Why do we suffer after a breakup?

07/08/20215 minutes read 515

One of the most popular topics in relationship psychology, as well as the most common question that interests almost every person at a certain period of life: how to survive a breakup? Everyone in this world dreams of true love, from which the heart skips a beat, about a strong family, about their soul mate, with whom, as in a fairy tale, “they lived happily ever after and died on the same day.”

Unfortunately, this rarely happens, especially in our time, when you can file for divorce without even leaving your home. Usually, before meeting your destiny, your betrothed has to meet very different personalities, who, by the way, are not always pleasant and friendly.

This is especially true for teenagers, when, due to lack of experience, a lot of mistakes are made, often under the influence of strong emotions and outbursts of feelings. In adulthood, people also make mistakes, so this topic will be interesting for any generation.

Different people behave differently when breaking up. Some learn the lesson and move on, realizing that life does not end there and everything is ahead, while others plunge into severe depression, in which they can live for many months and even years.

Quote Sometimes breaking up is no more difficult than returning a book to the library, and sometimes breaking up turns your whole life upside down.

Veronica Dranez

Why is it so bad?

It is necessary to understand how internal chemical processes occur. When a person falls in love, at the very beginning of the relationship, happiness hormones begin to be produced in his brain, namely oxytocin and dopamine. Literally, “wings grow” behind your back, “butterflies are fluttering” in your stomach, the lover is ready to move mountains, he is filled with a feeling of joy. When your other half is nearby, these hormones splash out into the blood in large quantities, the so-called reward system turns on and the person feels happy.

If you delve deeper into this topic, you can divide the process into several periods:

When lovers begin to meet, those same “wings behind your back” or “butterflies in your stomach” appear. The hormone Testosterone in men and Estrogen in women are responsible for this.
Dopamine is responsible for the desire to achieve a partner. He is responsible for the inner confidence in pleasure with a partner. At the stage of falling in love, Cortisol is produced, which puts a person in a state of stress. Then Adrenaline begins to be released, as a result of which there is a desire to “jump and gallop” at the sight of a favorite object, that same frantic heart rhythm, as if it is about to jump out of the chest.
When you fall in love, the level of Norepinephrine actively increases. It stores in memory all the stimuli associated with the loved one, according to scientific “imprinting”. The image of the passion will be imprinted in the brain, thereby making it difficult to easily survive the breakup in the future. At the same time, the level of the hormone Serotonin decreases, that is, obsessive thoughts about a dear and sweet object do not leave.
When a relationship develops in the right direction, everything is good and calm, the person feels emotional stability, and the partners produce Oxytocin. This process was conceived by nature so that the couple would be together and engage in procreation.

But something went wrong and the moment of separation came. The same system of rewards and feelings of happiness ceases to function. In its place, another protective system of the body is activated - the pain perception system, and stress hormones are produced. They, in turn, affect the entire body, the immune system, cardiovascular, digestive.

The brain receives many signals, and all these signals are the same as during physical pain, so the person feels very bad, although nothing hurts him. The phrase “Broken Heart” is not just a catchphrase, it can be explained theoretically. Serious pathological disorders in the functioning of the heart muscle under the influence of stress hormones. In the most severe and advanced cases, they can even lead to death.

Restoring emotional balance after separation occurs differently for everyone, it all depends on the type of nervous system, various circumstances accompanying separation, as well as the efforts and desires made by a person to start a new life.

Quote Depression after a breakup is not a disease! This is acclimatization in a new period of life.

Victor Sdoy

Treatment

The following methods are used:

Pharmacotherapy. Used for prolonged depression in advanced cases. Antidepressants such as sertraline, mirtazapine, and venlafaxine are recommended. Treatment is carried out under the supervision of a specialist for months or years.
Psychotherapy. Effective techniques include interpersonal, cognitive-behavioral, client-centered, and psychoanalysis.
Social therapy. Promotes the adaptation of a person suffering from depression through individual or discussion therapy and occupational therapy.

Electroconvulsive therapy. The method involves passing an electric current through the brain to produce mood-enhancing substances. The procedure requires anesthesia and drugs to relax the muscles.

If a person abuses alcohol during a period of prolonged depression, then he aggravates his condition. A visit to a psychologist may be required, and in special cases, hospitalization until complete recovery.

