When I was 14, I lost my sister, and this was the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
But an ending like this isn't the end of the story, at least not for the ones who are left behind. I felt like my heart completely shattered. I literally felt numb. And on top of this there's no instructions on how to rebuild, you just struggle through somehow. So how do people do this? Some throw themselves into their work, focus on something time-consuming and in many ways seems pretty arbitrary. An alternative to this is to through yourself into relationships, find someone who loves you and will help you stick the pieces back together with time. You can throw yourself into trying to make the world right in whichever way you see fit, try and heal a disease, or raise awareness for your cause, change policies and work for things which are now very close to your heart. The other alternative to this is to throw yourself into a religion, seek a relationship with the divine, which in itself can bring a lot of comfort in giving promise of something so much more than the very impermanent world we live in. I think I've experienced almost everyone of these at some point over the last 8 years, and I couldn't say that I feel 'fixed'. Not by a long shot.
But if you look into this further, what criteria is there to define a person as 'broken'. A quick Google search gives words such as 'dejected' or 'accumulation of irreputable damage' or 'difficulty letting people in'. My personal opinion is that broken in the context of a person is the feeling of not quite being whole, for whatever reason. But the kind of beautiful thing about feeling this way is that you'll never be alone in feeling like this. So many people are a little broken in so many different ways, and in lots of ways there's a feeling of resonance of people who've been through a similar experience, almost a sense of comradery in talking about all these things that your other friends have absolutely no way of understanding, and there's absolutely no way you'd want them to either.
Feeling broken has a way of changing who you are too. You lose so many friendships because people don't know how to communicate with you so the easiest thing is to avoid the situation. I found I had absolutely no time for problems I considered to be minute, especially within the first year, that I found it almost impossible in lots of ways to communicate with my peers. But the friends who stick become these amazing people who were there for you when you felt like your world had ended. Who walk with you and help you to pick up the pieces when you felt like you couldn't do this by yourself. When it comes to relationships, I particularly have found it very difficult to let someone get close, and when you do you find it incredibly frightening because the future always seems so uncertain and I feel incapable of taking anything like that for granted any more. But the right person can make you feel so loved and secure at the same time that at times you almost feel whole. It feels just like an emotional bandage.
8 years on, I can almost feel myself mending, but there'll always be emotional scars from what happened to me. You get to the point where you can look back and not see what happened but look back fondly and smile on the time you did get. I appreciate that I got to spend almost my entire childhood being guided by one of the most fantastic people I've ever known, someone who according to medical professionals at the time, shouldn't have lived long enough for me to remember them.
My current thinking is that even after so much time, it's really okay not to be okay. It's okay to not get over something or to get upset or even feel scared about something that's already happened. I used to have so many nightmares in which the thing I was scared of had already happened. I've also been thinking how much my life has been influenced by what happened. I've got this incredible compassion for people and a drive that makes me want to save the world almost, which I quench by embarking on really varied volunteering opportunities. I might not have pursued medicine, but gone into something in the field of maths, or maybe history or psychology. Perhaps I would have wanted to do law. Maybe that would have meant that I would have gone to a different university, so maybe I wouldn't have met some of the people who are now some of my best friends, not to mention my current partner. Perhaps I wouldn't be in London right now, but I'd actually be in some other city living some completely different life. Or maybe in some round about way I'd be exactly where I am now. Probably somewhere in between.
I feel like I've been misleading in this blog, so I'll round it up with that I actually don't know the answer to the titular question. I don't know how to mend a broken heart. I wish I could give you a promise of some magic pill that will permanently make everything feel so much better (not a temporary numbness that many try to achieve with alcohol). People seek solace in many different pursuits and I think that my current opinion is that I can't fix my broken heart completely so I'll study the heart as an organ and try and fix other peoples. But although it's a cliché, the best medicine for a broken heart is time.
When I was 14, I lost my sister, and it was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. But I'm okay.
