How to Survive a Breakup in 6 Steps

One thing that most of us girls will experience in their young adult life is a serious dumping. The kind that you thought would never happen and that you never saw coming, but was inevitable when you asked the simple question, "where do I stand?". 

This seems to have become a recurring trend for me recently and it ends in the same way each time. Nevertheless, each time is still different. Each time you feel differently about the person you were dating. Maybe you never really saw a true future for the two of you but it was nice to feel wanted. Or maybe you thought you had found your soulmate but he thought the two of you were completely incompatible. It doesn't matter if you dated for two weeks, two months, or two years, how you feel about the end of the relationship should be embraced (for a small period of time).

Here I have contrived a Step-by-Step guide of how I have (or am trying to) overcome the end of my relationship: 

Step 1:

The first minute you split, whether you broke up with them or they broke it off with you, let your emotions out. There and then. It may not be wise to burst into tears over dinner or whatever, but then again it isn't necessarily wise to dump someone over dinner. Or anywhere in public for that matter. 

For me, I've always been dumped by a message. Which isn't as bad as it sounds actually. This way, I am in the comfort of my own home and he doesn't have to see me breakdown in front of him. (Score!) But after my last split, I didn't feel the urge to cry or throw my phone across the room straight away, I kind of knew it was going to happen and honestly, his excuse or reasoning was kind of shabby and I didn't believe it. But it definitely helps to cry for maybe ten minutes if you need it when in the moment. If you are out in public, try to excuse yourself to the bathroom to compose yourself so you can go back out there fighting. You got it girl! (*wink face emoji*)

Step 2:

After you have gotten the 'in the moment' tears or emotions out the way, you can focus on the next thing you are probably asking yourself. WHY?! So he may have given a reason or not in letting you go and it's definitely okay to look into it or ask him about it. One time I was dumped by a guy, he didn't tell me why, he just told me in a text that he didn't see anything serious was going to come of our relationship and didn't see it going anywhere. Which personally I think is quite an excuse for a couple whose age adds up to 40. Nonetheless, I didn't pry because I didn't really feel a 'spiritual' connection or whatever and I wasn't that into him by the point he ended things. My last 'breakup' though was much more informative for me. He told how he didn't think we had much in common (total bullshit if you ask me) and had been in a relationship before that which was similar. And now all I have to say to him is all these questions that start with WHY? Like, why did you not tell me for so long? Why did you deceive me and let me fall in love with you and treat me the way you did if it wasn't going anywhere? Why did you do all these things to just leave?

You maybe feeling the same way and asking yourself these same questions because all we want to know is the truth. I feel like I didn't even get that. Anyway, my point is for step two, is that if you feel like you can talk about these issues with your partner (or ex-partner should I say :/) because you are mature enough to then you should do it because it might be able to aid you. It can help you get a clearer understanding of why the two of you never worked out and you might even be able to overcome these issues and be together again in the future. 

Step 3:

You know when your friends hear about your relationship ending, and they say something along the lines of, "We should go out!" or "Let's get drunk tonight, that'll make you feel better" or even if it's purely innocent like "I'll come over and check you're okay", you don't have to do ANY of those things. Honestly, you may feel like you want to hit the club in a couple of days, a week, or even a month from now which is a good thing (and something I discuss more in Step 4) but for now, like right now, you probably want to be alone. If you're like me, you will want to bury yourself in blankets and spend your time with the two most important men in your life, Ben & Jerry.

You're gonna watch the whole Sex and the City boxset in a day, listen to the complete Taylor Swift discography and bake brownies all afternoon. You will need a day like this. But I have to be honest with you, only make this ONE day. (Or two if you really need it). Refrain from making it last up to a week because it will slowly become a routine which will not help your lifestyle. But do make sure you do a duvet day, a day to completely indulge yourself and to love yourself. Take a bath, buy some new makeup or those new jeans you've been eyeing up all week, watch Titanic or Moulin Rouge on repeat and eat an entire apple pie for breakfast. 

