chapter eight
Holy Shit! I'm A Psycho Bitch!
Moving to a new city, not having my immediate family around, and knowing no one but only a couple of friends was extremely lonely. To top it all off I was going through a broken engagement. Each was hard to manage on their own and I felt like I had to get through it all by myself. This wasn’t the case though, I had support from my family and close friends from back home. However, I still felt alone.
Most people after a breakup won’t talk to each other, but Jax and I were determined to remain friends. We talked on the phone every second day or so, and it was probably the worst thing we could have done at the time because it prolonged the grieving process.
I knew that breaking up was good and it was the best thing I did for both of us. However, I had a very difficult time with the loneliness and unfortunately I fell into a downward spiral of insanity . . . Stumbling through my own stages of a breakup.
Stage 1 & 2: Desperate for Answers and Anger
When Jax and I would talk on the phone, I wanted to talk about what the hell happened in our relationship. Yes, I knew we grew apart and became two different people. However, I felt like that there was still something that was missing. I felt it in my core, something in my gut was telling me that there’s a missing piece in the puzzle . . . something that would explain absolutely everything.
The desperation to know the truth was consuming me. It was all that I could think and talk about.
I lost control. I let my bruised ego take control and I gave into my emotional dark side or what I call my psycho bitch persona.
My mind kept playing tricks on me. I imagined things that were unimaginable! I developed harsh emotions full of jealousy and paranoia. Every time we talked I would scream and yell in the top of my lungs, demanding Jax to tell me the truth and admit that he cheated on me (physically and/or emotionally). I desperately wanted to know if anything happened between him and his coworker! My mind kept struggling back and forth between believing him when he denied any type of cheating or believing what I saw in his actions in the last few months of our relationship; with the secrets and the distance he kept. I fixated on his words, phrases he said, and certain actions that led me to believe that he cheated. Yet, no matter how and how often I demanded him to tell me the truth, he kept denying all accusations.
Jax kept telling me the reason he felt distance is because he didn’t recognize my growth and he kept thinking that I was just this weak little girl that he associated with stress and made me feel like a burden. He didn’t recognize it until I broke up with him how strong and independent that I had become. Every time he gave me his reasoning on why he treated me like shit, I remember just thinking to myself “bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, just more fucking bullshit!”
I knew that Jax felt guilty, he kept apologizing for everything. But my inner beast, the Hulk, was out and I didn’t care about his apologies. I maliciously used his guilt against him. I constantly (and purposely) told him that he at least owed me an explanation because it was his fault and his actions that led us to our breakup. I knew how to keep him in a low psychological state while I tugged and pried and clawed, demanding answers I wanted to hear. The more he denied, the more I got angry and the more I demanded, and it became this endless cycle of arguing. However, as much as I interrogated him, I was unsuccessful in finding the answers.
Throughout the last year we were together, I did everything I could to make Jax’s life stress free and to fight for our relationship, but I knew I can only do so much and I had to be met by him halfway. I didn’t understand why he didn’t fight for our relationship. He fought for our relationship and for me (the weak little girl version of me) before. So I was having a hard time understanding why it was different this time around why he just gave up. It hurt my ego that he didn’t care. It didn’t make sense to me and in my gut I knew that there was something missing. But I never got the answer that I demanded and needed.
Stage 3 & 4: Denial and Bargaining
In the beginning of May the loss of our relationship hit me like a speeding car smashing into a concrete wall! I felt like my life was over and I kept repeating to myself “holy shit, what the fuck happened! I’ve lost everything!”
I’m a fighter; I fight for what I want. I’ve earned everything because I worked my ass off. The point is I don’t give up easily, and in hindsight I felt like I gave up on our relationship too easily. I was in deep denial. We invested too much time and energy into our thirteen year relationship to give up so easily. I knew the relationship was no longer good for me, never mind marriage worthy, yet I still wanted to fight for it.
My days and nights were spent trying to figure out how to salvage our relationship. I convinced myself that Jax was telling the truth and that we only fell apart because we became two different people. I convinced myself that our relationship was fixable. Even at the expense of my own mental health and overall well being, I was desperate and determined to fight for us.
I spent days trying to convince Jax to fight for our relationship with me. I had this unrealistic hope that our thirteen year relationship can be mended back together. I found myself texting and calling some of our common friends trying to find answers or something I can use to try to find a way to get our relationship back. I was constantly texting and calling Jax and he eventually ignored and blocked me.
I was the worst version of myself and it was a smart move on his part to do that.
I was being a psycho bitch! Eventually and somehow it registered how pathetic and cruel I was acting. I was so embarrassed and I became so ashamed of myself.
Stage 5 & 6: Isolation and Depression
I hit my version of rock bottom! I was so ashamed and embarrassed that I didn’t want to face anyone. Most nights and weekends I isolated myself in my studio apartment and just stayed in with Buddy. I barely talked to anyone and barely answered text messages. I couldn’t handle facing my actions in the past couple weeks. My shame led to feeling more and more pity for myself. I often thought that if I couldn’t get Jax to be in love with me in thirteen years, there’s no way that I would ever get anyone to love me.
