The things that helped

'Tis the season.  I know more than a handful of friends whose relationships have recently come to an end, just like mine.  

I've been through breakups before, but never one that affected me on this scale, and as eager as I am to come across as cool and self-sufficient, I won't lie.  Coping has been hugely difficult.  Sure it sounds trivial and frivolous, but I've been through loss and death and all kinds of nasty out-and-out pain and nothing has derailed me quite like this.  

It's really about more than just the guy.  For one, it was the end of a lot of dreams and plans that we'd made, and a lot of hopes that I'd harboured secretly.  It is terrifying to wake up and find that someone you thought would always love you doesn't love you anymore.  

Everything that I'd been indirectly working towards was pulled from under me in one fell swoop.  It followed the end of the best year of my life when I was away doing my Masters degree, a slightly tumultuous change in jobs and the deaths of both my grandparents.  I'm not a big fan of uncertainty.  Now, each day holds uncertainty in spades.

And unrelated to this most recent fiasco, a whole lot of resentment, hurt and fear that I'd never quite dealt with over relationships prior began to surface.

So I have a long way to go in getting back on even keel again.  But I've spoken to all my friends about this - all the friends who chose to walk out on years and years of commitment, the friends who took seven months to stop crying, the friends who had picked out rings and houses.  And we all agreed that there are certain things that help staunch the pain, just a little, just enough to carry on putting one foot in front of the other till consciousness takes over again some time down the line.

I'm not at the stage where I can talk about healing grief yet.  But I know that when the wounds were freshest, I'd have loved a big ol' post like this to tell me where to put my energies and my attention.

So here's my contribution to the ever-growing museum of broken relationships: a list of the things that helped me right after the event.  Maybe they'll help someone out there too.

Changing Up

Trust me, girls, shopping has it's place and time.  There's nothing like a brand new dress and neon shoes (speaking from experience here) to make you feel like you can take life on the chin again.  Before that however, there are a few other things I think it helps to buy.

Two days after the fact, I went on a mad rampage and threw out and replaced things that remotely reminded me of him.  Not things like pictures or letters, you understand, prosaic things that needed a clean slate.  My daily planner for example - previously it had been littered with special days and dates that we had set aside.  I also changed the SD card on my camera because I couldn't bring myself to either curate the pictures or delete them and bought a blank sketchbook to replace my old journal.  Doing simple things like that - changing the background picture on your phone, even switching your perfume because scent holds so many memories - can make you breathe easier in a few minutes flat.  

Fun and Games

One of the things I jumped on almost immediately was getting into new hobbies.  Lessons or classes in particular are a great way to focus your mind on something new and while away time productively.  Because I'm such a "handsy" person (meaning that I get very restless if my hands are not occupied; not to be confused with "handy" because well, I'm not...) I signed up for knitting classes and started making blanket squares as I watched The West Wing on DVD with my family.  The need for concentration stills my mind instantly.

TV on the Radio

I don't know about you, but I love music and planning a soundtrack for my day used to be something I relished.  Now, unless it's Taylor Swift singing about how we will never get back together (ever ever ever!), I can't listen to a damn thing.  Because the radio at my workplace has indie ballads that turn me into slush on repeat, I had to figure out a nifty way to plug into something else.

These days, I listen to the BBC constantly.  It's amazing - there are two hour-long news podcasts a day, countless documentaries on everything ranging from gay couples growing old together to the Iranian currency crisis and even a hilarious short programme that collates the week's newspaper headlines.  The newsreaders are just the right balance of proper and dryly witty and while I couldn't tell you what's top of the pops right now, I can actually hold a conversation about the Somali elections.  If you ask me, that's two for the price of one.

The right programming

It's also natural to want to wallow and watch tonnes and tonnes of TV, but I quickly discovered there were some genres to be avoided at all costs.  No one wants to watch sappy romcoms or depressing dramas so it's best to stick to things that emphasise independence and are light-hearted, witty, comforting without being maudlin and if possible, even a bit camp.

In my humble opinion, there is one show made for just this purpose.  At the end of Season Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy kills her demon boyfriend, Angel, and sacrifices him to the Hellmouth.  This makes the start of Season Three the perfect companion to anyone who's just lost a lover - Buffy runs away to a different town and changes her name, grieves, and then takes emotional revenge by calmly creaming every demon in a five mile radius.  Great for stirring those indignant girl power feelings.  