Step 4:

Like I said, be careful not to indulge yourself for the rest of your life and become a hermit. You will need to get out of your blanket nest eventually and start concentrating your energy on people who make time for you. This is where the Single Girls Night Out becomes a routine Friday night into town. If you drink, this is gonna help you. Trust me. You will have probably found that you didn't drink as heavily when you were dating so when you go out with the gals, you are going to get drunk much more rapidly. And heavily. As long as your friends are there to help you into the cab afterwards, it should be a good night out. Mostly because you won't remember much. But remember that spending time with your friends doesn't necessarily mean getting wasted every weekend. You may find that even a window shopping trip into town is just as refreshing, or going to get your brows done was a weight lifted. Your friends will try and help you to be 'you' again, as in the fun you who didn't cry in a ball of pillows every night because a boy never loved her. 

Step 5:

Spend time with your family. I find that my mum is the most inspirational woman to me in the world so when it comes to 'sad me' due to the fault of a man, my mum is there to get me through. If you don't live with your 'rents anymore then go pay your family a visit, take a day off work and surprise them because they will be more than happy to see you. Most of the time I don't have to tell my mum what's up, all I need is a hug from her and I immediately feel uplifted. If you're not so much a mummy's girl then I'm sure your dad might be of some help. Though he could end up at your ex's front door with an air rifle.

Step 6:

This sort of follows on from Step 3 however rather than indulging yourself in luxury with chocolate and alcohol, you should take the next step to 'self help'. These kind of things will help you to explore your own mind and to free yourself of your anxieties for a while. You can take a trip by yourself, maybe just drive to the beach and read a book, or even book a flight to Thailand. Things like meditating, yoga, pilates and exercise help you to become a better person, physically and mentally. You're more than likely to feel much more positive in your mind and body after taking up some kind of work out or meditation within a couple of weeks. Plus this is something that you can do even after you've moved on and it also helps to combat other stresses in your life, like if you are moving home or grieving, or in the future with pre-wedding or prenatal nerves. This is the most important time to focus on you, being you, improving you, for you. (Very 'Eat Pray Love'.) 

My Summer In Photos!

I'm thinking of making my blog a bit more universal as now I'm working between 5-7 days a week it can be difficult to think of new ideas specific to beauty or health that are quick for me to do. 

Plus, to make my blog attract more of a universal audience, I decided to include lifestyle and day to day posts, starting with this one! So over the summer I haven't gone on holiday like most people do but have had a lot planned in terms of days out etc! 

So this is my summer so far (22nd June - 13th August) in photos!

Click to view larger

LOVE IS SO SHORT, FORGETTING IS SO LONG (Tuesday 11th March, 2014 @ 20:48 GMT)

The first time you see someone you had history with, whether it be a previous partner or your first love or your no-longer best friend, the first time you see them once things ended can be painful. You have banished them from your mind, you have taken all the strength in your bones to remove them from your heart, you have spent weeks, months, years trying to mend whatever masterpiece that was broken. You tried your absolute best to live without them and then, you see them. Maybe on your bus on your way to school, when you are at lunch with a friend, or maybe you saw them on their way to work across the street. You spent such little time appreciating them and their ideas, thoughts, memories so why does it seem to take forever trying to erase them? The love that you shared was over in a blink of an eye, and now you spend the next six months trying to forget. But you can’t try to forget people or those memories. No matter how much time you spent together, it will take however long it takes to move on and you will move on, just at your own pace not anyone else’s. Not when your friends say, “Get up, we’re going out, we’re gonna find you someone, stop moping around.” Your time won’t fly by or heal anything, and it will leave you with many questions unanswered. The hardest part of it is knowing you can’t change what happened and that maybe they are happy and maybe you’re pretending to be okay.

