Breakups suck. There are so many different types of romantic breakups that we deal with; from the nasty one that still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, to the one that never gave you closure. And they all suck. There is never one that doesn’t. Even if you went through one of those “mutual” ones, they all hurt for at least a little while after. But, the breakups that are the absolute worst, even worse than the romantic ones, are the breakups you have with best friends. With romantic breakups, they hurt like hell for a while after, but you have your people around you to help you through it. Your family, your friends, your best friend are all there for you to help you through the hurting. And after a while, you don’t hurt as much anymore. And you start to feel like you’re you again. And when you’re ready, you go out and put yourself back out there again.

Best friend breakups are not like that.

Not all best friend breakups happen the same. Sometimes you guys just grow apart and the feeling is mutual, and sometimes there is a huge fight or falling out that you guys can’t recover from. Whichever way it happened, it still sucks. Your person is no longer your person. That friend that you went to for everything, especially this kind of stuff, is no longer there for you; she is the reason you’re going through this. It isn’t as easy to stop hurting and feel like yourself again. Every time you hear a certain song, or go to a certain place, you are reminded of them and the memories you guys made together. It isn’t as easy to put yourself out there again because you think there is no one you can meet that will be able to replace your best friend. But what I want to say is that there is someone that can replace the role of your best friend and that person is YOU.

When you break up with your best friend, you no longer have that one person that you could go to for everything. You don’t have the luxury of someone that is always there to listen to your problems and give advice, laugh at your funny stories, or be happy with you. You have to be that person for yourself.You have to comfort yourself when you’re upset and tell yourself that everything will be alright. You have to find the humor in situations and laugh about them to yourself. You have to be happy for yourself. Breaking up with a best friend, because of whatever reason, sucks. But it also can help you become your own self-reliant and self-loving best friend. You can become a person that is not known as “*ex- best friend's name*’s best friend”; you can become a person that is known as you. You can learn to become dependent on yourself, and you can learn how important is it to be your own best friend, biggest fan, and number one supporter. When you are your own best friend, you are able to recognize that your own happiness is not reliant on anyone but you; and that enables you to grow as an individual. You are able to think about yourself first and learn that the first and only person that you should answer to is yourself. When you are your own biggest fan, you learn how important self-love can be. Once you are happy with yourself, you can allow other people into your life that just add to your happiness. And when you are your own number one supporter, you trust yourself and the decisions you make for yourself so much more passionately. You stand behind what you believe in and in your words and actions, and that confidence is key. When you don't have someone else there for you doing all of these things, you learn how valuable they are to your well being and how important it is that you are the person in charge of your own well-being.

So ultimately, it might suck going through a break up with your best friend at first. But when you look back on the situation, you’re going to be grateful that you did. You are going to thank your ex-best friend for going through a break up with you, a break up that allowed you to learn so many important things about yourself and about the type of people you want to surround yourself with. So with that, I say thank you to all my ex-best friends whose friendship I have been lucky to have because without them, I never would have become the person I am today. And I have to say, I am pretty awesome.