how to deal with break up

For most people in a relationship, the one phrase you don’t want to hear and possibly the hardest one to hear is “I’m breaking up with you.” It’s the phrase that has a possibility to change things that have been constant in your life for a long time (or possibly a shorter time depending on circumstances) and it has the possibility to break hearts; by text, in person or on the phone. Those four words can change the way you interact with someone, or possibly even end with you never talking to that person, and that’s why these words can be both scary and upsetting to hear. Sometimes the person who is breaking up with you may be going through some personal issues and feels that it may be better for them to have some time away from being in a relationship and that it may be better for both people, and in a lot of teen breakups, this is the case.

As someone who has been on both sides of the story, I have broken up with someone and I have been broken up with, I can tell you from my experiences, both experiences are truly heartbreaking, and in both situations, I felt like it was my fault, I can assure you, it isn’t, even if it feels like it at the time, if you feel it’s for the best, it most likely is

So, my experience? I’ll share my most recent, and most painful one. So my ex, Tayla* and I had been dating for a year long distance (for a least two of those she hadn’t been allowed her phone so it had been hard to keep in contact) and one day, just after she got her phone back, my best friend Maisie* had been reported missing by Maisie’s mom so I called Tayla to see if she knew where she could have possibly gone, but Tayla’s mom answered the phone, asking who I was, (side note:Tayla isn’t meant to talk to me, her mom thinks I’m a bad influence so she doesn’t have my number saved) so I had to pretend to be a friend of Tayla’s to be able to talk to her, and then when Tayla got the phone, we were talking for at least half an hour, but something felt different, I could feel a sort of nervous tension  between us that wasn’t usually there, so that’s when I knew things weren’t quite right, all the time that we were talking, I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d done something wrong, or that she felt uncomfortable around me. After the conversation we did our usual thing of argue over who should hang up, which put me at ease a bit, and I forgot about the tension of the phone call until about two or three days later when I got a phone call from Maisie saying to be prepared for when I was talking to Tayla later on that day and that she was here for me if needed, and that was when it sort of hit me that I wasn’t imagining the tension beforehand. So later on, I got a text from Maisie saying that Tayla was too scared to say it but she was breaking up with me, for various reasons, one of those being that she felt that she couldn’t keep lying to her mom and that she was extremely sorry and still wanted to be friends. For a few days after, I was extremely upset and spent most of my time crying and listening to breakup songs alone in my room, which, clearly didn’t help in the slightest, if anything it made it worse, and I eventually realised that and decided to do something to help myself to move on, and even if it did only help slightly, I had to recover sooner or later, so the five tips that I am about to share are what I did and found most helpful in this situation:

Surround yourself with your close friends and talk to them about it. You’d be surprised, because it may feel painful to talk about it, but it isn’t healthy to keep your emotions bottled up and talking about the break up can help to get your emotions out. If you can’t talk about it to anyone, write about it. As I say, it isn’t healthy to keep your emotions bottled up, and getting them out on paper is the next best solution to talking to someone.
If you need to cry, don’t be afraid to. Again, this is under the don’t keep your emotions bottled up thing, but I just can’t stress enough how unhealthy this is, and how much emotional stress this can put you under, and as much as it may seem weak to cry, it isn’t, it shows that you are human, so let it out
Try to distract yourself by taking up a new hobby, whether that be writing, learning a new instrument, singing, dancing, or anything else you may choose to do, what’s important is that it will hopefully take your mind off of any negative emotions that you may be feeling at the time
Practice self-care. This is important, although you may feel like it’s your fault, it’s important that you don’t beat yourself up over it, and that you look after yourself. Self-care can be as easy as making sure you remember the small things in life, for example: have you drank enough water today? Have you made sure you’ve eaten three balanced meals? Have you had some time for yourself? It’s these small things that sometimes help us to heal the most, so make sure you keep on top of them.
And, in my opinion, the most important thing, give yourself time to heal. It’s important to understand that the pain won’t go away instantly and that a lot of the time you may never be fully over the person, much like me and Tayla, but eventually, over time, the hurt will fade and things will start to feel better again. One thing that a lot of people do that ties in with this tip is don’t get into a rebound relationship. Not only will this hurt you even more, but it will hurt the person you are rebounding off of, so avoid this in all circumstances.

One last thing that you need to remember is that people do love and care for you and even though you may be hurting right now, if you stay strong, you can get through this, and I believe in you! Just remember that you are a strong independent individual, and you will come out of the other side of this even stronger than ever. Everything happens for a reason and this is one of those things, it’s for the best. I hope these tips help you and help to ease the pain, even if they only help in the slightest, if they did, feel free to contact us, if not, feel free to leave feedback, anything you say is greatly appreciated and I’ll be sure to take it on board. Just remember to surround yourself with who love and appreciate you and eventually you’ll find someone new. Just take time and feel free to contact anyone from TWE if you want to talk. 

Stay strong, Alex ♡

*names changed for the safety and privacy of the people involved