Mass Hysteria Volume 1 by Hannah Ross

mass hysteria

a diy community zine about feeeeeeelings

VOLUME I: HEARTBREAK

CONTENTS 1. introduction 2. denial 3. panic & fear 4. anger & bargaining 5. depression 6. acceptance 7. the good news! a. healthy vs. unhealthy vs. abusive relationships b. coping with grief c. difficult feelings d. difficult thoughts e. get some help...

INTRODUCTION this is a zine about feelings. as a society, we don’t talk much about feelings. the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy tells us that we shouldn’t have them. that we should suppress them and repress them in order to get on with business. when we experience things like heartbreak, we are expected to bounce back quickly and keep our feelings to ourselves, god forbid we make anyone uncomfortable or reveal our vulnerability. but feelings, including heartbreak, are part of the human experience. enough people experience heartbreak that there are predictable stages of grief - this zine is roughly organized according to those stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), with the addition of panic & fear. suppressing and repressing our feelings only gives them more power. to own our feelings is an act of self-love. it is also an act of courage - we choose to speak our truth despite that we’re told we are not entitled to it. in spring, i invited some people on the internet and in my life to submit to me an anonymous letter to an ex-lover or -friend, sibling or parent who broke their heart. the idea was to document the experience of coping with heartbreak, give contributors an outlet, and provide others who might be going through it with reassurance that they are not alone. the contributions that follow demonstrate courage and vulnerability and resilience. after that, i’ve added some strategies for working through grief and heartbreak, and some resources for when you can’t do it on your own. x hannah

DENIAL as was expected, when it comes to denial, we didn’t receive any submissions... it’s ok to be in this stage, too. here’s some nice art instead :)

Artwork by Hugh Mater :)

PANIC & FEAR Across the Street We almost shared a side walk I take this as a god shot I stayed on the east side Hoping the sun wouldn’t be too harsh As I pushed the stroller Singing to the little one I saw you, I saw your hat first I heard your voice second For a split suffocating second We locked eyes I looked forward with absolute certainty I needed to make it through Your voice got louder Taking up more space than suggested “hey bud, can you tell me a story” He wasn’t down So I began telling my own For baby Jude In hopes to make it through Tears started streaming down my face As I named off everything I would take to space That glorious escape “A picnic, penguins, a tutu” With the little ones encouragement We continued like this for 30min Surviving Barely surviving

“Jude is very anxious and sad right now buddy” Getting honest In hopes the trigger wouldn’t take over I needed help Stuck in an unsafe inhale Gasping for an exhale I called a fellow No answer I called another “Hi do you have the space, I’m having a panic attack” Unconditional love and support About to make lunch My boss asked how the morning went I broke down She held me tight Breathing together We found safety Exhaling with love I was safe I was loved He is not safe He is not love Bless my instinct to stick to the east side The softer choice Amongst the shit storm of violence Unaccounted for I know the truth Does he? - Toronto, Canada

anger & bargaining

“Church On Danube” by howardignatius is licensed under CC BYNC-ND 2.0

it’s been almost two years and you’re still telling people I broke your heart, I didn’t understand, I treated you unfairly. you’re still playing the victim. you treated EVERYONE unfairly. you still are, you hypocritical piece of shit. you gaslit me, broke me, abused me and made me believe i’d done something to cause it. every ‘look what you made me do’ still rings in my ears like an anthem. i was suffocated. i wanted to speak i wanted to shout i wanted to tell you that i was boiling with hatred and disgust. i wanted to say no i wanted to say get the fuck away from me and don’t ever come back. i wanted to say i’m not okay and it’s your fault i wanted to say how dare you break me i wanted to say i hope you die. but you didn’t die and i didn’t speak above a whisper and when you left, i was crying and you were screaming your head off and i was scared and you were angry and i was shaking and it was supposed to be the other way around. all i do now is scream and scream and scream because all i have left is this rage and trauma and there is no space left in my body for anything else. but forget about me, i was pretty shitty myself, i’ll admit it. but at least i was honest. i never pretended to be a saint. and i LOVED YOU. this girl you’re dating now has no idea what she’s got coming, but honestly i hope she’s just inconsiderate enough to call you out on it, unlike me. i was so hurt over losing you but upon realizing who you really are, good fucking riddance. i’m in therapy i’m in love and i’m doing good and someday, i will not feel the weight of your abuse in my chest. - Romania

Wow. I like how I can barely even have a say in the direction that my life is headed right now. Since you’ve broken up with me, I’ve changed my life plans so that I never see your face ever, ever again. I deleted every single song that reminds me of you, no matter how much I like it. And one last thing: for lack of better words, I was a great, perfect dumpee. I let you say what you had to say. I listened to every single tearful word without interruption. I didn’t cry, beg, scream, yell, or accuse you of anything. I didn’t bad-mouth you. Once it was over, I accepted it. I made this breakup extremely easy for you. All I asked was this: to never contact me. So why did you feel the need to give one of your parents my number so that they can check on me? Why is your parent texting me from an unsaved number telling me “I miss you?” What the fuck did you expect me to even say to that?! “Oh, I miss you too, but your child broke up with me for no detectable reason and I can’t even do anything about it and I’ve felt miserable for days on end.” Did you think I wasn’t gonna get upset?! Did you think you could get some information out of me? I don’t care what the intentions behind this were or how little you think of it. It ruined my healing process significantly. Leave me the fuck alone. You already broke up with me. You already shattered my world and my heart without any warning. You want me to be alone. So let me process this shit. Alone. - North America

