Time

Do cool shit, and be awesome. Living well is the best way to get over the life you you wanted but will never be. The one constant in your entire life is you, so the relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you’ll ever have.

So take a solo road trip. See that movie in the theater that you heard was great. Treat yourself to a nice dinner at that fusion place you were wanting to check out. Read and learn about the world. Take a class in that language you wanted to learn. Bake yourself fancy treats. Take on a new hobby. Make art.

To be the kind of person others will find awesome, you have to first become that person; in so doing, the pain of losing that ideal life you are mourning will slowly fade. It will never vanish completely, but over time the pain will become minimal, like rediscovering a tiny paper cut on your finger that you’d forgotten about.

Treating it like being sick (like a cold) helps me. That way I justify taking it slow. It’s something that will pass and it’s totally normal to feel really bad. It will probably be better soon but I need a lot of rest/self-care.

Both my own “method” and a suggestion if I can cut it down to essentials:

Watch yourself closely. Don’t fall into more traps. There’s a lot of load already and you’re not at your best. So don’t make it worse. No drugs, alcohol, bad relationships, risks, incel or other insanity etc. Keep a careful and steady life and focus on healing and getting back on your feet as they say. Deal with things as they come. Work on yourself. Do things you care about. Avoid stress and especially anger and hate as much as possible.

When you’re feeling stronger again, you might know if and what you want to get into.

Go gym

Ugh, heartache is literally painful. I’m sorry you are going through that.

For me, getting iver someone has been a multi-pronged approach.

1. Accept that I’m going to feel grief for a while…at least a few months. That’s okay and normal. Don’t fight it, don’t get mad at it. Just notice it and ride it out. Your brain has to severe the neural networks that were dedicated to him, while rebuilding new ones. This is a process that takes a while.

2. Start connecting with friends that are healthy. They can be a nice source of validation, connection, and support.

3. Work on a new project to have a focus. This can help in those moments where I’m sitting around ruminating with nothing to do or no desire to do anything. Even if I’m ruminating while doing the project, at least I’ll something to show for it when it’s over.

4. Start a new hobby to define myself apart from the relationship. I’m going to be a new person.

5. When ready, start throwing out all of their stuff. I even get rid of gifts. If it reminds me of then when I look at it, it’s gone.

Things will get easier as you stop thinking about them slowly over the next dew weeks to months. Eventually, they become someone that you used to know with no real meaning other than the lessons you learned from that experience.

I uh…

I’ve heard getting absolutely railed helps some people…

Be gentle with yourself.

Time is unfortunately the best medicine. Just take it one day at a time. Don’t stay in contact with them. Reach out to your friends and try to fill your time spending time with them.

Main thing is to keep yourself distracted. The ruminating will come, but right now you need to heal. I wasn’t able to clearly reflect on my ex and our relationship for easily over a year or so later.

I overcame one of my hardest by doing more for myself, by myself, than I would have with her around. I gave up a lot to be with her, and after the break up, I decided to embrace the circumstances and strive for success despite her. I did it to prove that my life would have ended up worse with her than it turned out to be without her.

There’s a set of questions an author named Byron Katie wrote about for managing limiting beliefs. First you have to isolate the belief that’s causing you pain. Then you ask the following:

1 - Is this belief true?

2 - Can I absolutely know this belief is true?

If you are still saying yes to these you’re not ready for 3 and 4.

3 - How do you feel when you believe this? Be sure to go into this really well. I find the more you put into this step the better the results at the last question. So where in your body does the feeling live? What temperature is it? How intense is it out of 10? Is it sharp or dull? Is it dry or wet? Does it change is it constant? Maybe even what color is it? You want to really witness and give credence to this feeling here.

And finally

4 - Who would you be or what would you be doing if you didn’t have this belief?

I can guess what answers you’d give here but you know so I don’t want to muddy that for you.

Edit: formatting

Love, Robot/Paris - Rain

It’s a duet. The lead singers of the two bands used to date. They never publicly said this, but I suspect it was about their breakup, and how messy and complicated breaking up with someone you love can be.

Lemon Italian Ice helps me feel better when I’m upset about something

Tryna deal with it right now, going back to the bar where I met my ex

Will update in like 2 hrs

Edit: litterally forgot. Didn’t see him, it was lame anyways

Not gonna sugarcoat it – this will suck for a long time. For me it was friends, hookups and time that helped.

Friends let me forget for the time we hung out but also listened and just hugged me when I cried.

Hookups (and I realise this sounds vapid as shit) made me feel like I am still wanted and attractive.

Time made the thought of them sting less.

This will smost likely stick with you, but it’s going to be okay. It’s not going to hurt this badly forever. You will think of it less and less frequently. But you will have that scar. And that’s okay, I think.