Dealing with a breakup is hard in and of itself. Being in college makes it a million times harder. I don’t know your situation, so I will try to give the best advice from my standpoint.
Photo: Just me rocking a killer smile.
College is already hard. We already have a hard time motivating ourselves to get out of bed in the morning and go to class, now with the added benefit of feeling miserable from losing "bae." And since you have gotten used to putting him or her "before anyone else," it will now be hard to put yourself first again. To be your one and only, and to lean on yourself, to be your own rock. But you have to.
There is no one to run to anymore. Sure you can vent to your friends about your bad grade/awful professor/homesickness/etc., but its not the same. And I feel for you, but never forget that there are so many people that love you. Call your mom, or dad, or best friend. Your aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent, or even go to a guidance counselor. It’s not the same, there’s no cuddling, but the same love that you found in bae is still there, it just takes a different shape.
Weekends will be hard. You may go out with your friends, but at the end of the night it's probable that you will want to be knocking down baes door because you used to sleep over there no matter what happened on Friday or Saturday night. I don’t suggest drinking the pain away, because it only feels good for a while. What you have to remember is that it's okay to be sad. If you deal with your sadness now, it won’t come back to haunt you later. So sit down and have yourself a nice cry. Don’t pretend your feelings don’t exist. And weekends are good for really getting emotional because you don’t have to do all your work or be up for class the next day.
Schoolwork will feel even more pointless than it typically does. When all you want to do is snuggle up and be hugged by bae, doing work is the last thing on your mind. And my advice for this would be, just do it. Do the bare minimum, if possible. I don’t care what anyone tells you, your degree won’t be compromised by a few weeks of bad work. And it is so important to focus on your mental health. There is no point to life if you can’t enjoy it. So, do anything and everything that you can to bring you, back to yourself. To remind you that you are still so friggin important.
You have no privacy. I hate this; I hate being at college because you're never alone. There is always someone to see you because you have to share a room with a roommate, or you live in a house where the walls are paper-thin. This is the time where you need to learn that no one cares. Everyone is caught up in his or her own problems and lives and schoolwork and happiness and everything, so don’t worry about being judged. Chances are, you will never see that person again. For me, it was just a matter of telling my roommate what was going on and that I was probably going to be red faced and sad a lot of the time. She understood.
Filling your time will become a task. You now have a lot of free time. You used to spend all of it with bae, but now he or she is gone and its just you again. And I know I said earlier to deal with your feelings and to let them out, but now I’m going to tell you that you need time to distract yourself too. For me, that meant going to the pool. I never realized how many laps I could do in the pool until I had nothing else to do and desperately didn’t want to go sit in my room and stare at a computer screen. Doing laps gave me time to rest my mind. You can’t really hold onto a thought when you are focused on keeping your head above water. Find your distraction. It can be drawing, exercising, reading, even doing schoolwork, just find something to give your mind a break from bae.
Remember you have friends. The day my friend found out that bae and I had broken up, she offered to call the CIA and have ex-bae wiped off the map. She said he wasn’t sh*t and that I could do better without him. She reminded me that even if bae wasn’t enthralled anymore, I have an army of people ready to tell me I’m pretty fricken awesome just the way I am. It helps to know that people are on your side. Even if bae doesn’t like you anymore, there are so many people who liked you before bae and will like you after bae.
Be kind to yourself. It is easy to get into bad habits in college. Sure, I could eat the three combo meal pizzas that I am offered each night with my meal plan. And yes, since your asking, I did drink a full carton of ice cream that melted in the stupid mini fridge “freezer”. But the point is, even if you fall off the horse, even if you drink ice cream and shove ranch dressing covered pizza down your throat, don’t hate yourself for it the next day. Everyone gets it. Everyone has been there, or will be there. You are going through a hard time and it’s okay to be sad. Don’t beat yourself up. Treat yourself like a small child.
