A Fools Wife

Oh. My. God.

How do you get over someone you devoted your whole mind, body and soul to? Where do you start? I felt shut down, deflated and compromised. How do you get to know yourself again? It’s really hard to feel your body again after you’ve changed so much trying to salvage a relationship or keep someone happy. Maybe you’ve severed friendships or stopped taking care of your health or just completely fucking let go of who you are in hopes that you’ll always have that significant other to take your arm. But this story is hopefully going to help you create goals, take care of your body and take care of your mentality too.

Since my relationship started hitting the rocks I stopped taking my medication, stopped eating healthy or even eating altogether. I cried for weeks over the loss, even though I knew it was better for me in the long run but to me I still lost someone I planned out the rest of my life with. Day by day, I had to try and focus my feelings elsewhere. And as hard as it was, only able to see negative things about myself, I’m getting there.

To start my journey, I wrote out a note to myself whenever I felt down or sad or just a little deflated. It read;

“You know you’ve been through so much and you should never forget that. You’ve criticised everything about yourself for as long as you can remember and nothing positive has ever come from it. You need to approve of yourself and accept who you are. Work on being in love with yourself because you are enough and you always matter. Start exercising your soul because wellbeing is key. Treat yourself with the love and kindness you would treat those you love with. The experiences you’ve overcome may have made you fragile but they also made you caring, compassionate, understanding and filled you with the knowledge of deepest emotion and you should be proud of who you are today. There may always be one person who thinks you’re not perfect but you can be the one person that always thinks that you are. Your goal was to be better than who you were yesterday and you’ve achieved that. You’re self value doesn’t decrease based on someone else’s inability to see your worth.

“You need to forgive yourself for not having the foresight to know what now seems so obvious in hindsight” - Judy Belmont

Commit yourself to inner peace and gratitude, you are the only person that can change your outlook on life. Continue to be in the process of positive changes because you may be on a long, hard journey but you’re closer than you were yesterday. Always believe that you are your best self because you were not placed on earth to compare and resent and you were not supposed to try and be what others would want you to be. Be your priority.

Self love is to understand you don’t have to

be perfect to be good

Self worth is not determined by other people

Exist to be happy, not to impress

You cannot control how other people receive your energy. Anything you do or say gets filtered thought the lens of whatever personal shit they are going through at that moment, which isn’t always about you. Just keep doing what you’re doing with as much integrity and love as possible. Your past is not your future and staying positive does not mean you have to be happy all the time. It means that even on your bad days you know that there are better ones coming. Don’t forget that you’re only human and you do not have to prove yourself to anyone. It’s ok to have a meltdown but you don’t have to unpack there. Cry it out and refocus on where you’re heading. Sometimes you have to choose between planting seeds or growing flowers, and focusing on one or the other to benefit yourself will never be the wrong choice. Moving on from your experiences is a genuine gift from you to you. Don’t hold bad negativity inside you to spite someone else. You are not your mistakes so just take things step by step, day by day.”

I really try to read over and live by this as much as I possibly can as well as eating regularly, going outside and communicating with others. It really is simple things that help you through. The tough part is actually finding the motivation to get started with the process. It took me over a month to start but once you do you’ll feel the positivity immediately. Even if I’m staying inside I make sure I get out of bed and change clothes. Even if it’s changing from pyjamas to pyjamas, the change will make you feel fresher and lighter than just staying in bed from dawn til dusk and I’ve noticed less headaches and migraines in doing so.

I’m not saying this will help solve all of your problems at all, but it came so so close to solving all of mine as this has now led me to the self motivation I needed to do things I had been wanting to do throughout my relationship but never found the time. I am much happier, outgoing and confident now that I am learning to love myself. I am making new friends and keeping up with previous friendships and although I still have a long way to go, I am now more confident that I will actually reach my goal. I hope my advice helps whoever needs it and I am more than happy to go into more detail with anyone on a one-to-one and open up or discuss any further issues that are diminishing your mental health. Be kind, I love you all.