Going through a breakup can be very difficult, emotional and stressful. Often we are filled with all these confusing feelings and wonder if what we are feeling is even normal. We tend to do crazy things that are out of the norm for us. For a while, we might even lose ourselves to emotion.
These emotions that we feel are normal and there is quite a process in letting go of a person we really loved.
Each person is different, we will go through different stages at different times so do not worry if you feel like it is taking a little longer than expected to get over a loss. Sometimes we even go backwards and repeat stages that we have already gone through.
There are a number of stages we go through after losing somebody we love. There is shock, fear, denial, anger and what I call the "crazy stage". After that, finally some peace.
Shock and denial:
Shock and denial go hand in hand. At first you will feel like you are dreaming. Even if you knew that the relationship was in trouble, you never actually thought that a breakup was possible. The person loved you too much to leave you. Despite all the bad times there were many good times. You shared so many wonderful memories this cannot be real. They will soon realize that they are wrong and will come running back. This cannot be happening to us, we were once the "perfect couple". You tend to forget all the bad things. The bad things weren't that bad. We will fix things and everything will be OK. The phone will be locked to your hand and you will be staring at it, waiting for the caller ID to say their name. They will call soon; they must be busy. At this point you still will not be able to refer to them as your ex boyfriend/girlfriend. No we are not really broken up. We just need a little time, you might tell others.
Fear and loneliness:
Now the phone has not rung and it has been quite a while. You are getting over the shock and start to realize that they might not call. You start to think to yourself that maybe this is real. That's when fear starts to kick in. We fear that we will be lonely forever. We fear that we will have nobody to talk to. We fear that we will not be able to make it in this big scary world without them. We fear that when we are sick there will be nobody there to comfort us. We will jump into bed and hide under the covers feeling lonely, sad, depressed and feeling sorry for ourselves. Talking to friends and family is not an option. You want nothing to do with what is going on around you. You will sit and cry and listen to "your song" a million times to the point where there are no more tears left. You will look at pictures over and over again. For some reason we will torture ourselves. I will never be able to find a person that will love me the way that they did. What if I am not good enough, they left me. Why would somebody else want to love me?
Anger:
So now that you have been crying for a while and have not moved from your "spot" in the bed for weeks, you start to think about all the things that you did for this person. I do not understand why they left me. I was such a good boyfriend/girlfriend. Nobody else will ever do what I did for him/her. Good luck trying to find somebody who will do the things I did for you. At this point, you need to blame somebody. You are tired of blaming yourself and it suddenly becomes their fault. You are sick of hearing that song and turn the radio off every time you hear it. You want to rip their picture into one million little pieces and burn it. How dare they leave me! They had no right. Nobody will be able to replace me. I can't believe you did this to me. After all I did for you!
The "crazy stage":
The crazy stage is a little bit of everything mixed into one. It is the stage where shock, denial, fear, loneliness and anger kind of come together. I know that many of us have gone through the crazy stage. This is when we have now realized that this is real, BUT we are not going to let it stay that way. We are now going to do everything we can to try to make this person come back into our lives. So they haven't called, I will call them. They haven't written an email, I will write them. What, no text? I will text them. We check out their web pages and see what their activity is. We want to make sure that there are no other significant people in their lives. And I do not mean we will do these things one time and be done with it. No we bombard them will calls, texts, emails, letters and beg for them to speak to us. We promise that this time things will be different. We promise to change all the wrongs and make them right. We try to remind them of all the good memories and try to make them see that it wasn't so bad after all. We promise to do anything to make it work out. We read articles and books and watch TV shows on "how to get our ex back". This is now war! You do not love me anymore? Well I am going to make you love me! The outcome of this stage can vary. Because we are setting ourselves up for disappointment when we do not get the response we were looking for, we can pull ourselves back into one of the above stages. Some of us will go through denial again. Some of us go through anger again and other loneliness.
Words of Advice:
But as time goes on, we start to calm down. Little by little we start to realize that we are still alive. Thought some of the pain is still there, it starts to hurt less and less. Yes it might actually take years to get over a person that was a major part of our lives, but the time will come when you will actually be able to smile at the memories instead of cry.
Nobody can predict exactly how long it will take for the pain to go away. Every person is different. It is really hard when you have created so many memories and shared so many important details of your life with another person. Letting go is not an easy thing to do. The main goal is to understand that yes your life will change, but this does not mean you have to forget all the good memories and times you shared with a person. This is a part of you, and always will be. Remember what this person has taught you and be thankful that you were able to experience the things that you did.
You just have to make sure that you keep yourself healthy during these stages. We need to try our best to get advice and support from the people around us. Eat properly. Try to get out of the house and socialize a little. Many people suggest jumping into another relationship right after a breakup to get your mind off the other person. I do not suggest that. At this point you have many emotions built up and starting a new relationship will not allow you to heal from this one, and you will not be giving the new relationship a fair shot. So you need to allow yourself time. Get to know yourself. Discover what makes you happy and try to be strong. Many times after a big breakup, we will discover things about ourselves that we weren't even aware of.
After all is said and done, if you still feel as if this relationship has a chance, then maybe you and the other person can work on it. But remember you cannot make another person love you. Give them the time and the space they require to get their head straight as well. They have gone through this breakup too and I am sure they are feeling a whole bunch of different emotions. We have to remember that. We tend to be selfish when it comes to these things. This person might be going through the same thing as you. Being over persistent and clingy is just going to push them away even more.
Stop being so hard on yourself. Just because a relationship did not work out, it does not make you a bad person. It does not mean that nobody will ever love you again. Maybe you did try your best to do all you could for the other person. When you are with another person, remember you are part of a couple. A couple is 2. You are only 1 of the two. You can only do what you can do, just like the other person can only do what they can do. If you truly love a person, you should want what is best for them. It would not be fair to make a person stay in a relationship that is not fulfilling to them. It does not mean that you are lacking something, maybe they are lacking something within themselves and no matter how many things you did for them or no matter how much you loved them, they will never find the satisfaction they are looking for.
Finally some peace:
Even though at this very moment you feel as though you will never get to the point of peace, you will! One day you will be able to sit back and realize that you have made it! You made it through the heartache, tears, anger and fear. You are still alive! Thinking of this person will be a pleasure instead of like a knife cutting through your heart. You will be much stronger than you were before and you would have learned a lot about what you need and want.
Give yourself the time required to heal. Let your emotions out and address them. Do not try to pretend like you are OK, if you really are not, this will just prolong the process.
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