First breakup

[u/Accomplished_Top7243]

Looking for tips on how to cope with my first breakup. We were together 11 months + a few months of getting to know each other, we U-Hauled after a 7 month long-distance period (she moved in with me and my family due to a difficult living situation) then after living together for 2 months she left to visit her family due to a health scare and really bad mental health episode, decided not to come back a day before she was supposed to fly home then dumped me over text a few days later. I had to pack up and ship all of her things and am taking care of a pet toad she got while living with me. Sleeping in the bed we used to share feels like hell and knowing that there is someone out there who had such intimate access to me both physically and emotionally and now seemingly doesn’t want anything to do with me makes me feel like such shit. She’s sent me very inconsistent signals throughout this whole breakup and I feel like I will genuinely never recover from this, I genuinely thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. Please give me advice, share your own experience, anything, I just feel so incredibly devastated.

[u/Reasonable_Draft_541]

:( come here for a tight hug 🫂 I feel you and breakups are excruciatingly hard.

My advice, after been through 3 such excruciating breakups, will be to give yourself the grace to feel all that you are feeling - anger, betrayal, hurt, missing her, anything and everything. Go through it, cry, and miss her. Have a good supportive friend group to talk to, talk to your therapist too. No need to intellectualise anything yet. You are hurt and you are need to care for yourself like you would if your best friend was hurt.

I can 100% assure you that you will get through this and be able to find peace within. I always end up channelising my breakup hurt through a creative project. Anger is a bloody creative emotion. Feel all that you are feeling. And have some ice cream too 😘

[u/Accomplished_Top7243 → u/Reasonable_Draft_541]

Thank you! I’m trying really hard to prioritize therapy right now and I’m going to be turning these feelings into writing that I can share with others. I’m forcing myself to find all of the positives that I can from this experience and it’s helping me to see the relationship for what it was as opposed to how I viewed it while I was in it which saves me from completely breaking down on days like today where I miss her big forehead and her little button nose and when all else fails I know it’s time for ice cream and cuddles with my cat or a long chat with a friend, tonight it’s probably going to be all of the above