An ex-boyfriend of mine passed away last month. He was not just any ex. He was my first boyfriend. We were together for 8 years and were engaged to get married. Our breakup was a very painful experience for me as it involved deception and infidelity. While I have forgiven him a long time ago, I never looked back and promised myself that he will only remain in my history and that I will never let him in my life ever again. The news of his death brought tears to my eyes as well as memories of both the good times we had and the heartbreaking end of our relationship. But more importantly, I was reminded once again of how I learned to love myself.
Being cheated on is one of the most agonizing experiences one can have. It brings out self-doubt, insecurity, inadequacy…and really just makes you question what went wrong and why it’s happening to you. It’s pure mental torture.
My ex’s infidelity went on for a year with me forgiving him 4 times until I had the last straw. That year, from the time I learned that he was cheating on me, I started having sleepless nights and a lost of appetite. My weight dropped significantly and all I can tell my family was that I was working very hard- I was living in Singapore so my family in the Philippines really noticed the weight loss whenever I visited back home. I could not tell my family for the fear of tarnishing my ex’s (fiancé back then!) image. I however had a very good support system with my work friends both in Singapore and my close friends from high school. I’m pretty sure they wanted to bang my head against the wall because I was stubborn and kept taking my ex back. I had this delusional idea that our 8 years of relationship was just being “tested” and that we will overcome it and come out stronger than ever.
Physically though my body was telling me that I had enough. When I woke up one Saturday morning, once again when there was radio silence from my ex after I sent tons of messages and missed calls from the night before, I started feeling distraught and sorry for myself. Tears ran down my eyes..I was half awake, feeling very weak…then all of a sudden, it was like my body started to shut down slowly. My eyes were open but my vision was starting to fade. I got very scared. With all my might, I scrambled to get out of bed and while my vision was fading out, I quickly went to the kitchen, saw my sugar canister- opened it and had the sugar directly from the container and drank some water. My heart was beating fast but my vision started to fade in. I felt very relieved. I quickly fixed myself a meal and after not eating well for a long time, I ate and finished my plate.
That incident made me realize 3 things: 1) I’m not ready to die; 2) there is so much to live for; and most importantly, 3) I love myself. Repeat: I love myself. Shout it out: I LOVE MYSELF.
Since then, I swore to myself that I will never hurt myself again and I will do my best to take care of myself physically and mentally.
I’m lucky that nothing bad happened to me- it was a near miss- but good enough to knock myself out of my delusional dream clouds.
With the realization of self love and putting myself first, acceptance of our break up became easy for me. I broke off with my ex and set myself free.
And the rest of course, is history.
Love yourself the most. It will do you great wonders.
