Break Up Apocalypse

If you’re reading this you’re probably wondering, “WHY does this girl love break ups?” Or you’re doubting if that’s even possible.  And HOW can she look so cheery?  She must never have had her heart smashed.

To quote my very dramatic pre “The Walking Dead” words, as per my journal circa 2008, “I’m like a zombie with a pulse.”

I’d be lying if I told you that these words felt like an exaggeration when I wrote them. To me, they were the perfect summary to what felt like the end of the world.

Now before I get ahead of myself, let me bring you up to speed.

I met Zee in grade 9 French class but we didn’t actually start talking to each other until Science class.  I’m referring to him as Zee because just like Zeus, he was on a pedestal at the top of my sky, and he was also Greek, so that reference works two–fold.

We became friends, and then really good friends, and then we were definitely in bestie territory.

He was a guy in a league of his own: confident, sweet, and wasn’t scared to tell anyone his honest opinion.  This was the guy that EVERY girl in our High School wanted to date, and yet he was only interested in me.

To say I felt “special” is an understatement.  In grade 10 we started dating, and I started divorcing my sense of self.

You know that romantic line in Jerry Maguire that people often quote? The “you complete me” one. Well, no one told me that that line was the furthest thing from what love should look like.  No one bothered to give me the head’s up that filling yourself up with someone else is a one-way ticket to low-self worth, and a quick stop to codependency.  Probably because those two relational elements don’t sound as cute or dreamy as Tom Cruises words.

My life became consumed with everything Zee.

His friends were mine, and I quickly merged mine with him.  Everywhere I went so did he, and we even arranged our class schedules to match.

University came and went, and we were still going “strong.” And by “strong” I mean that I was completely ignoring all the rocky patches, and convincing myself that our relationship was perfect.

So you can imagine how stunned I was when- after 7 years- he told me he needed “space.” And how a quick creep sess on his phone told me that he had found another girl to fill that space.

Cue my break-up apocalypse, starring yours truly as the heart-broken zombie.

It began with my great depression: denial and retracing my memories.

I was a “regret and shame” hunter searching for reasons to blame myself.  After all, it HAD to be my fault because he truly was “perfect.”

Then I turned to what IF-ing: What if I had done more of “this” or looked more like “that?”   I had a classic case of what I refer to as “NES”, my self-prescribed Not-Enough-Syndrome, and I was only making it worse.

Awareness truly is the first step to change, and thankfully I ditched denial, started attending weekly therapy, and began dealing with my feelings.

If I’m honest, denial had crept into our relationship long before our break up.

Ignoring intuition, and convincing myself that everything was great when it wasn’t, was a survival pattern I had adopted to keep our relationship going.  I was holding on hard, denying my intuition its voice to be heard.

Well I definitely heard it loud and clear during our break up, and this time I was prepared to listen.

I’m grate- FULL that my ex imploded that toxic world.  After all, it awakened something that I didn’t realize was asleep: ME.

A big thank you* for letting me share with you today, and if you enter your name and e-mail in the spaces at the top of the page, then I’ll see you here next Thursday for my weekly post.

*oxo.

~d

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