Journey of a heartbreak!

Imagine the feeling of feeling loved, appreciated, special and respected. Imagine waking up everyday next to the special person who makes you smile, who complements you and completes you. Imagine the sunday long-drives to the perfect spot with the view, a bottle of wine and that special someone. Imagine your dream man, the whole package.. Imagine it all. He could be your husband or wife, a fiance or just a boyfriend or girlfriend. But he/she is special... Well, he/she WAS. Because after all those years, things end. Your happiness tumbles down in front of you..... Your world as you know it changes..... It hurts.. IT IS OVER..Where to from here? How do you survive?

Heartbreaks seem to be a very normal thing nowadays, relationships go wrong all the time so U expected to recover quickly, cry less and just move on. Even people around you get tired from hearing about the same thing all over again. So what you do, is bottle up those feelings very deep, smile and move on.....WRONG MOVE! Because that is just a recipe to disaster, it will lead you to be a bitter person. Rather take your time and go through all the emotions in order to heal and move on.

It is a journey, it may take a year, two or maybe five. Give yourself that time and grieve. Losing someone who was your world is tough. It feels like someone died, well he/she did die in a sense, because he/she will never feature in your life as he did before. So Yes, it is a death so you need to grieve. People grieve differently, it is an emotional rollercoaster ride. It is a ride that you have to go through in order to flourish at the end of the day and look forward to a new relationship. Let me take you through the journey, through all the emotions, the tears and everything else to where I am at this point.

Few articles that I have read and still read today, thought I should share:

http://www.mybrokenengagement.com/

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/blindsided-7-ways-cope-heartbreak-grief/

STEPS TO GRIEVE FOR A FAILED RELATIONSHIP

• SHOCK or DISBELIEF:  This may be at the point where you walk through the door and you find him in bed with another girl, the point where he calls you and says we need to talk and he utters those words ".....its not you, its me........its time to call it quits........I have met someone else......I don't love you like I used to" or the point where he just totally ignores you , changes his number or just blocks you and move on.. That is the point of shock. It seems like you have been hit by lightning. Your heart aches, physically. It feels like someone just pulled a rug from under you.. It feels like you are falling from a cliff. My experience is from a cheating point and I will dwell on that experience, mainly. Just a few hours ago you were fine, well you thought you were fine, but clearly you weren't if your partner does the above. Well, you are faced with the situation at hand and you are shocked. Many people react differently to shock. the feeling of shock in your body awakes certain hormones in your body that will cause and influence your reaction. It may numb you to a point where you just sit there and not react. You may scream, curse and say "You are lying, it is not over.. you are not going anywhere you are mine". You may curse or hit something or maybe someone. Whatever the reaction, it is from the shock. You can hardly believe that someone you love so dearly could do that to you. I reacted, too. Worst reaction ever, but I reacted and it was very ugly. He spent his birthday in Hospital. He hated me for it, he was angry. I died. He broke me. He killed Thandokazi. A ghost of me came alive. I died........
• DENIAL: Then comes the monster of denial. you are in denial. No, it didn't happen.. I did not receive a call from him. No he did not say that. No he was not with another girl. It could not have happened, he loves me and has told me so so many times. We have been through so much together. It is just my imagination, It did not happen. At this point you probably have told a friend or two. I first told my sisters and my cousin at the same time. We had a chatting group. I was laughing when I was telling them the story. I then told my friends and they suggested we meet up. Hehehehehe, I laughed through the denial.  18/05/2013, I sat at SPUR with a few of my friends. I probably went through the story, 5 times. I was laughing about it. I cried and laughed. I did not believe that it happened. I was still in denial.,,,,,,REALITY CHECK CAME WHEN I WAS ALONE, it did happen and It hurts.. Gosh it hurts.