HOW DO YOU MOVE ON? (Sunday 29th June, 2014 @ 19:17 GMT)

“You left in October. We haven’t talked in over ten months. We bumped into each other that Saturday night about 6 weeks ago. We made eye contact. I kept trying to distract myself by ordering drinks from the bar or going to the bathroom. For half a minute we stood next to each other on the dance floor alone and watched each other before I distracted myself again. Every once in a while I like to check in to see how you are. I would ask you but I don’t know how. I check your social media. Whenever I scroll I see some things that make me teary eyed or overemotional. I saw you had posted a quote that read, “If you’re not gonna marry her, take your hands off another man’s future”. I applied it to myself when I read it. If I was not willing to make a move or to talk to you after ten months when I should have, I should not hold on to you as if I am a ghost haunting a loved one. I cannot expect you to love me at all if I cannot even speak words to you that have no meaning. If I cannot even make small talk when we are a foot away from one another; just the two of us, after the laughs and memories I have of you and I, I do not deserve to hold you in my mind. I am letting you go. Not because I do not love you. It is because I neglected to ever show you. And you deserve every inch of a declaration of love because you are so honest and warm-heartedly beautiful that it sends saltwater drops from my eyes to my cheek when I see you post that you wish for someone to hold.” 

This is taken from my writing blog - mondexwriting

(plus this is superrrrrr personal and I feel quite vulnerable actually posting this on here so it may come down from this blog if I don't feel comfortable with it being so public)

WHAT IF THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY CAME BACK? (Tuesday 29th April, 2014 @ 14:39 GMT)

In the film, "Letters to Juliet", Amanda Seyfried's character, Sophie writes an incredible letter that begins, "'What' and ‘if’are two words as nonthreatening as words come. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life".

If how you felt back then was so powerful then who is to say it isn't now. "What if...?" Maybe he got away when you turned your back for a split second and took his chance to run. Maybe they slipped through your fingers. Like when your hands are so numb that you can't control them anymore. You can't grip onto things as tightly as you used to and these things that you once held so strongly go crashing to the floor, straight through the gaps in your cowardly fingers and you don't feel a thing. 

If he ever came back, what's to say that he won't get away again? I'll have to wear gloves next time to stop myself from losing grip. I know I will try everything in my power to prevent it from plummeting at my feet. Maybe he'll find an escape again. He can find your biggest flaw and use it against you. He'll squeeze me so hard I'll have no choice but to suffocate. What if he never intended to leave me at all, but to just leave where we were for a while? What if his intentions were never clear? What if he wants to come back but can't? What if he already has and I was too busy or I wasn't around to see what was going on? What is he wants me back in his life just as much as I need him? I'll probably never know the answers to these questions but these kinds of thoughts bring you the worst kind of pain. It's like there's something squeezing you from the inside but you can't physically feel it. There's no purple bruise that you can label with a time and date, no battle scar with an in-depth historical notation. You just have your thoughts that you have neglected to share with anyone but the moon and stars.

What if the one who got away, came back? What does this even mean?! Is it asking what your reaction would be if you saw them again for the first time? Is it asking what your relationship with them would amount to this time? Is it asking if you would ever accept them back in your life? Just for reference, I never used to believe in second chances. I believed that people would either have their shot and that's all you need if it's something you really wanted. But maybe you ran out of time, or something was holding you back? Maybe God really wants the best for you or you needed to take it slowly. So maybe some people deserve second chances and I hope I get mine. I hope he comes back.

WHY REGRET SOMETHING YOU ONCE WANTED? (Thursday 24th April, 2014 @ 21:57 GMT)

A chilling concept to which I do not know the answer to, despite being in the situation myself. The theories surrounding it are that people change their minds and that's perfectly okay. But is it still okay if we mess around with other's feelings? My intentions were once honest and true yet no one saw them that way except myself. As after the situation unfolded, just like origami, I could see the creases and dents that I had made and even though the predicted end product may have looked so beautiful to me, whether is it a paper swan or a relationship, once unraveled to its truest form, it's not how it was in the beginning. That piece of paper isn't as beautiful as you thought it would turn out to be. After all, it is a piece of paper. 

