Start with a super-sad song. One you’ve played over and over before, but never fully wept to. Put it on loudly and sit somewhere you usually don’t. The carpet. The bath. The filthy kitchen floor.
Then, grab something comforting. Chocolate, biscuits, wine, all of the above. Consume them while staring blankly into space, imagining that somewhere someone else is doing the same. Feel the weight and pain of all the shattering hearts that exist on the same planet.
Cry.
If you’ve got good friends, they might try and rally round you. Be prickly and rude to them until eventually they leave you alone.
Cry some more.
Wonder why none of your friends are talking to you. Hate yourself a bit. Turn up the song and eat some more biscuits.
Phone your mum. Tell her about that thing which happened at work, and how well it’s all going. When she asks how you are, say ‘fine.’
Fuck someone inappropriate. Someone you don’t really fancy or never truly liked. Suck down the disappointment as you expend breath and power you can’t believe you have on someone you know isn’t worth it.
Masturbate, frequently, over the things you used to do when you were with the one you loved.
Go to their facebook page.
Cry. Block them. Cry.
Biscuits. Wine. Cry.
Swap your facebook profile photo for one in which you’re smiling, and when your friends ‘like’ it, cry harder.
Post a vague status that says ‘anyone fancy the pub?’ and delete it straight away, because you’re not quite ready for the pub yet and it’s Tuesday so no one will come.
Lie face-down on the carpet heaving ugly sobs that make your face red and your nose run. Crush your arms up close to your chest to try and relieve the dull ache of pain.
Wonder if you’ll feel like this forever. Picture a future in which all you have to look forward to is a brand new packet of biscuits and the pleasurable ‘pop’ as you uncork some more wine. When you’ve reached your self-pity peak, look stoically into the middle distance and resolve never to love again, because love hurts and you hate the hurt, and the joy is never worth the sorrow.
Now write.
A fucking.
Blog.
About.
It.
Pour out every bitter, miserable thought until your page is drenched in pity, and each sentence makes you well up more and your chest hurt and your gut ache for sobbing.
Then sleep. Then repeat. For weeks.
Wake up one morning and feel a bit lighter. Attempt a smile and realise it works. Brush your teeth, shower, and dress up in clothes that make you feel good. Step out of the house on a high, realising this is the end of the end, and the better part will start soon – the re-discovery of fun and love and happiness.
Spot someone on the bus who looks just like them.
Cry. Wine. Biscuits.
Realise that from now until the day you die his name and face and the way he used to fuck you will be burnt deeply into your memory. And every time something bumps up against those memories they’ll flash, just briefly, with that same agony.
Then remind yourself that’s just not the case. You’ll get over it. You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again. Even if this time it’s harder.
Text your friends. Facebook your friends. Email your Mum. Tell them what you should have said before: ‘I am not fine.’
Keep telling them, and telling yourself, that it’s OK to not be fine.
How do you get over heartbreak?
I’m not telling you how to get over heartbreak. I’m telling you that I suck at it. Individually, we can come up with strategies and plans to get over heartbreak – little nuggets of knowledge that may make it easier. Text your friends, chat to your mum. If you’re me, remind yourself of all the times you did appalling things, and why you deserve to feel this way. Watch doomsday films so you can get your tears out at the dramatic parts so it doesn’t feel like you’re crying over you.
But it’s never going to get easy, and that’s OK. From the first time your heart is broken to that moment last week when it shattered again, none of us can be experts. We can just deal with it in our own unique ways.
So I cling on, and cry, and eat biscuits.
And then one day I stop crying.
This morning I did a chat on Woman’s Hour chat about teenage heartbreak (about 20 minutes in, I’m ‘Sarah’). It kicked this off a bit because I wanted to work out exactly what it was that helped me get over my first ever heartbreak. The answer is: a whole bunch of things, my mum, my friends, and biscuits. I know it’s not an awesome clickbaity answer, but most proper answers aren’t.
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Slightly embarrassingly I covered the gamut of the above while still in my twenties, being a late starter to it all. It’s really so bloody horribly hard to convince yourself that you’ll back on it with a benign wistfulness. But you get there eventually.