Also highly recommended: The Golden Girls, an '80s sitcom about four women who move in together following bad divorces or being widowed and their lives together as they travel through fear, sorrow, joy and the societally shunned idea that there can be love and life in one's golden years.  

Sherlock recently took me through an especially bad patch.  I love Jeremy Brett as much as the next purist but while I have issues with the newest iteration of the Conan Doyle canon, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of the brilliant but emotionally tone deaf super-sleuth really cheers me up.  Watching him and Watson stalk across London alone, solving fiendishly difficult puzzles, while being beholden to nothing and nobody calms me down. 

For the same reason, I imagine any kind of murder mystery would suffice - think Alfred Hitchcock, that series of extremely fey movies starring Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, or even something laugh out loud funny like Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery.

And this is going to sound cheesy but when all else fails, clips of Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood on YouTube restore my faith in mankind.  

Pick your poison, just make sure it doesn't involve french kissing.  

Talking to people

Though it may feel like the least desirable thing in the world, I cannot overemphasise the importance of speaking to your friends and loved ones.  Get up and get out of the house - even if it's just to get coffee from down the road - and it especially helps to dress up a little while doing it.  In the two weeks after I was unceremoniously dumped, I planned to meet a friend for dinner, lunch or brunch every single day.  It was just the thing that kept me from going over the edge.

Of course the key here is looking to people whom you know will make you feel better:

1) People who don't ask too many questions.

One of my guy friends drove straight over to my house and sat silently with me on the curb as I cried for a full hour.  Later on I would be ready to discuss the whats and what-ifs in greater details with my girlfriends, but just then I needed someone who wouldn't make me relive the drama while it was raw.

2)  People who make you laugh.

Mel, one of my best friends, sent me a picture of a stuffed animal on her desk because she thought it was so cute that it would make me feel better.  When the animal she indignantly claimed was a raccoon turned out to be an African meerkat, I almost fell off my chair laughing.

3)  People who genuinely care.

My friends have been so unbelievably incredible through this.  They've offered to drop everything to come straight to my house, bought me several expensive sets of dark chocolate, brought me out for coffee and long drives and sent me postcards and emails from faraway lands.  You will be humbled and overwhelmed by just how much people care for you and you will come away feeling better for it.  Every.  Single.  Time.

The worth of a book

The last thing on this list, but by far the least, are a couple of books that have helped me tremendously.  Friends and loved ones will do everything in their power, but books can be there for you in the dead of the night when you are torn between tears and propriety.

There are two in particular that I would recommend and I have not hesitated to buy them for friends who are going through the same things.   I feel like these two books work in tandem and that one tends to pick up where the other left off.  

It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken by Greg Behrendt and his wife, Amiira Ruotola, is the kind of book you want to read when you're so shattered you can't get out of bed.  It's written in an infectious, high-energy cheerleading style that helped me find resolve when I thought that I had none.  It's the book that got me through work the first week because I read a chapter every evening on the train home.  It reminded me that I was better off without someone who didn't want me - something that is perfectly commonsensical but easy to forget.

The second book is the one I offer for the hurt that runs darker and deeper and unrepaired from disasters long forgotten.  Getting Past Your Breakup: How to Turn a Devastating Loss into the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You is a book that treats your sadness as grief and makes no bones about it.  Consequently, the advice given teaches you how to get over that grief through slowly gaining new perspective on old happenings.  There are serious workbook exercises that you can disregard (I have nothing to lose and will try anything once) and the author, Susan J. Elliott, who has been through everything and more, takes an empathetic but no-nonsense tone that would make your mother proud.

Best of all though, for those who are hesitant about dropping cash on the book, there is a Getting Past Your Breakup website right here.  Whether you read an article every morning before you hop out of bed or join the chatter in the comments, there is relief and peace in knowing that you are not alone.

If you're reading this, if you've stumbled upon it because you've gone looking for something like it, I hope this list helped at least in some small measure.  I hope that you'll build a list of your own because having a stockpile of things to turn to when things get hairy is precious beyond measure. 

And most of all, even if it takes a long while to come by, I hope you find your happiness.