How to survive a breakup. Psychologist's advice

Everything passes, and this too will pass through King Solomon.

Even if at the moment you don’t understand at all how to live on, you are scared, broken and crushed, it is important to remember that this will not last forever. Sooner or later, the mental pain will pass, or at least dull. The main thing is not to give up, to move on. Life does not end with divorce or separation. There are still many joyful days, interesting endeavors and new happy relationships ahead.

Allow yourself to suffer and grieve. Yes, that's where you need to start. Give free rein to your emotions, cry, scream. Don't try to console yourself or be insincerely cheerful and pretend to be a superhero with an iron heart. Mourn for ended relationships, broken dreams and hopes, mourn them until the tears run out.
Strength and peace of mind, and with it the joy of life, will definitely return, it just takes time. Try to come to terms with the new state of affairs, with the changes in life. Look for energy without the love of your ex-partner and now rely only on yourself.
Stop blaming yourself. The breakup is both of them's fault. There is no need to look for who is more to blame and who is less. Responsibility for the relationship lies equally on the shoulders of the lovers. Moreover, what happened cannot be changed or corrected, which means the search for those to blame is at least pointless. Learn a lesson - Yes, blame yourself - No.
Don't try to get the relationship back. After the breakup of a long-term relationship, the fear of loneliness, ignorance and inability to live alone may come over you, and accordingly you will want to return everything as it was. Not worth it. It's definitely not worth it. Your relationship will never be the same, even if you manage to reunite. But as a rule, all attempts to renew the connection will only humiliate your own dignity, so do not succumb to the insidious feeling of fear and the flow of emotions.
Do not maintain any contact with your ex. At least at first. The prospect of remaining friends is too small, especially in the initial stages after a breakup, and it is unlikely that you really need it. Love under the guise of friendship will cause a lot of suffering, and it is possible to forget a person faster only by not maintaining any relationship at all. Therefore, “out of sight, out of mind.”
Remove and throw away everything related to past relationships. This applies to things, household items, photographs, etc. Get rid of anything that reminds you of your ex so that no trace remains. Unfollow on social networks, delete the music you liked to listen to together.
Ask your family and friends not to remind you or start conversations about the relationship. Do a general cleaning of your home, rearrange the furniture, buy new decor, update the space, you will immediately feel better.
Take care of your health: proper nutrition, a healthy lifestyle, sports and movement, walks in the fresh air. Keep yourself in good shape, take care of yourself externally and internally. You can change your image, hairstyle, clothing style. Clean out your entire wardrobe and throw away the junk. External changes will support your emotional mood, and you may feel better.
Support from others. Do not hesitate to ask your family and friends for help and do not refuse if they offer it. Communicate more with dear people, this will help get rid of difficult thoughts.
Find something you love to do, or finally do something you’ve been dreaming about for so long. Perhaps you have always wanted to go abroad, but there was no time, in which case, leave your doubts and go, or finally start drawing.
The choice of hobbies is now greater than ever, choose what you like and go ahead. Go deeper into your work if your hobby doesn’t work out, career growth has never stopped anyone, and increasing your knowledge and qualifications will always be in your favor.
Find your inner strength, inner resource. Build healthy, adequate self-esteem. The victim syndrome must be left in the past. In the present, you need to take responsibility for your life into your own hands and not expect that someone should make you happy.
Communicate more with friends and colleagues. Open up to the world - it is full of wonderful people.

We recommend reading the interesting article “After divorcing my husband”

Symptoms of depression

During separation from a loved one, in most cases the following symptoms of depression appear:

decreased mood during the day;

activities that previously brought pleasure are no longer interesting;

a person begins to get tired faster than before, which reduces his performance;

interest in other people and communication disappears, the person spends more time alone;

the future begins to seem unpromising, the person begins to have a pessimistic attitude towards life;

a feeling of guilt and one’s own uselessness and worthlessness appears;

a person begins to feel fear of the future;

loses the ability to make decisions and concentrate on one thing;

suicidal thoughts and plans appear;

changes in appetite are observed, the person begins to eat significantly less or more than usual;

a person begins to worry about his health, since strange symptoms and pain may appear at once;

sleep is disturbed: a person either suffers from insomnia and night awakenings, or, on the contrary, begins to sleep a lot and has difficulty waking up.

