I've been reading some books on how to get through the end of a relationship and most of them talk about the stages of grief that one has to go through to heal.
I know I went through denial (that lasted about 2 weeks), then anger/depression (probably about 2 months) and now I finally feel like I'm on way to acceptance. There are days however when I wake up feeling unbearable sad, just like I did at the beginning of the breakup, and I think, when is this going to end? When am I going to wake up and not think about him for an entire day?
Any thoughts anyone?
What stage of grieving are you in and how long has it taken you to get there....partly curious, partly hoping to get some idea of when true healing finally takes place.
Well its been 10 days for me, 5 of NC and I think I am still in stage 1. Shock!!!!!
Simon
Incidentally Rick Springfield (80's rocker turned heavy Rocker) released an album last year called Shock Denial Anger Acceptance. Great album and even more poignant now.
Denial -- hmmn, since ex and I had another date of sorts today I'd say yes, but it could be acceptance and forward movement.
Anger -- only directed at my shytty, manipulative, FIRED-ass therapist. (That should be a new thread.)
Depression? I don't know. I'm functional. I have good times with friends. I can enjoy being by myself. I laugh (with sincerity) at funny things. I started arguing politics with my granny again. BUT, I'm still terribly sad over the loss and (no implied melodrama) in some ways don't think I will recover.
Is there a "Fear" stage somewhere in that list? How about a "Selfish" stage?
Acceptance. I don't know again. We're trying to -- I don't know what we're trying. We're sharing self-help books about healthy relationships and marriage improvement. For the last four weeks, we've had a few brief phone conversations, traded e-mail occasionally and we're spending time together on weekends. Just a few hours -- going to movies, eating out, shopping, we baked cookies one night... No deep conversations. No sex. It's a lot like the initial stages of dating. I 'm going to go ahead and give acceptance I big "WTF, I don't know!"
Yeah, except we're really broken up. The love didn't stop but our relationship sure did! We're living in different states of the union, friends, family even co-workers were immediately told we'd broken up.
His public statement: "b.c. and I broke up. Maybe we can work on it six months or a year a year from now, but currently, I don't see us getting back together."
My public statement: "Ex does not live here/with me anymore. We broke up."
We're really maintaining lives separately from the other. So although we're having some verrry low-pressure pseudo-date-n-see, we're quits until for some reason we should not be. Urm, is that acceptance?
b.c.
Is there a "Tries to drown tiny self in large martini" stage?
There's no particular order to them, and not everybody goes through all of them. They're nto a stepwise progression. You can be in more than one at a time. Or maybe not any of them.
I can spend an entire weekend in total acceptance that we're broken up... and then wake up one day think I want to call her to say "Good morning baby, what do you want to do today?" It's a roller coaster, but I have very little depression left. I seem to restart the cycle - I go back to denial, then I get depressed, and then I'm pissed, and depressed again... and then just fine. Mostly fine, nowadays. I don't do much bargaining though.
Dear, JC, if you know there's light at the end of the tunnel, you accept the darkness easily. Trust me, there is light out there!
When my ex left me with two babies, I felt like dying. I passed all the stages you mentioned and after a couple of years I was cured. I met another guy and it helped me a lot. Although the guy was not the right one, he cured me. I also had a few one-nights stands during those two years of coping, but they made me feel even more miserable. I was alone, no job, no friends, nothing...It was very hard. But now I am very happy again and I can't believe I ever loved that scum. I am so glad he left me. He rescued me from the miserable marriage I was stuck in.
Keep your head up high!
God this has been pure torture for me... i went through denial mixed with severe depression - like I felt like I wanted to die to make the pain go away ... I fantasized about ending it all, even though I would never do so.
I spent like four or five weeks on that stage of depression/denial because I was getting mixed messages from the ex (i.e. we slept together, etc.)
Then I came to my senses. I am in the Bargaining/Anger stage. I am still really soft around the ex but I am SO PISSED OFF when I am not around him, I want to beat the living **** out of him for doing this to me. (And, there's more to the story, but there are other guys I am pissed at right now).
One thing that's funny is that when I was in the severe depression/suicidal stage I was listening to all this really, really sad music, like sinead o'connor's "nothing compares to you" which was so utterly depressing but comforting.
Then I had the onset of the anger stage, where one fine day, I changed out all the CD's in my car changer to Metallica, stone temple pilots, verve pipe, etc... Eight days later, and I'm still listening to metallica on repeat and very, very loud. It helps. I'm almost ready to move on to normal, happy music.
All I can say is that this sucks huge chunks and I don't want to get hurt again and I'm really, really sad and pissed off at the whole situation and feelings suck.
Yes, I'm still in the anger/bargaining/sad sometimes stage.
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