"The positive cannot exist without the negative." ~ Alan Watts
My heart was empty. It had never felt so empty. Sometimes I felt a gap in my chest so that everything around me felt like half a whole. I felt like a piece of me had died.
This summer I painted my nursery gray and carefully selected the color after gluing color samples to the wall and thinking about it for hours.
The old paint gave me a headache; it glowed neon green and now looked dirty from years of feet on the walls. I found pencil drawings from my youth hidden over the molded parts. Quotes and those that once meant something to me, but now the point was lost.
These distractions were welcomed. They took my eyes off all the stuff I had stuffed in my parents' dining room: a stack of boxes, a desk, a lamp, and some pictures I had framed from old magazines I found with him at flea markets. This was all that was left of this life that I abruptly ended one night in April.
He passed out drunk on the living room floor and I was alone. I've been a while. Why did I wait and hope he would wake up and be with me? Hoping to take a look at this person who wasn't consumed by addiction.
This person was gone and this part of me was gone with him. That night I made extra noise when packing my bag to wake him up. He got up, tired and dazed, next to the stove and blinked at me. Then he crossed his arms and turned to stare out the window.
He was angry that I woke him up. Never wake a sleeping drunk. They don't care (even if they really care). I don't know why I woke him up. I wanted to throw my bag over my shoulder and slam the door behind me and I wanted him to see me doing it. He threw up his hands to me – "Just go." And he went back to the floor. Don't wake up a drunk and expect them to take care of it.
The tears came out hard as soon as my car door closed. I am surprised that I was able to drive through. After eight years I was back with my parents. Even if I knew deep down that this was the best decision for me, it felt like a defeat.
I had problems doing even the smallest tasks. I spun around in my bathrobe, smoked cigarettes, and lay on the brown leather couch for hours. Skip meals and flip through meaningless television channels. It also affected my work. I took more days off and could not concentrate. I had a plan to go forward, but the pain had paralyzed me.
The thing about losing your best friend is that your best friend is not there to help you with that.
After I left, parts of his old self appeared to me in sober midday conversations. He didn't ask me to come back, he knew I wouldn't come. And I knew that I shouldn't try him from this side while the alcoholic was still lurking in his mind.
Converting to an addict was so quick. Around the fourth year, we both drowned in this addiction and were consumed by it. Sometimes I wonder how it started. It was like suddenly waking up from a nightmare. I knew something had to change.
He had alcoholism in his family and had avoided it for years, and yet it happened. I stopped drinking in our sixth year. After two years of sober and drunk rivalry, he finally told me the truth. He would never stop.
It was like being stabbed in the chest; I couldn't breathe.
After leaving alcohol behind, you realize how meaningless it is. In my eyes he chose a stupid bottle over me. My self-esteem started to drop quickly.
For a long time I felt like a broken person who was unable to be repaired. But nobody is broken forever. We are all able to heal and move into better phases of our lives.
This will be the most difficult decision you have ever made halfway to stay or leave. If you are in love and have invested your time in someone, when you start thinking about another life, your feelings will be like a cruel tug of war.
You will first downplay how bad the problem is. If you cover up or lie to your addict with your family and friends, there is a problem. I isolated myself for years just because I was embarrassed to admit how bad it had gotten.
I cannot tell you how many times I have told my family that my partner is just too tired or sick to come when he is really drunk or hungover. I was not ready to face the reality I needed to make a change. It was a long time before I made the decision for myself.
You will feel guilty and be tempted to return. You leave the person you love alone in the most vulnerable phase of their lives. But you have to understand that you are not responsible for what you do with your life. You don't do anything for them by staying with them while they do this to themselves.
In many cases, people make the best decisions when they are the lowest. The only thing you have to do is make good decisions for yourself. You should never feel guilty about removing yourself from a situation that harms you.
You will feel angry. It has been hiding under this unconditional love for a while and will appear. It is natural to be angry. You hear all these stories about addicts who stop for love, who stop to save the relationship. However, this is not always the case.
Just because that doesn't happen to you doesn't mean that something is wrong with you. It is frustrating for a person who looks into addiction from the outside because it seems like such a simple solution that benefits both sides – all they have to do is stop. But for someone who is addicted, it is so much more than that.
It is as if the addict is blind and he or she is the only one who can decide whether he or she should see again. Quitting is a scary decision and it will be one of the most difficult things you will ever do. The truth is that it has nothing to do with you. You can beg and plead with them, but it is still up to the addict to get help to get rid of the addiction. You are just an unfortunate victim.
