It’s breakup season. I don’t know what it is about this time of year, maybe coming back to school makes people want to cut it off with their summer flings, or we realize we can’t handle an 18 credit major with a 9 credit steady relationship. Maybe it’s a new freshman class eager to pounce on upper classmen. I don’t know, all I know is that I am so over this inverse cuffing. I have gone through two pretty difficult breakups since being in college, and one of those happened rather recently. I have found, through the break up comradery with my friends, that most of us, no matter if we broke up with them, were cheated on or got dumped, end up feeling the exact same way.
Stage 1 – The blackout stage
This is the worst stage of the breakup for obvious reasons. It’s the dark depression you feel right after a breakup where you can only think of the good times you had with that person and everything you’re missing out on. It’s the stage where you don’t understand what you did wrong and just wonder why you weren’t good enough. It’s when you get so sad you can’t breathe, and air is literally caught inside your throat.
Stage 2 – The “every love song I listen to applies to me” stage
You frequent the Nicholas Spark genre on Netflix and listen to one too many Adele songs. Every single song on the radio recalls every detail of your entire relationship. Every rom-com reminds you of how great your relationship could’ve been.
Stage 3 – The light between the cracks stage
You busy yourself with everything you possibly can as a distraction. This may mean meeting new friends, working out or going out more, and it helps. Well, it helps at first. This is the stage you start to gain hope that you’ll be okay. It’s the stage you realize your rationed independence and all the things you can do now that you’re single. It’s the first time you realize you are better off without them.
Stage 4 – The blackout stage part 2
Right when you start to feel better, you get triggered by a place or memory that reminds you of them, and all of a sudden, you are right back where you started. All of a sudden your bed feels emptier again and your life feels lonelier. This stage often hurts the worst because it occurs some time after the breakup, and you’re left wondering how you will ever get over them at all. This is the stage where you unfollow them on social media because you realize it’s not enough to try to be better than them by staying friends on Instagram. The worst part of this phase is the painful frustration, frustration derived from not understanding why you can’t be over them already.
Stage 5 – The extreme anger stage
Finally, you are past feeling sorry for yourself, and now all that is left behind by sadness and hope is anger and rage. You start to realize all the ways they treated you poorly and all the ways you deserve better. the thing is, you do deserve better. This is the time you realize life is so much more than that relationship, and you will do better.
Stage 6 – The “I don’t want to forget them” stage
You also find a little bit of solace in this stage, and it’s when you force yourself to get over them that you may realize how sad it is to actually do it . You spent a lot of time with them, shared vulnerabilities and it’s hard to let go of that. It’s hard to let go of someone who knows the deepest parts of yourself. Another scary thing you must cope with is if you are forgetting and letting go of them, is that they are also letting go of you, and that just feels like a dagger.
Stage 7 – The “So what, I’m a mf rock star” stage
This is my personal favorite stage because it’s when you realize how independent you are. It is a right of passage after every breakup because it’s when you realize you don’t need to be reliant on someone to be happy. You can make yourself happy. It’s the stage when you start to realize that other things you invest time into can make you happy too. You have finally redirected your coveted love towards other, more worthy things , and hopefully you have directed most of it towards yourself.
The point of all this is is that breakups are hard, they make you sad, angry, lonely and worst of all, feel like you weren’t good enough. The thing that everyone wants to tell you when you go through a breakup is that the only cure is time, and you’re left thinking, “damn, that is the worst possible solution I can think of.” But that’s just the thing, breakups are an integral part of the human experience. This pain you feel as a result of losing someone you cared about so deeply ironically has, to some degree, the same effect of love. It completely consumes you, yet is completely self-destructive. It physically takes your breath away and proves to be everything you need and also everything you want to avoid. You are a better person for going through a breakup.
My advice (and I know I am no breakup guru) is to face your feelings head on. It is difficult at first but will prove valuable with time. Facing your feelings is more courageous and more fearless, and it’s important to be unafraid to dare greatly with emotion in times of unprotected vulnerability. If you never veer off course, you would never feel the effects of love in the first place.

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Graphic by Nicole Clamp, Editor in Chief

7 stages