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I wish someone would have told me how painful letting go is. All the tears I would cry. The pain that would linger in my chest for months. The endless tug-of-war between hope and helplessness.
The worst part is the physiological response when it really sets in that it’s over. When that really hits you, you reach for the person who means the most to you right now—the person you no longer have a relationship with for whatever reason.
You reach for your phone. You think, Maybe there’s something we can work out. Or maybe I just need to talk to them one more time.
Every time you give in to that urge, you reinforce the behavior.
And stopping yourself from reaching for them?
It’s almost unbearable. Excruciating. Pain in your chest. Crying. Every fiber in your body is screaming at you to reach out. You know you will feel relieved…for a little while. And then you’ll go back to this hurt. The grief stretches on and on and on.
The enduring of it feels endless. It’s crying into your pillow or into the arms of your best friend. It’s soothing yourself by throwing yourself into a new project or cleaning the house or watching a new TV show. Taking a shower twice a day just to feel the tension in your body melt away for just a little while.
On top of that, you have people telling you to “get over it” or “just move on.” I had someone say, “Oh, you’re still on about that?” Um, yes, there is no timeline on grief, otherwise I would be counting down the days. 9 days to go!
The Ambivalent-Avoidant Cycle & Its Addictive Quality
Research has shown that some ambivalent (or anxious)-avoidant dynamics create patterns that can resemble addiction. There is a reason for this. It’s caused by intermittent reinforcement, that’s inconsistency in a nutshell, and the cyclical nature of the dynamic. The push-and-pull dynamic activates the reward and craving systems in us.
Think of it this way: in the beginning, everything is fun and exciting. Your neurons are firing left and right in the reward center of your brain. It’s intense and amazing. It’s like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Sparks are flying. The chemistry has never been better.
All of a sudden, though, your avoidant partner pulls away. The reward center goes quiet. Your mood drops. Not to your baseline, to below your baseline.
You experience this as a low point. You’re confused. You are trying to make sense of what happened. Your attachment has already named them your person. One minute, everything was passion and then next, the relationship has gone cold, empty.
You comb through everything—and I mean everything—for any possible reason for this distance. Did you say something that rubbed them the wrong way? Did they seem less interested the last time you saw them? You spiral. You’re in peak distress.
You, then, do what we all do when in distress—reach out to the person who is the most emotionally salient to us. It just so happens to be the same person who is currently unavailable and triggered the distress. You don’t get relief. They keep withdrawing.
Then one lucky evening, you get that text. You immediately feel relief. Your reward center lights up again and you get that exciting spike. The fireworks. Until another withdrawal. Over and over again.
This distance or perceived rejection is more than painful—it can activate craving-like states. We then seek out the relationship because we associated that with reward or relief. That is why it’s so hard to let go. We associate the relationship with reward, and when we don’t get it, we crave it. It’s almost addictive in a way. Not to a person but rather to the emotional source of relief your attachment system has identified your person as.
On the other hand, if you have regular (not constant) access to your partner, being with them becomes the new normal. Maybe even boring.
The Ambivalent-Avoidant Break-Up
I think you can see where I’m going with this. What happens when the anxious-avoidant cycle ends with a break up?
What happens is the low point. The nosedive your mood takes. The depression. From that comes the panic.
The need to call, text, or see your ex. You chase after that hit of relief. If you are like me and also have ADHD, you may be chasing that hit all day every day. Every time they come into your thoughts—every time you imagine them coming back and changing, replay those warm memories, scan for them in the crowds—is giving you a hit of relief. It’s soothing your hurt for just a little bit. And then it hurts again.
The more we think of them, the longer we hold on. The longer we hold on, the longer our grief stays.
The Recovery
The goal isn’t to stop thinking about them entirely. It is to reduce the thoughts. Reduce the ruminations and the daydreaming. Redirecting thoughts can be extraordinarily helpful. It takes sustained effort, and it feels impossible. But it does work.
I like to use a technique from Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) called cognitive defusion. This is when we change our relationship to a thought or give it less weight. I do this through humor. I say, “Fuck Matt” or “Say no to the Matt man.” I crack myself up. The humor disrupts the thought abruptly and reduces the intensity of the thought.
Note: I’m not angry at my ex; I’m frustrated with the Matt that lives inside my head that never goes away. It’s directed at the thought rather than the person. Anger at him would be suppression, and that’s not what we want to do.
