Get My Sparkle Back

Some could say it’s a bit of a cruel joke that I’ve experienced heartbreak MULTIPLE times even though I’ve never been in an official relationship. Those people are totally right. However, do we really think I would have developed this sense of humour without the joy of wasting my time on several dudes who “just aren’t looking for anything serious right now?”. I guess we will never know. I do know quite a bit about getting through heartbreak, though. I could list multiple references, but they will deny everything and gaslight you into thinking meeting each other’s parents is totally casual.

Heartbreak Over Someone That Was Never Officially Yours:

First, I’d like to say that your feelings are entirely valid; an official label doesn’t suddenly make how you feel about someone suddenly real. You are allowed to be sad or heartbroken about a situation, no matter the length of said situation. I’ve heard multiple people say they struggled more to get over the person they ‘dated’ for three months than their three-year relationship. I am someone who has felt invalidated many times for not yet being over someone I wasn’t even in a relationship with officially. I’ve had ‘friends’ explain that while what I was feeling must be painful, imagine what it would be like after they ended their 2-year relationship.

For those who have never experienced the ending of a 1-3-month situationship, I would like to explain it like you’re watching a movie. In my opinion, when people end a long-term relationship, while I can only imagine how devasting it must be to have someone be such a permanent part of your life for so long and then suddenly not, they have usually reached the natural conclusion of the relationship. They got to the end of the movie; they got a start, middle and end. There is closure in that. Ending something with someone in the first few weeks or months is like going to see a movie and being kicked out 20 minutes in. You never get to see how this movie could’ve ended if only you’d been given the chance, and those ‘what ifs’ can eat you alive. You are ending things on a high, in the honeymoon phase, when everything about this person is new and exciting. Those early feelings are addicting, and the hope for what it could turn into is the best part. The early stages of love, often referred to as the ‘honeymoon phase’, is when you get a major dopamine hit, according to psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. When discussing modern romance with Emma Chamberlin on her podcast, Lori explains that “you get the same stimulus in your brain, the dopamine, that you would get from cocaine, chocolate; it is literally the same neural pathways”. The beginning stages are quite literally an addiction, so when someone suddenly leaves in this stage, of course, it’s going to be painful. From your brain’s perspective, you are detoxing from a drug. Everyone in a long-term relationship was feeling this way in the beginning, too; they just got to stay in it long enough for the honeymoon stage to fade. They got to have a relationship. When someone pulls away after an amazing few weeks or months, it feels so sudden and out of nowhere. After all, you are only 20 minutes into the movie, so why turn it off now? Now, you must get over someone you barely knew, someone you can never officially say was yours. No one gives you the same coddling people get at the end of relationships because chances are no one even met this person, and if friends/family did, it was only once or twice. The ending of a situationship isn’t held to the same regard, so people don’t check in to see how you are. I have been made to feel pathetic for how long it took me to get over someone I was never officially with. So, if you’re reading this as someone heartbroken over the person who turned off the movie 20 minutes in, you have every right to take as long as you need to get over them.

The Stages of Heartbreak (In My Experience)

Stage 1 (The Rollercoaster):

Heartbreak over someone you loved or were romantically interested in is a form of grief; it’s mourning the loss of someone. Hence, why when people are giving advice about heartbreak, they usually mention the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This way of discussing and describing grief was created by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross when she published her book ‘On Death and Dying’ in 1969. Despite how many discuss the stages as though they come one after the other in a particular order, Kubler-Ross made it quite clear that grief is a non-linear experience. Not everyone experiences the stages in the same order, and some don’t experience certain parts at all. Personally, for the first few weeks of heartbreak, it felt as though I was feeling all or most of these stages every day. It was exhausting. I would feel angry, depressed, in denial and then as though I’d accepted the situation all in one day. It felt like I was on this constant roller coaster of my own emotions, and I spent all day trying to brace myself for whatever would come next. Would I cry next? Would I go into a spiral of self-pity where I wondered what I could’ve done differently? Everything is heightened, and I spent most of my time lost in the past, in the good memories I would never get to experience again with this person. This shit is painful, and all you can do is try to ride the rollercoaster as best you can. The most surprising part of this stage for me was how physical the pain was. For the first two weeks, I had a constant ache in my chest; I remember it got to the point where I tried taking pain relief to make it go away (with no success). The day I woke up, and that ache was gone, it was such a relief, though that ache returned in waves for several months after.