Will listen when I get home!
Oh and my choice of biscuit was chocolate bourbons. I’d be interested to see what everyone’s heartbreak biscuit is.
This is a GOOD question. Mine was the chocolate hobnob (classic, obviously) but these days there are SO MANY MORE biscuits on the market, and I also have more money because I am a grown up. I think today I would go for the Marks and Spencer shortbread ones covered in chocolate, because there is SO MUCH chocolate on them, and essentially what I’m looking for in a chocolate biscuit is something with a very high chocolate to biscuit ratio.
Edited to add – also I’m sorry to hear you had a shit time too. I got so excited about biscuits I forgot to commiserate you on your heartbreak. I do this quite a lot =(
I’ve been there. I had to get COUNSELLING. COUNSELLING!
I reckon that shows a hell of a lot more initiative than my wine and biscuits thing =) It’s good that you were able to talk through with someone – I think I usually end up curling up into a shell and not really talking about stuff for aaaages.
Talking about stuff is HARD. I found therapy difficult and tear filled mainly for this reason.
You skipped over ‘ignore advice of friends and end up in a rebound relationship that does neither you or your new partner any favours whatsoever and crashes and burns spectacularly within 2 months’ but that just *might* be me.
Also, wow, proper good radio voice,
Blimey, I thought the rebound relationship was a standard part of the process. You mean it’s optional?!!!
Ouch. My heart broke a little bit just reading that. And ta on the radio voice thing =) If you tune in to the Guardian tech podcast this week you’ll be able to hear the difference between my ‘radio 4’ voice and my ‘massively overexcited about robots’ voice.
I just listened to this. Quite a fun interview though also, as someone else here said, it’s a bit weird to hear the voice of someone for the first time. I’m not going to try to place your accent, but it sounds from slightly further north than I’d figured – I realise I tend to assume everyone’s from London until proven otherwise.
Btw, a couple of further thoughts:
– I thought you kicked the arse of that woman from the well-meaning but rather silly ‘Campaign Against Sex Robots’.
– Isn’t it kind of weird how in the mainstream media, discussions of sex, sex work and sex toys are always by women? The podcast even mentioned that men are interested in sex toys too but often shy about it. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a discussion like this in the media with a male voice involved.
Just wallow in it. Indulge yourself with misery. Realise that the only reason it hurts so much is because you had it so good. The good times arnt love. This is love – the shit sandwich.
Oh and Jaffa cakes everytime. – it’s literally the most efficient way of eating cake.
True. Jaffa cakes 4 eva. And they will never let you down.
If you’re actually going through this right now, I just want to say, as pointless as it probably is, you’ve got a bunch of fans that heart you and thank you for all you’ve given us.
Thank you – that’s v kind of you to say! It’s not a right now thing: right now I’m well lucky and happy and stuff. It was mainly because of the discussion on the radio, it got me thinking just how rubbish I am at this stuff, and it’s easier to think about it properly when you’re outside it, I reckon!
Oh, I thought you had a pretty happy-seeming post too recently for this to be current, but the ‘write a post about it’ part threw me off.
I didn’t know you were on the radio, anything we can listen to online?
Sorry, I totally misunderstood the whole radio thing, obviously. And the podcast also answers my first question =P
i literally laughed and cried through this post. Thanks for that. It helps reading things like this when you are going through the ugly, puddly cry phase. xo
It’s funny, that’s not what I expected you to sound like.
I’ve no idea how that expectation was formed!
Not a positive or negative thing, just different.
Nice to hear the voice of someone whose work you’ve been reading for so long.
Also, aren’t you worried about losing your anonymity? Voices are quite recognisable.
Appreciate your concern but I’ve been doing radio appearances and podcasts for a very long time! Besides, my worry is rarely ‘what if people who know me recognise me?’ and more ‘what if people who *don’t* know me find out who I am?’
Oh right I didn’t realise. Obvioulsy wasn’t paying enough attention!
