You just have to keep doing things to take your mind off of it. At the moment you aren't going to enjoy them. But if you keep doing it, eventually you'll smile for a minute, then two minutes and eventually you'll forget about her for the whole time and will enjoy yourself. You need to build yourself a new life without her in it, new experiences, new memories.
Nobody expects you to forget about her and move on in a matter of days, but you can definitely help yourself. Asking your Mum to show you photos is just utterly stupid though, it has no benefit except to hurt you. Try to remember that next time you want to ask. No good can come from it AT ALL.
(I am being blunt with my words, but honestly you have my total sympathy - I'm using the tough love approach).
Not blunt - telling me what I need to know thank you.
I know what you're going through @Jonnybmac - essentially where you are now is where I was a couple of years ago. It hurts, but it's not like any physical pain you've ever had.
ci_newman's post (quoted) is exactly right. It's critical that you deliberately do things that a) take your mind off your situation and b) if possible, for those things to be unconnected with activities you may have once done with your ex. Keep contact to an absolute minimum, or avoid it altogether if possible - I wasn't able to do this as much as I'd have liked, as we had to discuss what was happening with our jointly-owned house.
Reconnect with your family and friends. It's easy for these to take a back seat when you enthusiastically throw yourself into a flourishing relationship - I learnt recently that my own family always felt they were playing the proverbial 'second fiddle' to my wife's family ... that really hurt to find that out, as it wasn't intentional.
Use your time to explore new hobbies - in my case, going to the gym did wonders for my confidence and gave an outlet for the anger and frustration I was feeling. One of my family members still tells me to this day that it "saved your life", which when I thought about it, wasn't such an exaggeration. I'm now also taking up music again - I say 'again' as it was nearly 30 years ago that I last dabbled with writing my own.
What you are feeling is 100% natural and don't beat yourself up about it. If you feel the need to cry, don't feel ashamed about it - scream the bloody house down if it helps ... point is, don't bottle anything up, find a way of letting it out.
This last point might be a little contentious in light of the ill-judged rant I posted the other day (posted in anger and which I regret), but don't ever feel like less of a person because you haven't got a girlfriend - I don't know how old you are, but I'll assume between 20-30 for the sake of argument - there is so much more to life. The relationship of mine that ended a couple of years ago began when I was in my early 20s and with hindsight, it stopped me doing a lot of the mad stuff that most people do at that age. Hell, I only smoked weed for the first time last summer at the age of 49.
I'll be honest, at the age of 50 I've become so cynical about the whole relationships thing, I'm pretty close to being full-on MGTOW - please don't follow that example.
Yeah I'm trying - just a bit raw this at the moment. It's funny relationships, one minute you are at peak high and the next it all falls to pieces and that one person you thought you knew everything about becomes a stranger you can no longer talk to.
I would like to think I don't change, what you see is what you get. I don't hold grudges either as life is too short. That I think was one of the reasons I thought about messaging her to tell her how I felt... for the time we were together and for how I thought I knew her, so she could understand and we could have talked it out like adults and former lovers that despite everything there was love. Does that achieve anything? No. We would still be distant people as it just didn't work despite how much I, or we wanted maybe. It would be easy if I could hate her but she wasn't a bad person, we just clashed too much. I'm living in this false bubble that all of this is out of character and essentially she hasn't gone out of her way intentionally to hurt me. Who knows, she probably has. Maybe she was hurt at how I essentially ended it but for me I thought the feeling was mutual anyways. She may of already been out and me ending it was a blessing for her and she now feels liberated and can move on.
I need to give my head a shake I do know that.