Self-help books don’t always have a great reputation. They can join the ranks of other things people scoff at such as crocs, reindeer ears on cars during Christmas time, and Jersey Shore-themed t-shirts that read “Come At Me Bro.” (I must secretly admit that turning my vehicle into one of Santa’s reindeers is something I can’t wait to do. I will most likely try to get eight of my friends to join me as well.) Anyway, self-help books should be given a little more credit for what they have to offer someone who is dealing with a difficult time.
Judging from the first paragraph, you probably assume that I spend my Saturdays parking myself in the self-help book aisle, sobbing into my bag of snacks as I cozy up in my K-Mart sweatpants. On the contrary, my friends, I just have had a positive experience with one book in particular and feel it’s important to share this great find with all of you. Many of you have heard of it–It’s Called a Breakup Because it is Broken, by Greg Behrendt and Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt.
Just from the cover you know it’s going to be a good one. Even the image of a pint of ice cream on the cover is genius. It is almost like a rite of passage for a heartbroken female to crack open a tub, I mean uh, a pint of ice cream right after she has been dumped. There’s something universally comforting about going through the standard procedure of a breakup. Whether that is throwing out photos of the ex, putting everything he gave you in a box, deleting his number, removing him as a Facebook friend, watching sappy love movies with a box of Kleenex, or indulging in a pint of ice cream. Personally, I enjoy doing all of the above.
I heard about this book through a friend while I was at college. She gave it to me after my boyfriend and I broke up hoping it would bring me comfort. The book she handed me was filled with highlighted passages, rabbit-eared pages, and never-ending notes she took. At the time I found this excessive, but fast-forward a couple of years later and I was doing it to my own copy that I had purchased. When I was heartbroken again after college, I sought out this same book. I remembered it was entertaining, funny, and brutally honest.
In the Fall of 2010, I read it once, then twice, then 20 more times. Every time I felt weak, I’d open up my drawer and read the first 20 pages as those chapters had the best words of wisdom. It would remind me that the reason why my “ex” wasn’t contacting me wasn’t because he was “nervous I would be mad at him,” or that “he was just looking for the right words to say,” or that “his family moved to Switzerland and he doesn’t have access to phones”; it was because although it was hard to break my heart, he is relieved. He is relieved that he got the hardest part over with and doesn’t want to contact me to give me mixed signals that he’s still interested. Instead of making up more excuses for him on why he wasn’t contacting me or more foreign countries he could have been in at the time, I would read this book and accept the unfortunate truth.
You can tell you are doing better when your dependence on a book like this during a weak moment becomes less and less. In the Fall of 2011, a friend of mine went through the same situation I had the previous summer. I ran upstairs, grabbed the book, and threw it into her lap as a present to her. A week later, she thanked me and we laughed about several of the realistic points that these two authors make throughout the chapters. See, this book was written by two individuals who were in long relationships and ultimately got heartbroken. They are both married to each other now and share their hardships and advice. It is always great to read a self-help book when people have been through the same thing. I read two other self-help books about moving on from heartbreak, but those read more like textbooks with homework assignments. This one is light, relatable, and oh-so girly!
I didn’t depend on this book to lighten my spirits during the darkness we call grief, but it didn’t hurt to have two people who could relate to you give you a pep talk whenever you needed it. They give you a reality check that the person is not coming back and there is nothing salvageable about the relationship. These authors would remind me that although my “ex” and I would share a love of Mexican food, the Yankees, and visits to the Jersey Shore, we didn’t share in the idea that the relationship could work and that in itself trumps delicious chicken enchiladas, watching Mariano Rivera come in as the relief pitcher, or enjoying a mind eraser drink at a bar called D’Jais in Belmar.
