Two Words that will Improve your Mental Health & Help You Survive a Break-Up

When it comes to relationships, I’ve often pictured myself as a giantess stomping through a city, smashing buildings down like Godzilla or King Kong. Each building that I topple is the heart of an unsuspecting partner who didn’t know what they were getting into with me.

I’ve only ever had one mutual break-up and one break up that was not instigated by me, which I wrote about here. My most recent boyfriend, who I thought was the love of my life a few months ago, blindsided me by breaking up with me and getting a new girlfriend in what seemed like five minutes. I felt like I lost a limb when he left, and my inability to cope with the breakup highlighted something that has made all of my breakups more difficult than they needed to be.

Befriending Exes Too Soon

Despite the cavalier way I’ve handled relationships before this ex, breakups have historically been difficult for me. I am always the one to try to be friends in an attempt to ease this discomfort–even if it’s too soon or impossible to do so without feelings. If we use my giantess analogy, it’s like I tiptoe back into the city through the wreckage I’ve just caused, and ask the pile of rocks where the building used to be, “Want to be friends? I promise not to knock you down again.”

You can’t be friends with an ex when the rubble of the relationship is still fresh on the ground.

But I have tried to do this over and over and over.

In fact, I tried to be friends with the aforementioned former love of my life. The result was messy. He ended up blocking me on everything. And I mean everything. He even removed me from Pokemon Go before they introduced the ability to socialize on the app. I anticipated this happening, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to re-enter his life when I knew I wasn’t ready. I’m not even ready to be his friend now. So why is it something I still want so badly?

It’s the finality, the thought of losing someone, especially him, forever that strikes me as unbearable. While I’ve been processing the breakup, I’ve often lamented to myself that it feels like he died. Because he’s blocked me on every possible avenue, I will never be able to contact him again. This person who I was ready to spend the rest of my life with is gone forever.

David D. Burns, the author of Feeling Good, would identify this kind of thinking as an “all-or-nothing” Cognitive Distortion. If you ever find yourself thinking the words, “never” and “forever,” you are likely performing all-or-nothing thinking. There are no shades of grey in this black and white view. Either he’s in my life, or he’s as good as dead. Feeling like someone has died because they’re not talking to you is pretty fucked up–and it’s made the breakup doubly devastating. No wonder I’ve been struggling to cope.

The Solution to All-Or-Nothing Thinking

My therapist has given me a fairly simple trick to combat this kind of distorted thinking. He suggested eliminating those nevers and forevers and adding in a “for now.” I have lost my ex for now. My ex won’t speak to me for now. My ex is out of my life for now.

Thinking of a breakup in the terms of “for now” will prevent you from having to grieve the end of the relationship on top of what feels like their death. Because they’re not gone forever as if they had died. They might just be gone for now. And that makes the loss feel infinitely more manageable.

Evidence that it works

I have actually managed to become good friends with one of the exes that I dated during my careless “smash all the relationships” phase (ie my whole dating life up until this most recent relationship), and when I reflect back on it, we were able to become friends after the relationship ended because we gave each other the space we needed to move forward. It was months before we spoke to each other again, but it wasn’t forever. I knew that he wouldn’t be out of my life forever during this period of space; I inherently knew that it was just for now. When we did eventually reconnect, we were able to rebuild our own relationship as friends in a healthy way because enough time had passed.

Of course, I didn’t think that my now-friend was the love of my life, so giving him space after the relationship wasn’t nearly as hard. But it was still a challenge, and “for now” allowed me to cope with giving him the time he needed to rebuild himself. If I hadn’t done that, I would have one less good friend in my life. This has proved to me that “for now” really does work.

Going Forward

I believe that I started thinking in all-or-nothing terms because I assigned my recent ex the label of the “love of my life” which raised the stakes incredibly high–so high that I lost touch with life’s infinite possibilities that could one day bring him back into my life. I couldn’t let him go when I should have, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to repair the damage that’s caused our relationship. But I don’t know for sure that I won’t ever get the chance to try again either.

In the meantime, I will continue to try my best to learn and cope without feeling like he’s dead. I will try to stop thinking in terms of “forever” and “never.” I think that that’s all I can ask of myself, you know, for now.

