Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re fresh out of a breakup, deep in the despair and heartbreak phase, and without even realizing you've done it, your hand — as if possessed — reaches for your phone, unlocks it, goes to the photos app and begins scrolling... scrolling... scrolling. Before you know it, you've been looking at photos of you and your ex and crying for an hour, one hand flipping through photos, the other robotically moving foodstuffs into your face. Yeah, been there done that. I wasn't worried about pictures to avoid looking at after a breakup, but I should have been, because that little emotional torture tango did nothing but prolong my suffering.
Don't be like me. Set down the phone, unfriend your ex, and start the healing process. While you can’t block out their existence completely (if only, am I right?), there are some photos that you absolutely positively need to avoid if you want to give your poor wounded heart a break. Take it from someone who has spent plenty of time creeping on an ex’s social media and regretting every minute of it: Don’t do this. Instead, mute or delete your ex with extreme prejudice. And whatever you do, don't linger on any of these pictures in the process.
If you suddenly get the urge to start going back through your photos to that time you went on a tropical vacation with your ex, just don’t. That's basically like buying a one-way ticket to Heartbreak Town. Someday, you can look back at those photos fondly and remember all the funny, romantic things that happened, but that time is not freshly after a breakup. My advice: Take a vacation from your Instagram or anywhere else these may pop up unexpectedly.
There is no way looking at photos of you two snuggled up, faces pressed together, isn’t going to make you sad. If you can’t resist the urge to page back through them, delete them.
Sometimes, one of the hardest things about breakups is that you are often ending (at least temporarily) relationships with multiple people. This is especially hard if you’ve grown close to your ex’s parents — or if you thought, at one point, they may actually become your family, too. Your best bet is to steer clear of looking at family photos, whether you ex is in them or not.
If, like me, you love the holidays, looking at photos of happier times with your ex in matching Halloween costumes or by the Christmas tree is just going re-open your fresh wounds. So, steer clear of any festive photos until your heart can mend itself completely.
Were you and your ex high school sweethearts? If so, prom photos are off limits for a while, too. Feeling nostalgic for streamers and a DJ? Watch Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion instead.
Seriously? Do you need me to tell you this is a bad idea? Whether they are your wedding photos or just one that you attended together, say “I don’t” to looking at these.
In other words, stay off their social media! Resist the urge to creep, unless, of course, you want to prolong your misery. Alessandra Conti, celebrity matchmaker at Matchmakers In The City, told Elite Daily that “a random Snapchat can set a person who is recovering from a breakup back a month of emotional healing,” which is why she strongly suggests that that you “stop any potential regression before it begins by blocking your ex from your accounts.” So, go ahead and unfriend (or at least mute) them ASAP. It may hurt to do it in the moment, but the payoff is that the overall pain will end sooner — and, right now, isn’t that what you want most in the world?
Photos are wonderful things. They keep moments alive and help us remember special experiences — but they can also bring back a lot of pain. So, after a breakup, give yourself a little breather. Don't scroll through your photo history. If you can't resist, consider deleting all but the most important images. In this case, the best thing to do for your broken heart is to follow the old adage: Out of sight, out of mind.
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