I've been sitting on this blog post for quite a while now and this is the third draft that I've written. It's probably the most personal thing I've ever shared online so I've been feeling nervous about publishing it. Nevertheless it's something I feel is really important for me to talk about and update here. There's so much I want to say so I just hope I spill it all out coherently. Here goes...
I got dumped. I don't think I've actually even uttered those words out loud - at least not since the day of the event when I sobbed through the words down the phone to my mum. It's been the hardest thing I've ever been through - people have died and I've felt less sad about it. Heartbreak, I now know, should be treated like a grieving process because it literally does feel like someone has died. Not only has someone died but so has an entire future that you envisioned (intentionally or not) and all memories associated with that person. That's a lot for one tiny person to get their head around when they've been stripped back to their most vulnerable, fragile state. Even now, two months on, I struggle with such big thoughts like that. The past two months have been a period of huge, drastic and ultimately (I hope) positive transformation. My mindset is transformed - not completely, but I'm working on it - to see the good in such challenging situations as these. I've decided to record my transformation here as a step-by-step guide - but you should know that any healing process is unfortunately never as definitive as that. I've strayed from these steps and I've taken big leaps forward only to have huge setbacks. Healing is not linear and that's okay. My confidence has been sky-high and almost non-existent. There are moments when it seems like I'll never feel whole again and there are others when I wonder why I ever wasted my tears on something so insignificant. All I know is that I'm on the path to something big and exciting and extraordinary that would never have happened otherwise - and I'm putting my faith in that day-by-day because I really have nothing to lose.
A GUIDE TO GETTING DUMPED
Step 1) I cried and cried and cried.
I cried in my bed. I cried in the shower. I cried in the street. I cried in my car. If I'd saved up all of my tears I probably would have drowned myself in them. I didn't know that a person could physically cry so much and I didn't recognise myself when I looked in the mirror which scared me a lot. If I'd ever seen myself in the mirror before those dark days and thought I looked ugly then I have no idea why - I've seen myself at my worst now. I looked like an alien/ghost/corpse mutant and I don't ever want to see myself in that state again.
Step 2) I made it through 24 hours. Then I repeated the step.
Like I touched upon above, I felt small and weak and the prospect of my entire life spread out before me - now suddenly shifted to an entirely different path - was enough to make me start bawling my eyes out all over again. In the very beginning, every minute, every second, was torturous. I couldn't think any further ahead without the grief totally consuming me and swallowing me up so I banished all thoughts of the future from my mind as much as I humanly could. Feeling the grief was an important process and I made a conscious effort to acknowledge my emotions entirely but handling it all in small, rigid doses was all I could do not to lose myself in them. I made a conscious effort to live only in the present.
Step 3) I went to Pinterest therapy.
I took to the holy grail of inspirational quotes and life-hacks to build my very own board of self-love, appreciation, encouragement and all-round badass girlbossness. In the beginning, I had to recite each saying religiously to myself dozens of times just to make it through the day. Initially, I felt pretty ashamed about the whole thing as though it was my fault but training my mind to see the reality of the situation always uplifted me. Perhaps the blame does lie with someone but that person isn't me - the fact that I know this now is all that matters. You can see my life-saving Pinterest creation here, which I recently revisited and edited down to the quotes that still really resonate with me. Just sharing that with the world is a big deal because I committed my heart and soul to it at the time and still add to it even now.
Step 1) I stayed busy.
My mind raced at a million miles an hour during the first couple of weeks and if it wasn't focussed on a particular task it would wander to a dark and lonely place. So I kept myself occupied and pushed bad thoughts to one side by stimulating my mind to think of other things. On Day One, my head was a mess and my whole body just felt numb but I dragged myself out of the house to go on a really long walk. On Day Two, I drove on the motorway for the first time. Probably wouldn't recommend that to others in my position - it had been a huge fear for years - but since I was feeling equal parts independent woman and totally reckless crazy lady, I tackled it head on. I beamed from ear to ear the entire time and it inspired me that I was capable of so much even in my darkest moments. On Day Three, I went shopping. The whole day was an emotional struggle and even the lure of my mum's money didn't coax me out of my slump but still, a bit of retail therapy is better than none at all. On Day Seven, I went to a music festival. It really isn't an easy thing to listen to music when your heart is shattered and every single lyric speaks to you in some way but unfortunately, the bad timing of a premature decision meant that I had to immerse myself in it for five whole days. I got through it though - even if there were moments when I didn't think I could and I'm proud of myself for taking that terrifying plunge.
Step 2) I took back control.
I am and always have been a really independent person but feeling the way I did, I became totally dependent on other people for support. That fact in itself was pretty debilitating for me - especially considering the fact I'd just spent an entire month alone (and happily so) travelling across a whole continent. The pain I felt made me permanently nauseous and I didn't eat for over seventy-two hours which was stupid and dangerous and made me feel weak and half-dead. Food in general just didn't seem edible anymore - which is NOT like me. Trust me, I can eat. After I got home from my five days away, I took back control by throwing myself whole-heartedly into preparations to move back to uni and I finally started to regain my appetite. My next big step was getting stuck into job applications. I'd struggled to find part-time vacancies during my first year and if I did find one, I usually didn't have the required experience. The prospect of rejection didn't even affect me this time around (I wonder why?) so getting that call to say I'd gotten a role in retail was the best and most unexpected news I'd had in months. If my summer hadn't come to an end the way it did, I probably wouldn't have started my job-search so early on. It's a nice feeling to know that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Step 3) I gained some perspective.
The day I got dumped, a girl I used to know went to her mum's funeral. We both went through the motions of our own grieving processes that day but obviously, her loss is much more severe and much more significant. The fact that "there is always someone worse off than you" is more sobering than comforting but it definitely helped me to keep a grip on reality while I was so inclined to be questioning everything. The best thing I've taken from this bad experience is the way I've been able to reprogram my mind for success. The MOST irritating, useless, want-to-punch-you-in-the-face advice you can ever give a sad person is that 'time is the best healer' but with hindsight, it's also the advice that rings most true. It's all beginning to make sense to me now and one day I know I'll look back on this and laugh for ever thinking it was me who wasn't enough, wasn't capable, wasn't worthy. From now on, if I wouldn't say it to a friend, I won't say it to myself. It's a lesson which I know will be invaluable one day and bizarrely, I kind of feel lucky to have learnt it despite the cruelty of the circumstances that brought me to it?!
So I'm in a good place now and writing this blog post could be the final piece of the puzzle that I've been missing. I'm immersed in coursework and deadlines and intern applications and the future excites me a lot. I feel good about myself and my progress and it's just SO good to feel like an actual functioning human being again rather than the sad, sorry little creature that I was. Little Mix's new song 'Shout Out to My Ex' was released last week so it goes without saying that I've been playing that on repeat non-stop. In fact, I cried a bit when I first heard it because it felt like it was written for me so it feels all the more apt that I'll finally be clicking publish on this post while the song sits at number one. I still wake up from dreams that I wish I hadn't had and sometimes the hurt does creep back in for a while - but bad feelings always pass and I didn't come this far to only come this far. I'm really happy with the way these photos turned out. They're taken from Rupi Kaur's 'Milk and Honey' which is a book I would 100% recommend. This was the first time I've ever bought flowers for myself which I feel is a nice little metaphor for the way I live my life nowadays. I love my life and the people in it (who still deserve to be) and I'm giving it my all. I am my number one priority - that's the way it always should have been. It's the way it indefinitely will be now. I'm owning it. PEACE OUT x
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