Often, in an attempt to numb the symptoms of depression, people turn to drinking alcohol, gambling or taking psychotropic substances, which can become addictive and lead to disastrous health consequences.

Top 5 Best Exercises to Get Over a Breakup

Breaking up is not easy or carefree for anyone; it is stressful for both participants in the relationship; however, there are useful exercises to ease the experience. They will help you understand the reasons for the separation, allow you to understand lessons and gain experience.

Important! The exercises must be performed when the first and most severe pain has already subsided, and you are able to reason soberly and calmly.

Let's look at 5 main ones:

Start from the beginning. Take a piece of paper and a pen and write the story of your acquaintance, your first meeting, how your relationship developed at the “dawn”. Focus on your feelings and emotions that you experienced towards your partner during meetings, dates, and at the beginning of your life together. Give a separate place to the item “unfulfilled dreams” or what hopes you had with this person.
Perhaps already at this stage you will be able to catch several points that foreshadowed failures and problems in the future. These may be various character traits or behaviors of you and/or your partner.
In your next letter, describe how that same relationship developed. Start by describing yourself, just outside of this relationship. How you lived at the time you met, what you dreamed of, what you wanted to achieve and receive. Write what at that moment you could offer your couple, and what she could offer you.
Just imagine that you are making a film about your life and love. Tell us about the reasons for the breakup. For example, perhaps at the beginning of the relationship, you needed support, approval and help, and later you outgrew it and found strength in yourself. Or another example, you were connected by strong passion, incomparable sex, but after a few years the emotions subsided, and nothing else in common appeared.
Analyze the breakup itself on paper. Describe the moment when the realization of the end came, how you felt at the same time. Don't be shy in your expressions, don't choose phrases. Write from the heart everything that boiled over, everything that brought pain.
Describe your fears, feelings of guilt - when they appeared, in what form; your actions and words towards your partner. This will allow you to identify mistakes, shortcomings and learn from them. Write to yourself, support yourself, get rid of guilt, you need to forgive yourself before starting a new life.
Read also: Which antidepressants are best for anxiety and depression
Thankful letter. Now write lines of praise. Remember all the good moments, the emotions associated with them, joyful meetings, happy periods. Thank your ex for this.
The last letter is the most important. Assess your current reality, opportunities and prospects. Answer the question: what kind of person do you want to see next to you in the future?

An important rule for all exercises is that you must be extremely sincere with yourself, no one will ever see these letters. Once you have worked through each exercise, feel free to burn, tear and delete these memories. If the pain from separation does not go away, exercises, advice, etc. do not help. There is no desire to live at all, you can’t raise your hands and you want to cry all the time, contact a specialist, don’t delay.

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Deep distress

With such global changes in a person’s lifestyle, a state of deep distress can begin, which negatively affects the psychological state.

In the course of large studies using the methods of American psychiatrists Holmes and Ray, which examined the influence of various life circumstances on the level of stress, the following was revealed:

Divorce of spouses – scored 78 in terms of stress points, thus taking second place in destabilizing a person’s psychological state;

Immediately after divorce, parting with a lover comes in third place in terms of impact on the level of distress - 65 points.

For comparison, below are other impact-rated situations that show that a breakup is more painful for the vast majority of people than:

imprisonment (63 points);

death of a relative or loved one (63 points);

intractable or incurable disease (53 points).

Such a devastating effect from the breakup of a close relationship can be explained by the fact that, as a rule, people include their significant other in their life plans for the future, and imagining that everything will change now is not so easy. Relationships and the need for love are on the third step in Maslow’s famous pyramid of needs.

In addition to distress, a breakup can lead to subdepressive disorder, which is more severe than stress but milder than depression.

This syndrome includes the following symptoms:

low mood;

lack of will to take action, for example to work;

a feeling of deep sadness accompanied by tearfulness;

feeling of emptiness and loss of direction in life;

feeling of melancholy.

Such a state is normal after a breakup, but if it lasts more than four weeks or the symptoms intensify, we can talk about psychopathology and the transition of the syndrome to a state of clinical depression, which will not go away on its own and requires medical intervention.

The state of depression cannot be ignored, because without proper treatment it will only intensify and take on more and more severe forms. Ultimately, depression can be fatal - that is, lead to suicide.