Dear mum. You were supposed to be my parent, my first and truest best friend. You brought us up hearing “you only get one mum, she should be your best friend”... But you weren’t. You weren’t my best friend, you weren’t a friend, you weren’t a parent. In fact, you didn’t bring me up either. You dragged me up, kicking and screaming. You knocked me down, over and over again. You were the first person to break my heart, and you did it over and over again. You chose a man over us. You never listened. You never cared. You never supported me or made me feel loved. Do you have any idea what that does to a child? As a child, I had to be grown up. I had to be quiet, polite, kind and caring. I had to be strong and not cry. I was too sensitive, too much whilst also being never enough. I’m an adult now. But I feel like a child. I’ve spent my life craving the affection I should’ve received. Getting ‘love’ from grown men when I was just a teen. All because I needed someone to care. I needed to believe that someone loved me. That I was enough for someone. You manipulated us all, got us all to play our parts, turning us into a carousel of scapegoats, clowns, hero’s, golden children and enablers. We all played our parts for you. Too afraid to rock the boat, in case it becomes our turn to become the scapegoat. In case we suddenly weren’t good enough anymore. I tried to be perfect. I tried to be pretty. I tried to be smart. I tried to be kind. I tried to be skinny. I desperately tried to mould myself into something or someone you could love. I’m finally working out that it’s not me. I can’t change to make you love me. It isn’t something wrong with me. It’s something wrong with YOU. What kind of parents l treats their child that way? What kind of parent can do the things you’ve done? Yet there you sit. Showing the world how hard you tried, how tough you are. What an amazing mum.

I’m done pretending. I won’t put on your show anymore. I won’t hide and I won’t sweep it under the rug. My therapist is helping me do all of the work you should’ve done. 20 years of therapy and I’m only just finding someone who truly understands. You broke me. Not just my heart. You stamped on my soul, branded me with damage. I am not perfect. I am not smart. I am not pretty. I am not enough. I am not skinny either. But I AM kind. I AM honest. I am learning to be brave. You may have given birth to me. But you killed me too. I am done wearing your mask. I want to see who is underneath... - United Kingdom

DEPRESSION

Dear Johnny, I wish I could say that I hate you, I wish I could say that I don’t think of you anymore and that you no longer occupy the spaces in my mind. Somehow, after all of the abuse, all of the ways you took me for granted and disregarded my feelings, I still don’t hate you. I guess that goes to show how powerful a trauma bond is. Fairy tales fail to tell you that love is not stronger than trauma. Sometimes I go over my memories with you, some are easier to think back on than most. Some memories, I go over and over again in my mind, over every curve and turn. Just when I think I’ve memorized every surface and turn to the memory, I still find parts that cut me. (And although these memories still find ways to hurt me, I wouldn’t erase them, because I fear if I would I would go back. We go back to what’s familiar. I grew up in dysfunction and sought out dysfunction) You know, all of the shitty things you’ve said to me, I’ve kept them and they take up space in all the places that should have bloomed with love. Even now I’m still dealing with the weeds of doubt and fear that you scattered and planted in my mind. And at night, when the nightmares come, you have replaced the monsters in my dreams. Instead of running from a zombie I find myself running from you, instead of fighting dragons I find myself in conflict with you. I hope to one day reach the point where I give myself the love I gave so freely and whole heartedly to you. You less than deserved it. And still, I don’t hate you. I hope one day I am able to, so that I can hate in anger, an emotion that for so long I have barred myself from feeling. And after hate, comes forgiveness, and then disregard. I will be vacating you from my mind, Once I am able to feel resentment for you, will I be able to move on to disregarding you. I will untangle you from the mess you made and left me in. - Champaign, Illinois

Nicky in active alcoholism (2016), I am so sorry that I betrayed you for so long, I’m sorry I broke your heart. You are hurting so deeply, feeling as if you’ve been cut open and left with a gaping wound where your heart should be. You feel angry, sad, and hurt – but most importantly you feel so very lost. It’s as if no one is there to guide you and you feel like you are left holding the metaphorical bag of life as everyone around you moves on with their lives, you left attempting to cobble together an existence borne out of the debris that was the life you once knew. But you were always destined to be here, external circumstances aside, you are exactly where you need to be. For many years I undermined you with my behaviour. You can’t get a foothold in life because we are stuck in the quicksand of our addiction and what breaks my heart the most, is that you don’t even know. You think it’ll get better, but day after day it gets worse. Until you change, nothing changes. There is a solution and I have many moments when I wish I could have provided you with that compass long ago, helped you find your true north before things got so bad for you. I need you to know that I love you so very much, because without you there is no me. I couldn’t get here without going through everything you’ve had to go through. Sometimes I wish things had been different, I wish I had chosen a different way, but I know now there was no choice. You did what you needed to do to survive, to have a semblance of emotional safety. Many people tell me that they wish I hadn’t had to go through the suffering that I did, but I know that I needed every single day of fear and despair, because on the other side is courage and hope. You don’t know how loved you are. I know that you feel unworthy and ashamed. Wanting nothing more than to be held close and reassured that you are inherently worthy exactly as you are. It breaks my heart how long we have spent scraping the bottom of the barrel, searching for love in all the wrong places, never knowing that that love needs to come from within. You’re not always going to be alone, but when you are – even when it’s hard – you’re going to be ok.