My Lucky Day

I don’t know if there is some sort of latent adrenaline that can kick in almost three hours after a stressful incident, but if there is, that’s what I’m currently experiencing. I suppose I have always been rather slow to process things emotionally. Perhaps that really is what’s happening to me right now. Or perhaps it’s this second glass of wine.

But I hope not. I hope that what I’m feeling is beyond this external stimulus and is simply, well, me.

I feel supercharged. Everything I’ve ever wasted my time stressing over–how my family perceives me, getting lost, picking up the phone, unfamiliar men, my depression–all of that seems so trivial. And I want it to stay trivial. Small. Far away. That’s why I’m writing this right now because if this feeling goes away, I want to be able to come back to this and read it.

I left for my boyfriend’s place at about 2:20 pm today. At about 2:30, I lost control of my car.

The roads were slick, and snow was steadily falling, but it wasn’t blustery angry snow, pounding against my windshield. These were big fat flakes that lazily drifted from the sky and turned into beads of water as soon as they touched my warm windshield. I got onto the highway and maybe I was driving a little too fast. Maybe the road was a little too icy. Maybe my music was too loud or maybe I should have been paying closer attention. It doesn’t matter because the end result was the same: I lost control.

I felt my car slip and I pumped my breaks as I knew to do, but this was the first time in my life that I did this and my car didn’t jitterbug slightly from side to side before snapping into line like an obedient dog. Instead when I pumped the breaks, the back of my car swung out wildly. I could see the cars just a bit ahead of me and behind, my companions on the road. Even though I couldn’t see their faces, I could feel their anxiety as they watched me skittering around, likely worrying that I’d slide into them.

I turned my steering wheel to try and correct my car’s overcompensation, but the car just skidded along, so I pumped the breaks again. It swung wildly again in the opposite direction. I was approaching a curve in the road, a low concrete median separating myself from the veichles headed in the opposite direction at 100 km an hour. I pressed my foot down again and again, but still I got no traction.

There was a horrible thud and I was jostled around in my seat as my car hit the median like it was nothing more than the sloped curve of a sidewalk. My car may have slowed down when it hit it, but it didn’t feel like it to me. I was too distracted by the three lanes, a vehicle in each one, of oncoming traffic that my car was spinning out into.

Frantic, I hit my breaks repeatedly as hard as I could, yanking the steering wheel to try and garner even a fraction of control. But everytime I pumped, my car swung more violently, and I became disoriented, distracted by the lights and metal hurtling towards me. I no longer knew which way was the right way to try and pull the steering wheel, the safest way to escape unharmed. Even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered. If I slowed down and suddenly gained control of my car, it would be too late to avoid getting hit by the oncoming traffic. All I could do was feel my car spin and stare at the approaching headlights. In that moment I thought of two things: the circle of control and suicide.

The circle of control is a tool that therapists use (mine included) to help their patients accept that the things they can control exist in a very miniscule sphere, while the things they can’t control exist in a sphere that takes up the whole page. We often exist in the giant circle of things out of out control. And in that moment,  I finally understood the circle of control. My car and the cars of the people hurtling towards me were all out of my control. Even if magically achieved command of my car, I couldn’t stop the others from hurtling right towards me. Whatever happened was going to happen.

This was when I thought of suicide. My descent into the opposite lane of traffic hadn’t been intentional by any means. But I have previously struggled with suicidal ideation. In fact, the whole reason I went to therapy (where I discovered the circle of control!) in the first place was because I didn’t want to die. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. However, in this moment, the voice in my head said, Well, you were thinking about dieing anyway, weren’t you? And somehow, this comforted me.

I wasn’t terrified anymore. As I said, whatever happened was going to happen.

My car whipped around one last time, skidding to the side of the road, untouched by the other vehicles. It finally stopped and was facing the same direction as the lane of traffic that was whizzing by next to me.

I reacted quickly, worried that someone else may lose control of their own vehicle and slam into my now roadside and stagnant car. I backed my car off the road, down a little snowy slope that it could easily escape from. Shaking and hardly breathing, I got out to inspect the damage.

At first glance, it looked okay and I could have laughed. To have gone through that and my car not even have a scratch… I couldn’t fathom it.

