Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 3 – Deep Sadness and Deeper Pain

Before you get into the sadness, note that this is the third part of the series. Read the second part here: Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 2 – Feeling Lost, Broken and In Pain and the first part here: Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 1 – The Shock, denial and Pain

Disclaimer: This is written from my point of view. Every relationship has two people and every story has two sides. I am writing this hoping that one day a person going through what I went through will read and be encouraged and know that it gets better. It did for me (Sorry I gave away the ending😂).

Here I was now, alone, in the massive two-bedroom apartment I had leased at a time when my life was entirely different. When my future was headed on a very different path. If you look at it from a glass half full point of view, at least I had many places to cry in. If I got tired of crying on the couch, I could always move to one of the bedrooms or one of the bathrooms. But joking aside, the house felt massive and I, in turn, felt small.

At this point, the only contact I had, was talking to my friends and family on the phone or mostly just texting. This really helped me a lot but nothing beats physical comfort, and I had none of it (no one’s fault, just by the design of having moved across the country).

I established a routine. I would run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and do cross-fit exercises on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, before getting started on work. After work, I would watch supernatural, until it was time for bed.

It was a nice enough routine but through it all, I was just covered in sadness. I was especially sad whenever I run along the beach. Sometimes I would actually stare at the waves and wish they would carry my sorrow with them.

Unfortunately, I got even sadder whenever I locked the door after my run when the emptiness of the house reminded me that I was all alone.

After a while, I actually stopped crying much. In place of the tears was the sadness that enveloped my entire being which worsened every day, and the pain grew deeper every minute.

I could barely recognise myself in the mirror because of the sadness in my eyes. On top of that, every night I would toss and turn in my sleep and eventually lose sleep way too early in the morning. I didn’t even need my alarm since I was almost always up before it even rang. I would sigh and get off the bed since there was not much else to do.

During this period, I put any energy I got into my work, and I think I mostly did a good job at it. Somedays I could manage to pull off an entire day sitting on my desk working while others I had to break from work and compensate later in the evening.

At this time, some part of me expected him to reach out, not for anything else but just to give me some sort of assurance that it wasn’t all meaningless and the love we shared was real, not just for me. I was still waiting for him but deep down I knew I was waiting in vain.

Through it all though, my mind was very actively thinking of what had happened, and why it had happened. In doing so, I ended up with a million questions that had no answer.

How could he do this to me? Did 7 years mean nothing to him? Was I alone in the relationship all this time? When did he stop loving me? Why was I hurting this much? What could I do to get over this? Was he hurting like I was? Did he even ever love me at all? Did I mean nothing to him? These are just some of the million questions. However, the ones that make me shed tears even as I write this, were the questions I started asking about myself. The questions that made me lose myself and my worth. Am I that WORTHLESS? Am I that hard to love? WHY WAS I NOT ENOUGH FOR HIM? AM I THAT EASY TO LEAVE? Am I that UNLOVABLE?

What I did not realise until much later was that with every degrading question that I asked myself, I was losing a piece of myself.

I love music and it usually helps me deal with life. When I am happy, I listen to happy music, and when I am sad, I listen to sad music. So it goes without saying that I created an entire playlist and cleverly named it Heartbreak Season, which had music that pretty much described my status. Here is the Spotify link to it and I also created a youtube playlist in case you want to listen. I shared this with someone who did not know about my break up and he instantly asked me if I had broken up with you know who. This person’s exact words were “this playlist is tooo real, its too much of love lost!!”

These songs basically described what I was feeling and the questions I was asking myself at that time. The main ones that I often listened to on repeat were the ones below.

1. Is it just me? – Emily burns It seemed to me that he wasn’t hurting and that he was glad he got rid of me. I found myself wondering if he ever even felt any pain of losing me, or it was just me?

Tell me, does your heart stop at the party when my name drops?
Like you're stood at the platform when the trains cross
Are you hurting, yeah you must be
Or is it just me?
Tongue-tied, screaming on the inside
When I say that we broke up and they ask why
Are you crying in the shower like a freak?
Or is it just me?

2. I wasn’t enough for you – Hollyn It sucked to not be enough for the guy I thought was the love of my life. Need I say more?

If that makes you happy, I'm happy
Not wishing the best
Cause I was that for you
I guess it happens, it happens
Sometimes you win and then sometimes you lose

When you lay down at night
I hope you sleep alright
Cause you said this, then did that
Took my heart, gave it back
So, how do you expect me to
Be happy for you?

3. Wrong direction – Hailee Steinfeld This song made me realise just how far I had fallen into what now was clearly the wrong direction for me.

I don't hate you
No, I couldn't if I wanted to
I just hate all the hurt that you put me through 

4. Out of love – Alessia Cara This was probably one that hit home. The question was, when did he stop loving me. At what point did he look at me and decided that I wasn’t the one for him? Was it something I did? Was it how I look? Did my beauty fade in his eyes at some point? Did he evaluate my value and realise that I was worthless to him? These were just but a few unanswered questions I had.