Spur drinking spree

• GRIEVING: This is the point when the shock and denial wears off. When it finally hits you, and gosh it hits you! The scenario plays over and over in you head.... You cannot stop the tears from falling down your face. This phase hit me on a Sunday morning. The day after my SPUR drinking-spree. I was hung over. I stayed in bed the whole day and I just cried and nursed my bruises. It was the longest day f my life. I did not eat. I did not wash. I went from crying, to sleeping to chatting with my support system to dozing off again. That day ended badly. I was the one in hospital. Life stopped making sense. I grieved.  This is the LONGEST process of all.. I cried through out my exams, by God's grace I passed. I'm the type that likes to know everything. So when we were both at the right state of mind I confronted him. I wanted all the details. I wanted him to take me through his state of mind when he decided to disrespect our relationship like that. I did not like what I heard but I had to hear it in order to heal and try to work things out for myself again. Unfortunately for me, I did not leave immediately.At this point in my life, when I look back, I wish I did. I wish I packed my bags and never looked back. I would have saved my self a lot of heartache and abuse. It is true what they say, once the trust is broken nothing will ever be OK. We fought every chance we got. I turned into a bitter, insecure girl with a low self-esteem. He BROKE me. Men will never understand the effect cheating has on a woman. It breaks you. It kills your confidence. It kills your self-esteem. It kills everything good you feel and know about yourself. You start doubting your looks and your abilities. you start to think that you are not enough. it BREAKS you. I was broken, I cried. 7 full months of torture, mainly for the sake of my son. In that seven months I cried more than I have ever cried in my life. I became depressed. i stopped caring and looking after myself. I buried myself in my schoolwork with no progress because I would spend half the time crying. I became DEPRESSED. I gained lots of weight.In that phase of my life, PRAYER got me through. Everytime I would cry i would ask God to show me if this is worth it, if this is part of his plan. If this was God's way of helping me to get out of this relationship, I asked that He gives me strength to pack all my belongings and walk away. AND he answered. Dec 2013, I was done. I walked away. I had lost him before I even called things off. He was no longer the person I fell inlove with. You see, he too, became a monster. When I told him I was done, he never argued about it, he merely accepted things and wished me well. The second part of grieveng began, I rebelled. The Love of my life had just let me go without even fighting for me while I fought for 7 months to keep us together. HE MERELY ACCEPTED IT. I rebelled. He left a huge hole in my life. I partied too much and drank too much. Luckily for me, I slept with one guy in that process, for some it becomes many. I rebelled. THANDOKAZI died. One thing that got me back to reality was BOTHANDO. Something in me kicked in and realised he needed me more than anyone and I needed to pick myself up for this sake. Hence, the next stage.
• ACCEPTANCE: This is the point where you wake up and realise that it is really over. That part of the chapter in your life is closed. He really is gone and he is never coming back. That part is the beginning. It is the start of a new journey. I started by clearing every piece of me in his house. Every thing I owned and shared with him, fitted in a simple sport bag and I walked away. To a fresh start. I accepted that He was the love of my life but that chapter is done. I had more to offer to other people. My son needed me. I was finishing off my bTech at the time. It took few therapy sessions, and a whole lot of conversations with God to finally accept that It was over. He was free from me and I of him and it was for the best.
• RE-INVENT YOURSELF: For us ladies when we are in a relationship we tend to lose ourselves. We no longer exist as individuals, it gets to a point where you are only known as "David's girlfriend", I was at that point, I didnt exist without him. So I went on a journey of re-inventing myself. At this time, the mornings were looking more brighter and the birds were starting to chirp and I would actually listen to the chirping. I re-connected with myself first, then the friends I had lost or neglected. Life seemed so much better. I had a new reason of waking up in the morning. The zombie of Thandokazi was slowly coming to life. This is a process that I'm still working on as this never really ends. I took better care of myself, ate healthier and joined aerobics classes. I was doing things for ME. People started to notice the change, MEN too :). I started going out on casual dates and feel comfortable about them. Im still in the process.
• MOVE ON: 18 months down the line, I realise i'm not fully there yet. Yes, I met an awesome guy who looked at me with eyes full of love and admiration. We dated for a few months. How did I know that I haven't moved on? I knew the moment it was so easy for me to be back in my EX's arms at a blink of an eye, thus conceiving my second child. I havent moved on and it showed. I lost a man who loved me, yes I loved him too but he loved me better and differently. I still carried the baggage. It is part of me. So I let go of MR NICE GUY. It is still a process thou getting over my EX, but Im getting there. I know that, because days go by without me thinking about him. Hell, I even forget he exists until he pitches up for a visit with the kids. He is a part of me. It takes courage to move on but Im doing it. It is the next journey. But for now, i'm comfortable just playing mommy and work on myself. I choose to fix and better myself so that when I introduce the next man into my life, HE may be the last. 

Im happy as I am, finally when I look at myself in the mirror I see a WARRIOR! I take better care of myself and it shows. I'm loving the new and stronger THANDOKAZI. I talk less and I pray more and that has helped me. I just wonder if he SEES the difference. If he NOTICES that the monster he awakened died and the THANDOKAZI he killed came back to life. I WONDER.............