What is Heartbreak?
“I heard someone say somewhere that it's possible to write the sickness out of yourself. And who knows, maybe someone will benefit.”
― Anonymous, Diary of an Oxygen Thief
I have had my fair share of heartbreak. I think every single individual has felt in their chest when suddenly their heart has stopped breathing and it suffocates. It’s a nightmare vision from those books that scared me as a kid. That woman with only flesh where her lips should part and her nostrils should flare. She could kick and fall and close her hands into mallets against the ground, but it won’t make a difference. The heart feels both clogged and empty during heartbreak and I imagine this is why. It is not a new feeling.
“My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed:
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 147.
Never mind the gruesome imagery of a feeling. It’s nearing Halloween so I suppose gruesome is on the mind. After my most recent venture through what I believed was love, I began to collect things. Poems, quotes, lyrics, anything I could find to help myself make sense of my misfortunes. Understand or cope, that is. Heartbreak is not just sadness or anger or confusion. It is its own emotion that feels similar to these at times. Like the stages of grief, losing love can follow the same pattern as losing a loved one. So, let’s take them one at a time.
Denial
“Did you know that heartbreak triggers the same areas of the brain as physical pain? … Your brain has gotten used to a steady stream of dopamine and oxytocin. That’s what causes all those blissed-out feelings of love. And now it’s replaced with stress hormones. They’re gonna make you feel like garbage. Headaches, tight muscles, tight chest. Your body is craving those feel-good chemicals. It’s basically withdrawal. Love – it’s a chemical reaction that comes and goes. Here's the good news: so is heartbreak. Your brain adjusts. Your body chemistry changes back to normal.”
- Sadie Page, Chemical Hearts
The beginning may be the worst. Your body is overwhelmed with emotions as well as going through that feeling of withdrawal. So in order to rationalize, your brain builds up this lovely defense mechanism called denial in order to buffer that immediate shock of loss.
“Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
Anger
This denial buffer inevitably wears down, loses affect, and the pain you tried suppressing can finally and firmly take hold. We can search for blame or feel intense guilt, and of course, lash out at those around us. It was at this point that I read Diary of an Oxygen Thief, listened to my “angry girl” playlist; basically anything that gave me reason to believe that all people are shit and I could be as angry as I wanted. For reference:
“Why would anyone set out to break the heart of someone he loved? Why would anyone intentionally cause that kind of pain? Why did people kill each other? Because they enjoyed it.”
― Anonymous, Diary of an Oxygen Thief
I wasn’t sure if I believed the things I was reading, but it was blunt and sounded good. In some sick way, it helped. Why would he want to hurt me? Because he was a complete and total prick. Simple as that. I wouldn’t believe this forever, but in the meantime it made me feel better to think that it had nothing to do with lil’ ol’ me. It was just that people were assholes. So I stuck with just my close friends and as they say “tonight, every guy is the enemy.” (I should note: while my experiences happen to have been with a man, my roommate and close friend was going through the same thing only with a woman she’d been seeing. So I am doing my best to make this gender-neutral so you know that it really does apply to everyone, but I apologize if it sounds a bit one-sided to my personal fucked up hetero relationship.)
At this stage, I could comfort myself with thoughts of Dante’s Inferno. Specifically, his ninth layer of hell.
Treachery: The deepest circle of Hell, where Satan resides.
“As with the last two circles, this one is further divided into four rounds. The first is Caina, named after the biblical Cain, who murdered his brother. This round is for traitors to family. The second, Antenora—from Antenor of Troy, who betrayed the Greeks — is reserved for political/national traitors. The third is Ptolomaea for Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who is known for inviting Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to dinner and then murdering them. This round is for hosts who betray their guests; they are punished more harshly because of the belief that having guests means entering into a voluntary relationship, and
betraying a relationship willingly entered is more despicable than betraying a relationship born into.
The fourth round is Judecca, after Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. This round is reserved for traitors to their lords/benefactors/masters. As in the previous circle, the subdivisions each have their own demons and punishments.”
