Imagine you are walking in a very beautiful flower garden,with that flower that you love so much planted everywhere and you just seem to want to remain in that garden forever. It is you who planted, nursed, watered and tended to these flowers right until they became mature and beautiful. Imagine then someone uprooting each and every flower that you planted in front of you, slowly but surely reaping your garden apart, How would you feel??? Indeed, it is better to lose through death than to lose because they don’t love you enough. (Death is better than a heartbreak)

What really is a heartbreak?

The simplest definition i could find was that it is ” overwhelming distress.” A feeling that leaves you feeling empty inside, like you do not deserve to live and that you are better off dead. You feel like your heart is being pulled out of you and that someone is trying to shove a hot knife into your heart and in as much as they are inflicting such pain in you, you just can’t seem to die. All you do is continue to feel that pain. A heartbreak is something that anyone who has never experienced  can never understand or comprehend and one that anyone who has experienced  would never be able to fully explain, its an in-explainable kind of pain, the kind you can’t share with anyone even if they wanted to.

What causes heart breaks.

A heart break comes when you fall in love with someone and at the end of the day they disappoint you, or leave you for someone else. You might have invested a lot in that relationship only to be let down by that someone and that in itself hurts like crazy.

There is the love of narcissists, people who are selfish, to say the least. These people will trample down on your love for them, play around with it, make you feel like you are nothing, to such a point that even if they are wrong you find yourself asking for their forgiveness. Such people can even go as far as abusing you and reducing your self esteem to the lowest point until you feel completely useless. At times they might love you but because of their narcissistic behavior, they push you away. Usually, people who have suffered under the  hand of such people live a life of hatred towards love and men or women in general, their heartbreaks may never actually heal.

Then lastly, i consider this one the most painful because for one most people don’t actually know that its a type of heartbreak but it actually is. When you love someone so much but you can never be with them. You experience a certain nostalgia that instead of bringing you joy actually brings you a lot of sorrow. You are stuck in a  past that never existed, a past that you wish was but never was, and that pain, that longing may affect you and even the relationships you try to build with other people. This type of heartbreak is very difficult to heal because every time something goes wrong in your relationship you think you would have been better off with that other person and as such you end up walking away from every other relationship. But the problem is not him or her, its actually you who is stuck in a fantasy, an imaginary past that never existed.

The science behind a heartbreak.

Studies show that your brain registers the emotional pain of heartbreak in the same way as physical pain. This is the reason why most people feel like their hearts are actually being broken when they are in this state of life. The way we describe heartbreaks e.g, being torn apart, cut with a hot knife etc is registered into our brains and the brain in turn copies those feelings and pastes them into our system and therefore we begin to feel as though we are actually experiencing physical pain.

Love can be addictive, like a drug or a certain behavior and like all addictions it brings to us a certain feeling of joy that makes us want to repeat or continuously experience love and this feeling is controlled by  certain hormones released in our bodies called Dopamine and Oxytocin. These two hormones are released at hyper levels of excitement induced by love and they make one want to continue experiencing this feeling of love. Now like every other addiction, it is very painful to not get this euphoric feeling, that is to stop feeling the love. You may actually get sick in the process of trying to quit an addictive behavior and at times you may find yourself going back to that very same behavior that we are trying so hard to stop. This is the same as when the one that once made us experience euphoria through love suddenly becomes the source of our pain. That  hormone that was released changes to another hormone called cortisol. This hormone is associated with stress and too much of it can lead to nausea, aches, anxiety etc, thus someone may begin to get sick during their period of heartbreak, its because of this hormone that is being released.

So a heartbreak can actually be explained scientifically as shown above.

Symptoms of a heartbreak.

being emotional. A heartbroken person finds it very difficult to control or contain their emotions. The slightest thing can make them very angry or even provoke their tears and at times they suffer from rapid mood swings.

exhaustion. This where one feels generally tired of doing anything and everything, their minds tell them that nothing is worth the trouble and as such a heavy tiredness fills them up that they cannot do anything. There is no motivation for them to do anything.

Withdrawal. heartbroken people can sometimes withdraw themselves from the world. You put yourself in a position to think more about that person you are trying to get over and you shut the whole world out.

eating disorder. That person may begin to have problems with their eating habits. Some may begin to stress eat and others may begin to not eat at all and this may lead to them getting sick in the process.

physical problems. Some may develop physical problems like aches, fast heartbeats and in rare cases mild heart attacks.

Besides the above, there are many other signs that show that a person may be going through a heartbreak like clumsiness where they can easily break things, getting lost in space (losing touch with reality), difficulty sleeping, change in normal behavior etc. All these can be pointers that one may be going through a heartbreak.

How to heal.

Healing an emotionally induced wound is the most painful process in the world. Unlike a physical wound, an emotional wound cuts deeper, it leaves painful reminders almost everywhere, it continues to grow deeper and deeper if not properly tended to and it hurts more. However, life was not made in such a way that when emotionally wounded we stop living, life has to go on, ours included, so we have to heal.

