Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The process of getting back on your feet after a breakup is painful and sometimes lengthy.
It is a general rule of thumb that it takes up to half the amount of time to recover fully emotionally and mentally from the finality of a relationship breakup in relation to the length of time the relationship lasted. For instance, if your relationship lasted two years it would take you one year to get yourself completely healed and really ready to move on into a healthy and balanced new relationship. There are phases of healing that need to take place on many different levels.
The first phase is the weeping and wailing stage. In this phase we resort to emotion numbing activities such as sitting around with friends, beverage glass in hand (because there is no pain without liver damage — it’s a given), having conversations which alternate between showing vulnerability and displaying hidden schizophrenic tendencies. We switch from love to hate and back at precise two minute intervals and depending on how bottomless the beverage service is that timing could decrease drastically to 30 second intervals. It is very important at this critical time that your friends and support network remove your mobile phone from your white knuckled grip and delete the perpetrators’ number (this word derived from the unwritten but widely spoken language of the broken hearted meaning ‘traitor’).
The next phase is anger and rage. (There’s no healing without retribution some might believe). All reasonable and healthy emotions if vented in a constructive way. Again, if your friends and support network didn’t manage to wrest the mobile from your clutches previously now is the time. You will thank them later for it as this anger phase causes us to totally forget we have any dignity and self worth left and the screaming, unintelligible verbal assaults are quite unattractive. A lot of people at this stage take up physical activity such as exercise and/or rebound gymnastics. This phase is generally the longest and it is the most difficult one for people to move through. More liver damage involved so increase your health insurance, you’ll feel great that you did something just for yourself.
You’ll know you are nearly ‘over him/her’ when you start to feel indifference. Your self-empowerment starts to revive itself. You can feel it growing like a fire within you, pushing you harder and harder towards the light. You are internecine- deadly, destructive, and fatal in your directed thoughts and actions. Everyone from the opposite sex is totally at your mercy (should you decide to bestow). Your inner confidence grows with each fatal blow and then…. You get tired of being angry and bitter. You realise that all it’s doing is holding you back from your life and you decide to finally leave the past to the past and learn from your experiences. Then, one day soon you meet the person who with one smile or tender look mends the break in your heart. Because they are out there waiting for you. Or, just keep up your ‘gym’ membership — that works too.
Laurie Bzdel is a transpersonal psychologist
