The Advice Column IV

651

Advice Request
This person wants to know how to get over heartbreak and trust issues.

Answered Submission
Hello dear,

I'm sorry to hear about how stressful your situation is. Love is hard and it is a series of learning from mistakes and becoming better.

First off, I understand you have history with this boy. Having a past with someone always revives those feelings again but a past isn't everything. You feel strongly for this boy, but how much of it is stemmed from what you felt for him in the past? How much of it is stemmed from feeling lonely? We, as humans, often delude ourselves into thinking of love easily especially when we're desperate about it because they're from our past or we feel too lonely. So you need to make sure about this.

You have a lot going on in your life that you haven't processed yet. Things you haven't dealt with and instead left them by the side until they pile up. Internalizing your feelings is a dangerous thing. When you bottle things up, the pressure builds and builds until finally it explodes. Either you let it explode, or you open the bottle on your own. I feel that you have probably been bottling up your feelings for a long time, and that at this point, you probably feel lost as to how to deal with them. It's a difficult place to find yourself, but it's not impossible to escape. Remember that. You can get out of this dark place, but first you have to acknowledge the pain that you've been shoving down. You have to accept that it's there, and that pushing it aside won't make it go away. The best advice I can give you here is to talk about it. I know it sounds cliche but I'm serious.

Talking through your hurt helps to get your thoughts into focus, and it helps you to be able to begin working past it and slowly untangling the hurt and fixing it straight. This is a long frustrating experience but in the end, it changes you completely. If you don't have a trusted friend, maybe you can rely on a parent or mentor. If not, counseling is another good option. I would suggest you try mindfulness as well. It helps you focus on yourself more and makes you the center of your world.

As for what to do with your ex boyfriend, I would not suggest dating him anytime soon. You don't know exactly what your feelings are and you have a lot you need before you would be emotionally ready for another relationship. Not to say that you are not mature enough, just that there is no point in starting a relationship not built on trust. Trust issues from a previous relationship left undealt with are not a great starting point for a relationship, much less getting back with an ex. Until you learn to process your emotions, I would stay out of romantic relationships.

Moving on, self harm is another big issue. I'm sorry to hear you deal with it, but we're all here to here to help. One trick I've found that helps is when you get the urge to cut or self harm, go suck on an ice cube. It's the same trick I use for panic attacks. The cold helps to ground you back into reality, and it serves as a good distraction, especially if it's a large ice cube. Another trick is to draw on yourself in the place you were planning to cut. You have to focus on holding the pen/marker and think about what you are going to draw instead of the urges. Drawing is therapeutic as well, so if you enjoy it, try to draw every now and then on your body or on the paper to get your feelings out as well. One more helpful tip is to try journaling. When you feel tired or angry or sad, or if you get the urge to cut, drop everything and write in your journal. Describe where you are, what it smells like, sounds like, how you're feeling. Write out why you feel the way you do. Just let the words come out. This is another way to help gather your thoughts, and put them in order. You could also keep the objects you harm yourself with far away from you in a small box, the small box in another box, which is in another box and that box is far too high for you to go and get it. Make yourself think that it's too much work to go get it. You'll get itches now and then for it but it's a process of learning. Record your progress, color the days on the calendar where you don't self-harm and count them, this is a great way of looking at the calendar and not wanting to break the chain. Do try!

As for your trust issues, that's a long journey you'll have to take to get to where you can trust people again. It's not easy, but again, it's entirely possible. It's about actively pushing aside your paranoia, and choosing to see the good. With trust issues, paranoia sets in and tells you that they're bad. That that person is lying, or that someone is judging you. It makes you automatically go to the negative. You have to make the choice to look for the positive, and to give people the benefit of the doubt when they've given you no reason to doubt them. Again, mindfulness and meditation could help you here. That is to say that you focus on yourself and focus on all the positive energy. You choose to see the positive of others in mindfulness. Please try it even just for 5 minutes every morning for two months, I hope it would be effective.

Remember, you are strong than you think and if you ever need more advice, we are happy to help.

Stay strong,
The Advice Column Team