• Give yourself time to grieve

A lot of people when going through emotional pain or heartbreaks try to avoid the feeling, running away, distracting their minds with other activities etc and this is very dangerous. Its like nursing a time bomb and when it finally explodes it might hurt not only you but even the people around you. So the first step to healing is giving yourself time to grieve. Allow yourself to experience the pain that you are going through, let it flow through you, let it lead you and drive you, let it make you cry, scream, shout, do anything that you feel may make you feel better, Grieve but don’t let the pain take over your senses.

• Stay in touch with yourself

When a person is going through emotional pain, they have unique and different behavior patterns especially in line with how they will be feeling. Today you might wake up feeling like you miss them or you just want to talk to them or maybe you are hating that person today, embrace that, don’t fight it. Accept how you are feeling at the moment and build on that. Use your feelings as an avenue to help you heal because by fighting them you are straining your emotions even more. Let what you feel encourage you to be better, reflect on it, consider why that day you are feeling that way and see if you can change be it the environment, the mood, whatever that is generating those feelings, but firstly , accept your current feelings, stay in touch with them.

• Write

The most painful part of a heartbreak is that more often than not we fear opening up to anyone, sharing how we are feeling and its okay, its perfectly normal.But those feelings we cannot share should not be left bottled up inside because they may be our greatest source of hurt, so an alternative is to write it down. Whatever you are feeling , sit down and express it in writing, if you can make out a poem from it or a novel or even just one simple line, do that, but write it down, it will definitely make you feel good. If you cannot keep it then burn it, and as you destroy it, tell yourself, “this is a closed chapter in my life, I’m healing I’m moving on.”

• Positive mantra

These are words that you can invent or get somewhere that just inspire you. Create such for yourself. Every morning you wake up, just say your mantra, maybe its, ” I’m getting stronger everyday.” Say these little but powerful words to yourself everyday, every time you feel like you can’t go on or its hurting so bad, just tell yourself, “I’m getting  stronger everyday” and as you go it will definitely become easier. At first it may be hard to even say the words but as you go on, it becomes easier and it will begin to have meaning in your life.

• Create physical distance

This is perhaps the most important step to healing, creating distance from the person that hurt you. Its very difficult especially if you where deep in love, you want to stay within reach, you think that maybe they will come around and you sort things out, you yourself even want to try and reach out, but in order to heal, you have to distance yourself from them. Delete their number, stop all communication between you and if possible do not allow yourself to be in their vicinity physically. You are not a coward for doing this, you are brave and you care for yourself.

• Be patient with yourself

It’s not easy to heal or let go after a heartbreak and it may take more time than we would expect. Its normal, don’t push yourself too hard, be gentle, its not your fault you are hurt, so don’t punish yourself or give yourself ultimatums. Allow your heart and mind to heal at their own pace and be cooperative, be patient and you will surely heal. Pushing yourself will only bring more pain.

• Take care of yourself

During a painful phase of life, it often feels like there is nothing else other than the pain in our lives. We forget that we have needs totally outside the grief we are in, so as you are nursing your wounds, don’t forget to look after yourself, eat properly, take a shower and look good, it will definitely make you feel better about yourself and that you are still an independent human.

• Allow yourself to forgive

As the Bible says, do not judge, and don’t hold anything against anyone, so forgive them, him or her for hurting you. As they say ” to err is human but to forgive divine.” Be the bigger person, whether or not they ask for forgiveness, just forgive them and do not hold anything against them. Because it is only when you forgive them that you can free yourself from them and move on with your life. So please forgive the hurt they caused you.

• Talk about it

This is very difficult to be honest. You don’t know what to say, who to even tell and you are scared they might judge you or something, so the temptation to remain in your own little corner is huge, but take courage and just go to that person you trust. If you don’t have words, sit with them in silence, if you want to cry, cry with them, allow yourself to know that the one who hurt you was not the beginning and the end in him/herself, he or she is not your alpha and omega, there are still a lot of people out there who love you, so let them in. If its still too hard, then you can try talking to a professional, its not a crime and it doesn’t mean you are crazy, it just shows that you want to move on and get over this pain, so go for it. Just allow someone to walk with you through your journey, they might not understand what you are going through but the fact that they are there will definitely make a difference.

Conclusion.

Loving people is a gamble, you place yourself on the line, you risk pain, loss and a lot of other things that may be important and for some they try to avoid this gamble at all costs but believe me its impossible. We were all created out of love, to love and to be loved that’s human nature and it will never change.It’s also inevitable that we will be hurt and that, that pain will transform us. Don’t let it turn you into a monster, don’t let it break you apart to such an extent that you might never be able to pick yourself up again. Let it bring out a better you, a stronger you and let it build you up not break you apart. What won’t kill you will definitely make you stronger so, (Hope) Hold On Pain Ends.