Cruel, I know, but what can I say? I was angry.
“My logic went as follows: If someone hurts you then you automatically want revenge. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, you want revenge. I thought, if I hurt her enough she would want revenge. Therefore, I wouldn’t have to worry about never seeing her again. Because that is what I feared most: the fact that I was losing her.”
― Anonymous, Diary of an Oxygen Thief
Bargaining
“What if… ?” “If only…” This is when you suddenly feel the need to question everything. If things had gone differently, if I had said this instead of that, if I had been more patient, if I had said something sooner. What if the situation was different? While this may seem like just another unhealthy coping mechanism it does provide an important purpose; hope. Bargaining gives a temporary escape from the pain and lets your mind wander off into some dreamland where things turned out differently. This gives you the time you may need to adjust to the reality of the situation. While this is all well and good, there are still two more stages for us to get through. “Just because things could’ve been different, It doesn't mean they'd be better.”
Depression
Now before you start popping Lexapro or Zoloft, this is not a sign of mental illness. In fact, this is the appropriate response to loss. However, this doesn’t mean it’ll suck any less. You may have some of the following symptoms: decreased appetite, lack of sleep, loss of motivation, intense sadness, or hopelessness. Coupled with my clinical depression this was an incredibly tough time for me. This wasn’t the first time I'd hurt myself or contemplated doing worse, and while I hate to think it, it probably won't be the last time either.
Imagine floating in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. So you keep treading water or swimming in a single direction hoping you’ll get to land eventually. But still, there is nothing. You’re getting tired, but you know you have to keep going. There's no one else around, no sea creatures, just you and water and that stinging smell of brine. You grow more and more tired, losing hope of ever being able to stop and relax on a beach somewhere. Maybe there are no beaches? Your limbs are cold and fatigued. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to stop and just sink.
I think it’s important to note that while I have everything neatly laid out here for your viewing pleasure, these stages aren't so nice and organized in real life. Sometimes, they’re out of order, or multiple are happening all at once. You may feel like hurting yourself or others. I began cutting into my skin. My roommate shut down, wanting to hit something, anything, that would hurt her hand so she could feel it on the outside. I knew I was doing something similar, but I didn’t want her to feel that way too. I thought about it for a while. Then I grabbed my pair of large metal scissors, grabbed her hand, and walked her outside.
We walked to an area on our campus that didn’t have too many people and lots of trees. Then I handed the shears to her and told her to stab the tree. She was shy and tried handing them back, saying there were people around, she felt stupid, embarrassed. So I did it first to show her. The feeling of the scissors sticking into that tree with all of my force was almost calming. I handed them back to her and she gently hit the tree. I told her harder. Talk to me while you do it. So she told me about the girl and why she hurt so much and stabbed the bark letting the shears thunk into the flesh of the tree again and again. She started crying and screaming as she massacred that poor birch. When she’d finished there was a decently sized dent, we were both out of breath, and we went home somehow feeling better. It sounds ridiculous because it absolutely is. But then again so are human emotions.
It really can be an overwhelming process, so don’t let anyone downplay your feelings or reactions. None of this “You shouldn’t get so upset over some boy,” or “just think, there are so many people out there who have it worse than you.”
“But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Acceptance
Let me get one thing straightened out here. Acceptance means accepting the reality of the loss and the fact that nothing will change this. This does NOT mean that you are now “okay” with what happened, how it happened, etc. However, it does mean that you now know that you will be okay without that person. You WILL be okay. Congrats. Now is when you can start listening to more upbeat songs and calling yourself a bad bitch while firmly believing it. Listen to Lizzo’s “Good as Hell,” Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch,” Ida Maria’s “I Eat Boys Like You For Breakfast,” or basically any song by the Regrettes if you don’t believe me.
“You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real, deep down you are the whole universe.”
- Alan Watts
And now some inspiring words from one of my favorite women:
“Ever feel like you deserve some royal treatment? You should do, you’re amazing. Don’t go forgetting that now, will you? I will have no beating yourself up on my watch!”
- Miranda Hart