Stage 2 (The Petty Stage):

You will try to enter this stage earlier than you are ready. Two days after we ended things, I decided to go out clubbing with my friends, intending to look hot and make out with someone who hadn’t made me cry in the last 48 hours. It was this fateful night that I discovered alcohol will bring all those emotions you are shoving down to the surface (who knew). I ended up having a panic attack at the bus stop in front of 5 of my coworkers at the time and had to be picked up by my mum. The desire to ‘win the breakup’ or ‘make your ex regret his life’ is a pretty common experience, and this pettiness can lead to some great memories. However, you have to allow yourself to mourn and process your emotions. Shoving them down to focus on this revenge plan you schemed when you couldn’t go to sleep one night may feel good in the moment, but it will come back to bite you in the ass later. Avoiding one’s emotions will only prolong your suffering, which sucks. However, when you are ready, this stage is a great motivator to upgrade your life, which links in with the next stage.

Stage 3 (The Growth):

This is going to sound ridiculous if you are going through a break-up right now, but I think there is such beauty in heartbreak, especially if you are the person who got hurt or screwed over. If you keep going and you get through the hard part, use that pettiness and pain as motivators, and take the time to focus on yourself, the personal growth you can experience is incredible. The post-break-up glow-up for the person who is far better off is a real thing. You become motivated to do anything to not be in pain anymore. So, you go to the gym. You spend more time with the people you love. You discover new hobbies or spend more time with already established ones. You focus on your goals. On improving yourself, working on your flaws and learning to love yourself despite and because of them. Watching someone upgrade, grow, and learn from something so painful is such a beautiful process to witness. Every guy who has broken my heart has taught me something; there has been a lesson each time. I have no regrets about any of them. The first guy taught me how important self-love is. I had no idea how little I loved myself, how I turned him into my only source of happiness, so when he left, I completely fell apart. The pain he caused sent me down this journey of discovering myself and what I deserve. Even though I’ve found the initial stages of heartbreak to be just as painful each time, I no longer go through the whole ‘what could I have done to make them stay’ phase. I know that their crappy actions have nothing to do with me. I also have other sources of joy to fall back on now; though it may hurt, his leaving doesn’t make my entire world crumble. I have hobbies, goals, friends, and family that I can fall back on. You didn’t deserve this, but take this opportunity to give yourself the love that person couldn’t give you. Become a version of yourself that person wouldn’t recognise, a version they will never get the privilege of knowing.

Stage 4 (The Relapse):

This stage can and probably will occur multiple times through the healing process, as it is not linear. This is also the most frustrating part. Feeling as though you are doing well and then going through another wave of missing the loser you used to date. It will feel like you’ve taken a few steps back or even like you are right back at the beginning. It also sucks because it is likely that, at this point, everyone else has moved on. So, people don’t check in as much or at all anymore. This can be a very lonely feeling. My first relapse happened about three months in, and I remember feeling so angry because I’ve already worked through these feelings; why am I back in this place again? I remember feeling awful on this family holiday, just broken and lost, unsure how to move forward when it felt like I’d already done this three months ago. You just have to get through it. Try to let yourself feel this way, and when you have the strength, get back up again. You will also probably have the urge to reach out and text them. Do. Not. Do. It. You aren’t with that person anymore for a reason. You may relapse again, but there is no way around feeling this way; you just have to work through it. Then, one day, you will realise you haven’t relapsed in a very long time. There will come a time when they don’t cross your mind every day. Which seems insane and impossible when you are in it, and it is so annoying when everyone keeps telling you it will get better. They promise it will get better, and you will get through it. You know you will get through it somehow, but right now, it sucks. So, I could continue to promise and reassure you of something you already know deep down, or I could say what I wished I’d heard. I’m sorry you are going through this; it’s hard, and I know you miss them; the way you are feeling is completely valid.

