on sharing your story
a pretty dumb thing about good memories about people who aren't in your life anymore, as well as bad memories about the very same people, is that they play on repeat in your head. i have lived through these memories not once, not twice but a hundred times. it's been over half a year since most of it happened, but my brain won't let me forget any of it. the loop of loneliness, yearning, regret, fury and desperation fills my head and sometimes drowns out everything else. like most people do, i've tried to block it all out by pushing as much as other stuff into my brain as possible. my particular brand of poison is watching youtube videos 24/7 and during every activity. and though it has now become easier to not think about it all the time, i still think about it every day. i was bursting with it.
finally, though, i found a way of shutting my brain up, at least a little bit: i've decided to tell somebody the whole story. that somebody is my lovely partner, who i met after everything that happened. they already knew the basics, but (after asking for their consent, of course) i have now started telling the story in detail, from beginning to end, including everything that seems unimportant but has been looping in my mind. and, almost like magic, all those repeating thoughts left my brain through my mouth. it was a story that was waiting to be told.
not that it's easy to tell. i've been doing it in sections, and i'm not done yet. but i already noticed that the memories i have already talked about are less constant in my head now. i thought that writing into my diary, or writing about it online, or talking to my therapist about some of it was enough. clearly it wasn't. i needed to go into embarrassing, emotional, oversharing detail.
about three months ago i told myself: i will never talk about this person who hurt me so much again. the thing is, i failed. more importantly, it just strengthened the repeating thoughts and memories and drove me insane. now i allow myself to mention them, and talk about them, tell my partner about them. and every word i speak makes my thoughts lighter.
it isn't a cure for heartbreak. it doesn't change what happened. but it helps, and i can highly recommend it.
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