In the beginning, when I was struggling with it, I would place a hand over my heart and say, “I am safe. I am allowed to miss him, but I don’t need him to feel safe.”
Or if you would rather, you might want to assign a container, a window of time, where you can think about them or write about them as much as you want. You can cry and sob and just feel it. When you think of them during the rest of the day, you can tell yourself, “I can think about this later,” so it doesn’t feel as if you are betraying yourself.
What I have done that helps me is set a container for the evening, for that quiet moment between slipping underneath the sheets and falling asleep. I turn on a playlist that reminds me of my person and listen in the dark. I let the music play and the tears flow. I ride the wave. I think about him and how un-fucking fair it is. How none of it makes sense.
As the feeling winds down, I play solitaire or another game on my phone until I’m calm and ready to sleep.
During the day, I gently re-direct my thoughts there. I say, “I will process this tonight.”
There are many other options you can combine or use instead. Grief journaling can be incredibly healing. Making collages or photo albums or a memento of good memories. Writing down good times. Addressing the future you had planned out that now may not happen. Reaching out to friends and family. Cuddling with your furry best friend.
Don’t forget to take care of you, whether that’s yoga, a good night’s sleep, painting nails, exercise, a good book, showers, and so on. What can you do for yourself right now? How can you treat yourself?
Regression
And when you forget? When you spend the whole day thinking about them? You forget to shower, end up going to bed late. That’s okay. That doesn’t mean you’re back to square one.
Grief is rarely linear. For every two steps forward we take, we take one step back. It’s growth. Be gentle and kind to yourself. It’s okay to not be okay sometimes.
But if it gets overwhelming or you feel as if you need more help or support, do not hesitate to seek a grief therapist or counselor. They can help you through this.
The Red Herring of Break Ups: Anger
On that thought, it’s important that we discuss the other side of grief. We know it’s painful. We know we struggle. We know it’s hard. Because of that, it will be very tempting to channel that grief into anger.
Anger makes it easier to detach. I’ve caught myself thinking, “This fucker couldn’t even be an adult and break up with me to my face” or “He never even cared for me” or “He used me.”
It’s so easy to slip into those thoughts because we can turn our pain outward. We can explain this excruciating pain by pointing the finger. It’s easier to villainize them than to hold the uncomfortable and more painful truth that they did care, they did love you, and they still couldn’t meet your needs—because what do you do with that?
Nothing.
And we do not like to do nothing. We have adapted to restore safety by mending ruptures, appeasing people, bending and folding to accommodate others. The hardest part is that there is nothing for us to do but feel it.
All emotions serve a purpose. Anger is no exception. It tells us that we’ve been wronged or disrespected or that our values have been violated. It doesn’t mean we blame anyone, ourselves or our exes. It means that we examine what’s underneath the feeling to determine how we can assert ourselves in the future to prevent it from happening again—via boundaries. Learning what boundaries went unguarded previously and how you might reinforce them in the future.
Grief, then, is how we let go of the things in our life that no longer serve us. There is no shortcut or magic pill. No 7-day routine to shake it out. We have to sort through the good memories and the bad, keep with us the special ones, and let go of the future. We have to make room for new experiences. We have to feel the full breadth of grief before it slowly releases its grip on us.
If you want guidance through a breakup, whether it’s an ambiguous loss, an end a situationship, or a straight up breakup, I have a comprehensive workbook to help. It’s called When Letting Go Hurts. It came out of the ashes of my own grief, based on psychologically backed methods.
A Note About Emotional Safety: If your grief feels overwhelming, you’re having thoughts of harming yourself, or you’re struggling to stay safe, please reach out to someone you trust or contact your local crisis service. If you’re in the United States or Canada, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You don’t have to carry this alone.
Resources
When Letting Go Hurts: my breakup workbook. It takes you through how to process grief, appreciate the good times, learn from the bad times, and rebuild your identity.
John Kim’s Break Up on Purpose: I love the Angry Therapist. I follow him on Substack. He has such wonderful insight and he’s straightforward. He’s going to tell you what you need to hear, whether you want it or not.
Kathryn Rheem & Clare Rosoman’s An Emotionally Focused Workbook For Relationship Loss: this is such an amazing workbook. Emotionally Focused Therapy is one of the gentlest forms of therapy, and these exercises help reduce the spiraling emotions. The authors are compassionate and fully understand the hurt and devastation a break-up can bring us.