One’s a subset of the other though isn’t it. If enough people you know recognise then the greater the risk of being outed to general public à la GWAOTM. Anyway Zoe Margolies has crafted a successful career since then and shown that it is possible. Hopefully that doesn’t come to pass anyway.
Ah, yeah – Zoe does some awesome stuff. TBH it’s not as much about career etc – the most pressing concern is safety, although there are other reasons too (some in this blog: http://www.girlonthenet.com/2015/11/01/yes-you-can-run-an-anonymous-blog-and-still-be-accountable/). Realistically, though, I feel quite differently about this than I did when I first started, and I have quite a strange relationship with my ‘GOTN’ self versus my ‘real’ self. There’s far less separation than before, and I’m much more comfortable than I used to be about where I draw the line, and why. This is probably a bit waffly and boring, but basically I could bang on about this for ages =)
Not boring at all. Actually, I think it’s human instinct to want to see behind the veil and find out who is producing the work that we consume, whether music, art or blogs.
I’m a musician and the personas aren’t as easily compartmentalised as they are for you. I finish a song and then I’m that awkward fucking guy again.
I CAN PUT MY UNDERSTANDING OF YOU SIMPLER.YOU SHOW IS THE MAGIC LIFE IS FROM THE MUNDANE THE PARADISE- WHICH ARE ONE AND THE SAME.WE ARE – THE DEAF DUMB AND BLIND – WHO TRY TO KNOW IT THAT WAY BUT CANNOT.WE HAVE BECOME NUMB – WE SLEEP – AND MISS OUT -MISS IT AS IT GOES BY. WE PASS THROUGH THE MAGIC ADVENTURE BORED UNINSPIRED NOT KNOWING EACH MOMENT IS ALIVE AND SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT AND EXCITING —- BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT GROWN AN IMAGINATION LIKE YOURS -(if we have one at all)- THAT INCLUDES AND COMBINES BOTH A WONDERFULLY PLAYFUL DEVILISH TRICKSTER AND THE SWEETEST PUREST CLEANEST MOST HONEST AND COMPLETELY TRUTHFUL ANGELIC ONE.BY OURSELVES – WE WILL NEVER SEE LIKE YOU.BUT YOU CAN MAKE IT POSSIBLE – AND YOU DO THAT.
YOU HAVE EVEN MORE MAGIC THAN JUST BEING GIFTED IN THE LIVING OF IT – YOU HAVE A GIFT OF SHARING IT WITH THE IGNORANT WORLD THROUGH YOUR WRITING.YOU ARE AN ARTIST.YOU DON’T SIMPLY EXPERIENCE IT — YOU CREATE AND RE-CREATE IT.YOU ARE A CREATOR OF LIFE.YOU MAKE IT CUM ALIVE.YOU CAN MAKE PEOPLE FEEL ALIVE.YOU CAN BRING THE DEAD TO LIFE.YOU HAVE THAT MUCH MAGIC.FEW DO.
Haha, just realised I must have been listening to the wrong Woman’s Hour podcast. LOL. Will now go and find and download the correct one.
God, I felt all of those things when my parents broke Peter and me up as teenagers. Lasted several years.
Jaffa cakes deffo, but the cherry ones from Lidl.
My 1st marriage ended just like that but swap wine for JD. But my 2nd was much more mature and spent the whole next year doing just what I wanted to do. Went to every airshow I could, went to Paris, spent a long weekend in Manchester photographing every old building I could find and even managed the odd concert too. So I think it depends on who starts the breakup (the 2nd I did) and where you are mentally at that point.
Fab post by the way, thoroughly enjoyable as all yours are.
I’m right now suffering from heartbreak, and apparently I like to do it similar to you. Right now I’m in the tears, wine, isolation stage.
Jaffa cakes are the best, in fact I’m off to buy some now. And some wine.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who does this!
The M&S Jaffa cake equivalents are rectangular and have *chocolate all over*
I’m just saying…
They are pretty good, though I’m not as much of a fan because they’re harder to do that thing where you eat the cakey bit first then you’re just left with a circle of orange and chocolate.
Sweetlu69 ..hope you feel better