Anyone who’s been through one knows: There’s no rule book on how to get over a breakup. Your friends might encourage you to distract yourself by making lots of plans with them, but what if you barely have enough energy to get out of bed? And those clichés about time healing all wounds aren’t much comfort when everything feels so unbearably awful right now. “When you’re grieving the loss of a relationship, you’re going to experience a roller coaster of complicated, hard-to-handle emotions,” says Habiba Jessica Zaman, LPC, a therapist based in Tucker, Georgia, and the author of How We Choose Who We Love .
“Your healing time will depend on factors like the meaning the relationship held as well as the length of it,” according to Zaman, so the path to recovery will be as unique as your connection was. It can be especially hard to imagine your life without your ex if, for example, you lost your virginity to them or they’re the only SO you’ve ever introduced to your parents. If you’re reading this in hopes of becoming happily single by tomorrow, we’re (truly) sorry to say there’s no quick fix for overcoming heartbreak.
But what we can tell you is that you’ll feel like yourself again eventually, and this expert-approved advice on how to get over a breakup should help you along the way. Aside from sobbing into your best friend’s shoulder and calling emergency meetings with Ben and Jerry (which, yes, can provide legit, temporary relief), here are some .