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| Disclaimer: Sorry Jack for using that awful screen shot again, James he's not peado! |
So you may know, from previous posts, that my boyfriend Jack left the UK to work in Australia back in December. He left two days before my birthday which definitely made the situation harder to deal with, and also coming up to Christmas time. They're two times of the year where you want to people you love close by and the person I really wanted there most wasn't. Now I know he hadn't died and he was reachable but it wasn't the same and going from seeing each other virtually everyday to speaking to each other when and if we could was a bit of a shock to the system.
I dealt with it in the worse way possible. I was fighting a near enough constant battle against minor panic and anxiety attacks. I felt constantly sick, I had a pretty much permanent headache, I had no appetite and no energy. All I wanted to do was lay in my bed, undisturbed and sleep. Luckily, at the time I was working full time which forced me to get up in the morning and socialise with people. If that wasn't the case there's no doubt in my mind that those first couple of weeks I'd have been a recluse. I was shattered though. I was waking up at silly hours of the morning and going to bed at silly hours in night, well morning really, just to get a couple of hours of conversation in with Jack.
Jack dealt with it much better. It comes down to the type of people we are. He's much more relaxed, positive - not that I'm a negative person but he just finds it much easier not to worry about things that could end badly, and generally doesn't let things get him down. I'm not like that as you probably well know by now. I worry about things until I'm shaking with anxiety, I work myself up about them until I cry and I stress so much that I make myself sick. It's ridiculous but it's true.
Looking back I could have dealt with that period in a much more healthy way. I realised, about three weeks into the experience, that focusing on other things, work, projects, my health, kept my mind away from the thousands of miles between us and therefore I wasn't such a shell of a human. I started the blog for something to do, I started running more frequently, and I focused on getting prepared for college. Booking my flights for Australia also helped as it gave us a date to focus on for when we'd next be able to actually see each other. I realised it was important that I was doing these things just to pass time in between conversations with Jack but because I wanted or needed to do them for me. If I'd have done them purely to pass time I'd have been back to square one, focusing on the thing that had got me in that rut.
Christmas and New Year were hard but they're times of the year that I love and I was determined to enjoy them knowing we'd both rather be together at those times but it was just the way things were, but they weren't going to be that way forever. I also realised I couldn't let my bad rationale effect Jack's experience. He was on the other side of the world with great possibilities ahead of him and I couldn't let my inability to cope get in the way of that. I had to be as positive, smiley and happy as I could for him. And it couldn't just be a front, cause he knows, oh boy does he know. It's not always something that comes naturally every time in fact it's something I have to remind myself of on occasion. This week he's gone off to New Zealand for two weeks. At first I didn't take it so good, two weeks of hardly any contact, a lot of money being spent and another few thousand miles away when all I want is him closer. But my lack of support made him question whether he should go and that's not right. When it comes down to it I always manage to cope because when you work it out it's not that hard and because I want to be with Jack so I have to cope, Jack won't get the oppurtunity to visit New Zealand very often.
Luckily my family and Jack's family are good friends, all of us. This has helped no end. I think it would be weird if I hardly saw them just because Jack's away. The first time I went in their house after Jack had left was a bit weird but I got over it and enjoy spending time with them just as much as I did when Jack wasn't in Australia. They're practically a second family.
The main thing that helped me overall was focusing on things other than the distance and the time difference and how little contact I sometimes had. Not filling the time for the sake of filling it but filling it because I have a life to lead and that can't be put on a hold because Jack got on a plane. Obviously, this isn't possible for everyone but knowing when he left that I'd be joining him in a few months gave me something to look forward to and hopefully make all that horribleness at the beginning worth it. College has helped no end, though it's stressful being busy is the perfect way to stop yourself freaking out. And contact with his family, all of them, is the ideal scenario that again probably isn't possible for everyone but if it is it's great.
So that's it. I coped horrifically at the beginning there's no denying it. Looking back I was a mess, and sometimes still am, but finding your coping method is all it takes.
For me it's keeping busy and focused.
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