I found with Mastodon I had to force myself to really give it a couple of goes to get how it worked. Initially it seemed like a ghost town, it’s definitely way harder to find interesting content at first especially if you’ve picked a general server. None of that, or really how the whole things works, is really explained to the user, but I’ve found the experience is getting a bit better.
It started clicking with me when I searched a few very specific hashtags and started following them and the people posting in them. Definitely a lot more work to find stuff on there though. If it’s got any chance of taking off, the onboarding process needs to be a lot easier, especially for users coming from Twitter, Instagram and others. The first impression leaves a lot to be desired.
Keep a daily diary, starting on the first day. Just write the day number since the breakup, and one word to describe your overall mood (I usually use Good, Bad and Meh). First few are going to be rough, but you’ll be surprised how quickly you start seeing a pattern of more good than bad. When you get 3 good days in a row, it’s time to stop keeping count. It’ll happen quicker than you think.