For the Dumpee: Alternative ways to survive a break up
Spoiler alert: This article isn’t about accepting your feelings and finding peace in your heart. This isn’t about having a ‘wine-night with your girls’ or spending money on pointless ‘retail therapy’ to make you feel 10% better about yourself for a whole seven minutes. This isn’t about taking a hot bath with your favorite music and other healthy habits you should’ve been doing before you got dumped.
If you happen to come across this article, I know you are deep down the breakup-research rabbit hole. I know you are on your 107th google search of “how to read your ex’s mind through telepathy” and “how to temporarily distract yourself from jumping into oncoming traffic.” I get you, honey. (Oh Lord, if you could have seen my google searches in the first few weeks, I’d have been put in a straitjacket.)
If you happen to come across this article, I know I am lucky enough to have caught you in the 15-second interval between the last and the next social media stalk of your ex. (Because maybe they posted an update in the last quarter of a minute, and maybe this one is a public announcement to the world that they want you back.)
There aren’t enough articles in the entire history of Google to quench the undying thirst for knowledge surrounding whether or not things could have been different if you had done this one thing, whether or not to send him that one last text, whether or not you should ask her that one last question to clear your confusion.
Stop.
The only piece of knowledge you need to know right now is this:
They left you.
(It’s brutal, I know. You’ll tell yourself anything but that. You’ll tell yourself it wasn’t meant to be anyhow, or that the separation was actually kinda mutual (stop lyin’), or that you needed it anyway. Stop, again.)
All the rest doesn’t matter right now. You can’t know, you won’t know. Hell, they probably don’t even know and are just as confused as you are. None of this shit is easy. For anyone. Luckily you are in the position of the dumpee where you don’t have to figure anything out right now. Because you won’t. Because you can’t. Because it’s not your job. Don’t envy the dumper. They have it harder than you in certain ways, believe me. I’ve been there before, too.
So if you’ve been dumped, my friend, here’s some alternative advice that doesn’t have to do with wine and baths and rebounds.
1) See love in a new light. Despite the anger, confusion, rage, and resentment in the first few weeks after my breakup, I still felt an underlying desire to love. I missed giving him gifts and writing cute notes. I missed making him breakfast. I missed doing kind things. I missed the giving more than the receiving. (Yes, this nostalgia can coexist with the feeling of wanting to literally wreck their life.)
Around this time, I had a strange realization that for all of my adult life I’ve reserved love for romance, for significant others, for men. Although I’ve always aimed to be a good friend, a great daughter, a compassionate listener, a considerate roommate, etc., I didn’t see it as giving love, so I didn’t invest much love there. But now I do. And now I’m excited to.
You can do small things like bringing a coworker the tea that they like, giving someone a handwritten note telling them you’re just grateful they exist, making a loved one breakfast, giving a massage to a stressed friend. That love is still inside you. That love is still dying to come out despite your heartache. They can coexist. Let them.
2) Get physical. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone. Kidding!…I had to keep your attention somehow. Don’t do this. It’s not only a waste of your energy, you’re also using another human as pawn for your own game.
What I mean is exercise, move, work your body like you never have before. Your mind and heart are a shitshow right now, so at least keep the physical under strict control — you must balance your being somehow.
I ran along the beach every morning after my breakup and hit my pull-up record. Find something you like and don’t make excuses. And please do not let this ridiculous concept of a ‘revenge body’ be your motivation. Are you a barbie that exists for someone else?! I don’t know about you, but proving a point for a now-stranger who just walked out of my life is most definitely not enough motivation to drag my crying ass out of bed for a run at 6am. As cheesy as it sounds, it must be for you, for self-care, for self-love, for the mere fact that although you are questioning your entire existence right now, you still think you’re worth it.
3) Tell people your story. There is strength in solidarity. The one thing we really want to know in this life is that we are not alone. Being open about your story, despite embarrassment, shame, and guilt, fosters connection. And connection heals. I’ve had old friendships fully reignited just by answering “well me and my boyfriend just broke up, so not the best” in response to their “how are you?” Sharing validates what you’re going through. Sharing allows others to show you you’re not alone. Share.