It’s so dark right now, you don’t know how to go on living, but you don’t want to die. You’re at the jumping off point – and spoiler alert it gets better. But you have to take that leap, no one is going to do it for you. It’s not easy, but what you will get is a life, which isn’t what you have now. You’re angry that you have wasted so much of your life at the bottom of the bottle, you’re sad that you have broken your heart every day for a decade. It took a lot of therapy, meetings, and work to get here. I resented you for a long time, but all I feel for you now is love. I want you to know that I will hold you closely in my heart for as long as it goes on beating. The day I forget to hold you close is the day that I get closer to coming back to you and though I love you, you’re not healthy for me. I can’t go back to being you without losing everything I have, and I promise what we have is a life, a beautiful, one. You will have the life beyond your wildest dreams, just hol on. I’ll be here with you, every step of the way. I love you with all of my heart, Nicky in recovery (2021) - Toronto, Canada

I had a hard time writing this letter. Most of the memories we shared have been lost or molded over time. I have moved on a million times since, but our relationship informed every experience after you. With my friends, family, lovers, coworkers, even my art. You are like a scar. Healed but always there. Always apart of me. Since day one you wanted to control every aspect of my life. My intuition told me to leave but my ego told me that I could save you and heal you. Like you were a lost child that needed care. If I wanted to be with friends or be alone even for a night you convinced me that I was selfish. I believed you. You convinced me that your version of love was right and mine was wrong. That I had to prove my loyalty moment by moment. Your control turned into something sinister. If you pushed me, it was because I said something wrong. If I had pride you would humiliate me in public. You stole from me. You raped me. You threatened to kill me. You turned my friends and coworkers against me; Called me crazy and delusional. Slowly I didn’t recognize myself anymore and I truly believed I didn’t deserve anything or anyone else. I felt like a lost cause. I honestly thought I was going to die by my hand or yours. I was isolated and couldn’t leave. You convinced me that I was nothing without you, so I stayed. The only way I was able to escape was you throwing me away. In a drunk and high stupor you destroyed all of my belongings and put me on the street. You perceived my betrayal for not preventing your arrest earlier in the night at my job. The whole neighborhood watched. My friends watched. No one did anything, though now looking back I’m glad they didn’t. I had to suffer that night to wake up and realize I couldn’t save you from yourself. I could only save myself. A day later you tried for the last time to manipulate me and get me to take you back. For the first time I was able to say. No. The pain of loving you was too great. I escaped across the country and your name became a fog. I would have flashbacks while with other new friends and lovers, black out and not know what was happening. They didn’t know how to help me. I didn’t know how to help me.

Years went by. Eventually, slowly but surely, I started to trust people again. I started to let people teach me how to love myself and others. I found recovery. I was able to get sober. I was able to forgive myself for doing what I had to to survive. I continue to choose life everyday. I am a God damn miracle. My loved ones are god damn miracles. To this day I pray for you. I hope you are blessed with a healing journey that I have received. I know that you were a person with so much pain and didn’t know what to do with it. I know this and have forgiveness for you, because I also was in pain. I can only hope that you allow love and self compassion into your heart. I hope that one day you can be free.

“liquid tye dye” by nebarnix is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

We’ve been friends for fifteen years and from the moment I met you, I thought you’d be in my life forever. I’ve always admired your perspective on things. You’re cultured and educated and vocal, and you gave me language to express my experience. In a lot of ways, you educated me and informed my identity, and I will always love you for that. It’s taken me until the last few months to realize that I cannot have you in my life anymore. Naturally, the space between us grew over our twenties as we both established ourselves and built new friendships. But while I’ve always prioritized you, you seem to have decided to tuck me away into your back pocket, to keep me around just for when your new friends don’t show up for you. I’ve learned the hard way that I cannot rely on you when times are tough and I need a friend who will support me and believe in me and build me up. I wish I could tell you all of this. I’ve considered having one of those big, dramatic friend break-ups, where I’d tell you that your new friends suck and that I think you’re chasing clout, and that one day you’ll go through something difficult and wish I was there to support you. But I don’t actually know all that to be true. Maybe you really just need those surfacelevel friendships. All I know is that I need friends to walk through life with me. I think you decided not to meet that need a long time ago. I think my decision to walk away from this friendship will be a relief to you. That’s the part that breaks my heart. I’m still processing through all of this, but I’ve learned that one-sided relationships really aren’t worth it. That making time for people who don’t choose me reinforces the idea that I don’t deserve reciprocal relationships and damages my self-esteem. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to realize that I need more, and you won’t offer more, and as a result, I’ve spent fifteen years trying to force you into a relationship that you don’t want. Each time I try to talk you into meeting me halfway, I abandon myself and miss out on an opportunity to build frienships with people who choose me. - Canada

I was crazy about you. After our first date, I called my best friend and told her that I thought I had just met my husband. I was anxious, the whole time we dated, that things weren’t going to work out. I had this sense of impending doom. But I wrote in my journal that even if I got my heart broken, it would be worth it. It wasn’t. To me, you presented an aspirational version of yourself. I felt safe with you. But you crumbled under pressure and it ended up like I had worried it would - I got invested and opened up, and then you took what you wanted and realized all of a sudden that you weren’t in the right spot for a relationship. I wish you had thought of that earlier. I’m embarassed that, almost four months later, I’m still not over it. Moving past this experience has been a process for me. First I believed you that you were having a hard time and felt bad for you. I thought we would reconnect when you were feeling better. Then I realized I was being gaslighted - that your excuses were just distancing strategies - and felt really angry. And then I just felt insecure and violated and sexualized and used. I think of you less often now, but I still go back to that place from time to time where I replay it all and try to figure out what I missed. I remind myself often that your behaviour was a reflection of you rather than me. I’m tired of having to recover from relationships with men who don’t have emotional insight or healthy communication skills. They disguise it well, with the language of emotional availability, but it often ends up the same. The whole woke boy persona is a manipulative tactic to make women feel safe. I fall for it time and time again. But the thing I’m most tired of is breaking my own heart. I ignored the red flags. I didn’t listen to my body, which was trying to tell me that something was off. More than that, I’ve been grieving a relationship and a person that never existed - the one I wish we’d had, and who I’d thought you were. I’m not sure how to recover from something that never was. - Toronto, Canada

