How to Get Through Heartbreak
Danielle Grimley
First, it’s going to be numbness. Absolute solitary confinement within your own mind. It’s not like you won’t acknowledge anything, you will. You just won’t care. The numbness will be addictive, more so than that of drugs or alcohol, it will be unlike any addiction you could ever experience. Your bones will be numb. Your limbs will be numb. Your heart, your lungs, your throat, everything will be numb. And it will be a reprieve, so enjoy this while it lasts –– but not too much. It’ll be the only break you’ll be getting for a while.
Then the emotions will hit. They will flood your deserted veins with warmth. Too warm. Scalding. The pain, the anger, the loneliness. It will wash over you like a tidal wave, burying you within the shipwreck of your own body. You will wish for the numbness to come back, as you scream into pillow after pillow, working out a rotation cycle once each one becomes too wet. Your pain will be immense, your anger will be more so, but your loneliness… Oh baby, that will kill you if you give it the chance, so don’t.
When the brunt of the emotion has passed, you will seep into the pores of anger, eventually reaching a need for revenge. Don’t lash out. Hold onto your sanity, even if just by a single thread, and breathe. Let the pain slip away, let the world slip away. Lie in bed –– but not for too long. Watch TV –– but not for too long. Eat all the food you want –– but not too much.
Don’t let depression get its grip on you. Push it away. Be stubborn. Turn your nose up at it and laugh. You are better than this.
It won’t be long until the cravings kick in. You’ll see arms and lips in a new light, longing for the warmth of a body that isn’t yours, and that’s okay. You might indulge a little too much on Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream in a last-ditch effort to numb your skin, and that’s okay. Grab your teddy bear, hold it tight, whisper your feelings into its ear. It will listen, more so than the cold inching its way back into your bones. Don’t act on the desire for touch. Not right now. You’re not ready.
You’re going to be a mess for days, weeks, maybe even months. You will go through the five stages of grief daily, and Ben and Jerry’s might as well offer you a membership. Learn your methods of coping like you’d learn the alphabet, you’re going to need them more than once to drag yourself back from the brink of breaking. You’re going to have to fight yourself a lot and eventually, maybe even as we speak, you will begin wishing love didn’t exist. But know that I’m here and I love you. And no amount of wishing it gone, will truly make it gone.