How to survive a breakup without going crazy

Why do you feel bad from a scientific point of view?

The “broken” state after a breakup is caused by hormonal changes in the body. What distinguishes humans from primates and other animals are social bonds, which include love. To understand what happens to the brain during separation, it is necessary to determine the physiological processes that accompany falling in love.

Attraction. As soon as partners who are suitable for each other meet, those same “butterflies in the stomach” appear. The hormone testosterone is responsible for ensuring libido.
Love. Motivation to achieve a partner is provided by the hormone dopamine, which activates the reward system - internal confidence in pleasure with the object of passion. At this stage, cortisol is produced, which puts the body into a state of stress. Adrenaline begins to actively release, hence the pounding of the heart, the desire to jump at the sight of a loved one.
When you fall in love, norepinephrine levels increase. The hormone fixes in memory the stimuli associated with the object of passion - in scientific words this is called “imprinting”. The image of the beloved is sealed in the memory, which makes it difficult to survive the separation in the future. At the same time, the level of serotonin decreases, as in obsessive-compulsive disorder, obsessive thoughts about a loved one haunt you.

When everything is good in a relationship, there is a feeling of security and emotional stability. During sex and social contacts, partners produce the joy hormone oxytocin. This is how nature intended for the couple to stay together and raise their offspring to continue the species.

What happens to the body when you break up?

At the beginning of a relationship, the brain produces the joy hormones oxytocin and dopamine. When the object of passion is nearby, the reward system is activated - a feeling of happiness.

After a breakup, the reward system turns off, the protective pain perception system turns on, and stress hormones are produced. They affect the immune, cardiovascular and digestive systems, and the brain receives signals about physical pain. And although everything is fine with the body, it seems to the person that he is experiencing a painful shock.

The posterior cingulate gyrus begins to work intensively, sending pain signals to the neurons of the brain. When looking at a photograph of a former lover, the secondary somatosensory cortex and insula are activated, sending a signal of acute pain. At times of stress and social rejection, opioids are produced - natural painkillers, as in the case of a fracture or other sharp pain.

Symptoms of depression in men

Psychiatry does not divide depression into male and female. This condition manifests itself equally in all people, regardless of gender and age. Signs of depressive disorders are formulated by the international classification of diseases. And if you notice one or more of them in a loved one, you should be wary.

It’s worth paying attention if a man has stopped enjoying those things that gave him pleasure before. For example, he happily went fishing, but now he refuses to do it. Or if he is increasingly in a bad, depressed mood, he tries to leave the house as little as possible, and in his free time he prefers not to get out of bed.

In addition to the external signs of depression in a man, there are also internal ones. “Boys don’t cry” - this is how men are raised in modern society. But precisely because of this, all the internal experiences that torment a person and increase melancholy are not brought out. Men are not used to discussing problems with their wives and girlfriends. And with depression, multiple negative thoughts may arise:

about personal or professional insolvency;
about the lack of prospects in life;
feeling of guilt.

Against this background, attention decreases and intellectual functions deteriorate. The person becomes distracted and cannot remember important information or concentrate on important work. There is also a decrease in sexual desire for the spouse, sleep is disturbed, and appetite usually decreases.

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Defense reactions of the psyche

Knowing the processes that occur in a person’s psyche when a relationship ends will help you get over a separation from your loved one more quickly. The psychological defense mechanism is activated, these stages must be experienced.

Negation. At the first stage, a defensive reaction is activated in the form of denial of the fact. Women are especially prone to this. You can often hear the phrase “He left, but he has no one. So, sooner or later we will make peace.”
Crowding out. The abandoned partner convinces himself that the pain will soon go away. At this stage, it is necessary to work through grievances; the state of repression can drag on for several years.
Anger. A useful reaction to relieving tension is a stream of accusations and insults directed towards a former partner. Allows you to remember all the grievances, collect them into a single whole and, based on these facts, create a negative image of your partner.
Bargain. Setting a deadline during which the partner can return helps to survive the pain of parting with a loved one after a long relationship. A time stamp divides time into “before” and “after” and helps to psychologically accept the situation.
Regression. The beginning of a depressive period, when reactions are inhibited. The psychological defense mechanism is triggered: the will, the desire to live, and appetite disappear.
Depression. The realization comes that the past cannot be returned; the time for attempts at reconciliation has run out. A period of apathy, sadness and despair begins.
Sublimation. Immersion in work or hobbies helps to survive a difficult, painful breakup. Gradually, the traumatic event is erased from memory.
Adoption. After a sufficient period of time, the painful symptoms disappear and acceptance of the new situation begins. Mental strength is restored, a desire to move on appears, past relationships are perceived as a completed chapter.

On a note!
Before the stage of acceptance, a person who has experienced a painful separation from a loved one, the tension in the psyche is looking for a way out. Auto-aggression - acute reactions in the form of aggressive attacks on any word, turning to alcohol or angry posts on social networks.

How to help yourself

It is impossible to avoid a mixture of bitterness, resentment, hope and despair, but you can help yourself overcome this state. Don’t try to deny your emotions, run away from awareness, or consider them anger - work on restoring your inner balance and accepting the situation.

Reclaim your own identity

The main problem after a breakup is the loss of self-identity. During a relationship, your partner integrates into your life and a picture of a common future is built.

