One died in a car crash and another in a fire: My agony of TWO ex-boyfriends dying in four months

But I know the true horror of an ex dying – because it's happened to me twice.

As Ariana Grande paid tribute to her ex Mac Miller over the weekend, it brought it all back up for me.

In 2015, aged 25, I'd only ever had two previous boyfriends and they both died in tragic accidents in quick succession.

Martin, who I'd dated from the age of 14-18, died in a car crash that July, aged just 27.

Just as I was trying to come to terms with Martin's death, my former boyfriend Tom, who I was with from the start of uni at 19 until I moved to London aged 22, was killed in a bush fire in Australia in November. He was just 31.

Both were a shock, both were utterly tragic, and both had a bigger impact on me than I ever imagined.

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In the middle of this – a month after Martin's death and two months before Tom's – one of my best friends, Lou, was told the cancer she'd been battling for four years was terminal. She had six months to live.

Being an internet-dependant millennial and totally unable to cope with the tsunami of emotion of losing so many important people in such a small amount of time, I took to Google for answers.

It turns out there's not much written on how to cope when your ex boyfriend dies, let alone when two do.

As I'm sure Ariana Grande will be finding out now, it doesn't matter where someone fits into your life –  whether it's past or present – grief can hit everyone in all kinds of ways.

Killed in a car crash, perished in a fire

I was at work when I found out about Martin's death.

An old school friend posted a picture of him captioned "RIP" on Facebook one Thursday morning.

It was the most bizarre feeling I've ever had. Someone I'd been so close to for so long had suddenly gone and I couldn't work out if I was entitled to grieve.

Then, four months later, I received a call from Tom's mum and she asked me if I was sitting down before continuing.

She'd been called by the Australian authorities who informed her Tom had been trying to escape a wildfire with two other backpackers when 140mph winds had suddenly blown the flames in the opposite direction – towards them – and they perished in their getaway van.

After the initial shock had passed, I became obsessed with Googling both of them.

Martin's death was reported by a local newspaper, but Tom's death was an international news story and every time I refreshed Google News there were more details about what had happened to him.

I became obsessed with it, I needed to know everything – but given the horrendous circumstances in which he died, my quest for information tortured me.

The break up: Take two

Tom and I had broken up three years before his death, when I refused to move to Australia with him – but we were still on good terms and spoke often.

He'd flown back to England a year earlier and asked if there was any chance of us getting back together and I said no.

I thought I'd moved on, I didn't want to go backwards. But I still thought about him frequently and part of me thought there was a chance we might get back together one day.

In the days following his death, I went through what I can only describe as the most painful break up I've ever experienced.

Not only was I trying to cope with the immense sadness of what had happened – and my violent, vivid imagination running away with images of how he'd died – his death was so final.

I think whenever someone breaks up with a partner, a part of us thinks there's always a chance of reconciliation. This now could now never happen and there were so many unfinished threads and regrets.

I flew to LA the next day to visit a friend and cried so much at passport control that the air stewards almost refused to let me board.

Haunted every day

I spent the next few weeks in a daze.

What I struggled with most was that I felt like there was no one to validate any of my experiences – or who I was – anymore.

All in all, I'd spent eight years of my life with Tom and Martin and now they were both gone, I struggled to believe the things we'd done together actually happened.

Suddenly everything looked different. My face looked unfamiliar in the mirror, the grass felt different under my feet.

I went to Martin's funeral back in my hometown, Lancaster.

Seeing faces I hadn't seen for years and reminiscing about our crazy teenage expeditions was a kind of therapy.

Tom's body was so badly burned that he had to be identified by his dental records, and it took months.

His mum told me how when they'd visited his room in Australia he had drawings of me on the walls and books full of poetry and songs he'd written about wanting us to get back together.

The guilt I have from that still haunts me every day.

Tears and the city

Back in London, I tried to get on with normal life.

But it would only take a song, the mention of a film, or – if i'm honest – one glass of wine on a night out for me to turn into a trembling wreck.

I've lost count of the amount of times I sat on buses, tubes and walked aimlessly through the city in tears.

Months passed and I felt no better. It started to feel like I was being ridiculous. Other people had much bigger problems.

Lou was dying, and I was no use. She comforted me in ways she could, but I should have been there for her.

Antidepressants to take the edge off

I went to see my GP and was offered six weeks of grief counselling on the NHS.

I think it helped a bit – but if I'm honest it made me feel a whole lot worse before I felt better.

It made me realise there were huge cracks in my current relationship. My boyfriend at the time told me he didn't want to ever get married or have kids – and I plummeted into a bad place.

I needed to know I wasn't going to lose anybody else and have my life set up so nothing else could go wrong.

We broke up and my doctor gave me antidepressants which took the edge off in a way that enabled me to cope with day to day tasks.

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'The boyfriend killer'

A few months on I started dating someone new.

I felt the need to tell him what had happened – which turned out to be a really bad idea when one night he introduced me to his friends as 'the boyfriend killer.'

That ended quickly and I tried to get back to focusing on me.

But I really felt like I'd lost Jess Wilson somewhere back in 2015.

In January this year, two and a half years after her terminal diagnosis, Lou took her last breath and her long fight with breast cancer was over.

I was glad she was out of pain – but I wished I'd been able to be there more for her in her final weeks.

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Losing so many people who had been so important to me in such a short space of time left me feeling hopeless.

Defined by their deaths

It's now seven months since she died, and in that time I've managed to get more of a grasp on mortality.

People lose people every day and I've learned that the world – and life – does go on, even though it feels unimaginable to the people grieving.

In my 28 years, I've been to 10 funerals – more than I have weddings or christenings.

I hope that balance flips in the next few years.

It sometimes feels like the deaths I've experienced define me – but that's a feeling I need to drop.

Young people believe they will live forever, you don't

At Martin's inquest, the coroner said: “Young people believe they will live forever, you don’t."

I thought when I started writing this I'd be able to offer anyone else in the same situation some form of advice or relief.

But actually, I don't know how you deal with death as a young person. I don't think anyone does.

If there was a checklist of things to do to get through it, that would be great.

For me, all I could do was live through it, talking about it when I could and let myself lose it or take a mental health day if I needed to.

And now some time has passed the memories I had are starting to feel real again.

And grief affects different people in different ways – but everyone is important no matter where they fit into your life.

Sadly, it's sometimes only when we lose them we realise it.

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