The Biggest Lessons I Learned After My Breakup

Time

Well, I didn’t stress about it; I gave all my pain to time. It’s been about one year and counting since my last relationship. During that year, I’ve gone back to therapy, wrote a book and signed to a publishing house, I’ve met new friends, got a new job and involuntarily became an introvert.

So what’s my problem with time?

Here’s the thing,

I think it’s a scam when people tell you with time, you’ll overcome. Personally, time helped with helping me forget certain things that happened. It’s just a year later, however, most of what happened in our relationship I can barely remember. The first 6 months after the breakup, I was a total mess. I’m sure I barely slept, barely ate, and I was furious with everyone.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Six months of feeling like absolute shit, I woke up one morning, and decided enough is enough. I let grief and depression take over my life enough and it was time for it to be over. I started working extra hard on myself, making sure that I didn’t fall into that hole again. Unfortunately, you can’t stop depression but you can somewhat gain control of it. After mastering that skill, another realization hit me.

I’m not depressed, however, I’m still sad.

Now, I started thinking something is definitely wrong if I just did all that work, why am I still sad?. So I did what anyone in my position would do. I marched into my therapist’s office and told her to fix me. I told her I’m not depressed anymore, but I’m still sad which is bothering me. She sat and looked at me as if I’m speaking the wrong language. Five minutes of me ranting goes by and she looks and me and says:

She explained to me that grieving is not for just deaths. It is also for when you’re losing someone or something in life. I invested time and love into building something beautiful, and now it’s gone.

I had to accept that it was over but also to accept that no matter how much love I still had for him. There was nothing we both could have done to fix things. I was walking away hoping there would be more, and I was really fighting for more. First came the denial, then anger, bargaining, depression and what eventually came was Acceptance. Being an Empath like myself I struggled with time and grief because I hoped that maybe, just maybe things would go back to the way it was.

I wanted it.

So yes, the concept of time during grief is a scam. It’s the most annoying part of healing. Only because some days you wake up feeling good and other days, you wake up remembering everything that affected you in the past. It doesn’t heal wounds, because it still hurts when I think of him. It still hurts when you remember things and it will still hurt when I see him.

With time it just hurts less and fewer each time.

In conclusion, Time is a tricky thing to play with. One day you’re fine and the next you may have a breakdown again. It was important for me to understand that pain will not last forever, even though it felt like it. And understand that things change–it’s life. I couldn’t change the fact that I was hurting, but I learned how to be patient with myself and when all hope has failed to give all my stress and worries to time.

Time is the first lesson of healing.