Nothing can fill up the space
Won't ask you to stay
But let me ask you one thing
Oh-o-oh
When did you fall out of love?
Out of love?
Oh-o-oh, when did you fall out of love with me

5. Easy – Lilian Hepler This song basically summed up every question I had. The main one was “Why was it so easy to leave me?” I will just put the entire song here because it explains how I was feeling better than I ever could.

I haven't been eating
I can't seem to sleep and
I hate to admit that I'm really not okay
I'd ask how you're doing
But you're probably happy
And if that's the case
I wouldn't know what to say

I did this to myself
And now I feel like hell
You let me go so easy
You never fought to keep me
You did this to yourself
I hope you feel like hell
For leaving me so easy
Why was it so easy?

It doesn't affect you
You're not sad about it
The joke was on me for how easily you moved on
You don't ask how I'm doing
I'm out here assuming
You don't really care
You're happier now that I'm gone

You don't really care the joke was on me
It doesn't affect you
You don't really care the joke was on me
For how easily you moved on
You don't really care the joke was on me
You hate me now that I'm gone

I know that I need to
Get on without you
But how do I stop
Electricity in my veins (electricity in my veins)
I feel the pressure
The need to get better
But when I am cured
I'll still hold on to the pain

And tell me how it feels to be stuck
Between the things you broke and things you messed up
If I'm the queen of tears, you're the king of lies
'Cause if you wanted it you would've tried

6. I have questions – Camila Cabello It is in the title, isn’t it? I had too many questions, not so many answers.

Do you care, do you care?
Why don't you care?
I gave you all of me
My blood, my sweat, my heart, and my tears
Why don't you care, why don't you care?
I was there, I was there, when no one was
Now you're gone and I'm here

Honestly all the other songs on the playlist describe a part of how I was feeling and questions I asked myself countless times. Some of the honourable mentions are For the lover that I lost – Sam Smith then The way I say goodbye – Emily Weisband and drivers license – Olivia Rodrigo (This one mostly because we got our new driver’s licenses together just a few months before the breakup and we had just started going for road trips together, just the two of us, and silly me thought 2021 was the year we would conquer road-tripping together) finally Your name hurts – Hailee Steinfeld. All these songs and many others are in the playlist so give it a listen and if you have as many tears as me, then please keep some tissues close.

I often found myself talking to my invisible heartbreaker and wondering what he would say back to me. My brain was on a roll, and with every unanswered question, the sadness grew deeper and the pain immeasurable.

Someone would think that I was torturing myself listening to the songs on repeat but to me, it was like therapy. They described my emotions to me even when my brain was too clogged to comprehend much. They also helped me pour my heart out, seeing as I was all alone. I did not have the pleasure of crying on a friend’s shoulder and venting to them about him. So instead I did it by listening to the sad music and crying to it. I vented through the songs as I blasted them through my speakers.

When one month had passed, around March 13th – 14th, I stopped waiting around for him to do anything. I finally accepted the fact that there was no more us and that he was not responsible for me anymore. No matter how much I was hurting, his responsibility to care about me and my feelings, to reassure me or to comfort me had ended with our relationship. So for me to expect him to do anything at all, would be unfair and unfounded. And so I decided to let go of that expectation. I even adopted a new slogan. IT IS OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY.

In doing so, I had to let go of any connection I had with him. First I deleted my Deezer account that I shared with him and swapped it with Spotify. Then removed my Netflix profile from our shared friend group account and finally the most painful one, I left our Whatsapp friend group. The reason I left the Whatsapp group was that I could not stomach any post that mentioned him or something to do with him, it was a trigger.

The most unfortunate part is that with this step, I lost 90% of the circle of friends I had hung out with for the last 3-4 years. Basically any article I have written mentioning friends, they were there. We were a group of ~10 people which consisted of 3 of his guy friends and their girlfriends, his brother, his sister, and Emma. So it goes without saying, he already had the advantage where friends were concerned. Not only was I mourning the loss of my relationship but I had to add this loss too.

Letting go of all the connections only worked together to make me even more alone and feel deeper sadness. So the next week or so was like a free fall into darkness only getting darker each day. I like to imagine that it was like falling off a deep well. So deep that I would not reach the bottom or see it.

From the notes above you can see just how gradually I was falling. How deep the sadness became and how much pain I was in, day in day out. Some days I woke up worse than others but there wasn’t a single good day. I am glad I had my job because it kept me afloat. It gave me a reason to wake up because I knew I couldn’t let the people who expected some output from me down. I had online meetings with colleagues too which forced me to be composed.

I felt so much continuous pain and sadness that I knew I needed to do something about it, but nothing I did worked for me. No amount of physical exercise worked, no amount of work, TV or music helped. I tried going to parties, but it would only distract me for a short while. I even bought a piano. Overall, nothing worked to elevate my situation and I was open to any and every solution that anyone would provide.

So one day I read a text from a friend that said “I know you deserve the best just keep on focusing on you and since he decided to move on with his life just let it go forgive him and let your heart be lighter and God will follow fight your battles” This text opened up my heart to a solution that I had all along, one that I had not given much thought before and it was simple. I just needed to mean it. And this is how the next stage of my journey was ushered in: Forgiveness and the Brief Bliss It Brings.