With all the pain I felt from the separation, there was no part of me that regretted the decision I made for myself. All of my experiences have made me what I am and I have learned to love this person more than I ever thought possible.
Here are four tips on how to heal and become the best version of yourself.
1. Take the time it takes to heal and break the relationship.
I think many people have expectations of how long it will take to mourn a relationship, but we all heal at our own pace. I often felt that my healing process was taking too long, but every step was necessary to become the person I am today.
I don't care if you need years as long as you realize that you will get over it.
Take time to meditate every day and let yourself feel everything you want without feeling guilty. These thoughts and feelings do not define you, these are things that you can experience and then let go.
Express your concerns and fears about the people you are close to and who will listen to you. Talk to yourself, also out loud. Sometimes it can help you manage your inner struggles and understand everything.
Be nice to yourself. Some days may feel like you're not making progress, but it is you. Even if the healing is slow, you make progress every day.
Listen to your needs and question your fears. Take your time to invest in yourself. Take the love you have and pour it back into yourself and your life. You will see how your mindset changes when you allow yourself to be your true self.
2. Forgive them and create a degree for you.
Everyone deserves forgiveness, and clinging to anger only hurts yourself. This anger you feel towards the person and the addiction they consume will make relationships difficult in the future.
I learned that the hard way and put a lot of resentment into potential new relationships. I also pushed a lot of people away because I was afraid to open up. I had put so much of myself in my previous relationship and wasn't sure if I could get through the heartache again.
The assumption that every new relationship would be like the last would ruin everything that was potentially positive.
If you ever want to find a healthy new relationship, it's important to work your feelings out of your old relationship.
One thing that really helped me was telling my ex-partner how I felt. When I realized that, I was halfway around the world, but I knew I had to do something. So I wrote him a letter. It was really liberating to write everything I felt for him and then hearing his answer helped me heal on another level.
Sometimes I think we're afraid to tell people how we actually feel, but it may be necessary for our growth. Be nice and honest and let go of the result. You may get the answer you are hoping for, but it is possible that you will not, and that is fine. Even if your ex doesn't give you a degree, it's important to get a degree for yourself.
3. Let go.
For years I believed that my ex would be in my life for the rest of my life. I had this idea in mind about the happy ending we would have. The addiction felt like a roadblock that I couldn't tear down. I was frustrated that I couldn't control it. I didn't know I spent my energy removing a roadblock from the wrong way.
We spend a lot of time and energy controlling things, although this is actually impossible. We have the idea of how things should be, but sometimes that's not the best way for us. Learning to let go of things I wanted to control freed me from the fear I felt and took a huge load off my shoulders.
Letting go takes time. We strive to control and plan everything in our lives. Meditation, traveling and writing helped me.
Traveling enabled me to face my fears and leave my comfort zone. Traveling put me in situations I couldn't control. It helped me to learn to trust the flow of life, to know that there would be good and bad things, and no matter what happened, I would make it.
Mediation also helped when I was still struggling in my relationship. It took me to a world beyond stress and helped me to root myself when I felt my world turn in all directions. It helped me understand that releasing control was the key to peace. It meant that I no longer had to worry about what was going to happen or what had happened in the past, and it helped me focus on the present.
Writing was always an option for me. When I write down my worries and fears, they seem to transfer from me to the page. Sometimes when I read back after writing it the problems don't seem to be that big anymore and I can step back and see more solutions.
Everyone has a different outlet that helps them let go. You just have to find out what works for you. Whatever your point of sale is, make sure you have a passion for it and you will see your worries go away.
4. Follow your dreams.
It's time to get excited about life! There is a good chance that you will put your personal growth on hold in this regard. Go back and find yourself again.
About a month after the relationship, I realized that I was so focused on the negative aspects of the breakup that I didn't see the possible path ahead of me. The realization that there could be something better for me was important to get ahead.
Separate yourself from the path you had with your ex-partner and concentrate on the new path in front of you. Don't worry about finding another relationship. Concentrate on finding meaning and passion, and love will find you.
Be someone who is hopeful and excited about the future. Remember, your experience has made you strong and capable of creating endless opportunities for yourself and the future.
About Rebecca Hillard
Rebecca Hillard is a poet and novelist. Rebecca quit her immigration job two years ago to travel the world. She is currently in Australia and will soon be the author of an upcoming book. Rebecca is diagnosed with panic disorder at a young age. She passionately shares her experiences with others and deals creatively with anxiety, depression and addiction. Check out some of their lyrics here: instagram.com/becca_hillard.
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