4) Record yourself. If you’re like me, you won’t be able to read your handwriting, so give up on trying to look back on your journal entries to see your progress over time. Instead, literally speak into a video on your phone about how you’re feeling that day. #awkward, right? Yeah, kinda. But it’s okay. This was suggested to me by a licensed mental health professional, so bear with me. This whole situation is all so hard and painful, but being able to see, in a tangible way, how far you’ve come is encouraging. It usually goes like…First few weeks: crying mess. Next few: sometimes-crying mess. Next few: non-crying mess. Next few: you’re forgetting to do this tracking thing altogether…and that’s a great sign.
5) Read about other fucked up shit in the world. This one I discovered accidentally. In the first few weeks after my breakup (translate: deep into the depths of hell, producing tears at record rates), I found myself in a bookstore in Italy with only one shelf of English books. I thought to myself, Hmmm what’s that new bright blue book by Mark Manson? It must be here because this man has become a global legend. Sure enough, it was. It’s called…wait for it…‘Everything is F*cked’. I was totally on board with that title because, at the time, everything, quite literally, was fucked.
I sat in my hotel room reading the intro about Witold Pilecki who deliberately got arrested to enter into Auschwitz during the Holocaust to set up an espionage operation. As I read the details of his attempts to set up a revolt within the Nazi camp while watching people get gassed out of existence by the tens of thousands each day, I sat there, palm to forehead, like are you fucking kidding me? I’m here wallowing in self-loathing about two years out of my hopefully near-century lifetime? Really…a breakup?! Perspective.
Disclaimer: I’m by no means suggesting you minimize and repress your pain. But once in a while…perspective. Perspective isn’t about not feeling, it’s about not reacting. (And pssst, I said once in a while! Doing this type thing all the time is about a sixth of the way through a psychology textbook glossary — it’s called denial.)
6) Time your breakdowns. Another weird one I’m not kidding about (gonna start charging readers for second-hand therapy here). If you’re not gaining perspective reading about the Holocaust every morning, there is a good chance you are having breakdowns…every day. Sometimes they’ll happen in the middle of the street. Sometimes alone in bed. Sometimes they last hours. Sometimes two minutes and you’re over it. This is all normal. There is nothing you can do. There is no way out.
What you can do is pay attention to how intense they are and how long they last. Let it happen for as long as it wants to happen — but pay attention to how much time it takes, literally. Did a breakdown in the first week stop you from getting tasks done? Did a breakdown in the third week happen on a bus but stop when your favorite song came on? It probably won’t be a directly linear decline, but you will see that over time, even though you thought they never would, things start to normalize.
7) Listen to other people. Remember to do this. When we’re so wrapped up in our own pain and despair, we forget that other people have their own things going on. I remember feeling a sense of relief every time I would flip the conversation to someone else. Whether it was about their own breakup experience or a funny insignificant story about their day, I just got to take a break from my own shit for a minute and focus on someone else.
Talking only about your situation all the time will not only burn out your friendships, thus causing you to lose your support system, but you will also miss out on opportunities to do #1 above. Listening is giving. Listening is love. I know this is the last time in the world you want to worry about being considerate to other people, but it truly helps you heal.
8) Keep showing up for stuff. Not just the stuff you have to do, but new stuff, different stuff. Because now you have a different life, and now you are a different you. You are a wildly new person, whether you like it or not. You are dealing with feelings your brain never imagined possible. Doing your normal stuff will show you that life hasn’t completely crashed. And doing new stuff will give you a sense of excitement to carve out your new normal.
9) See this as an opportunity for transformation. Growth is born out of discomfort. You will experience better times. You might experience worse times. But this will likely be one of the only times, if not the only time, where your pain and suffering have everything to do with you and only you — not something your kid is going through, not someone else who passed away, not seeing a sick loved one’s illness. It’s probably one of the only times you’ll be ripped open, turned inside out, and in the most optimal space to discover all the ways you can reinvent yourself.
Hang in there. Life gets better. Now back to stalking your ex’s pictures from 2001.