XOX
But an ending like this isn't the end of the story, at least not for the ones who are left behind. I felt like my heart completely shattered. I literally felt numb. And on top of this there's no instructions on how to rebuild, you just struggle through somehow. So how do people do this? Some throw themselves into their work, focus on something time-consuming and in many ways seems pretty arbitrary. An alternative to this is to through yourself into relationships, find someone who loves you and will help you stick the pieces back together with time. You can throw yourself into trying to make the world right in whichever way you see fit, try and heal a disease, or raise awareness for your cause, change policies and work for things which are now very close to your heart. The other alternative to this is to throw yourself into a religion, seek a relationship with the divine, which in itself can bring a lot of comfort in giving promise of something so much more than the very impermanent world we live in. I think I've experienced almost everyone of these at some point over the last 8 years, and I couldn't say that I feel 'fixed'. Not by a long shot.
But if you look into this further, what criteria is there to define a person as 'broken'. A quick Google search gives words such as 'dejected' or 'accumulation of irreputable damage' or 'difficulty letting people in'. My personal opinion is that broken in the context of a person is the feeling of not quite being whole, for whatever reason. But the kind of beautiful thing about feeling this way is that you'll never be alone in feeling like this. So many people are a little broken in so many different ways, and in lots of ways there's a feeling of resonance of people who've been through a similar experience, almost a sense of comradery in talking about all these things that your other friends have absolutely no way of understanding, and there's absolutely no way you'd want them to either.
Feeling broken has a way of changing who you are too. You lose so many friendships because people don't know how to communicate with you so the easiest thing is to avoid the situation. I found I had absolutely no time for problems I considered to be minute, especially within the first year, that I found it almost impossible in lots of ways to communicate with my peers. But the friends who stick become these amazing people who were there for you when you felt like your world had ended. Who walk with you and help you to pick up the pieces when you felt like you couldn't do this by yourself. When it comes to relationships, I particularly have found it very difficult to let someone get close, and when you do you find it incredibly frightening because the future always seems so uncertain and I feel incapable of taking anything like that for granted any more. But the right person can make you feel so loved and secure at the same time that at times you almost feel whole. It feels just like an emotional bandage.
8 years on, I can almost feel myself mending, but there'll always be emotional scars from what happened to me. You get to the point where you can look back and not see what happened but look back fondly and smile on the time you did get. I appreciate that I got to spend almost my entire childhood being guided by one of the most fantastic people I've ever known, someone who according to medical professionals at the time, shouldn't have lived long enough for me to remember them.
My current thinking is that even after so much time, it's really okay not to be okay. It's okay to not get over something or to get upset or even feel scared about something that's already happened. I used to have so many nightmares in which the thing I was scared of had already happened. I've also been thinking how much my life has been influenced by what happened. I've got this incredible compassion for people and a drive that makes me want to save the world almost, which I quench by embarking on really varied volunteering opportunities. I might not have pursued medicine, but gone into something in the field of maths, or maybe history or psychology. Perhaps I would have wanted to do law. Maybe that would have meant that I would have gone to a different university, so maybe I wouldn't have met some of the people who are now some of my best friends, not to mention my current partner. Perhaps I wouldn't be in London right now, but I'd actually be in some other city living some completely different life. Or maybe in some round about way I'd be exactly where I am now. Probably somewhere in between.
I feel like I've been misleading in this blog, so I'll round it up with that I actually don't know the answer to the titular question. I don't know how to mend a broken heart. I wish I could give you a promise of some magic pill that will permanently make everything feel so much better (not a temporary numbness that many try to achieve with alcohol). People seek solace in many different pursuits and I think that my current opinion is that I can't fix my broken heart completely so I'll study the heart as an organ and try and fix other peoples. But although it's a cliché, the best medicine for a broken heart is time.
When I was 14, I lost my sister, and it was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. But I'm okay.
XOX
