overcome loss

[bigbritish]

probably one of the most unwinnable injustices is a broken heart from another person. it hurts in my chest.

how do i get through this? i can't just walk through it. i think i can seal it off and never think about it again, but the home and childhood i came from feels like the same broken heart.

first, there was a lot of denial that reality was what it was. my best friend was no longer my best friend and my love was no longer my love. i guess all the pieces said it was over and i just didn't believe it. i struggle and fought because it wouldn't budge and then i realized when i pushed with everything i had there was no changing it.

then i went through the period of silence where everything my life consisted of was gone. i was empty and made more desperate attempts at those that used to be in my life and then i made desperate attempts at replacements.

when that left me where i started, then i thought about all i was left with. i didn't feel like the person i started out as, and i didn't understand what that meant. the confusion wasn't anything i could do anything about, and like a person on the street corner dumbly lost, people push and shove on their way. it made me angry. i started looking around at all the madness around me, so many people whizzing in so many directions.

my life started becoming my anger. i started moving, but i was angry. i would shove people just like i had been shoved, and even though i saw mostly smiles, i smiled without forgetting how angry i was. i guess at this time, and i don't know why, it occurred to me that everyone is divided or there are ways that one person on the street corner gets most of the attention and admiration. why the hell did i shoot to be that person? i guess somewhere deep inside i felt like that's what made my life crumble.

like luke skywalker bashing his father in, my anger consumed me and i had a hard time seeing anything about myself anymore. this is about the time the mirror asked me who i had become. i hate that there is a dark side or a light side, i don't care about the fight whatsoever. i try to relent, and it's different faces but the same shoving on the street corner. can i relax my insanity and put up a little less of my own shoving? this seems so far from the love i used to feel.

i guess today i'm just sipping at a wine bottle and i'm young and i know there are plenty of nice things and experiences to find. i thought about finding a ping-pong group. i do things all the time, but when i slow down even in the slightest, i'm reminded how horrible i feel. can't i just go slow again and not feel the harsh shoving of other people? that's what friends feels like, i think.

do you think it's worth being angry at the world if you feel like that's what got between you and your loved ones? it's like the society didn't want you to be together. your family maybe injected bad feelings toward the life you chose, and so you destroyed what you had by listening to them, and even though all you've got is what family you have -- family is nothing you want anything to do with.

how the hell do you fill the gaps and not in a superficial ways? how did it work for you? is it really just as slow? does it feel like dying? is it really a world that you want to live in that makes you feel like you can't be who you started out being or if all that is is heartbreak?

 

[njlauren]

Post is a bit cryptic, to be honest, but if I read it correctly you lost someone you loved to your best friend, for whatever reasons, you feel your family of origin had something to do with it, maybe you felt it was between your love and your family and you chose your family.....

Whatever the story, when you lose things you go through a grieving process, and there are a bunch of steps you go through, anger,denial, acceptance and so forth, and you are in the middle of that. The anger you feel, the pain, are normal, when your heart gets broken it feels like it really is broken, it is no joke, and those who tell you 'get over it' are kidding themselves, you don't,not without going through it.

Standard logic is to accept you are grieving and give yourself time to heal, while looking towards the future. If you feel like somehow you lost the love by your actions, figure out what that was and resolve to change them. Better yet, maybe see a counselor and look at your life and see what works and doesn't work. If you feel your family of origin interfered, you can learn to set boundaries with them, so that they don't poison future ones. They will also tell you to look at this, not as an end, but a beginning, perhaps of something new and better. If you feel bitter towards yourself, work on forgiving yourself, if you are bitter towards your ex and your ex best friend, try to find a way to forgive them, not for their sake, for yours (I should talk, if a friend of mine took someone I loved, they would need more then forgiveness, might need last rites or at least a proctologist to remove my shoe from their ass)....and remember that this will pass, that in bad times it seems like they will never end, but it will, and take that as your goal, to move from the bad to the good times.

 

[DemianBiros]

Yeap,it hurts,and it's going to hurt the rest of your life.It gets a bit easier as the years go by,but you know that it's still back there,waiting to throw itself forward into your life again.No getting out of it,but you can learn from it,and be able to feel again.

 

[dollface007]

It takes a long time. Yes. It really hurts, and it really really sucks. It's okay to be angry...just don't hold onto that anger forever and find something constructive - a project or goal - to do with that energy.

After my last break-up, I focused on running. I ran for my life. It saved me. I took all those lonely, angry nights and went to the gym or to the park and meditated as I ran and listened to ridiculous dance music and spent time in my own head. The first time I tried it, I barely ran for a few minutes and then ended up lying in the grass sobbing. Sometimes I would cry during those runs b/c I didn't understand why we weren't together and why he broke my heart. Over time, there was a little more understanding, but really just more acceptance that this was the way things were going to be. Gradually, I felt stronger and freer. Step by step.

And remember that life goes on. You aren't going to die of your broken heart, however cruel that is. Someone will come along who's better for you - who will be with you b/c the timing is right for both - even though I know that doesn't seem possible now.

 

[TeaforMe]

The best advice I ever received was to "Fake it Til You Make It." Sometimes you just have to force yourself to put your happy face on until one day you wake up, and you're truly happy. Time is the greatest healer, so each day you move forward, you are one day further from the loss itself.

 

[bigbritish]

Thanks a lot for the responses -- they mean quite a lot to me. I know that we all go through our own version for this, it's incredible and it is also incredibly painful. Yes, it does feel much like a broken heart. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I cried and yelled at the top of my lungs, I swallowed my pride, I did exactly what I was told, I schemed, I hope and pray a lot.

 

[ADVR]

If it was losing your love to a friend, I've been there. I went through the anger part as well. What helped me get through it a little faster was living in the moment. I know, easier said then done. But if you can stay in the now, and leave the past in the past, you may heal faster.

 

[fgarvb1]

Well.

My third wife after I divorced her (all five of her personalities) manged to get herself in a bind being the kinds of persons most of her was and I helped her out.

I let her move into one of my bedrooms for a several months so she could get a job and rent a place. Finally she moved out and I could carry on with out her being there.

She washed her clothes before she moved the last of her stuff to her new home and managed to get a half dozen of my shirts mixed in with her clothes.


After two weeks of phone calls and such I decided to just go and retrieve my shirts.

I managed to find were she was renting and preceded to knock on the door.

She answered the door and was really a bitch about it...made a point of telling me she was fucking my best friend the whole time she was staying at my house and he was there at hers now.

Sure enough, he steeped out of one of the bedrooms and didn't have much to say. I could see his truck hid behind the house through the bedroom window.

He didn't have much to say as we had been i thought like brothers for say twelve years or so and he knew if I got pissed at him I was rather dangerous.

I acquired my shirts, told her to go fuck herself and left.

After thinking about it I decided friends don't treat Friends like that and that is the last time I spent more than thirty seconds around him in the last twenty six years.

I had already started a new life without her so I added him to the list.

Yeah, I accidentally rated him out to his wife but shit happens...I thought she knew, his wife and my ex-wife were best friends.

But a few cat fights fixed that.

You have a chance to start over.

Go for it!

 

[LadyVer]

There are no easy answers.Try to keep busy so you don't dwell on it. Find things that make you laugh. I don't think though that this will still hurt 30 years down the road though or that you will think much about it although right now it hurts like hell. Good luck!

 

[Scrubber]

The best advice I ever received was to "Fake it Til You Make It." Sometimes you just have to force yourself to put your happy face on until one day you wake up, and you're truly happy. Time is the greatest healer, so each day you move forward, you are one day further from the loss itself.

Yes. Fake it til you make it is good advice.