Saturday, January 10, 2015

The Teenage Years - The Break-Up - Part I

I finally got a phone call after some few weeks of no contact. I remember it being a hot, sunny and bright summer day outside and I lay on my bed weeping after hours of non-stop crying and pain. All of a sudden, the phone rang. I answered it and it was him. He asked me how I was doing and I told him I was okay. I was doing fine. I never once uttered what kind of emotional despair and turmoil I was experiencing. I was too strong and too proud to ever let him know I was hurting. My only question was why I hadn't heard from him and he dropped the bombshell on me. He didn't think it was a good idea if he and I stayed friends. It would be too hard for the both of us and we wouldn't be able to move on. It was a bad idea. He was sorry.

I spent the next weeks and months trying to understand what the fuck I was feeling and how the fuck I was going to get through this pain, sorrow and heartache. He was my best friend and he abandoned me. Just left me. His friends were my friends. He was all I had. He was my whole life; my whole world and he was also the reason it crumbled and came down crashing. "What was a little desert without rain?", I thought. Everyone has disagreements. How was I going to get by losing my boyfriend and my best (and what I felt like) was my only friend at the same time?

For four straight months, I cried every single day. I didn't just shed a tear or two, I wailed and sobbed and grieved in despair for hours on end. I didn't eat any more. I lost about forty pounds in about six weeks. I was a shell of my former self (but I looked fucking great). My mother was beside herself. One day, instead of trying to communicate, console and support me like any other (normal) parent would've done, she forced herself into my bedroom unannounced with a muffin in hand. She tackled me on my bed and began yelling at me uncontrollably and forcefully feeding me this muffin I so desperately wanted nothing to do with. It became a struggle and eventually an altercation of unkind words and loud voices. She left the room and there were crumbs everywhere.

Mornings were always by far the worst. I would always wake up with this crippling physical pain in my mid section that I can only describe as knots, punches and kicks from inside. I had no idea what this feeling was. I had never experienced it before in my life and it was debilitating. I began to go to sleep as late (or early in the morning) as possible at night because nights were easier. I spent all night awake watching television because my tears, pain and discomfort had finally subsided and learned that it helped me sleep in much later in the day. No matter how late I would sleep, the pain was always there when I woke up. Sometimes I felt like I was waking up from an excruciatingly painful and scary nightmare but in my waking hours, it was always the nightmare continued.

What I didn't know then, I know now. It was "anxiety". I learned very quickly that if I immediately distracted myself from the pain in my body, it would help for short spurts of time. I would go to work and in between sessions of uncontrollable crying and pain, I felt better. I also noticed that making plans with just about any one and leaving the house immediately to go about distractions was helpful too. I spent the entire summer naturally healing my pain. No drugs, no alcohol, no sex, no men, no partying, no travel and no medication.

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