How to get over that break up

By the time you are 18 you have a bearing of exactly what you want and if mature enough, understand what you need. If you believed it was time to put yourself out there and say it, well, it only means someone found out what you wanted and either misunderstood you or simply took advantage. For others it starts as a casual thing that leads to it becoming more than anticipated and in the process it becomes more complex and before you know it, you love each other and become vulnerable until when it becomes rocky and you have to let go and it is the worst experience.

My mom says it is worse than losing someone to death. I think it is because when someone dies, it is with time you understand you will never see them again but with love, the person lives and you have to come to terms with the fact you two cannot be together anymore.

Below is my advice on getting over the break up and moving forward. Note, it does not work with everyone but it works for some and I am not a psychiatrist.

Feel the pain and let it talk to you. Break down, please, break down as low as you can. Cry, use all the towels and napkins but once you are done, you are done. Men, please, no one has to see you cry but lock up and cry. Feel the pain and when you feel it, you will get over it. As you get okay with the pain, find a coping mechanism and you will be amazed how fast you move on. It is in pain that you realize the signs and red flags, the late night meetings and mteja phases and why the other party changed all of a sudden and stop being the person you fell in love with.

Talk to someone. Have someone you can openly tell what you feel and make sure you do not defend yourself but say exactly what you feel and why it hurts so bad. It may be a professional or someone who has had firsthand experience and knows all they have to do is listen and be there (also it should be someone who keeps it one hundred percent real with you)

Also have some time alone. It is good to have some time alone so that you can plan your next move and rethink of the few things you had put pending that you can work on. That business you had thought about, the idea of enrolling for a certificate/ Diploma/ Degree/ Bachelor to certain skill set or how to remodel your house. Alone time makes you creative and allows you to get some things done and plan out as you fall off the idea of having to be around someone and being okay being alone.

Be okay you did everything you could to make it work. This is for everyone who is left and has tried to do everything to make things work. Just accept that some people will never forgive or never wanted to be with you in the first place and hence opted to let you go. If by any chance it was a cheating scenario, if you are the one who cheated, be okay and be honest that you did cheat and it was not the other parties fault but yours. Why would I accept I cheated when he |she cheated and I was showing them I can do so too? Well honey, let us be honest, if you would have confronted them, it could have been settled in a better way, if you got into a conversation to understand what was wrong and caused that, it would have been settled and if you did make it clear that if they cheat you will leave, well, one can take only enough. For the person who was cheated on, be okay it happened. It was never your fault. If someone cheats, it is by their own will. They might say you were not talking to each other but, they should have fixed the issue but not go ahead and cheat. If they say they were: lonely, drunk, you were not there etc., then they would have echoed it out to work something out with you, not cheat. You trap the mouse that is the issue/poison to kill it but not burn down the whole house.

Get back to your hobbies and likes. Before you met this person you are getting over, you had things that occupied your time and made you feel happy. Please, go back to them. It is in those hobbies you replace them with the idle Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday evenings you spent together. That is why I advise my friends and myself that if you dare get into a relationship, do not be the type that throws their friends off the window and now that things are sour you start looking for them if there is anyone left.

Also, if you are good at not memorizing contacts like me, delete the contacts, the messages, do the blocking on all the social sites because let be real… OUT OF SITE, OUT OF MIND. You matter first before every single thing, then everything follows, take care of you because only you are stuck with you for the rest of your life.

And after the healing, be open to the idea that there is someone else out there and they do not have to be like your ex, actually, they are not your ex. Now this part comes later when you are okay being alone, you have that thing you are running on the side, you have a career taking off or something is happening in your life. Do not let one bad scene or two or three determine that you are done, be okay that cupid will come around but whoever he brings must be ready to complement you and fit in your life and not disrupt it, someone to help you grow.

When you heal, you do not bleed to the next person and that saves you a whole lot of drama. So heal at your time but do not dwell in the pain. Some of you love the pain and make our lives all about your pain and to be honest, we do not care and cannot deal, so we leave you there in that hell as we move on to a better person who has their s#$t together.

But before I let you go, make sure that before you walk out or throw in the towel in any relationship, that you have done everything to make things work, I mean! Everything! why? Because when you walk out, you do not want to start thinking about, what if I did this, this would have happened and maybe… blah blah blah. Be at peace with yourself and the effort to try repairing anything that went wrong and move on.

©Francis Wairimu

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