To the first person to break my heart, For almost twenty years I’ve wondered how your life went. The way that you disappeared wounded me deeply. It’s still a wound that festers from time to time. The most painful part of it is the way you just stopped replying to my emails. You were on the other side of the planet and without a reason it was extremely difficult to let you go. I’d never been in love before and very rarely since. When I had to leave your side to go take care of my mother while she died it was devastating. It felt like god was telling me that I could never have the one thing that I ever wanted. To be loved and cared for. To be cherished. To explore a deep connection to someone other than myself. I really really wanted to make a life with you. To grow old with you. To let our souls become illuminated in the glow of each other. I’ve never felt the same thing again. So strange because we couldn’t speak to each other in our brains native language. Without words there was a pure exchange of energy. Of love based in something deeper than the imperfect vehicle of words. I’ve come to realize recently that perhaps it had to end because my place was here and your place was there. That I still feel very lucky to have had the time we did. I can see so many of our memories in clear colour video. After everything I truly hope that you found the life that you were meant to find. That you found a love that was deeper and more profound than ours. Perhaps someday i’ll meet you in a dream and we can speak naturally and understand each other and share the experiences of life we’ve had since that day when I flew back across the planet. I still remember looking at the sun each day and finding comfort in the thought that you could see the same sun I was seeing. Thank you for showing me myself and letting me see you in our perfect imperfection.

“Grow” Sometimes I swear You Would Make Me Forget That I was a growing Animal. That I woke up, sunrise & sunset Embodied in Flesh ( I’d come to Regret ) .Every_ single_ stretch_ Of Living, Breathing Skin; a Miracle Of Meat Electric -- Alive. And Yet-You’d feast on the bones while admonishing the surplus of gut; of blood, of veins, of sweat. Never Once mincing Your Meaning to convince me: the parts you abhorred copious enough, the samples you savoured few. And I wanted to feed you, So badly I did So clean, make sure you could Eat everytime you were hungry and took a bite out of me -- I wanted to be your sweet fruit, a coffee-coloured berry ripe to the tooth. But it seemed like the longer I toiled in the fields before the days of Yield, the Harder your Appetite became to Appeal You dreamed of slender Berries brighter than me, of Shades and Shapes I could Never Be.

I wanted to disappear some Days to shrivel off my Leaf, render nothing more than A Seed. And While I Loved You, this much is True I have never hated Me more. For in the Dead of Growing season, a Devil’s Parasite burrowed his way deep into my brain. He found a place between the folds and synapses where Reason could not Reach -- and thus told me a story, Familiar and Old, I thought I’d forgotten, some time ago. We dug up again emaciated limbs and torsos clean off the bone, And Took them for fertilizer to Grow. I dug deep my detest, my dreams and protest, about 6 feet And welcomed the Darkness at Dusk --The only sustenance Left to Eat. Waited and Prayed for the Beautiful Flower to spring Forth One day from All this Misery. But In Those Hours, Your tongue no longer took to the ecentric taste of this sweet fruit, in all its strangeness and complexity. Too late came the revelation, for the soil had been scattered with seeds sick in their embryos, no longer palatable to their animals. And I, the foolish fucking farmer I, tended to my fields, Forever Unwilling, for a bounty of Corrupted Yields. Is it enough ? I will never know. I can only sit to watch them Grow. ~A

ACCEPTANCE I so often wanted to say that I wish I had never met you. Except that I learned a lot from the experience and even grew emotionally since and have not made the same mistakes or bad choices. It was so difficult a few years ago trying to apologise for my part in this because you made it so difficult for me to parse my side of the street I took responsibility for the whole entire street and hated myself for so long! Thankfully I’ve learned healthy boundaries due to twelve step program work and a year of therapy (I fired my previous therapist when he started telling me about the power of positive thinking) from a really good therapist who had the sad eyes of experience. When people would ask me what I did wrong they’d brace themselves for the worst and at the end go, “That’s it?” Well, I still am not proud of my actions. I learned that with fireworks one can get hurt, I should have went for the less dramatic option, do not confuse fireworks with love, I know that now. I really hate learning the hard way! It was a year after we stopped dating that everything went really sour for us! I found myself - or thought I was - still in love with you. Iwas such a mess, I’d find my thoughts obsessing over you and then I’d catch myself and then hate myself. I’d never contact you and it was painful, just painful especially when I’d all of a sudden run into you when I’d least expect it. I never did tell you that when this drama happened, so much was just so awful in my life in all aspects (home, career, etc.) and it just compounded everything.

