On The Same Paige

Okay, let’s talk about it.

I went through my first breakup just over a year ago now after a year long relationship. I had never been in one before because I knew I could not handle a break up, and I was kind of right.

I was the dumpee in the breakup and it wasn’t the first time, the first time we had been broken up for all of a month before getting back together, so naturally, some part of me didn’t really take the next breakup as seriously. Then he moved out and I knew there was no fixing things.

Where do I go from here? Well, I cried a lot a lot. I obviously did the usual internet stalking and about two months post break up I was tired of all that, but it felt like every time I tried to move on something new would happen, he’d remove himself from a group chat or I’d find out he’d lied about me to mutual friends. It was like I wasn’t allowed to forget. I don’t blame him for that, he had to deal with the whole thing his own way as well.

When it got to the four month mark I had been to therapy, made new friends, blocked him, started going to yoga, journaling, and yet I felt worse. I believe the reason I felt worse is because everyone online said ‘it takes 3-4 months for a girl to get over a breakup’, so why wasn’t I? What was wrong with me? I was doing everything right, but still everywhere I turned, my brain would force a reminder of the relationship into my mind. I hated being at university because I couldn’t escape the millions of memories. Part of me wanted him to come back, and another part of me didn’t because I knew I would never be strong enough to turn him away. I was burnt out from the need to distract myself, but still totally lonely. I started to doubt myself and blame myself entirely for the relationship’s downfall. I convinced myself that he was my person and I’d ruined everything, and the guilt I felt for hurting him was immense. Cue the OCD thoughts. It got to the point 5 months in where I had to hide in bathrooms having panic attacks and was crying on the phone to my mum or best friend at 3AM. My breaking point was when the doctors kept checking in on me after I called crying and begging for an appointment to up my medication. I went back to therapy.

I explained to my new therapist how frustrated I was because I was supposed to be over it by now, and then he asked me, ‘why?’. I felt pretty stupid saying ‘because the internet told me so’. After that, I wasn’t so hard on myself.

In the next session, I told him about how my brain constantly reminds me of the relationship, to which he said, ‘and you let it. You could choose not to focus on those thoughts but instead you’re still holding on.’ I went to protest until I realised he was right.

‘I don’t think I’m ready to let go yet, but I don’t think I mind that,’ I told him.

‘And that’s okay.’

That was a breakthrough; for the first time ever, I could acknowledge I wasn’t doing something perfectly right, not feel guilty about it, and not try to fix it.

The next breakthrough came stereotypically, when I was watching an episode of Sex And The City. Carrie and Big had broken up, and all of the advice she was being given, like ‘it takes 3 months to move on’ or ‘it takes half the time you’ve been in the relationship to get over it’, was word for word what had been told to me. I realised that these cliches have been around long before TikTok or Reddit ever existed, it’s just something people say and isn’t necessarily true.

Eventually, something switched, and 6 months in, I started to feel like me again. I didn’t hate being at university, I could relax and not mentally spiral, I didn’t wish that every time I was happy he was there to share it with. It felt amazing, and that high lasted me a good 6 months in itself.

Now, it’s been over a year. I’m doing good. I don’t cry about it very often, I never check his social media (mostly out of fear, I’ll admit), and I don’t feel so empty all the time. I really do enjoy being alone now. I have my own routines, I can do what I like when I like, and I never have to worry about what someone else is up to. I’m the only person who can dictate my happiness. But, as much as I hate hate hate to admit it, especially online where he or someone I know could potentially read this, I still miss him a lot. Sometimes I want to reach out, but I have nothing really to say, and I’m pretty sure he hates me, which I’m fine with now. But he was my best friend and the first person I’d ever been in love with; hopefully, falling in love again will ease that massively. A friend said that I probably feel that way because he’s the only person I’ve ever associated with the word ‘boyfriend’, and I’ve healed as much as I can do so the only thing that I can do now is wait till I meet someone new, and I think she might be right.

The mind has a bad habit of only remembering the good parts, and when I hear about how awful other people’s exes have been, cheating on them or controlling where they go and what they wear, I feel guilty, because my ex never did that. I panic sometimes thinking, maybe I had a really good one and I messed it up, that’s when the OCD creeps back in. Then I have to remind myself, A) I didn’t break up with him, B) I wasn’t perfect, but he definitely wasn’t either, and C) just because he was a good boyfriend some of the time in comparison to other really terrible boyfriends, doesn’t mean he was your person. I think, most of the time, I just miss having that person you feel you can rely on, even if it wasn’t always true. That being said, I’m also terrified of being in a relationship again and losing myself to them, feeling trapped, constantly worrying if they’re lying to me, and blaming myself for everything that goes wrong. I know, I know, the right person won’t make you feel like that, I’m just trying to be honest with where I’m at.

On the brighter side, going through a breakup like that has changed me so completely. I work harder, take much better care of and prioritise myself, and genuinely feel connected to myself again. My physical and mental health have both massively improved, and I have a level of independence I’ve never had before.

So why am I sharing this for the whole wide world to see? Even though I would really rather not and it’s pretty humiliating to admit I didn’t just ‘glow up’ and move on. Well, it’s because I wish I had read something like this when I was 4 months in, 10 months in, or even right now. To know that there’s nothing wrong with me and I could stop beating myself up over it. The intentions behind the ‘four months’ kind of advice are good, I’m sure, but it made the experience so much harder for me. I know plenty of people who have moved on within months or even weeks, and plenty who genuinely don’t care about their exes anymore, and that’s good for them, but no one wants to admit that you still have the occasional bad dream or cry about it 12 months down the line. Well, I’m here to tell you, people do, and that’s normal and okay too. The sooner you learn to accept these things, the more you start to actually move on, and it does hurt less. I’ve had a bad week in terms of nostalgia, I’m sure I wouldn’t have even written this a month ago, or if I had, it would be very different, but that’s the point, healing is not linear, and it’s different for everyone.

For me, despite the doom and gloom, I really do love my life, and I’m happy again.

I hate to tell you this, but time being the big healer, just might be true.