However, after kicking some of the snow away from my front right tire, I saw that it was flat. This was still such a small price to pay when I’d been prepared to die only seconds before.

Before I could call AMA, a sturdy but greyhaired man in a white truck pulled off the highway a little bit ahead of my car and hopped out. The kindness of people like this baffle and overwhelm me to no extent.

Still in shock and with leaking eyes (I am a tough woman and do NOT cry), I told the man the situation.

He told me that AMA would take hours to arrive, and he could change my tire for me. I think I thanked him at least fifty times. He deserved a million more.

While the man toiled away on my little gold car, I stood beside him uselessly with my cotton grey dress billowing around my knees in a whirlwind of snow. I offered to help countless times, but he waved me away, and I knew I’d be completely useless anyway. I know. I was a stereotype in a dress.

It wasn’t until later, well, now actually when this supercharged feeling struck me.

A little while ago, before all this happened, I was dreaming about travelling. As always, I bemoaned the fact that I have no one to travel with, no one to protect me from strange men or from my complete lack of sense of direction. But for a moment, I allowed myself to dream of what it could be like if I weren’t scared of so many things.

I thought, what if I did just leave on my own? If I got into serious trouble, trouble I couldn’t rely on myself to fix because I was incapaciatated, strangers would help me, right? My friend Shay met her boyfriend because she was too drunk to function in a night club in South Korea. He helped her get back to his place and took care of her. He was a complete stranger to her. And they’ve been together ever since.

But had that ever been my luck? No.

If it were me in that situation, I thought, that story would have a much more sinister ending.

I remembered hearing a story about a girl who travelled to a place I don’t remember where to help one another is a social taboo. This girl had an allergy attack on a bus and collapsed. No one helped her. These thoughts filled my mind, and stifled my dreams. No, I simply wasn’t cappable of going alone. This is what I had resolved until today when I almost died.

There I was, roadside with a flat tire in a storm with not just one kind man helping me in a snowstorm, but three. 

The next man who arrived was also a bit older, and also in a white truck. He told me as he was cranking the jack up underneath my car that he was playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol later that night. The third man who pulled up (also in a white truck…seeing a trend yet?) was younger. He saw my car a little ways off the road and had thought I was stuck in the ditch. He had a towing rope he was prepared to offer, but instead ended up helping with my battery (after the men got the spare on, my car wouldn’t start because the hurtle over the median had jarred my car so much that something had come loose from the positive end of the battery).

He fixed this, and I finally made it home alive and so endlessly grateful for my life and to these three strangers who had taken time out of their own lives and had stood in the cold to help some liberal hippy girl who had often scoffed at truck drivers.

I am once again a stereotype as after almost getting crushed by oncoming traffic, I feel inspired. Supercharged, as I said earlier. I feel like now I can be a little less afraid of other people. Of men. Today, three strange men helped me get home. They didn’t have to. But they did. And they weren’t the leering wolves that haunt me. These men were nothing but kind.

After the arrival of the second man, the two men were discussing the issue with one another, and I stood in the cold thinking dark thoughts about myself. Before I could plunge into an inner soliloquy of self pity, Scrooge (obviously not really a Scrooge at all) asked if I had just gotten a flat tire and pulled over to the side of the highway. When I told him that I had actually been travelling in the opposite direction, he exclaimed, “My god, is it ever your lucky day!”

And he was so right.

His comment put a stopper on the pessimistic and self loathing thoughts that were about to flood my mind.

I am so lucky.

Maybe now, I can actually live my dream. Actually travel, and not live in constant fear.

As Blanche Dubois says, I’ve  always depended on the kindness of strangers.

A Life Update

I haven’t written on here in a while. Actually, I haven’t written anything in a long while. “Bad Kat!” *smacks own nose with newspaper*

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have difficulty writing when I’m depressed, and earlier this year I switched to the cheaper version of my anti-depressants because I was no longer covered by insurance.

Big mistake.

I knew I wasn’t writing, and that my outlook was kind of listless and numb, but I didn’t realize how depressed I really was until I got back on my proper meds and felt significantly better. It’s crazy (no pun intended) how much medication can alter who you are.

However, now because I’m a student again, my insurance has kicked in, I’m back on the proper medication, and here I am! Writing like the writer I’m supposed to be.