A positive thing about being in therapy was that also around that time someone had fallen in love with me, and so I learned how to better handle it and to be empathetic. That person is in my life today as a friend. I am better able to focus on my long-term friendships and be present. I am a much more cautious person, maybe too cautious. But I also am better able to see how vulnerable others are and to be gentle with that. It’s odd writing this as I would never want to send this to you- there’s probably a mild compulsion now and then but I know better. I even Googled you recently. You looked well; maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. I am glad that I am in a different city and need never run into you. - Canada

I don’t know what I’m looking for in a relationship, I think that played a big part in my heartbreak. In my ten-year long term relationship I had been cheated on a multiple amount of times, and I didn’t leave. As a male, I thought cheating is something often times men do to women, yet expect them to understand, “I have needs”. So I was content that my girlfriend needed to find out her sexual needs and how to meet them, each time she cheated. Eventually we tried an open relationship, ultimately she told me she wasn’t able to find someone she was interested in, and also stopped cheating on me. Our relationship grew and our trust improved, because we stayed together through the times she cheated. Maybe it was a bad decision because my heart was broken a multiple amount of times, and I was embarrassed, and felt emasculated. Although what I’d like to hang on to is, we live in a patriarchal society, which sometimes makes it acceptable that men cheat. So I tried to keep that same energy when my girlfriend cheated. It was amazingly painful, looking back, maybe I would’ve left after the initial cheating started, but I found it to be eye-opening staying in the relationship to really understand what the motive of the cheating was. I sacrificed my mental health, confidence, and logic, but I remembered the lyrics to a Kelly Clarkson song “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. That is what I hinged on, my emotional turmoil gave me some semblance of myself being better prepared to handle future hurt. Another thing about myself, I’ve always put merit in taking care of others before yourself. I foolishly didn’t realize how irresponsible it was of me, not to acknowledge my own needs as a human being. Until recently I’d listen to what others told me was right, and follow it. I believe it’s conditioning from my upbringing in a devout religious environment. I have to say without the pandemic creating a full stop and break in my routine, I may have never questioned my behaviour. Taking a break from my lifestyle, and re-thinking how I wanted my future to look, gave me sometime to learn who I am, and more importantly who I want to be. I quickly made a sharp shift to put myself first. I read some books by Jen

Sincero, and started curating booklists, podcasts, interviews, and plenty of inspirational media to help guide me to a better understanding of what I want and who I am. At first I asked my partner to come along with me through this journey, but I realized I needed the time to do it by myself. We broke up, I like to think it has been amicably.There is this concept called “conscious uncoupling” where the exact opposite of every drama-infused, eyecatching, attention-grabbing fight-scene of a breakup is conjured. It takes a lot out of each partner to be rational, even though the end of their relationship is what they’re essentially working towards. We are all conditioned to believe that all breakups must be destruction; throwing furniture, burning clothes, and hateful comments. Yes there is a cathartic feeling from that reaction. But in my journey to find myself, I realized that reaction wouldn’t serve me at all. I also know that my partner and I relied on each other, and learned from each other throughout our relationship. We both battled depression and other mental illnesses for the majority of our relationship. But we talked through it, and supported each other endlessly. Not that we’re mentally sound at the moment, but we much better off than at the beginning of our relationship. And our rational behaviour is a big reason for that. I now look ahead valuing presence of mind, whole-hearted communication, and continuous learning. Remembering that I am important, and I need to take care of myself, properly, to have any hope in being the caring human being that I inherently love to be. There are plenty lessons to learn going forth, and I know this heartbreak will take some time to fully dissipate, but ultimately I am thankful I trusted myself enough to take a leap of faith and grow into my true being. Looking forward to maturity and self-love. - Toronto, Canada

“Tie-Dye” by Zeusandhera is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Dear J, Sweet J. One of my great loves. I don’t know anyone whom I have a closer connection to. Even now, with you being married and myself deeply happy in my current relationship, I know when you think about me. It’s hard to describe the feeling. Like I’m being enveloped in warmth and your name will pop into my head and I know. I somehow know. It’s a cosmic connection that I am convinced happens maybe once or twice a lifetime, if ever, for some. We tried to play it off so cool. It was a fling. It was flirty. No one was in love. THIS WAS LUST, right? That’s what cheating is supposed to be. I desperately wanted to escape the pain of getting divorced by fucking literally anyone else. This was supposed to be no strings attached. I got the sense that you wanted to escape from your home. Kids, a wife you seemed very frustrated with, and so many responsibilities. We both ran away from our worlds and somehow collided. I loved you. I couldn’t help it. You truly saw me in the middle of my mess and loved me so well. I say this all now with the glow of nostalgia but when I open the pages to my journal during that year and a half (two years before we decided we had to quit or we would DIE – so dramatic) they are tortured paragraphs, full of pain. Being a mistress is a constant mix of emotions. There is extreme freedom – you could never tell me to not do something because you had the big thing, the weight, the anchor holding us back (I mostly didn’t think about it that way). There’s the thrill of having a secret – meeting up at random times, giving looks when no one is watching. There is guilt – we are both hurting people (your wife, myself, you). And then there is the hiding. I was a mistress before and after you and no one made me hide like you. I still resent this because I know our love was pure. And that made sneaking around, deleting every message and not telling a single soul until afterwards so heartbreaking. I wanted everyone to know how much you loved me and how much I loved you and no one before you or since has been ashamed to be with me like you were. That feeling was like skin to flame. I wanted to die after we dated because I wanted that shame to end.

Although my memories of you are often fond, I do not let myself forget my deepest grievances. The two moments I truly despised you were one, when I was lying on my apartment floor in so much pain and you would not drive me to the hospital because it would look out of the ordinary and two, when I found out your wife was pregnant again after you swore up and down to me that you did not want anymore kids with her. The sound that came out of me was pure grief. There is no longer any maybe. I left Canada for a bit after we stopped talking. I went to heal by the ocean. I finally told my friends. I told some of yours. It was my story to tell and I resented you making me keep everything a secret. I don’t regret being with you. Like I said, it was a divine connection and no fibre in my being can deny that. You saw me. You knew this was special. I like you. I love you. I forgive you. - Toronto, Canada