Stage 5 (The Aftermath):

You are done mourning this person now. Finally, somehow, you got to the other side, and though you still think of them sometimes because they were an important part of your story that can never be erased, it doesn’t hurt to remember anymore. So, now, what do you do? You’ve been in pain about this for such a long time; this heartbreak has taken up so much space in your life. There is a lost feeling, trying to figure out what to do with all that space. I clung to the pain he caused me for much longer than I needed to because it was a reality I’d grown accustomed to. Sometimes, we long to stay in a place of suffering because even if it hurts, it’s an existence we’ve become comfortable in. For me, letting go also felt like I was letting go of this final piece of him. To move on would mean it’s officially over; I would have nothing left of what we once were. I also would look in the mirror, and it was like this entirely different person was looking back. I was no longer the girl before him or the girl he hurt. I was this new person I’d rebuilt, and though I was proud of how far I’d come, of the girl looking back at me, I experienced this mourning process for the girl I was before him. I didn’t know that I would also lose her in losing him. The aftermath of heartbreak is a very bittersweet stage. Eventually, you do have to let him go completely. So, let yourself sit in this stage for a little while, but try not to stay too long.

Stage 6 (Letting Go):

The relief you feel when you can think back to everything you’ve gone through with and because of this person and not feel pain is one of the most relieving and rewarding feelings ever. Suddenly, everything feels clear, and as someone who always tries to find a lesson in every situation, I can now see what I have learned from this experience. This is the part you never thought you could get to, the part you wished you could skip to every day you spent in pain. I genuinely believe you will never reach this point if you don’t let yourself feel and then force yourself to move on.

My Advice For All Things Heartbreak

Feel Your Feelings:

As I’ve mentioned through multiple stages above, you cannot ignore your feelings and think they will eventually just go away for good. Distracting yourself only works for so long, and the built-up, neglected feelings will often come out when you least want them to if you continue to push them down. In saying this, I’ve often found that when something truly shocks or hurts me, I initially tend to distract myself for a day or so with chores, work, etc. I usually only do this when the idea of diving into that pain feels incomprehensible; I need a day or so to prepare for the processing of those feelings. I’m not sure if it’s the healthiest approach, but I’ve found that it helps to have 24 hours before I have to begin the healing process. As Johnny Cash once said, “There’s no way around grief and loss: you can dodge it all you want, but sooner or later, you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you will find there will never be the same as the world you left”.

Focus On Self-Love & The Next Heartbreak Will Be Easier:

If you do not love yourself, you will continue to take the blame for why others hurt you. 9 times out of 10, when someone hurts you, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with what’s happening with them. They took their pain out on you, and that is not your fault. I think one of the reasons it took me so long to recover from my first heartbreak was that I spent such a long time blaming and hating myself, wondering what I could’ve done differently to make him stay. I didn’t love myself, so when a boy came along and gave me the love and validation I refused to give myself, I made him the only source of my happiness. What he did had the power to completely change my mood daily. In my mind, his leaving was proof of every horrible thing I believed about myself. It took me a long time of healing and focusing on myself to realise I had done nothing wrong. Guys have since hurt me, and though the initial stages still hurt, I no longer spend months blaming myself. This is not to say that you shouldn’t reflect on your actions and what you could’ve done differently in conflict situations. However, in our modern dating world, you cannot blame yourself when a guy wastes a few months of your life to boost his ego.

Your Heartbreak Is Not An Excuse To Hurt Someone Else:

This one is self-explanatory. As I’ve stated above, hurt people hurt people. However, this will never be an excuse to purposefully hurt another person so that you can get even or make someone feel the pain that you felt. Especially if it is a random stranger you use to make yourself feel better. It does make you just as bad as the person who hurt you. There is a difference between enjoying your single life and purposefully wasting someone’s time, misleading them into believing you have intentions of commitment. If you want something casual, be upfront with them from the beginning.

Allow Yourself To Love Again Despite The Heartbreak:

I’ll leave you with this final piece of advice: let someone in again. Take the time to heal from the last one completely, and don’t let the pain scare you into refusing to fall in love again. You may get hurt again. In fact, you almost certainly will. However, the person who treats you how you deserve to be treated as a default is out there. Heartbreak is a part of life, or as your high school English teacher would put it, the human experience (I’m having flashbacks to body paragraphs and sizzling starts). You will never be able to avoid suffering altogether, no matter how you choose to live your life. Fearing suffering, however, can prevent you from experiencing some of the best parts of being alive, like falling in love or making new connections. As Brene Brown states, “We are hardwired to connect with others; it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it, there is suffering”. I am not saying life without someone you are in love with is meaningless; being single can be just as fulfilling, as I’ve talked about before. What I’m saying is after you’ve healed, if someone comes into your life who you feel a connection with, don’t not let them in because you are too afraid of the potential for pain.