Doing These 9 Overly Dramatic Things Helped Me Get Through My Breakup

When I went through the worst breakup ever, I did what some people would consider pretty dramatic and over-the-top things to work through my pain and come out the other side. These things seriously helped, so I have no regrets.

1. I pretty much fasted for a week. I completely lost my appetite, which I think was due to the incessant amounts of crying that I was doing and my complete lack of energy. Every time I tried to make myself eat, I ended up crying into my food which made it all soggy and gross, so I just decided that instead of forcing myself to eat, I would take it at my own pace. I drank tea and water and nibbled on foods that didn’t require too much energy or concentration and just let myself feel my pain.
2. I slept on my best friends’ couches. My ex and I shared a lot of memories at my place, so when we broke up, being in a space that reminded me of him constantly felt enormously painful. As a result, I begged my friends to let me sleep on their couches for almost two weeks as I worked through my heartbreak. I only went home to shower and change my clothes but I didn’t stay for long. My friends were awesome and they let me sleep on their couches and take up their personal time because they knew that I was really grieving. It really helped me and I’ll always be grateful.
3. I mailed everything he ever gave me back to him. Our breakup was really messy. He cheated on me and we were together for four years. I was hurt and I didn’t know what to do with all of the things I’d accumulated in our relationship: his gifts to me, our photos, the clothes he left at my place. What was I supposed to do with all of that? Well, I was in a sad angry haze one day and I decided that I would pack everything up and mail it back to him. I instantly regretted giving him the coffeemaker he bought me (I could have sold it!) and a few other things that I actually did like, but at the same time, getting those things out of my living space allowed me to take my life back.
4. I ate out every single night of the week. When I finally started eating again and sleeping in my own apartment, I started eating out every night of the week for a while. I didn’t want to cook or plan meals. I went from one extreme of not eating to another extreme of only eating expensive restaurant-style meals. Yes, it was absurd and expensive, but it made me feel better.
5. I hit up a tarot card reader. I lived near some tarot card readers’ shops. I’d always been curious about them but also felt totally nervous about checking them out. One particularly lonely weekend, I walked into the shop on a whim. I was missing my ex and I was desperate to feel better. I can’t remember what she told me, but I started going weekly. My friends thought I was nuts for spending money on that but I didn’t care. Whatever she said helped me cope and move on with my life. I even did an online tarot card reading not long after for some added insight.
6. I dyed my hair. I think I dyed my hair because I wanted to be someone else. I was tired of looking at the same sad, lonely person in the mirror every day, so one day I decided to go a beautiful, sassy blonde that drastically contrasted with my darker hue. My friends were totally shocked at my choice but it was a big part of my recovery from the breakup. I felt like a new woman. I didn’t feel like the girl who got her heart ripped out of her chest because I didn’t look like her anymore.
7. I wrote him emails I would never send. My ex stopped communicating with me cold turkey and it was one of the hardest things for me because it was so hurtful. How do you go from talking to someone every day to completely cutting them out of your life? I still don’t understand. I started writing him emails but I would save them as drafts before I sent them because I was afraid that he wouldn’t even read them. Every single night for like a month I did this. A few years later, I went through my drafts and saw the 30+ unsent emails. When I finally deleted them, I felt like I’d finally gotten over it.
8. I deleted his and our mutual friends’ contacts from my phone. My besties were loyal to me even though they knew him too, but we shared a lot of mutual friends. Many of those people I knew didn’t care about me or how I was truly feeling. I felt like they were just nosy and sending me texts about the breakup so they could gossip about me. Out of frustration, I deleted all of their contact info from my phone. Looking back, this was kind of silly because it turned out that some of them actually did care. It was totally awkward having to ask “who is this?” when someone sent me a meaningful text checking on me. Oops.
9. I blocked him on social media. Blocking my ex made me feel like I had power and control in a situation where I had none. It was also super dramatic, I can admit. Still, I felt like it was important for me to do things that made me feel better, even if it was only for a moment. This initially made me feel better, even if I felt a little silly later when I unblocked him.