My Pretty Breakup: When Getting Left Just Can't Be Right
by Laird Magee
Four months ago my partner Christopher and I decided to call it quits. Actually it was HIS decision. I found out by coming home to an apartment where his half of the furniture had vanished. "I didn't think we could work it out," he wrote three weeks later. I quickly moved into a smaller, more affordable apartment, trying not to think about quitting two jobs for the sake of his, and being left in the suburbs of a prairie city so overwhelmingly Baptist that local teens spray paint Bible verses on freeway overpasses instead of graffiti.
Having a root canal sans anesthesia, I imagine, is about one-tenth as painful as getting dumped. But it doesn't have to be so bad. Below are some suggestions for handling breakups more effectively. Sorry—none of them include large doses of Hagen-Daz, Cheez Whiz, or Valium.
"Discussing one's feelings doesn't come naturally to everyone. But it's a skill that can be learned, and the more you do it, the easier it is," says Baton Rouge psychologist Anne Brunson. Simply talking it out can be a big help. That's what friends are for. And professionals-there's no shame in a visit to a skilled therapist. Or, if you're the spiritual type, a clergyperson may be a good source. Even your barber. Even your dog, though in my case Pepper lost interest when she discovered a fragment of a chew toy peeking from under the couch.
Run, don't walk, to your physician. If life has been hell for more than three months there's a good chance your misery may have a strong chemical component. Twenty years ago you could count on one hand the number of available antidepressants, even if that hand was missing a finger or two. Not so today. Physicians have an array of very effective medications to choose from. My physician put me on Paxil, an antidepressant that may also lessen social anxiety. This will be great for me, since my list of social skills is thinner than Calista Flockhart's forearms.
Now isn't the time for impulsivity. There is no need to rush into something new in an effort to get over something old. The first few weeks after Christopher left, there was this lingering desire to do something wild. How about quitting my job? Or moving to a new city? Fortunately I had friends smart enough to tell me to just plod along until I begin to recover.
And so I'm doing exactly that—recovering, albeit slowly. There's no quick cure for the pain of abandonment, but I'm slowly feeling better. I'm taking my Paxil and I'm talking to almost anyone who will listen (maybe the "social anxiety" part of the Paxil is kicking in). And if I can make myself more interesting than one-third of a chew toy, maybe even fickle Pepper will listen.
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