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I
discussed in my last post that I’d recently gone through a relationship break-up.
The relationship lasted nine years and the situation in which it happened have
been two huge factors in the level of my distress and upset following the break-up.
It’s only been six days and so far, I’ve experienced emotions ranging from grief,
frustration, and anger to feeling happy and positive that I can begin a new chapter
in my life and find someone much more suitable to my work and my personality. It
has been the biggest rollercoaster…
And
it’s taking me some time to develop coping strategies and ways to deal with the
intense and overwhelming feelings that are flooding my mind and body. So I
thought that I’d share what I’ve learnt so far with you guys to help you manage
your own mental health during a relationship break-up without it taking
negative experiences to learn them.
One.
Distance yourself from them.
This
might seem childish but it’s so completely necessary to ensure the smallest
chance possible of you having to deal with even more drama and criticisms from
your ex, their friends, and their family. You have like, a 40% chance that
you’ll remember every single person that you’ve met through your ex so try
typing each letter of the alphabet into the search feature of your chosen
social media account to start with.
Two.
Avoid all reminders for at least a week and then surround yourself with them.
This
is called ‘flooding’ and the whole concept is that eventually it’ll have been
so much that things will lose their meaning and you’ll be free to make new
memories with them. But it’s important to get a balance of when the time is
right to do this, to avoid intense, overwhelming, negative feelings.
Three.
Allow yourself time to be sad.
This
is probably one of the most important lessons that I’ve been taught recently –
the importance in allowing yourself to feel negative emotions and to accept
them as completely ‘normal.’ The way I was taught to look at it was to imagine
that it’s a friend who’s in your situation and what emotions and behaviours
you’d expect from them at this stage in the break-up.
Four.
Use a measurement scale.
We
used to do this on escorted leave from psychiatric hospitals, we’d have a scale
from 0 – 10 and the higher you were then the worse you were struggling. It was
a great way to tell people how you were feeling without having to tell people
how you’re feeling! I have an agreement that if I’m above a 7 then I need to
take Lorazepam or ring the Crisis Team but yours can be absolutely anything
from needing to call a friend, to staying with your Mum, to needing to get a
massage.
Five.
Take the time to self-soothe.
Kind
of related to number four in that it is definitely something you need to do
when you’re struggling but why wait until you’re above a 7? Personally, I like
reading, writing, doing something creative (I’ve recently been doing a paint by
numbers – I’d recommend The Works, or The Range for these sort of activities),
listening to music, spending time with my Mum, friends, and pets, and doing
something cosmetic e.g. painting my nails, doing my makeup or my hair etc. It’s
so important to acknowledge that you deserve
to do something nice or something special for yourself.