Acceptance is the Path to Healing.

This is going to sound weird, but bear with me.

I am in emotional rehab. It's because of a certain guy, who's name happens to start with an M, so from here on out lets just call it M-rehab. I wasn't dating him and we weren't just friends. I considered him my brother. He'd been there for me since first grade, through all the hard times of high school, the loss of grandparents, and the crushes which never panned out. But as time passed, something in him changed. Or rather, something in him never changed at all.

But once I realized all this, once I was ready to leave all the hurt and betrayal that he had caused behind me......I suddenly found that my normal outlet of blaring angry music and writing just wasn't cutting it. I was sitting with my mom and talking about how this stupid lovable boy just wouldn't let me let go when my mother interjected with "That kind of person can be addicting." It was then I spoke the words that, while I didn't realize it at the time, would finally be the crucible to lead me out of the pain.

"It's like I need rehab or something."

So began my journey of fixing my pain and moving forward. After all, losing a friend is far worse than losing a significant other. (in my opinion.) At least when your boy (or girl, depending on preferences) leaves you, there's that net of a best friend to fall back on. Who's supposed to pick up the pieces when it's that best friend who's leaving you in the dust? Now mind you, I have two other amazing, loving friends that were there to listen to me. But it's still a very personal journey to make, when the fact that someone who knows all your deepest and darkest secrets just isn't there anymore. Especially when that friend wasn't exactly the best of friends with the rest of the people you hung out with. So I came up with steps. Note that these can be applied to pretty much any other emotional situation.

Step one is admitting you have a problem. Check.

Step two is admitting that you are addicted to the idea of that person, and not the person in general. Check.

Step three is allowing yourself to heal. I'm still working on it.

About a week or so ago I had a relapse. When in M-rehab I am on a strict NO-LOOKING-AT-HIS-FACEBOOK-PAGE regimen. This does not apply to when I am skimming through the home page and happen to see status updates stating that he's going to be working for 5 hours and oh god he just doesn't want to deal with the crazy people. So on his birthday I.....well I caved. I looked to see who had said happy birthday. I mean, yeah he had hurt me. But not to the point where I wouldn't wish him (albeit silently) a good birthday. Then I noticed it. Anger began to creep through my whole body and bubble higher and higher at the simple fact of what he had done.

He had defriended me on Facebook.

Oh it was pathetic. I ranted and raved about what a son of a witch he was and how DARE he. Oh but wait, it just keeps getting better. He was still friends with all of my friends. I was the only one he seemingly deleted. I couldn't get over what a slap in the face it was. This meant he was never going to apologize didn't it? I was never going to hear him say he made the wrong choice and that he shouldn't have ever acted before thinking was I?

Was it so wrong to hope that maybe he might, just might, want to be friends again? Maybe not in the next two months, but in a few years? That the whole staying connected via Facebook was his way of saying there could be a future for us again? As my anger slowly crept away, that's when I realized that was what my anger was all about. Not the fact that he had defriended me, oh no. But that, for him, it was a way of saying I give up. On you, on our friendship, on everything. You no longer matter to me.

That was it. Maybe we wouldn't have been friends again. Maybe there will never be a chance to reconcile. But as much as he had hurt me, as much as I was done with him, part of me still held onto the hope that sometime in the far off future we could reconnect. I wasn't willing to count him out, so why would he choose that path?

So yeah. I relapsed. I spent two days spewing horrible epithets. I'm still an M-rehab recoverer after all. There are going to be setbacks. My final cord is cut and I no longer have any connection whatsoever. This will be just one more thing that is an obstacle to being completely healed.

But I'm looking on the bright side. No more stupid status updates to filter through!