The Sunday News
Busie Mtshede
BREAK-UPS are the worst experiences that we are often faced with. I believe this is because in most cases we always desire to have our forever after in the people our hearts choose to love.
I often say break-ups are emotional roller coasters and this week a friend of mine changed my thinking as they explained that they are not. Mainly because if a break-up was anything like a roller coaster the end would be predictable from the start, and this would give one a choice to freely say “no thanks” to the ride because they know how it will end.
So, I think I can safely say break-ups are more like being under a roller coaster, not being in it. It is a sad reality that most relationships die and some must be buried and people walk away. I know that having someone you love walk away from you can leave you feeling terrible and this can sometimes make it hard for one to function.
In most cases when the person is your world and everything, you ache for your ex, sometimes literally, and in some cases, you cannot get them out of your head. You think about them so much you can feel their presence and you talk about them so much that you can actually taste them in your mouth.
In a relationship, your mind, your body and the core of you adjusts to being intimately connected to someone. When that someone leaves, the brain has to readjust. The pain can be relentless but eventually the body chemistry will change back to normal and the hurt will diminish.
When it comes to suffering from a broken heart, we all should go through the ups and downs of an emotional roller coaster equally, there is no way of buying yourself out of the entire situation. A break-up usually starts with a period of paralysing shock, turning into helplessness and deep grief and then comes shattering the other person’s heart because one wants out and there is no right or wrong way of doing it because it has to be done.
Healing a broken heart from a lost love seems to be the most challenging experience that anyone can imagine. Too many a time after a break-up it appears impossible to ever be happy again. I know we all wish there was a remedy, a pill that you can take and then when you wake up it is all gone but in the meantime while we are still searching and patiently waiting for the medication that will take many out of their misery we have to find a way around it all.
I can only advise anyone going through a break-up to buckle up, mourn the dead relationship like it is a deceased loved one if you have to and like any addiction, this will pass. Grieve if you must but get through it, get past it, and move on with your life because in all of what you are going through life has to go on and you owe that much to yourself.
This week our column is on a woman who had her love back only for him to leave her nursing a broken heart worse than the first time.
I still cannot get him out of my system; it is hard and feels almost impossible. In my eyes, he was my everything, my complete world and more. I needed so badly in my life to be happy, to feel valuable and to have someone tell me that I was their everything and this on its own made me feel special, wanted and loved.
I held on to him to have a purpose, a meaning. I was not happy on my own and when I met him my life was complete. We broke up the first time because he changed from being always there to being sometimes there and hardly showing his affection.
I am the one who suggested the break-up with the hope that he would realise his mistake and change his ways, but instead he chose to be stubborn and decided we break up.
I was hurt because afterwards I tried to get us back together. I went all out until I got my love back when he came back to me crawling, asking that we “fix” things. At the time, I really fell for his love theories but now that he has left me again I realise he came back because I had given up on us and was moving on, close to dating someone else.
I think he could not stomach me dating and being happy again so he begged me to get back with him and since I was helplessly in love I was over the moon and agreed. I thought I really wanted him back because our good outweighed the bad but after the way he walked away from us I think he came back to hurt me.
When we got back together he started talking marriage, making promises and playing the perfect guy. Then out of the blue one day he said he just wanted to be single because he was at a place in his life where he had a lot going on. He said he was just tired and frustrated, I had a gut feeling that he was cheating and the feeling just would not go away.
I tried to get something because this was not making any sense from being madly and deeply in love to being single.
Unfortunately, or fortunately I do not know which one of the two describes my situation. He was not seeing anyone, he really wanted to be alone.
He constantly said that he loved me and was in love with me so I still do not understand how we got here. Look at me now, I am devastated and in much pain, my mind is bothered and I am trying hard to pick up the pieces and move on. I am so confused and I have been so clumsy of late the one minute I am ready for a new mindset and life without him. The next minute it hurts so bad, that I feel like coiling up to die. I am trying so hard but I am having a hard time staying focused.
Feeling rejected is similar to feeling naked and embarrassed and that is exactly how I feel right now. I know they all say “let it go” and “move on” like it’s that easy to let it go and move on. Well, it certainly is not that easy, speaking from personal experience.
It has been really painful for me physically and emotionally and I try to surround myself with friends but after a while I just want to be alone and cry. At this point I do not know what to do or how to move on, I just know I will be devastated if he moves on with anyone else.
Silly as it may sound I still wake up to check my phone if he has messaged me, I want to wait on him because deep down I still have a hope for our future, strange but true. My second break-up was so terrible, the pain was even worse than the first around. I want to scream at life’s unfairness, I am broken and I am lost. My soul is screaming in agony. And this time I doubt my heart will come back from this one.
Getting through a break-up is as much a physical process as an emotional one. Remember that, and know that it will get easier. Keep going. You will get there someday and in the meantime continue to share your heartbreaking stories with us. Email [email protected].
