alone the next day, month or even year. You think you’re going to feel the pain forever. And all of these things might feel true to you right now because that’s your reality, the feelings you have are real, the emotions you have are painful and uncomfortable to say the least. You might be in psychical pain because your brain can’t determine the difference between severe emotional distress and physical injury due to it being the same part that deals with these two things. But you don’t care right now about the science behind why you feel like this, you just want it to stop! Before I give you some advice on this I need you to know that this is SO temporary and even if you feel like this for a day, a week or even a month (which is unlikely) that is such a minor portion of your whole life. Think about it, even if you are 20 - you have already lived through 7300 days, 1040 weeks or 240 months, admittedly in this time you haven’t been in such emotional termoil but I’m trying to make you understand that this pain and suffering is just a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of your life. 

The first thing I try to remind myself not to do is make any rash decisions. Yes that’s easy for me to say right now because I’m slightly head of my journey and not going through this pain right now but it will honestly help you in the long run. So do me a favour, don’t send that text! Now by all means write that text, in fact right it 20 times over on your notes or a piece of paper explaining absolutely everything you think and feel but whatever you do, please for your own dignity and sanity DO NOT PRESS SEND. 

I’m going to explain something right now, this person that has just broken you into pieces thinks you will come back, they are certain you will text; they are certain you will call and they are certain you will break contact and wouldn’t it be the best thing in your own mind to know that you aren’t that predictable, desperate person they are expecting you to be. Right now you potentially have anger and you want them to feel the way you do and, in time, they will but it’s critical to ensure you do not contact them at this time. Three reasons why: 

One - it’ll only cause you more heartbreak when you don’t get the answer back you want of ‘I still love you’ or ‘I didn’t mean it’ because at this stage they haven’t had time to process either and those words won’t come. They may not even respond which would be even worse. 

Two - it’ll break any sort of chances of rekindling (if you wanted this) as your triggered nervous system will send you into a psycho by begging and overpowering this person with questions when actually it’s likely they don’t know how to feel either.

Three - it allows you time to sit with yourself to calm your nervous system and take you out of that fight or flight mode even if it’s just for an hour. If you text you’ll go straight back into the crippling anxiety of if they are going to reply and what they’re going to say putting yourself right back into minute one of the heartbreak.