“You looked like a sunflower at 17 in 07’. Your skin was always dry even in the sweltering heat. I loved the bottoms of your feet, light in colour and sand papery like the padded part of a cat’s paws. We made intricate worlds of one another. You could read my thoughts and saved me from the effort of having to speak out loud. After a few years something to changed and I became restless. You held on to me like a drowning person would a life preserver. I wouldn’t stay still and the ways we began to hurt each time became a testament to our bond. Knowing exactly which of our friends to fuck to activate the most gut wrenching sadness in the other. I know I was the one that ended things but you broke my mind and I love you for how skillfully you did that. I can only describe the pain as creative and generative in nature. It distorted my reality. It was one of the many ways you showed me your power which seemed to not have come from Earth. We would get together every now and then for years and years after that. I would run my fingers over the raised part of the tattoo on your back. The ink reacted strangely to your skin and created an unforgettable texture that I loved to touch. I would note your body temperature, still cold dry in the mid-August heat.. The last time I started coming over again after a year of no contact I watched as you began to fall in love with someone from work in a deliberate way that reminded me nothing of the way it was for us. Over the last 3 years I had become alcoholic and you couldn’t go five minutes without smoking weed. I have a profound respect for you even now. I’m so grateful for the way we were able to witness one another. The mental illness, mania and gravity of our shortcomings - out in the open with room to breathe, basking in their ugly glory. The way we refused to look away from one another. I can feel you still, out on your deck in the winter, snow muffling the sounds of the half frozen river in the backyard of the house that you share with him. You send me signs from the ether letting me know you are okay, that you are thinking of me - that you believe in me and I should keep going. That I should continue showing others the parts of myself that you loved and cherished so much - and I do.”

Artwork by Annette Nedilenka :)

Dear J, I have written several versions of this letter. There has been the heartbroken letter, the angry letter, the ‘please can we make this work’ letter, the forgiveness letter, the ‘you are the love of my life’ letter. Now, I am writing the acceptance letter. I am grateful for this new-found acceptance in knowing that no matter what I did, no matter how much I showed up with everything I had, nothing could have saved us. Over the last few months, I have come to realize that I have played such a huge part in my own pain. My inability to let you go was at the core of my re-traumatization. Understanding that you are the perpetrator of your own pain is a hart pill to swallow. The thing that nobody tells you about letting go is that you will have to repeat this action, consciously, every single day. I still wake up every day having to let go of you and all the unrealized dreams I had for our life together. After 20 months without each other, some mornings I lay gutted with tears in my eyes while others I sigh with relief- feeling lighter than ever before as I wrap my own arms around myself for a hug. It just hit me yesterday that what happened to us was truly devastating, the kind of shit you do not wish on anyone. You and I are the only two people who know what this unique pain feels like that traces our five years together. The thing about devastation from betrayal is that you slowly begin to question the capacity of others. Does my love look the same as your love? Can you love me the way I need to be loved? Necessary questions. Today, I can see that this pain has acted as a catalyst, prompting me to seek out the healing that I need to invite whole love into my life. Now I can see that perhaps it was less about being broken hearted and more about being broken open to truly understand the type of love that I both desire and deserve. My eyes are now wide open to the fact that the love we find is the love that meets us where we are at that given time. Your love met me during a time that I was fragmented. My father, the strongest man I knew, was losing an ugly battle to a degenerative disease and you were a place that I

found warm, cozy cocoon-type love. You loved me in a way that I had never been loved before. This level of love was only one that could come from someone who had completely abandoned themselves. One our therapist would later call unhealthy and unsustainable. This was entirely mutual, both of us leaving our broken selves in search of external validation and admiration. The fact is, you loved me so much that it showed me that it was possible to love myself that much. Ironically, the love you taught me to have for myself was the same love that gave me the strength to leave you, our dog and the home and life we built together. So today I decide to accept that I will never find a love like this again. A love that kept me up at night, made my stomach do back-flips for 5 years straight and one that held all the pieces of me together when I could not see the light. Thank you for this beautiful assignment, which was disguised as a complex, once in a lifetime kind of love. The place I find love next will meet me where I am now: assured, aware, and no longer codependent. I am not looking for the type of love we had ever again. - Toronto, Canada

“Circles” by Zeusandhera is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

After more than two years of being with him (off and on) there was that moment when I realized his love was never about me. After five days of anxiety, as he required some space after a “crisis” (likely to use), he returned and, standing in my kitchen, looked around and stated, “This doesn’t feel like my home.” I replied, “It’s not your home”. A wave of grief hit me as I realized he was looking or referring to me when said the word home. I stumbled across a meme on Facebook that was validating of this moment and of my relationship: “Nobody falls in love faster than a narcissist who needs somewhere to live”. It was officially in that moment that I surrendered to an ending of this relationship. Honestly, the signs were always there but I chose to ignore them in the hope that someday I would be the one he would choose to walk with. Previously to this final breakup there was a first a breakup and I plotted how to get him back and he did (obviously still desiring a housing upgrade). To recover from this I embraced and utilized my 12-step healing community and also read a book called “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. From this book, one of the agreements “Don’t take things personally” was very helpful. As a narcissist magnet, other literature on letting go recommended no contact. So I requested no contact from him and he has honoured this request (I’ve deleted and blocked him on social media). I’ve had to approach this relationship as an addiction that defines me or at least I am heavily reliant upon for my identity and sense of wellbeing. No contact to avoid the relapse and narcissists entrapments which I am vulnerable to. I am very grateful to have met and loved this man. I am grateful that his soul opened my heart up after more than a decade of isolation and addiction, and the gift of love and hurt this relationship has afforded me. My healing was not pretty at times, as I moved through and seethed with anger and hurt, but it has gotten me to a place of more equanimity. He, like myself, was a product of intergenerational trauma and he, like myself, was

a good person worthy of love. Today I do feel more cautious and careful about my heart. I do value being single and work continuously to remain connected to myself, others, the earth and the universe in a loving way as best as I can do. - Toronto, Canada