I wallowed in my self-pity for a while. I was often on the floor of my apartment, laying beside Buddy and sobbing until I fell asleep. Usually beside me there would be an empty bucket of (dairy free) ice cream or gelato, and most often accompanied by a half eaten huge bowl of dill pickle popcorn with Skittles. I remember waking up several times in the middle of the night realizing that Buddy made it up onto the bed and I was still on the floor.
Over several more weeks I continued to replay the last several months of our relationship, over and over again in my head. My mind was in disarray and unorganized, still not able to put together what had happened. But by the end of May I was emotionally drained. Nothing left to say. Nothing left to feel. My mind, body and soul were completely spent. There was nothing left but a void inside me. I was completely numb.
I somehow found a way to brush off my bruised ego and accepted the consequences of my actions. It was me that broke up with him! I had to remind myself that I was the one that chose to leave. “I left, I left, I left him! This is what I wanted” I would repeat this to myself when I started to feel low. Eventually, I accepted my decision and knew that it was time to move on with my life.
Stage 7: Acceptance
There’s a popular quote that everyone kept telling me; “time heals all wounds.”
My response to that is “fuck time, I’m healing myself now! I’m patching up my own fucking wounds.”
I didn’t want to continue living my life wallowing in self-pity and letting my ego control my actions. I often made myself remember that when my father left our family (for another woman), I never saw my mother wallow in self-pity. She continued to work two jobs and raise three kids on her own. So I knew that if she can do that, I had no right to continue feeling sorry for myself. I also had to constantly remind myself why I decided to break it off with Jax in the first place - so I could keep the little self confidence I had left intact and be happy again. I knew that if I continued with the self-pity and doubt that I would lose everything that I fought for all those years; self-respect, independence, and love. I knew that I had lost a bit more of my self-respect in the past month, however I still had some hope.
By the time that I had come to this realization and calmed the psycho bitch inside of me; Jax and I were talking again. We both knew that to continue our progress and to let us both heal we decided not to speak to each other for 30 days. We would again speak to each other near the end of June.
“The true measurement of self worth is not how a person feels about their positive experiences, but how they feel about their negative experiences . . . A person who actually has high self worth is able to look at their negative parts of their character. . . and then act to improve upon them . . .”
REFLECTIONS / LESSONS LEARNED:
As soon as I put my bruised ego aside (my psycho bitch persona), the rational side of me was embarrassed and ashamed. This was a very low, low point for me. Honestly, I needed to feel that embarrassment, the loneliness and the shame. It was a difficult road and I cringe of disgust everytime I think about myself being in that state and how manipulative I was being. I was not proud of my actions. However, I needed the breakdown to have my breakthrough. As soon as I had acknowledge how I was acting and who I was becoming, I was accountable and able to take responsibility of the changes.
I also needed to stop beating myself up and make a choice . . . I either let my ego take over and live a life of anger or let my ego go and be at peace. I knew that for me to be at peace I needed to be a person who I am proud of. To be that person I had to control my ego and admit my flaws.
The first step was to stop bashing Jaxon to all my friends and to anyone who would listen to me. I shouldn’t need to feel like I had to gossip about him or make him the villain in my story. He wasn’t the villain. Technically, I was because I was the one who broke up with him.
Second, I needed to let go of trying to be right all the time. I had to believe that Jaxon was telling the truth. I had no proof of my accusations and I had to accept that I was wrong. I needed to learn to back down, not just with arguments with Jaxon, but also with other people. I had to learn to respect other people’s opinions, whether they agree with me or not.
Thirdly (and most importantly); I had to stop being jealous and compare myself to other people. My confidence shouldn’t be built off feeling better over someone else. Or by getting jealous of people I think are better or appear happier than me. My confidence had to be derived from self achievement. Doing things that I am proud of. For instance; running a half marathon under less than 2 hours, or being kind to someone who didn’t necessarily deserve it (for example; being kind to Jaxon).
Fourthly, I had to be kinder to myself. I acknowledge what I did wrong, accepted it and then punished myself. I had to learn not be so hard on myself and to forgive myself for not being perfect. In other words for being human . . . Once I was able to go easy on myself. I was then able to rectify my actions.
And finally, I had to stop blaming others. I needed to stop blaming Jaxon for our relationship failing. It was not all his fault, we were in the relationship together . . . and it takes two to tango.
🎧 - Rag'n'Bone Man: Human
🎬 - Forgetting Sarah Marshall
📖 - Mark Manson: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
🤾♀️🚴🏻🏊🏻🏃🏻♀️ - Couch Potato (or in my case, Floor Potato)
FEEDBACK / COMMENTS / THOUGHTS /YOUR REFLECTION / ANSWER QUESTIONS BELOW:
What stages did you go through when dealing with a breakup? How did you pick yourself out of it?
Are you really heartbroken or is your ego just bruised when someone breaks up with you? What is the difference to you?