So my girlfriend and I broke up this past week after she cheated on me. It was a long distance relationship (I know, red flag) but we made it work for 2 years. I'm just in shock right now because I planned to marry her and start a family with her after med school. I'm still pissed off and I feel blindsided by the whole deal, never saw it coming. After the fact we had some heated arguments and I may or may not have called her some names. But now that it's over I've found myself with little motivation and I just generally feel terrible. I've always been a good student in the top quarter of my class and I don't want this to affect my performance. I'm just wondering if anyone has dealt with a break up of a serious relationship in med school and how you coped.
Sorry to hear that OP.
I went through a very difficult relationship while trying to adjust to first year (it sucked all throughout but I hung in there) and in the end got dumped the following summer. Since the break up happened over the summer after M1, I had a few months to get myself at least functional before classes started. But I still found myself having plenty of bad days in M2. Nonetheless, it's been months and my bad days are less and less frequent. I find myself doing much better, and am actually happier now than I ever was when in that relationship. Just those first couple months were brutal. I can't imagine how tough it must be to be dealing with this in the midst of classes, but I can certainly say (and from reading this thread too) you're not alone. A huge chunk of my classmates went through really rough break ups in M1, and some are going through them now in M2.
All I can say is don't beat yourself up if your performance does falter a bit. You're human after all, and this is a **** thing to happen. Beating yourself up more for your performance might just make this more stressful. Do your best, but if your grades falter a bit, don't let it get you down too much, otherwise you get a circle of sorrow thing going. Use studying as a means to stay busy and keep your mind occupied.
1) Best advice I have. Study in groups. This helped me big time on my worst days, and I've seen friends going through break ups do the same. This may be the best time to reach out to a few classmates for support. Sitting alone in a quiet room studying will make it easy for you to lose yourself in your thoughts and make it difficult to focus. But if you're with a good set of people in a room, they might help keep you out of your head and in your books. Also, you'll have moral support near you while you study.
2) Exercise. Looks like you're already doing this, which is good. Keep that up.
3) Just stay busy. Re-discover old hobbies you liked or find new ones, constantly be around people you like, just always keep moving.
4) Just remember, this is likely the worst part. Though it may take a lot of time and recovery is a slow ****ing process (I'm still not 100%), you will gradually feel better. Just take it day by day for now.
5) If you find yourself really having a hard time coping with this. don't be afraid to see your school's CAPS counselor. It sounds lame, but sometimes we all need that extra support.
You're definitely not alone, it's a **** feeling and getting by in school is tough, but it's doable. And if it means anything at all, no matter how bad my experience has been, and I'm still not 100% recovered from it. I feel like my quality of life is so much better now and I think you will be in a better place in your life too as time goes on. It will take time though. Hang in there.