This condition can be dangerous for a person of any gender and age; the patient often resorts to alcohol and drugs to drown out unpleasant symptoms. This is another danger of this disorder.

What you should never do after a breakup

But what you shouldn’t do after a breakup is:

Throwing yourself into the arms of the first people you meet, making promiscuous connections. The brain will demand the hormone of happiness and it will seem quite possible to get it with a new acquaintance, but there is a catch. You will get nothing but resentment and regret.
Moreover, when trying to build a new relationship, you can give false hope to an innocent person and also break his heart with subsequent refusal. Very rarely does the “wedge with wedge” method work; usually, quick, thoughtless connections only lead to new grievances. Therefore, take your time, and take precautions.
Don’t harm your ex(s), don’t play dirty tricks, don’t blackmail, don’t bully. This is very low, wretched and vile. These actions will only prove that you are deeply unhappy and insignificant. You will spend a colossal amount of energy, directing it into a negative stream, thereby emptying yourself.
Alcohol. This is where you should be as careful as possible. Addictions, whatever they may be, can cause irreparable harm to health, both physical and psychological.
Don't call or write to your ex-partner. Don’t try to get him/her back, don’t humiliate yourself, maintain your dignity. Do not stoop to surveillance, for example, on social media. networks, just leave them alone.
There is no need to prove anything more, no need to change for the sake of your ex. It is difficult to turn this page, but it is possible.

Quote: Seek your happiness, even if it means going through major changes. Then you look back at the painful breakup and relationship you didn't like, and thank yourself for leaving them in the past.

Leighton Meester

So why do I need this torment?

The emotions we experience during separation are our punishment for deception. Every time we deceived ourselves or our partner in a relationship, trying to appear to be someone we really are not. Seeing in a partner someone who he is not.

Don’t try to run away from your personal truth by blaming yourself or your partner for the mental pain, but live this cleansing experience now. An experience that will allow you to discover new boundaries of your soul and happy future relationships.

If you just can’t get over a breakup with a girl, our psychologists are ready to help you!

How to forget your partner and move on with your life

Probably every person in his life has encountered separation, separation. Recovering from a breakup is very difficult. Most people have a hard time breaking up painlessly and forgetting their passion. After all, the brain will treacherously remind you of happy moments and pleasant meetings. Still, you will have to live on, so it is worth emphasizing the main points:

Respect each other, no matter how difficult it may seem. Despite the great desire to say a harsh or unpleasant phrase, try to remain silent, be above it. Passions will subside and you will feel ashamed.
Return or give away things that connect you to the past.
Delete numbers, social network accounts, unsubscribe from everywhere and don’t even think about following them. Accept your ex's new life and also accept your new life.
Keep your distance. Realize the fact that you are no longer together, so avoid meeting.
Don't have empty hopes for a reunion. Everything in this world is not eternal, everything ends.

Formation of depression

The end of a relationship with a loved one always affects our lives. It doesn’t matter whether people broke up by mutual decision or one of the couple was not ready for this - such changes in any case cause a stressful state.

After a breakup, a person undergoes a number of changes in his life: he has to say goodbye to common habits, the form of leisure time changes, and a certain amount of time is freed up. In addition, changes in consciousness also occur: a person begins to reflect and reflect on the past experience, remember joys and regrets.

Psychological assistance during divorce

Going through a divorce can be extremely draining, especially if you are trying to deal with it on your own. Instead, you should seek professional help to cope with the trauma of divorce in healthy ways.

A psychologist or therapist can help you before, during, or after your divorce. If you do not have the time or opportunity to personally seek help, in our center you can get an online consultation with a qualified family psychologist .

Read more in the article “Help from a psychologist during divorce” (types of help, advice to former spouses, parents and children in a situation of divorce).

Ph.D., family psychologist Nadezhda Miroslavovna Baltsiy

Relationship status

Clearly, if you are getting a divorce, your relationship was less than ideal. However, the speed of recovery after divorce is influenced by the actual state of your relationship. That is, if between you and your ex-husband or wife there were not only negative moments, but also prosperous periods, or if you were truly happy in your marriage and do not know what exactly led to the divorce, it will be much more difficult to accept it. However, if your relationship was terrible and your husband or wife treated you badly, such as betraying you, you may find that you can easily get over the divorce and move on with your life.