While it may not be easy, there is light on the other side of heartache, and a toolbox of healthy coping mechanisms can help you get there in one piece. Here, we asked experts to explain what heartache is really all about, plus how to deal with it. Here’s what they had to say. As licensed marriage and family therapist Shane Birkel, LMFT, explains, we’re naturally wired for relationships as human beings. From an evolutionary perspective, having strong connections with others was imperative to our very survival. And so now, when we experience the loss of a close relationship, it feels devastating and earth-shattering. When we feel emotionally close to someone, especially if we’re partnered with them for a significant amount of time, Birkel says we feel validated by them, we consider them in our future, and part of our sense of self comes from how we relate to the other person. That all goes away when the relationship ends, which can be extremely disorienting, as the future you’d imagined and your sense of self through that person is gone. This kind of upheaval brings up a lot of emotions (think the stages of grief, i.e., denial, anger, etc.), but it can cause physical symptoms as well. Research shows we can become essentially addicted to love1 neurologically, and even go through “withdrawal” after a breakup. Additional research has found there really is such thing as a broken heart, with “broken heart syndrome,” a type of heart condition, occurring amid intense emotional or physiological stress. In fact, he adds, when he has clients who seem to have moved on quite quickly, he actually takes it as a red flag that they’re not truly processing and grieving what’s happened. “And it’s going to show up in some other way down the road,” he notes, “because they’re not appropriately allowing themselves to feel those difficult emotions to go through this.” Birkel, as well as licensed marriage and family therapist Linda Carroll M.S., LMFT, both acknowledge the importance of leaning on your community. Not only will they help you not to isolate, but they can act as a soundboard, a support system, or just company when you need it. “It helps you continue to stay grounded in the world, so you don’t go down the road of hopelessness,” he notes, adding when you’re staying active, being healthy, and surrounding yourself with people, you’re much more able to deal with what’s happening in your life. “Writing can be one of the most sacred and healing spaces in one’s life,” Kahn says. “Having the space to free-write can give you insight into your breakup, your current feelings, and why your breakup is so painful.” And that goes for any loss, not just romantic ones. “It’s something to be mindful of if you find yourself seeking a lot of attention from other people, even sexual attention, to feel good about yourself,” he explains. “That might be a signal you’re avoiding the grieving process, or you’re trying to fill the emptiness with something that’s not going to be a long-term solution.”
