Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 6 – Being at Rock Bottom and The Enlightening Realisation

Before we sit together and get comfortable at my rock bottom, this is part 6 of the Heartbroken Girl series. Read the previous post here: Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 5 – Hitting Rock Bottom and Thoughts of Ending It All

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😂).

Me hitting my rock bottom was sad, frustrating and extremely painful but it also turned into a very enlightening experience.

Obviously, the enlightenment came afterwards because, during the experience, I was too distraught and crying to be constructive. I was busy looking at my wrist wondering if my green handled knife would be sharp enough to complete the job.

Realising that you are at rock bottom is a bittersweet thing. Bitter because it is rock bottom and it sucks and no one should ever get there. Sweet because there is nowhere to go but up.

That realisation also helped me use the strength I had left to stop myself from drowning. I managed to get myself out of the quicksand, such that I wasn’t sinking anymore. My mind had calmed down a little. It was like now I was sitting on it, covered in mud from head to toe, but at least I wasn’t swimming in it anymore.

I did not have the energy to start climbing out because all of my strength was used to keep me from going back to drowning. So I just sat there, in the cold emptiness. It was a show of how dark it can get.

Later that day, I heard a song and proceeded to post the lyrics on my WhatsApp status.

I've seen dark before, but not like this
This is cold, this is empty, this is numb
The life I knew is over, the lights are out
Hello, darkness, I'm ready to succumb

It was my cry for help. I wanted someone to realise that I was at the darkest point in my life. That I was not as strong as they thought I was. Or that even as strong as I was, I also had weak moments. Moments that were life-threatening.

A few friends actually reached out asking how I was. But I was too afraid to tell them the truth, so I said that it was only some lyrics from a song. in reality, it wasn’t just a song. It was a declaration of my mental state at that time.

The song itself is from Frozen 2. Kristen Bell – The Next Right Thing. It is a song about loss but also about hope for the future. And on that day, I choose to listen to the hope part.

Just do the next right thing
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing
I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make
So I'll walk through this night
Stumbling blindly toward the light
And do the next right thing

While I really wanted to do the next right thing, it was still a mystery to me what that was. The one thing I knew for sure was that the thoughts I had that night were not the right thing.

Nonetheless, a few days later, I thought about that moment and was constantly questioning my own mind. Like was that really me?

However, it was with that question that I realised something.

The Enlighting Realisation

As I mentioned briefly in the previous article, during the thick of that experience when I was drunk at 5 am, googling weird stuff and crying my eyes out, there is one thing that I didn’t do. I didn’t attempt to call, text, reach out, ask him any questions.

It didn’t cross my fragile drunk mind that I could reach out to him. I didn’t even want to do that deep down. That came as a pleasant surprise. It had finally reached a point in my heartbreak journey where psychologically and subconsciously, I knew communicating with him was not the thing I needed.

I didn’t have the need to drunk dial him while wailing and questioning. That is what distinguished this stage of heartbreak from the first one.

A few weeks earlier when I was drunk and crying at odd hours, I called him crying and wailing and questioning. And honestly, all that drunk call did was make me feel worse the following day.

Therefore, to be in a similar situation mentally that was actually worse than before and end up not thinking of him meant I had moved on. Moved on from him being a solution for everything since I was very clearly still far from moving on from losing my relationship with him.

As I also mentioned in the previous article, by this time, I wasn’t crying for the boy who broke my heart but for the girl who was left broken. The girl I could barely recognise when I looked in the mirror. Nothing is worse than looking at your reflection and hating the person looking back at you or not knowing who that person is anymore.

I had broken so much that I barely knew who I was anymore.

I realised that when people get heartbroken, in most cases especially after the initial shock and pain wears off, they don’t suffer or make decisions because of, or for the people who hurt them. They do it for their broken selves.

What they are yearning for is the person they used to be. People go back to toxic situations not because they love it or their exes, but because it feels familiar. And at some point, anything familiar is usually more than welcome.

Healing is messy and sometimes dark and going through it is painful. Some people fear going through it, so instead, they look back to the past because it is comforting.

I had finally hit my rock bottom that night. Desperately rolling in the mud, almost suffocating.

I called my sister later in the morning and told her I wasn’t doing as okay as everyone thought I was. We talked and after I felt a tad better. I needed to hear the voice of someone who cared about me. To remind me that even though she wasn’t near me, she was always in my heart.

That evening, I pushed myself to go out, though it was the last thing I wanted to do. No matter how bad I was feeling, I dressed up and went to a face paint party I had planned to go to before all that happened. I didn’t want to miss out on it. My logic was, I could either be miserable on my couch or at a party and I chose the latter.

And for sure, as I sat with my bunny face, alone at my table in the same club, I did not feel as lonely anymore. I was glad I went. After a while, the fog cleared and I felt okay.

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That night I slept okay too.

Unfortunately, when I woke up the next morning after having dreamt about him, I felt lonely. Which made me stay in bed reading until noon.

It was at that time that I really started to hate that I was living all alone so far from everyone I knew. I started running my mind through all people I knew, wondering if there was someone I could ask to come to stay with me because I knew for sure I did not want to be alone. But there wasn’t. And so I continued to live alone.

When I finally got up and ate ice cream for breakfast, and started watching episodes of supernatural, I realised I enjoyed watching a little after having no joy in doing anything at all, the entire week. I was at ease for a few moments. When you have had a hard time for a while, you start to appreciate the easy ones no matter how lame they seem.

I was still at rock bottom, but this time I was sitting still looking around and realising there is nowhere to go but up. It was high time to start climbing up.

I also absolutely hated being in that position, the desperate life questioning position. In addition, I hated being that vulnerable and weak. I recognised I had no one or anything to help me up. Just me. Obviously, I had people who care and love me but except comfort me, there was not much else they could do for me.

The funny thing is that when I was sober later and thought of texting him asking him if he was proud of hurting me and leaving me in the dark when his life seemed okay, I laughed and realised, what would be the f***ing point.

I did not know what to do next but at least I knew what not to do.

I discovered that my mind was capable of harbouring so much darkness and thinking of messed up things. And knowledge is power. Armed with that knowledge I was determined to make sure I never got there again. And I got a little angry at myself for getting there in the first place.

And there I was, sitting in the mud, covered in mud. Still alone. Still feeling lonely. At a rock bottom carved out just for me. And that would be the start of the next stage. Emptiness, Absolute Emptiness.

Series Navigation

<< Diary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 5 – Hitting Rock Bottom and Thoughts of Ending It AllDiary of a Heartbroken Girl: Stage 7 – Consuming Emptiness and Withdrawal >>