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The Ex-orcist
In any post-breakup situation, you should rely on your friends to give you a reality check. Not only are they the First Responders when the split goes down, but they will also be there in a month, next summer, and years from now. It's always smart to keep your Scoobies close and it always pays to be a good friend to as many people you can. You never know when you might need a small army to fight off something undead. Your friends will give you perspective, sometimes long after the fact, that you couldn't have had yourself. They may have seen things more clearly at the time, and they will naturally have a) more distance from the scene of the crime and b) your own best interests at heart. You might even find out that they never really liked your ex anyway, which can be oddly reassuring, in a confusing sort of way; go with it. Likewise, your friends will keep you out of the solitary ruts where the demon exes like to dwell. They're the ones who will hop in the car on a moment's notice and drive three hours to go do a diner. They'll be the ones to smack you in the head when your wouldacouldashoulda CD is skipping. And sometimes, if they've done some damage of their own back in the day, they can help you realize that your ex isn't necessarily cackling with glee about what happened (however it may feel). Recall how in horror movies the starlet always thinks she hears something, turns her head to look at the door/trunk/cave and her friend says, "What?" and the starlet says "Oh, nothing. It's probably nothing." This is the dumbest thing she could do, of course, and it usually leads to the makeup artists having lots of fun with fake gore. In real life, your life, you have to tell your friends what you heard, or saw, or thought you saw. Check in, stay connected, don't keep it to yourself. Your friends will help you make sure your demons have nowhere to hide.
Of course, you're the only person who actually lives in your own head, and your demon ex isn't coming for your friends. You may find that, like any horror plot worth its denouement, you eventually end up all alone. Here's where the power of you imagination will save you. Because if your mind is playing tricks on you, it's totally fair to fight back. If you're going to have a demon ex following you around, wouldn't it be handy to have something even more powerful backing you up? If you can imagine that these bad memories are caused by some noxious entity hovering right outside your peripheral vision, you are equally free to imagine that you have a monster of your own, one that feels great affection for you and positively hates anything that torments you. It sounds absurd, perhaps, but many religions have a tradition of visualizing angry, monstrous deities who act as our protectors, wrathfully destroying the causes of our suffering. Neat, huh? So why not dream up a protector? Ten feet tall, bright red, sixteen legs, tattoos? Sure, why not? Giant lizard on a leash? No problem. Then whenever you find you are being picked on by your demon ex, just sic your new best friend on the bad memories. A few quick, messy bites, and you're good as new. As silly as it sounds, it's actually an effective technique for changing your patterns of thought, keeping you from dwelling on painful memories (or worse, inventing conversations you never even had). And in fact, it works best when you infuse some real humor into your fantasies. In "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the students tackle a boggart, a shape-shifting ghost that becomes whatever its prey fears most. Sound familiar? The boggart is vulnerable only to one spell, ridicule. Turning it into something that makes you laugh immediately transforms it from something powerful into something pitiful. Like the boggart, the thing your demon ex fears most is losing control over you. Mockery, properly cultivated and applied -- in your imagination, not out loud, please -- will erode your demons until they're cowering, mortified shades of their former selves. And while you're practicing hilarious and unpleasant imaginary ends for your demon ex at the hands of your new giant lizard, you can also think back on your real ex's foibles, the ones you generously ignored when you were together. You might recall that that she couldn't actually cook as well as she thought, that he picked his toes, that she really had quite unfortunate taste in clothes. Suddenly it's not your shortcomings that deserve all the attention. Call forth enough of these snarky memories and watch your demon ex morph from a howling banshee into a squeaky toy.
All these techniques are meant to dull the edge of unpleasant memories. But nothing can instantly solve the problem of long-lasting regret. As friends of BG know, it takes work, lots of it, and not the easy kind. When all your best tricks still leave you susceptible to the occasional rueful pang, well, that just proves you're human. From time to time we all have to face an unpleasant shock when we realize that things aren't quite as they seemed. We thought we knew someone, we had plans of one sort or another. Then, reality comes along and upturns your applecart (and then throws you off a bridge... and then walks off eating your apples). As irksome as it is, we eventually have to admit: this is how it goes for all of us. Even the smoochy couples at Valentine's dinner are in for a surprise, sooner or later. The trick to facing the cold, hard truth is to keep your wits about you as much as you can. That way, when you look back, you'll know you did the best you could. So what if you fell for someone who gave you the brushoff?! That doesn't make you a bad person; in fact, it means you look for the good in people, and find it (even in poor saps like your ex). So what if you can't quite shake the memories yet?! That just means that you live life deeply, and, as long as you keep moving forward, there's nothing wrong with that. Getting kicked around is just part of the human condition. But you know what? So is healing. We get hurt... we get better. It's kind of miraculous, even though it never goes as fast as we'd like. So if you're still being haunted by a demon from beyond grave, just grab some trusty friends, take back your holidays, reclaim your favorite dives, and know that time is on your side. Time... and a giant lizard.
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