See the heart is just like your skin. You get a gash: you bleed, it clots, the skin heals but the scar remains. Broken hearts work in the same way. You end a relationship, you cry, you feel numb and you sulk, you go out and socialize but falling in love again for you is not easy because at the back of your mind the hurt remains.
Like the scar tissue, the past painful experience leaves a souvenir you'd carry with you all your life. The nature or history of your broken heart does not even matter whether they cheated on you, left you for someone else, or just plain unrequited love.
The key to moving on: COPING.
Coping totally depends on the person. My coping mechanisms will be different from yours or his or hers. BUT! never confuse coping mechanisms from defense mechanisms. Coping mechanisms help you positively by getting over the problem while defense mechanisms only get you around the problem but not over the problem. In short, you get to move on with coping. Defense mechanisms only make you find temporary answers but you'll only be moving around your problem over and over again.
Get this for example: My ex-boyfriend broke up with me over a year ago, my answer to that was to get to know a string of guys only to find myself empty. Why? Because I ended up trying to either compare them to him OR trying to say he's going to be better. Did I feel better? ABSOLUTELY NOT! It made the situation worse. That was defense mechanism. I tried to substitute what was no longer there with something that can suffice. I realized later on that it didn't help me be happy.
Now here's coping: After realizing I wasn't happy with what I did (and even made a fool of myself), I stopped and examined where I went wrong. The answer? Because bottomline, I never got over the issue. I dropped everything, stopped forcing myself to find an available guy out there and started to enjoy whatever came my way. Guess what? IT WORKED! I was indeed in a relationship! In a relationship with myself.
Then I was happy again. Why? I got over the painful situation, the crying, the sulking, the silly actions. I am not saying that I have totally forgotten about what had happened. The lesson I learned from that situation is something I would really hold dear. But like the scar tissue, it's just a souvenir. It tingles sometimes when someone reminds me of it but the important part is I am a better person after the broken heart.
Coping does not come to you over night, depending on how attached you were to the person. We all have different coping mechanisms but I am telling you, once you have realized how you can get over it, get over it. Help yourself. Love yourself above all else :)