Dear Sweets, When I dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow and we crossed paths on the dance floor, as I pulled out my compass and tried the line of “this compass points to what your heart desires most” and pointed it at you, your smile, the way your eyes chinked up, you had my heart. Such good times went by as we got to know each other’s friendship. You started to mean the world to me. It was me first who fell. Then I had an opportunity to change my life, to move overseas for a bit to grow. We were close at that time. Not as close as when I came back home to visit. I left and did my thing, designed and built houses like in my childhood on Sims. We kept in touch, I picked flowers for you and snapped them to you every Monday... Flower Monday’s. Then I came back to visit for a few months, I took you to the All-Star game and we went on our first vacation together to Cuba. We grew so close. The type of close that comes all of a sudden and deep but also grows with time. I could feel your walls come down. The day came where I had to go back one more time, so that when I came back we could have a place of our own, and I wouldn’t have to sneak you in and out of my parents house because of culture. I wanted a place of our own. I left and you cried. I wish you didn’t blame me for leaving. I wish you understood that I did it so I could have enough to have a place of our own. You chose to give in to happiness in another in my absence. And the moment I found out, I wrapped my life up over seas and came back as soon as I could to preserve our bond and come back to you. The extra money wasn’t worth it. I came back but you had already made up your mind. I tried hard, but I saw that you didn’t see the reasons behind me going back

one more time, you didn’t believe in me, you didn’t see that I did it so we could have our own home of comfort, a chill spot, a home. You didn’t see that I came back for you. It took me so long to figure that out. My world felt like it collapsed. I tried again and again with you but... it was too late, you didn’t want my companionship and teammate-worthiness any more. You filled your pain with the happiness provided by another. I went rogue for a bit, partied like I never had for days, weeks, months. I’d like you to know I never left to hurt you and make you feel the emptiness that I left you in. I’d like you to know that your smiles are what mattered to me the most. I’d like you to know that I was so angry at you for giving up on me! So furious! That I did damage to myself mentally and in health. But, I never gave up on myself and did what I had to do to go on. I’m proud of every life step I made before you, with you, and after you. Because after it all, the journey, and the feelings, I believed in my-self and us, and came back across the world to preserve. I tried and I’m happy I did. Even if it didn’t work. Forever a part of my story of who I am today. I forgive you for giving up on me and for not understanding me. Truly, A Stronger Man

THE GOOD NEWS if you’ve reviewed the previous pages, you’ve probably gathered that relationships are really hard. but... the good news is that: 1. you can avoid unhealthy relationships. 2. you can learn process through relationship grief in a healthy way. 3. resources are available to help you do that! we don’t learn a lot about having healthy relationships and identifying unhealthy ones when we grow up, so some resources i’ve found helpful follow. i’ve also included information on coping with relationship grief, and the thoughts and feelings that come with it. on the other hand, you may not have related to the previous submissions and they may have even made you uncomfortable. there are resources available for you. quick reminder that while i am someone who has mourned a lot of relationships and works within the mental health sector, i’m not a clinical professional. if you’re really struggling and especially if you’re at risk of harming yourself or others, consider accessing a crisis service like one of these:

CAMH 416 535 8501 Crisis Services Canada crisisservicescanada.ca Distress & Crisis Ontario dcontario.org Gerstein Crisis Line 416 929 5200 Distress Centres of Greater Toronto Hotline 416 408 4357 Progress Place Warmline 416 960 9276

healthy relationhsips

Healthy relationships are ones in which both people are: • Communicating about their feelings • Receptive to the other person’s feelings • Respectful, despite differences • Trusting • Honest • Equal • Independent • Making choices together

unhealthy relationships

A relationship may be unhealthy if at least one person is: • Not communicating about feelings • Not open to hearing about the other person’s feelings • Disrespectful • Not trusting • Dishonest • Trying to take control • Codependent (only spending time together) • Pressured into activities

abusive relationships

A relationship may be abusive if at least one person is: • Communicating in a hurtful/threatening way • Mistreating or belittling • Accusing the other of things that aren’t true • Ignoring the other person’s wants or needs • Controlling • Denying that their actions are abusive • Isolating the other person from others • Violent

37 https://www.loveisrespect.org/healthy-relationships/relationship-spectrum/ https://www.colorado.edu/ova/healthy-unhealthy-and-abusive-relationships “Marble woman” by Valerie Everett is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

coping with grief kim maertz, from the University of Alberta’s Mental Health Centre, developed a bunch of strategies to help people move through the grieving process and heal in a healthy way. his are specific to break-ups so I’ve modified them to apply to all different kinds of relationships: 1. don’t fight or ignore or suppress your feelings. observe them feelings and allow yourself to experience them. i’ve included some strategies for learning to do this under the section on “distress tolerance”, below. 2. openly discuss your feelings with supportive friends and family members. 3. write out your thoughts and feelings. i’ve included, in the section on “cognitive distortions”, a strategy that i use to work through really painful thoughts. 4. understand that relationships end. 5. don’t personalize loss. it’s nobody’s fault and is usually the result of conflicting needs and incompatibilities. 6. prioritize self-care. eat, sleep, exercise, yaddah yaddah. 7. get into a routine - it can help calm you down and feel in control. 8. treat yo self ! order ubereats or some stuff online and don’t even feel bad about it. 9. cut yourself some slack and maybe even lighten your load for a while.

