Heartbreak is an intense emotional pain one experiences after the loss of something or someone dear.
If you ask some people how long it took them to get over a heartbreak, some would say, It took me three months to feel more positive about their breakup. Another person would say, It took me six months before I felt ready to move on.
Others might even say, It took me one year or a year and a half to fully find myself and get over my ex.
So like it is rightly said, time heals all wounds. Yes, It would take time but you would eventually get over it. Yes, there are processes involved and stages you must pass through, you would find out more about them in this article.
There is no specific time to get over a heartbreak because as humans our healing process varies, some get really emotionally stressed and can’t get over it, while trying to forget about it like it never happened, but we all need to pass through the stages of heartbreak.
So many factors can affect your healing process, even your personal experience might affect your recovery process, if you happen to have gone through heartbreak various times and you think about your healing process you would discover that it varies, the way you healed quickly then won’t be the same way, the healing time would definitely vary. So no one can actually give a specific time to get over a heartbreak, time heals all wounds.
How Long Does It Take To Get Over A Broken Heart?
It won’t take forever, it would just be for a period of about 3 months. You just have to find yourself, find your healing process, and find that particular tip, advice, or activity you need to get over it.
While Thinking Of All This You Also Need To:
Give Yourself Time To Heal
You are your best medicine, take out time to heal if staying off social gatherings or social platforms would help you heal, do that with all sincerity.
You don’t have to put your life on hold, keep going but at the same time separate yourself from anything that would affect your healing time.
Take it one at a time and allow time to work its magic.
Avoid Holding Yourself To A Deadline
You shouldn’t rush the process, and you don’t need to set a deadline because it doesn’t work that way, your patience and time are what you need, so give yourself all the time you need without setting deadlines, it’s not a proposal or project you have to submit to get a promotion rather it’s your life and only by getting through the healing process can you be able to move on.
Give Yourself Permission And Time To Grieve
It’s okay to cry out, it’s natural to give a lost friendship or relationship, it’s normal. You can give yourself some time alone, off work, away from the city, or with bitter memories.
Read also: What Does Heartbreak Feel Like?
Feel free to talk about it and share your feelings with someone, you aren’t the first nor would you be the last to go through heartbreak, also do not confine yourself to a place, go out when you ought to, eat proper meals, take care of your personal health and hygiene. It takes only you to pick up the broken pieces and find your route.
What Are The 5 Stages Of Break-Up?
- DENIAL
- ANGER
- BARGAINING
- DEPRESSION
- ACCEPTANCE
DENIAL
This involves the defense mechanism involving a refusal to accept the truth of a prospect.
In the denial stage you find yourself refusing to believe what has happened, it all seems like a lie to you and no one is able to let you understand or see the truth, you only see what you want to see, one might be in the denial stage for some couple of weeks or even a month.
You would yourself constantly glancing through your phone and expecting the usual calls, SMS, chats, and so on, you would find yourself doing various things like waiting for the doorbell to ring and you would find your ex at the door with a flower or box of chocolates like always, going to your favorite places and expecting to see your ex over there waiting for you, seeing your ex in your dreams.
In this stage, you would need to turn to family and friends. When the denial stage is finally over you would come to terms with the that the relationship or friendship is truly over and then you move to the next stage.
ANGER
A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility towards someone or something and it’s usually combined with an urge to harm.
This stage comes with hostility towards your ex, you would begin to think of one thousand and one reasons you should harm him, whenever you have such feelings use them on something useful you can try drawing, scrambling, visitation, writing, singing, doing house chores, or talking to someone to get it off your mind and if keeps coming you should see a relationship coach, you might feel used and dumped, you might be displeased with yourself it’s okay to feel so, it’s the healing process you would definitely get over it.
BARGAINING
A form of agreement or mutual pledge.
At the bargaining stage, you might want to settle for friendship, you would find yourself requesting your ex that you both restore yourselves by building a friendship to help you get over it all.
While this might sound like a great idea, it is very risky and also not advisable. While settling for friendship your healing process might stop drastically because you would see yourself reliving those past memories, talking like you always do, and you would want something more than friendship.
So in most cases, going back to befriending yourself might not be advisable because you would have the feeling that things would change but they won’t. It’s good to forgive your ex but at the same time, restore friendship only after your healing process.
DEPRESSION
This involves a period of unhappiness or low morale which lasts longer than several weeks.
At the depression stage, you would want to be by yourself, it’s okay to want that but you shouldn’t shun families and friends that would want to help you get through it.
At this point you have realized that things won’t change, so you would want to be alone to grieve about your lost relationship.
Many people do harmful things to themselves at this depression stage so it is advisable that you are always around people and you inform someone about what runs into your mind, or wherever you want to go, keep yourself busy, get engaged with positive things, go to the movies, attend parties with friends, listen to songs, watch comedies, do things that would make you happy and would get you out of the depressed period.
ACCEPTANCE
This is the final stage that involves accepting the situation and coming to terms with it, at this stage you find yourself picking up the broken pieces and making them a brick. It is also a stage for reflection, you reflect on the possible things you must have done wrong, things you would need to correct in your next relationship, things you shouldn’t have accepted, words you should have said or you shouldn’t have spoken at all, you would braze up yourself and be ready to let your past experiences go.
CONCLUSION
Acceptance is the first key to recovery, when you find yourself coming to terms with what happened and accepting it is all over then it means you are recovering.
Self-motivation can also help in your quest to get over a broken heart, you just have to see a broken relationship as a sign that the relationship wasn’t meant to be, and that you deserve someone better.
You can also see it as a stage to build up yourself, learn from your mistakes and aim for a better relationship like it is rightly said experience is the best teacher.
Be the better person and bigger person and forgive, forgiveness can also help you find your peace, I know you wasted years but you can’t move on if you don’t forgive.
When you forgive, it also means you are ready to forget everything and move on.
When you go through the various stages of heartbreak, don’t think you won’t need anyone, of course, you would need your family, and your friends, and you would need all the help you can possibly get, so don’t shun them out rather accept all the care and love you can possibly get. But if you find your healing process not improving you should see a counselor or relationship coach so as to help you come out of your past and embrace the future.
-Ibukun Ilufoye