Sitting in the dimly lit room, sipping water and looking at my therapist I could feel the heart in my chest oozing out - was it broken or were we finally getting to that point that it was beginning to mend itself. We had been spending agonizingly long sessions discussing heartbreak and how heartbreak changes who we are as a person.
A man broke my heart — although that feels a little too sanitized for the sake of not showing all my cards. In the barest of terms, a man broke my heart so bad I didn’t know which way was up. And since we’re in the spirit of being honest, I’m not sure if I *actually* put it back together or if the pain dulled one day and I just chose to keep moving forward. I feel like I have to preface this by saying, I am currently unpacking heartbreak in therapy - this is not an ‘I miss my ex’ post, its a, ‘ohhhh maybe I didn’t process this in the moment and now I’m doing the work’. It comes back to one thing and one thing only - abandonment.
I had been abandoned by the person I chose. I can understand and often times have worked through this idea of being abandoned by my parents, I didn’t choose them so while yes their abandonment cut me deep and has changed the trajectory of my life I could compartmentalize the pain by making excuses. But for him, I couldn’t. I could acknowledge that this man had told me time and time again that he did not love me anymore, and looking back at it now, it wasn’t love that kept me stuck in that pain. It was fear. What did him leaving me say about me? Why wasn’t I worthy of being loved by the person I had signed my life up for? All the times he made comments about my depression making it hard to love me. Was that observation now true?
Depression is like a noose around my neck. It preys on the most vulnerable parts of me and amplifies them. It has continuously thrown me into a PIT of pain and sadness with the rope I’ve been thrown is too slippery to climb out with. Depression has shown me no mercy and absolutely no grace. BUT depression with a dash of heartbreak has also taught me some very important lessons about myself.
My depression is a part of me, I carry it with me wherever I go and there are days where it slithers its way out of the box I’ve put it in and on those days I am reminded that I am not hard to love, I just require a little more of it. I have not been abandoned by those who love me even though my mind has done a very good way of tricking me into believing it. The man who broke my heart is simply that, just a man. His inability to love me in the ways I needed have no bearing on me and who I am now. Spoiler alert, the person who gets to fall in love this version of Breana will see that I am worthy of all the good things…Including love without the fear of being abandoned because of the baggage I now carry. If anything, they will gladly ask to lighten my load. Maybe just maybe, the noose is beginning to loosen and I can see the sun making its way through the darkness.