10. don’t overgeneralize. you will find people who are trustworthy and who can meet your needs. 11. give up on reuniting. it’s not healthy. 12. resist the urge to contact the person. 13. avoid unhealthy coping strategies, like drinking too much or having risky sex that you won’t feel good about after. 14. think about the person’s shortcomings and why you don’t want to have a relationship with them anymore. 15. don’t get revenge. the best revenge is just to glow up and slay and build up your self-esteem. 16. pay attention to the lessons and what you learned about relationships. relationships break us apart and ask us to put ourselves back together. we can learn a lot about ourselves and others in the process. 17. think about the benefits of not having the person in your life. 18. perform a closure ritual. 19. remember that you were fine before you met them. 20. build new relationships!

https://www.mcgill.ca/counselling/files/counselling/surviving_a_break-up_-_20_strategies_0.pdf

difficult feelings number 1 above is really hard. being able to tolerate the emotions that come with heartbreak rather than getting swept away by them is a lifetime journey - in therapeutic terms this is called “distress tolerance”. the Centre for Clinical Interventions in australia has a really neat workbook on tolerating distress. an overview of their strategies is provided here.

understanding distress basically, tolerating distress means first recognizing that it serves a purpose in our lives. panic and fear tells us that a situation isn’t safe for us. anger tells us our boundaries were pushed or we didn’t feel respected. sadness, unfortunately, is the flip side of contentment

observing distress next, when distress arises, we can do things like: • observe our emotions - see how they change in intensity and evolve over time, through mindfulness. • label and describe them. • get curious about them and explore them. • use imagery to adopt the perspective of the detached observer of our emotions. i have two favourites: one, i like to picture myself standing at the top of a mountain range, and my thoughts and feelings are swirling around in the valley. i try to label them as they go by, but i let them pass. two, my emotions are a wave in an ocean, and i am surfing them. i just have to stay with it until the wave crests. tolerating distress takes practice. there are lots of meditations available on apps like insight timer and calm. i like the ones on the McGill student services website and on Tara Brach’s website.

the workbook also includes a script that you can use to develop your own meditation and record it in your voice. i did it and found it a bit weird and not that soothing, but it might work for you.

improving distress once you’ve tolerated the distress, the next step is improving it through either activation or soothing strategies. here are some examples of each: activation strategies exercise clean garden cook hang out with friends watch tv arts & crafts

soothing strategies take a bath eat something paint your nails journal get a massage read go to the park

distress tolerance plan the workbook also has a really neat template where you can develop a distress tolerance action plan - essentially a little personal guide for what to do if you’re having a really hard time.

“Sarah’s marbling” by scrappy annie is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

difficult thoughts behind painful feelings are often painful thoughts. sometimes, when relationships end, we make another person’s behaviour about ourselves, or otherwise warp a situation to fit with our beliefs about ourselves or the world. these are called “cognitive distortions”: thought patterns which are irrational and tend to be exaggerated, like the idea that you will never be treated well or will not find love. one of the first steps for managing cognitive distortions is identifying them. there are a bunch of common types, including: • • • • • • •

all-or-nothing thinking over-generalizing looking at things through a negative mental filter jumping to conclusions or making assumptions magnifying or minimizing things personalization labeling

when you’ve identified cognitive distortions, the next step is reframing things. i use the table on the next page to reframe things. what you do is: • • • •

write down your thought and how it makes you feel. write down the evidence for the thought. write down the evidence against the thought. write down a more balanced, alternative thought.

the next page provides you with a template to do that - practice working through an irrational thought pattern you are having, and develop a healthier thought that may help you move in the direction of acceptance.

“Sarah’s marbling” by scrappy annie is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

“i catch myself thinking that...”

thought:

“makes me feel sad (50%) and angry (70%)....”

feelings:

“evidence it’s true...”

facts for:

“evidence it’s false...”

facts against:

“it’s more likely that...:

alternative thought:

get some help... therapy is expensive af but here are some short-term counselling resources available in the GTA (all either completely or partially covered by OHIP): • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The 519 for LGBTQ2S+ folx. Alternatives East York Mental Health Counselling Agency. Barbra Schifler Clinic. Brief Psychotherapy Centre for Women. COSTI Immigrant Services. Davenport-Perth Community Health Centre. East End Community Health Centre. Family Service Toronto. Four Villages Community Health Centre. Hong Fook Mental Health Assocation. OISE at UofT Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre. Regent Park Community Health Centre. South Riverdale Community Health Centre. Stella’s Place. Unison Health & Community Services. Women’s Health in Women’s Hands. Arab Community Centre of Toronto. Bangladeshi–Canadian Community Services. Centre Francophone de Toronto Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples: Agincourt Community Services Association (addictions) John Howard Society (addictions) Just For Today Services (addictions)

this CAMH info sheet provides more information on their eligibility criteria.

... the end :) this zine was put together by hannah nicole ross (h.nicole.ross@gmail. com) but was made possible by it’s contributors who led the way with their courage and vulnerability. i related to something from each and every one of your letters and was impressed by your honesty and eloquence. thank you for trusting me with them. thanks also to my friends hugh mater and annette nedilenka for their art, and anna viksne for the editing support :) if you liked the zine, please email me and let me know! you can even email me if you didn’t like the zine - i’m open to constructive criticism. i’m thinking about doing future issues on other topics (e.g. marginalization, ecstacy, shame) - please send me any topics you would like to hear about or let me know if you’d like to contribute to future issues. btw i plagiarized the photo on the front cover (sorry), i found it here: https://www.suchtv.pk/health/item/72927-mass-hysteria-an-epidemic-ofthe-mind.html

“panic” by nate steiner is marked with CC0 1.0