Pain of Rejection
He removed me from his screen saver. In a way I deserved it.
I had fallen into a low state and argued with him like a trooper.
A public outburst in front of many.
The locals stunned by my sudden change in character.
He left humiliated, no doubt.
I couldn’t help but feel that pang of rejection realising that days after we had made up (he had forgiven me far sooner that I could forgive me), I still was invisible.
This familiar feeling of being rejected.
I remember at 14 years old my best friend ghosted me, we had been sisters for three years solid.
In each other's pockets since the day at school there had been a bomb scare, the UVF supposedly wanted to blow up our Catholic school.
When school closed and my parents had to work, I ended up in Nicola's house for the day.
She offered me cappuccino, it was in a sachet, I didn’t know what it was but I remember feeling so sophisticated drinking it.
Her house was orderly and smelled of fresh linen.
Not like mine.
I liked how tidy it all was.
We remained “besties” for three years, night and day, phone calls hourly, weekend sleep-overs.
We went to our first disco together.
And on the weekends when no one was looking, we chased Protestant boys, mostly because we weren’t supposed to. 🤣
I was often invited to Sunday lunch with her family, they ate at 1pm after attending mass and had a sleep right after, it all felt very decadent.
Then out of the blue she was gone.
I still don't know what happened.
She didn’t die so I never felt like my loss was significant, I often brushed it aside.
But a part of me was gone too.
My sister.
I remember how I had begged my mum to have another child when I was young, how I promised I could look after a little sister.
That didn’t happen...so Nicola became my sister instead.
At the time her silence fell, I used to call and call her house phone not realising that for her our friendship was over, she had moved on.
This was a fatal blow to my heart at such a young age and I spent the following years in silent grief.
I would cry myself to sleep at night.
Sometimes I would resort to self-harm.
Eventually bulimia took hold and I found relief in throwing up and throwing out my pain and shame.
You see I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth I had done wrong?
That from one day to the next, Nicola was gone.
Such a common mistake that we would take their leaving as a sign we were in the wrong....
Luckily, and with awareness, I now know that cannot be true.
So I was cautious not to blame myself when it came to my partner’s death.
Another example of sudden loss.
A leaving that occurred out of the blue, without warning.
First we were laughing having breakfast, then he was gone.
Maybe something about him being physically gone made it a bit easier on me this time?
But I think it was my understanding of how the mind works that was my saving grace in this loss.
It acted as a healing balm.
It allowed me to navigate my grief more gracefully.
When the sadness would come I didn’t add extra layers of suffering by thinking that somehow “I got it wrong” or somehow through Law of Attraction I “created” this loss.
Instead I allowed the sadness to come and go.
To do its thing.
I learned that I could use my memory to help myself or to hurt myself and discovered that the worse I felt the more likely I was using Thought to “hurt myself” so I stopped doing that.
Wish my 14-year-old self had known that.
So when I woke up this morning realising that loss and rejection are just a big part of my path, I actually felt grateful in a way.
That I could SEE what was going on.
Nothing personal....
That the challenges life has presented me have been challenges of the heart, in terms of love and loss.
So of course when I saw that my current partner had removed our photo from his phone, I couldn’t help but feel that familiar pang of pain.
That vulnerable teenage part of ourselves that doesn’t want to go through rejection, loss or abandonment again. ♥️
Hope this helps you today if you are up against a loss, betrayal or sudden relationship ending.