Now, admittedly it’s a little ironic that I am writing this as letting go is something that I am infamously bad at. Whether it be people, situations, or thoughts, I’m very bad at letting things go. Being an extremely anxious person, I tend to constantly ruminate about everything, even if it’s something as small as me accidentally shifting in my chair and making it creak. That’s why when at the end of my sophomore year, when someone who I had considered to be my best friend for 6 abruptly cut off our friendship, it consumed my thoughts constantly . The exact nature of our falling out is not important. What is important however, is what I did after, and how I’ve started to move on.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think about them, but it’s like having an ex, you have to go no contact. Meaning, no social media interactions, no texts, or no awkward chit chat. This is hard, extremely hard, but you have to trust the process. If you’re reaching out occasionally, the bond will still linger, and it’ll be harder to fully detach yourself fully from them. Now, if they reach out to you, then you have to evaluate why you being friends with them, or stopped dating them, and then go from there. You have to consider that trying to be friends with them again is going to have to force you to risk mental energy on them, and you have to think about it that’s energy that you can possibly waste. You also have to consider that if things don’t work out, it’s going to hurt even more. Even after I got quite simply betrayed by my friend who I previously mentioned, I still tried to reach out. I still struggle to wrap my head about why. Why did they cut the friendship off? Why did they gossip about me? And those are questions I will never know the answer to, and that’s something you just have to accept. But, you can’t force someone to change, you can’t force them to become a better person. I offered them rides, offered them someone to talk to, and they took me up on it. All the while, they were still talking about me behind my back! So, learn from me and really evaluate if that person has changed, or if they’re just putting up a front. Every time I tried to take my old best friend back, it made the fallout hurt more and more each time.
Another thing you have to do is not look back, you have to live your best life. Even if you have to pretend at first, pretend like whatever is bothering you, simply is not. Again, easier said then done. But, looking back, you’ll realize that ultimately this is for the best. The whole reason for a friendship, relationship, ect. is for that person to support you, to be there for you at your worst. It doesn’t matter if it’s a breakup, or a falling out, there’s a reason you aren’t close to that person anymore. You don’t have to delete all your old photos with them if it doesn’t feel right, my ex best friend was so intertwined in my life that deleting all out photos would probably take hours. But also don’t spend hours scrolling through them. You don’t have to block every memory of that person out of your brain, but you can’t spend your entire day wondering what went wrong.
Now, for the my number one tip, compartmentalization. I absolutely hated this when my Mom first suggested it, but it works. Now how does one compartmentalize? That’s a little tricky but here’s what works for me. If I feel myself getting overwhelmed by someone or something, I just don’t think about it. You may be thinking, “That won’t work for me, I can’t just not think about it.” How do I know that? Well, that’s exactly how I felt when I first started compartmentalizing. What I do is I visualize. In my brain, I envision myself putting my thoughts into a box, locking the box with a key, and throwing that key somewhere. The thing is, sometimes you’ll want to take a trip down memory lane, but sometimes those thoughts will cause you more mental distress than they’re worth. That’s exactly when it’s time to compartimentalize.
All in all, losing a friendship or relationship sucks. But, ruminating, constantly trying to “fix someone”, and dwelling on the past only makes things worse. Do yourself a favor. You deserve to only be around people that make you happier, not try and drag you down with them.
