Sobs that make your whole body shudder, days spent curled up in bed, and that invisible weight that presses down on your chest: it’s heartbreak. We’ve all experienced it. Some more than others. Greg Chociej is one of those individuals. However, Greg’s first taste of heartbreak was different than most.
As a teenager, Greg lost both his mom and dad to cancer. An experience he says he’s still trying to understand. A few years later, Greg had his heart broken again. This time, the more traditional way, through the ending of a relationship. What he noticed was that both losses felt similar. Yet, the response from those around him was different.
For his parents, he was given time and space to grieve. People hugged him, supported him. There were counsellors and therapists available. But with the ending of his relationship, the only balm offered was drinking with friends, hooking up with someone new, getting over it.
“I went through a crappy breakup, and I remember thinking, Just get me out of the city, get me to a lake with a therapist and let me work on this,” he says.
When Greg looked into it, he couldn’t find much support for people going through breakups or divorces. Yet, research shows that these types of incidents can have a major impact on mental health. A paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that divorced and separated men were 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide as compared to their married counterparts. And a Swedish study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that of their participants, the rate of drug abuse among married couples was 0.38 per cent, while it jumped to 1.66 per cent among divorced individuals.
Medical professionals even have a condition known as broken heart syndrome, triggered by stress and extreme emotions. And in the U.S., it’s the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) that collects national statistics on divorce.
All of this led Greg to believe he needed to do something to create a support system for the heartbroken. That’s why he founded Camp Heartbreak, a therapeutic space for adults dealing with relationship loss.
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This spring will be Camp Heartbreak’s official debut. Greg has partnered with Can-Aqua, a summer camp 20 minutes from Bancroft. He chose Can-Aqua because he felt it was necessary to disconnect from city life and immerse campers in nature to help the healing process.
Plus, Can-Aqua offered a healthy dose of nostalgia for his own summer camp experiences. One of the first times Greg visited Can-Aqua, he heard a lunch bell ring. “I was 16 years old again, and I was just so at peace,” he says.
The camp will be offered over five sessions: May 22 to 26, May 29 to June 2, September 25 to 30, October 1 to 6, and October 8 to 13.
Each session involves four days of programming, which includes seminars on emotional growth and renewed confidence; guided activities, such as art therapy and lakeside journaling; and a various camp activities, such as swimming, canoeing, archery, mountain biking, wood working, beach volleyball, and more. The camp takes full advantage of Can-Aqua’s 160 acres of land and private lake.
The therapeutic sessions are led by The Next Chapter, a group therapy program designed to support individuals navigating the emotional upheaval of breakups, divorce, and separation. The Next Chapter was co-created by divorce specialist Jennifer Donnison and psychotherapist Ellen Feldman. They’ll be joined at the camp by mindfulness coaches and wellness experts.
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“Our days are spread out like a normal kids’ camp. You have two sessions in the morning, two sessions in the afternoon. It’s split into 50 per cent camp stuff and 50 per cent therapy,” says Greg. “And then the evenings are just fun activities. It’s meant to be set up in a way that you have enough time to reflect.”
He adds that the schedule isn’t prescriptive. If campers want to take an afternoon to themselves, they’re welcome to.
Between 50 to 100 people will participate in each session. They’ll sleep together in cabins, just like summer camp, and share meals three times a day prepared by a professional chef. “Through all the consultations we’ve had, we figured out that if you’re coming to something like this, community is such a big part of it,” says Greg.
At its current early bird rate, a four-night session at Camp Heartbreak will cost $1,298. That includes food, accommodation, and all of the camp’s activities.
Greg says he can’t promise that Camp Heartbreak will fully mend a broken heart, but if he had to put a number on it, he’d like people to come away from the sessions feeling at least 25 per cent better. “I can’t get you all the way,” he says, “but I know with what we’ve built and the tangible skills you’ll earn and learn here that you can walk out of this significantly ahead.”
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