The Sunday News
HEARTBREAKS and humiliation often go hand-in-hand with the growing number of people writing and sharing their stories seemingly having experienced the same situation.
Life can be so heartbreaking and it hurts when one has to deal with a heartbreak, especially if there are unresolved feelings.
It would be wonderful if we sailed effortlessly through all sorts of relationships, the good, and bad and always lived happily ever after.
Unfortunately for most people a heartbreak or two are the order of their lives.
It is okay to talk about those feelings and experiences because it can help other people to heal or provide a healing platform for those that are going through the same experiences.
Sharing our own stories here is something incredibly selfless because we are sharing painful experiences for others to connect and be able to relate with.
How many of us have suffered with something in silence, thinking no one would understand? Or worse, that no one would care? Almost everyone suffers a heartbreak.
When we do it is normal to experience a rollercoaster of emotions. This week our story is from a person going through a devastating heartbreak and is not ready to give up on what she believes is love just as yet.
Breaking up sucks, I never thought it would hurt as much as it did, because when you break up with someone, it is because you are not in love anymore, right?
Not always, that realisation made my heart sink into the depths of my stomach. I am not happy all the time and I am not who I used to be, sometimes I question my identity and I feel so broken because I lost my identity while trying to please another person. I carry around grievances, I get anxious. I make bad decisions and have made the same mistakes more than I care to admit. I have fallen for a person that does not value me and as you read this you are probably asking yourself why I do not just forget the person and move on with my life. I too have asked myself that question but unfortunately for me it is not that easy, a lot of complicated things are involved and making such a big decision does not come easy, but it happens.
I was 22 and had fallen for a boy I thought ‘‘saw me’’ in a way that no man had ever seen me, he complemented me and always showed up and said the right things at the right time. It was the first time in years I had not tried to be anything other than myself, and he liked me, and I was so surprised. I had crippling low self-esteem and an insatiable appetite for male affection and validation. He was a liar who could not keep his zip up, so of course, it was the pairing from hell and it has constantly sent me to hell but I find myself going back to hell each time I let him back in my life.
The pain I feel when he leaves me is too much to deal with and I cannot begin to describe it but I think I have seen and experienced hell on earth. The whole time I was with this guy and believed we were working on our relationship, he turned out to be involved with his ex-girlfriend the entire time and this has been the story of our life.
I used to think that life was simple in that you find your prince, you get married, you have kids and you live happily ever after but reality hit me and I realised that this is not always the case.
When I met this guy I was happy and I found myself smiling a lot and having something to look forward to everyday as I knew I would spend time with him, I was in fairyland. I loved him so much that he became the reason for my being and his happiness brought me so much joy yet his disappointment became my failure and I would beat myself for failing him.
I was madly and deeply in love. I had never been in this scenario before. My first relationship totally crashed and burnt but I was okay with it because I ended it and I had my eye on someone I thought was better. There was no regret after the relationship ended. It was a miserable relationship and so both of us agreed to end things because it was very obvious that it needed to happen.
However, when I got my heart broken and left in jagged pieces it was different. I still loved the guy who left me. I cared about him, and he was one of my best friends but I knew that romantically, we could not be together anymore as he was a pathetic liar who always had tricks up his sleeves and kept his ex-girlfriend at arm’s length just in case we did not work out he would have something to fall back on.
A few months after our first break-up he told me he could not stop thinking about me, that he compared every woman with me, and that he wanted to give “us” another try, a second chance to be precise. He told me he had broken up with me because he was too scared to fully commit to me and that he was not sure what he wanted.
I welcomed him back into my life with open arms and fell for his usual lies; I did not care much about everything else because all that mattered was that we were together. However, three weeks went by, and one day a friend of mine told me he had a girlfriend, his “ex-girlfriend”. Again he had made the decision to move on and I had to do the same.
I was devastated because I loved him so much. I was still waiting for him because I had hope. I was still waiting for that second chance. I was left with a big hole in my heart and a turbulent, uncontrollable mind. If you have also had to accept that someone you once loved does not want to be with you anymore, you probably understand the rush of feelings and thoughts that come to you every day, every hour, and every minute.
It feels like even though you try to move on, to stop remembering, to stop speculating and thinking about this person, you make no progress. Even though I never felt guilty about the end of the relationship (I am certain I did everything I could to save it and I was not going to torture myself), I did feel sad that he was with someone else, and I was still thinking about him and how great we once were.
Talking about it to my friends only helped momentarily. Hours later I always found myself thinking of all those things I should not be thinking about again like planning my life around him and fantasising about a non- existing future. My mind was a hurricane of all the wrong thoughts.
Suddenly I found myself not worrying about the fact that the relationship had ended. Instead, I was worrying about how he is going to come back and how happy I will be to take him back because we belong together and my life is only complete when I am with him. He has done these coming back episodes so many times so much that I have even lost count. I know I am torturing myself with my own thoughts! And the only person who could help me and save me is me but I am willing to take him back because he is the only cure for my heartbreak. Every day I go to bed hurting and nursing a heartache and it is such a painful thing to deal with, just the thought of him with another woman makes my stomach knot. I want him back because I know I am ornamental but valueless when he is not in my life.
Someone told me I have to love myself and complete myself but the concept of self-love is completely foreign and has never been embedded in me, and is still very much something I am yet to master in another lifetime. Right now I cannot see my tomorrow yet and I am okay with it. I need to get over my heartbreak, let go and forgive which I am not willing to do right now.
Till next week let us continue sharing our heartbreaking stories [email protected]