Also, yes, you heard me correctly. I’m in school again.

Since my last post, I’ve picked up my life, left Bumbleton, moved to a university town, broke up with my significant other, and started the education program at the University of Lethbridge. In the immortal words of 21 Jump Street, “Fuck yeah, mother fucker!”

I’ve been doing so well since I got here, and when I say “doing well,” I don’t mean just merely getting by while waiting for something horrible to happen as I have been doing since becoming terribly depressed last year. I’ve actually been happy. Until now, actual happiness has felt like a far away dream; I was grateful for having experienced it at all in the past, but didn’t ever actually expect to experience it again. There are moments when I’m almost moved to tears because of this feeling that I never thought I would feel again. I’ve made new friends. I’m working out on a regular basis (this is a HUGE deal). I’m not sleeping for sixteen hours every day. I’m getting all A’s. I’m writing this blog post which is another massive victory. I’m enjoying life again. What a wonderful and foreign concept.

After much humming and hawing, I finally chose the education program over the Master of Library Information Studies at the U of A for a number of reasons:

1.  teachers have more job stability and opportunities than librarians
2.  the pay grade is better
3.  it is a career that I can travel with
4.  if I get a job teaching high school English, I will still get to interact with my one and only love, literature. Swoon.

I’m very happy with my decision and my peers in the program are just wonderful; however, this isn’t to say that I don’t still wistfully moan with envy every time I interact with a librarian and dream of what could have been. As for the actual teaching part? You know, that thing that doesn’t revolve around literature? Well, I start my practicum in a grade 2/3 class in elementary school on November 14th, so I’ll really find out then if I’m cut out for this career.

Now that I’m doing so well, I’m a little worried that I will fall into old thinking patterns and sink back into depression again when my practicum starts; I’ve been placed in an even smaller town close to Bumbleton, meaning that I will be living in Bumbleton for the upcoming month. If I become as crippled by my mental illness as I have been the last year, I will likely not successfully complete the practicum. But honestly, I could handle that.

It’s this new state of mental health that I am desperately afraid of losing. For all I know, I might go home and view the familiar streets of Bumbleton with new appreciative eyes, rather than feel the crippling suffocation of a small town that I’ve never felt I belonged to. I might be just fine. I might even flourish.

But I might not.

And that scares me.

I don’t want to get as sick as I have been ever again. It would be like crawling out of hell, letting my broken bones heal and wounds scab over, only to be dragged back in again at the end of my recovery, and have my bones crushed and wounds ripped anew. After all that suffering only to face failure, I may as well just stay down there next time.

But until I am sent home, I am well. And I am going to focus on this wellness and furthering my healing until maybe I am so healed, that it isn’t even possible to be dragged as low as I have been before. When my practicum begins, I am going to continue to take care of myself, and do all that I can to stay better. I’m going to keep working out, and writing, and appreciate the time that I have close to my hometown friends, family and of course, my dogs.

I can do this.

Poem: I am, I am, I am by K. Carrier

I am a child’s art project, a collage of cut and pasted characters from literature

I am Kat, not Katie, renamed in the tradition of Shakespeare’s shrew

I am Daisy Buchanan’s smile, her fleeting attention, and no, I won’t still love you when you’re no longer young and beautiful
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me

I am Jane Eyre, but

I am always trapped, always stumbling into the same nets over and over; I am not Jane Eyre

I am the mad woman in the attic

I am depressed and anxious

I am forever peeling back the yellow wall paper, trying to free myself
I am a child’s art project, a collage of cut and pasted characters

I am irrelevant

I am Ashley Wilkes at the end of Gone with the Wind; the time for people like me has long come and gone
I am nothing, but

I am trying
I am trying cauterize this passion for literature, to make it stop flowing like puss from an infected wound, to let it heal into something useful, productive

I am trying to belong, to serve a purpose, and to no longer depend on the kindness of strangers

But I am not Blanche Dubois, or Jane Eyre, or Daisy Buchanan, or Ashley Wilkes

I am Kat–not Katherine the shrew. Just Kat.

I am carrying on and maybe there’s a chance that I can separate myself from these fictions because

I continue, I still am
I am, I am, I am