Healing My Heart

HEALING MY HEART

Written by Lauren Mallett

Art by Lily Brown

“You need help, Lauren.”

One of the hardest parts about being in a relationship is admitting when there’s a problem. Even harder? Admitting that the problem stems from you.

Recently, my relationship of over a year was mutually ended for the purpose of healing. Sitting on my partner’s bed, deciding to take a step back from each other’s lives was incredibly difficult. There’s something extra painful about a breakup when neither of you really wants that. But, even now, we both agree: that we made the right choice. 

You see, I was going through it. My fall semester was rough, to say the least. I was struggling severely, and I was in the darkest place I had been in a very long time. And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hide it, and I certainly couldn’t handle it alone. I needed support, I needed help, but I wasn’t doing enough to get that. I was completely reliant on my partner to help with all my problems—to an extreme fault. I wasn’t talking to my family, my friends, not even the therapist I paid to listen to me ramble every other week. I was bottling everything up and only letting the floodgates open in the arms of my love. But with that, I was neglecting the needs of our relationship. 

The key to a healthy and strong relationship is communication. Sure, there are other factors that go into it, but if you don’t have good communication, you don’t have the proper base to build your connection. So when my ability to communicate started to falter, issues began to form. All I could bring myself to talk about was the mundane happenings of everyday life rather than the tremendous bouts of emotion I was feeling at every waking moment. I was closing myself off from everyone around me, putting up walls, and, in the process, placing all of my strength in the hands of the one person who truly saw me for who I am. 

Then very late on a Sunday night, I broke down. I fell apart in his arms, and it was in that moment that we both knew I needed a lot more help than he could possibly give me––I needed to heal, and I needed to do it on my own. So we broke up, promising we would still be there for each other, still be friends, but that our roles in each other's lives would be subdued; we needed to take time away so that I could relearn how to be healthy and function without using our relationship as a crutch. He would always be in my corner to support me, my number one fan, but my health had to come first. I had to come first. For the first time, my top priority was my mind and my needs, not anyone else's. 

For a moment afterward, it felt as though I wasn’t really living; I was just going through the motions. I got up, went to class, wrote my final papers, and did what was expected of me, but I wasn’t really there. I didn’t know what to do or how to put myself first.

What I did know how to do, however, was message my therapist. I sent him an email asking if he could fit me into his schedule before our next appointment, and he was able to. The day before I left for winter break, I had that therapy session, and I opened up about everything. I continued to do so at my weekly appointments with him, in conversation with my friends and family, and even with my doctor as I asked to increase my antidepressant dosage. 

I shifted my focus to getting better. I stopped holing up in my room all day. I started journaling to get all my thoughts out of my head so that they couldn’t fester and spiral out of control. I delved back into hobbies I had nearly abandoned, spending my days sewing or reading, truly just letting myself exist in my own company.

And I did the work. I’m still doing it. I’ve been putting my own needs first, making conscious efforts to be open and honest with myself and others in the name of healing. Self-improvement has become my goal. A few months later, I’m doing better than I ever have. So now what?

It’s hard to pretend you don’t have that type of connection with someone whom you love so much. So, we tried to be friends, just friends, but life had other plans. The past few weeks have been full of passion and love but also some difficult conversations. How do we navigate the journey of going forward, and how do we do it differently to avoid falling back into those bad habits? I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. All we can do is try our best and continue to work on ourselves, so we can work to build ourselves back up. This isn’t ground zero; this isn’t starting over. But it is starting fresh and trying again. I know now, whatever the future holds, that I am stronger now, and we will be, too, as friends or as more.