So does it make you a bad person to regret something you wanted once upon a time? Certainly not. Mine personally stemmed from this attraction I had to someone. (I must highlight that I was oddly attracted to him but did not find him attractive). So I saw it fit to make myself feel better when I started conversation with him and be around him which ended up being the two of us within a group of all our friends on a night out. Long story short, he took advantage of both states we were in (i.e. drunkards) as he made his move. After a few (and very brief) text conversations and long pauses of me trying to avoid him afterwards, he declares his undying love for me (lol jk) which unnaturally, I became quiet angry at as I didn't understand what the hell was going on. In present times, we are on polite greetings basis and have been pretty much ever since. Nonetheless, I'm quite sure he is over his mild heartbreak but honestly what am I supposed to do in a situation like that? Am I to be with a guy who I would only get off with when I had one too many Disaronno's, just to please him? Noooooooooo. That's not what my feminist goals tell me. What makes it that much worse is while I was with him I was half regretting the whole situation and half drunk out of my mind that I was actually enjoying myself. Because making out when you are drunk is fun (that is why everyone is doing it on nights out, I mean, come on). I did have a mild sense of pride though. I had pulled a guy who I actually liked. I had succeeded. I was adequately chuffed with myself and also upset when I pictured someone else while I was kissing him. (Never cool, Melissa). But that story is for a different time. 

Even looking back, that is what I wanted but I was never grateful or happy. I felt awful for feeling that way. I took myself too seriously. Turns out, he takes himself even more seriously. And there you have it. Just because at the time it seems like a good idea or it's what you wanted, it doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. Obviously the desired route to find this information out would have been to just have found out first hand without people getting shot in the firing line but what's done is done and everyone now is okay so that's that. 

True Encounters 'Series'!

Back in April of this year I started to answer 'philosophical' (if you will) questions from my own points of view and experiences and I really enjoyed it actually... until I started to run out of questions that were suitable enough and had something for me to write about that I actually knew or had experience of.
I really want to start doing it again as I feel that those really demonstrated the kind of writing that I adore. So I thought I would just explain what I was to be doing before I jumped straight into it as these posts or articles are something really quite different than the usual beauty blog posts etc. So from now on, I will be publishing these posts under the 'True Encounters' label on this blog for you to easily access.
As I said I already started writing these back in April so a couple are already written and are scheduled to go up very very soon! I hopefully aim to publish these articles at least once a week*, with the first, titled 'WHY REGRET SOMETHING YOU ONCE WANTED?', going live tomorrow at 12pm GMT. Hope you enjoy something a little different!

 

*I have decided to post one a week, going live every Sunday at 10am GMT!

Where I've Been/My Week (and a bit) In A Nutshell

Hello everyone! This week has been a crazy 7 days so I haven't been totally up to date with posting on here so I thought I'd brief you, especially if you follow me on twitter (@melissanye) as you may be completely out of the blue about what I've been up to.

On Thursday I ventured to the Old Bailey, or the Central Criminal Court in London which sits some of the most famous cases in Britain from around London and Greater London. It is such an historical building, with glass still embedded in the walls from when an two car bombs were planted outside the grand entrance by the IRA (Irish Republican Army) back in 1973. Plus it used to be a prison, which was new information to me, which was fascinating and we had a private tour before sitting in on a trial too which was cool.

Last Friday (21st March), I went to see Kodaline at O2 Academy Brixton, which is a lovely venue and the atmosphere was absolutely amazing, honestly one of the best bands in terms of crowd atmosphere at gigs, everyone was singing along, knew the words and was waving their arms. So if you like Kodaline's stuff, you'll love it even more if you buy tickets for one of their gigs - tickets are cheap too! If you haven't heard of Kodaline then checkout their debut album, "In A Perfect World".

Saturday after was were it went slowly downhill as during the day it was fine but if you follow me on twitter, you may know that I had an eventful night...! On Saturday, I met work friends at the pub to pre-drink (prink loool) for someone's birthday at work before a couple of us headed out to a nightclub and well, I got up to somethings I may not necessarily be proud of. Anyway, long story short, I got a lot of crap for it and grief the next day at work and I felt like I needed to set the records straight but it all turned out to be an overly exaggerated emotional experience for me as proven on Sunday evening when I bailed on quiz night at work. The next day was spent at school before heading straight to work, such fun.

