Post Breakup: How to Handle the Emotional Challenges
“എനിക്ക് അത് മറക്കാൻ പറ്റുന്നില്ല.മനസ്സില് നിന്നും പോവാതെ പോലെ, ദിവസങ്ങൾ കഴിയുമ്പോൾ ഇത് കൂടി വരുന്നു.ഒന്നിലും ശ്രദ്ധിക്കാൻ പറ്റുന്നില്ല.ചുറ്റും ഇരുട്ട് പോലെ.സംസാരിക്കാൻ തോന്നുന്നില്ല”
A breakup can be heartbreaking, like losing a piece of who you are. You find yourself dealing with that dull ache inside, living with the memories, carrying regret and guilt, and being afraid to let go. The future is uncertain, and there’s the silent worry that “what if he moves on with someone else?” This is a typical reaction to loss. Breakups are seen by modern psychology as a type of grief.
Let’s examine why breakups are so painful and how to start the healing process in this article.
How These Emotions Affect Us:
Physiological Changes
According to research, individuals going through a breakup frequently exhibit symptoms like anxiety and depression, sleep disturbances, appetite loss, difficulty concentrating, and social disengagement. These are indications of the intense emotional shock your body is attempting to process, not “overreactions.”
The brain’s emotional alarm system, the amygdala, becomes hyperactive, causing strong waves of stress, anxiety, sadness, and fear. Your calm, rational brain, the prefrontal cortex, finds it difficult to control these emotions in the meantime. This mismatch makes you more reactive and perpetuates painful memories, which is why it’s so difficult to stop overthinking.
Emotional detachment and feelings of emptiness are caused by a sharp decline in dopamine levels. Loneliness also increases as bonding chemicals like vasopressin and oxytocin decline.
Heartbreak can feel like a physical ache in your chest because breakups activate brain regions like the anterior cingulate cortex that are involved in physical pain. Additionally, the body’s stress system goes into overdrive, impacting immunity, energy, appetite, and sleep.
Psychological Changes
Rumination, which involves revisiting the same memories and “what-ifs” over and over again, can exacerbate depressive and unstable feelings after a breakup. Anxiety, problems with trust, and low self-esteem are other possible symptoms.
While social withdrawal is common, prolonged isolation frequently exacerbates loneliness. Breakups can also interfere with your daily routine, making it harder to focus or maintain motivation.
How to Deal With This:
Someone close to you may have experienced a breakup. Nowadays, it’s so widespread that when someone reports having one, others usually brush it off as a typical occurrence. People tend to generalize the experience because it occurs frequently, but in reality, everyone responds to it in a different way. Some fall into rebound relationships, others become trapped in the same emotional loop, and still others carry their suffering in silence because they are unable to discuss it. Seeking assistance is one thing that is essential in this situation.
Small, daily efforts are often the first steps toward healing before therapy. Social interaction and emotional expression dramatically lessen distress during stressful situations, according to research.
Healthy Coping Mechanisms include:
• Journaling
• Maintaining routines
• Talking to someone safe
• Physical activity
• Engaging in small joys
And When These Aren’t Enough…
Your world can be disrupted by breakups in unexpected ways. You’re planning things together one minute, and then you’re having trouble understanding mornings that seem excessively quiet. You miss the version of yourself that was with them, not just the actual person.
It includes understanding your thoughts, controlling your feelings, and gradually reconstructing your life. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, can help with that.
After a breakup, it’s easy to fall into automatic thoughts like:
- “I’m not good enough.”
- “They were my only chance at happiness.”
- “Everyone leaves me eventually.”
If you notice these thoughts, they are mental habits that influence your emotions rather than facts.
Try this:
Take a notebook and list the circumstances that cause you emotional suffering.
For each, take note:
- What was on your mind?
- Your feelings about it
- Your actions in response
This helps you to recognize the unseen cycle of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Once you can see it, you can begin making changes.
Challenging the Inner Critic
Our inner dialogue frequently becomes harsh when we are heartbroken.
“What’s the evidence for and against this thought?” is a straightforward yet effective question that CBT promotes.
As an example:
“I am unlovable,” I thought.
Proof: My partner departed.
Evidence against: My friends are very concerned. They have faith in me. My relatives adore me.
Instead of extreme, self-punishing narratives, this process teaches the brain to discover balanced truths.
Therapist insight: The first step towards healing is to stop believing everything your pain tells you.
Replacing Rumination with Action
We frequently find ourselves thinking about “what ifs” after experiencing heartbreak.
Behavioral Activation, a technique used in CBT, encourages you to take deliberate, small steps to combat emotional withdrawal.
Start with:
- Quick strolls through the outdoors
- Meeting a helpful friend
- Taking up a hobby you stopped
- Establishing a single, modest daily goal
These actions send a signal to your brain: “I am moving forward.”
Gradually, your mood catches up with your behavior.
Breakups can uncover deep-seated beliefs like:
- “I’m not deserving of love.”
- “Everyone departs.”
- “I need someone to make me whole.”
According to CBT, these are fundamental schemas, ingrained mental filters that influence how we perceive relationships.
Healing entails carefully reviewing and updating them:
“Maybe I wasn’t unworthy; perhaps we weren’t meant to be together.”
Pain cannot be eliminated by reframing. It provides it with direction, context, and meaning.
Developing a new story about your life that isn’t shaped by the loss is the last phase in CBT for breakup recovery.
Try finishing these sentences:
- “I learned from this breakup.”
- “I now realize that I’m in love…”
- “I want to develop relationships going forward…”
Denial is not the issue here. Integration—carrying the lesson without carrying the wound—is key.
Sources
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Kross, E., Berman, M. G., Mischel, W., Smith, E. E., & Wager, T. D. (2011). Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(15), 6270–6275.
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