London - The relationship is over, but you can't let go? Here are nine ways to move on:
1. Unfollow. Sever all social media connections to your addiction immediately and permanently. Do you really want to know how much fun your heart's desire is having without you?
2. Go cold turkey. In fact, go to Turkey. Get away for as long as you can manage to a place that has no connection with your addiction.
3. Bag and burn. Get rid of everything associated with your addiction. Ritualistic burning of letters can be accompanied by incantations of self-empowerment or plain fury.
4. Make a break-up mix tape. Listen to it incessantly. Cry, rage, wallow. Then discover you're ready for some new music.
5. Get busy. Stupidly busy. Take on extra projects at work and turn your evenings and weekends into a social frenzy. Leave not one inch of head space for your addiction.
6. Reality check. If your addiction is more fantasy than tried-and-tested, 'fess up. Tell the object of your desire how you feel. If you're deluding yourself, this damp dollop of reality will wake you up fast. If your feelings are secretly reciprocated - game on.
7. Indulge yourself: a new pair of shoes, a day at the spa, a box of your favourite chocolates (but only one). Be kind to yourself.
8. Displacement. Pour your anguish and obsessive thoughts into something creative: a short story, a painting, a loaf of artisan bread, a poem. See your current state of mind as material and be curious where the material will take you.
9. Move on. The only failsafe way to get over a love addiction is to find a new love addiction. Start internet dating, flirt with anything in trousers/skirt/clothes/no clothes, and remind yourself how many other opportunities there are to desire and be desired.
* Tara Guha is the author of the novel Untouchable Things.
Female First