On Tuesday I went to a conference on sociology exam practice - very VERY insightful. It was hosted by Keith Trobe, chief examiner for AQA Sociology and who also wrote the commonly used textbook for our course with other associates. Afterwards, I enjoyed my first Nando's (can you believe) when our small group got back into town (the conference was in Horsham, about 45 minute train journey) and I fell in love, which I find quite funny because I don't even eat chicken, I am vegetarian... Then me and my sister went to see Nina Nesbitt (who I am listening to now as I write this) - we bought tickets on the train home from Kodaline on the Friday prior, when we found out that James Bay, who supported Kodaline with Amber Run was also supporting Nina. The night was fab besides the girl in front of me who thought she was at an effing club and wouldn't stop bloody booty popping into me like no you're probably 16. But on the plus side, me and my sister met James Bay!! Listen to Nina's debut album too, called "Peroxide" :)

Wednesday I literally did nothing besides afternoon classes. Thursday I had morning classes and afterwards, to of my friends who had come home for Easter break from uni met me and we went for lunch down probably my favourite little cafe in my village, called Milano's. We stayed there for at least two hours before I headed home, showered and got ready to go out clubbing AGAIN. I have never been out twice in the space of a week but the club was soooooo dead, they had one room open and there was hardly anyone out that night and I hated it, I hate that club it just gets worse every time I go. I stayed at my friend's house when we got back and I left hers around 2pm on Friday, stopped off at Sainsbury's on the way back before going home and watching Sex and the City for the rest of the night while eating brie and grape sandwiches. Then I get a text reminding me that I was going to a friend's as she arrived from uni that day too - so I went to hers and saw her which was nice as her family is so huge but lovely and they are all caring and funny, like those big families that you see in those feel good films.

And now today is Saturday, and I have been asked if I want to go out AGAIN and I feel like I might because I want to cry at how bad each time I've been to that club has been and I want to go to improve the reputation that club has on me now, and to improve my reputation as I am not a desperate hoe. Anyway, if I do end up out tonight you will probably hear about it on twitter and I apologise in advance if more photos of me end up on the internet.

Thanks GUYS XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

(P.S. What I have learnt this week is that romance isn't dead, ain't that right Carrie? - I literally watched this episode below and realised that, especially with the week I had)

I have a VSCO!

I downloaded vsco (a photography app) and I guess it kind of reminds me off instagram combined with tumblr and I'm not 100% sure how to use it so maybe someone can help me figure it out or whatever but for the meantime here is url for my grid: melissanye.vsco.co.

Anyway on issue I have come across is that on the grid/on my account there is a square with a triangle in it which looks like the default photo you are given for a profile photo, however I'm unsure if this is a profile photo thingy and I can't figure out how to upload one anyway if it was one but hey if you know what I'm on about please(!) let me know how to figure this out!

I don't have loads of photos on my grid at the moment and I think most of them are also on my instagram anyway but vsco just seems all in one place rather than instagram being tiny photos on your screen. But yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa check out my vsco if you want to and do what you do (do you follow people idk you tell me).

More posts are to come soon! I shall keep you updated!

Thank you for reading :)
xoxo

NOT BEAUTY RELATED - I GOT MY FIRST UNIVERSITY OFFER!

If my emails were coming through on my phone like they normally do then I would have realised at yesterday at quarter to five in the afternoon that I had received my first university offer!

I checked my emails about 20 minutes ago when I realised that I strangely hadn't received any emails today so I logged on to find a good 95 emails stacked into my Yahoo! account when I scrolled to see the email from UCAS to say that their had been a status update in my application (which means anything from "you have a reply [offer/no offer]", "you have an interview" or "your application has been withdrawn").

When you log into Track, the first thing you see is a list of your university choices and their status. All the choices are in a random order but stay in the same order so usually for me, Manchester Metropolitan is at the top but since there is now a little purple status bar that says "You have received decisions from 1 out of 5 choices" to at which point I almost died. But thank God, I scrolled a bit further and saw that the University of Derby has given me a conditional offer!

I am so excited to get my first offer seeing as everyone else has already heard something from their choices but I haven't despite sending my application off over 3 weeks ago! But yes I am so excited for this course and although Derby isn't my first choice I am so happy (and about time something came through too!).