A broken picture of one’s own self prevents one from surviving a breakup with a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife. Use a moment of crisis to reflect on your expectations from life. Build a picture of the future, define goals and move towards achieving them.

Keep a diary

Keeping a diary will help you express all the painful thoughts and feelings, calm your mind and regain control over your assessment of the situation. Write down on paper or type in a file everything you want to say to your ex-lover. Write down all your thoughts every day, trying to comprehend the past stage. This will help turn the past into experience and complete the process of realizing the separation.

Hang out with positive people

Many people have felt the same pain while suffering from love addiction. Talk to a positive person who has gone through a breakup and found peace of mind. Someone else's experience will make it clear that you can become happy.

Advice!
Avoid communicating with friends who consoling streams of negativity towards your ex or ex. By cultivating a negative attitude, you will become fixated on sad thoughts and revenge. This will prevent you from adequately assessing the situation and getting out of depression.

How long does it take to get over a breakup?

There is no clear answer to how long it takes to get over a breakup with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife. For some, a month is enough to get rid of thoughts about the past and start a new life, for others it takes years.

The intensity and duration of the experience directly depend on a combination of three factors:

type of temperament;
the circumstances under which the separation occurred;
the desire and effort put into starting life from scratch.

Psychologists believe that the norm for recovery after a break is up to 1 year. There are several reasons that make it difficult to forget past relationships.

Catastrophization

The breakup is perceived as a tragedy, obsessive thoughts do not allow you to sleep, and the feeling of pessimism and chronic mental pain does not leave you. The former lover is considered an ideal that will no longer exist in life.

Solution: imagine life without past relationships, start building an independent future.

Obsessive rumination

The thought that everything could have turned out differently if you had said a different phrase haunts you. As a result, an opinion is formed about what could have happened, and not about what actually happened. By constantly making hypothetical assumptions, you are outside the boundaries of reality and live in an imaginary situation.

Solution: stop thinking about “What would happen if I…”.

Refusal to accept that it's over

What makes it difficult to survive a breakup is the ability to let people go from your life. Melodramas show distorted relationships: lovers go through obstacles, separations and are happily reunited in the end. In real life, the hope of reconciliation does not allow creating new relationships.

Solution: cut off all contact and stop following your ex.

Advice!
Don't be afraid to see a psychologist. Specialists work online to help you work through and solve personal problems.

How to forget your partner and move on with your life

How to get over a breakup with a guy

Often what prevents girls from getting over a breakup with a guy is the realization that he has found a replacement. Advice from a psychologist will help you cope with the situation:

do not follow your ex on social networks, do not create a new account to track stories and photos with your new passion;
go out for a walk with your girlfriends, visit parks, cinemas, clubs and other places where there is no time to be bored;
change your hair color, hairstyle, go on a diet and change yourself for the better;
do not look for the reason in yourself - people break up when they become uncomfortable together, but this does not mean that you are bad;
put all your photos together, CDs with music, gifts in a box, hide them on the mezzanine;
do not visit places where you can accidentally meet your ex;
re-read the psychologist’s advice at the end of this article.

Advice!
Shopping is an excellent way to restore inner harmony. New jeans, shoes and a dress will highlight your updated look.

Is there a reverse side to the coin?

Unfortunately, there is no universal relationship formula. For example, it is quite reasonable to hope when someone is too desperate. But hope can be destructive if it causes people to underestimate and misreact to what they face. After all, everyone in a casino hopes for a big score, but when he leaves his entire paycheck there, hope clearly works against him.

Fragmentation can be a great element in a relationship, but some instances of fragmentation can work against you and your spouse.

People in denial effectively separate the truth from attempts to minimize that truth. People who tolerate cruelty or violence in relationships engage in fragmentation when they justify the abuse with words like, “But I love him or her!” Companies willing to poison a few people to increase their profits are engaging in fragmentation when they ignore integrity or social responsibility. People who turn a blind eye to this “inconvenient” truth engage in fragmentation when they look for excuses. Fragmentation can bring out the best in people and, unfortunately, the worst. So in your own relationships, try to focus more on love and what is good, rather than on anger and what is bad, especially when that “bad” is objectively not that important.

How to get over a breakup with a girl

It is generally accepted that it is easy for guys to get over a breakup with a girl. Comfort after a painful breakup doesn't always come quickly. Proven tips will help you overcome depression:

get rid of memories: collect photos, gifts, remaining things in a box and throw them away;
delete your ex on all social networks and block her, the desire to follow her has a negative impact on forgetting;
get drunk in the company of friends and tell them about your experiences - this is called “diffusing the problem”;
find a new hobby or throw yourself into work so that you don’t have time for sad thoughts;
Join the gym, it’s good for your figure and releasing negative emotions.

Be sure to read the psychologist’s advice at the end of the article to develop tactics for getting rid of past relationships.

Advice for girls and guys!

7 popular books on how to get over a breakup:

Natalie Babbitt "The Eternal Fat"
Jamie Ford "Hotel at the Crossroads of Joy and Bitterness"
Emily Giffin "Loving the One Next to You"
Jane Austen "Persuasion"
David Levitan "A Lover's Dictionary"
Cheryl Strayed "Small Little Things"
Laura Esquivel "Chocolate with boiling water"

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

A psychologist's view: what is an open gestalt

From a psychological point of view, a painful state of mind after a breakup is an open gestalt. Events and relationships from the past constantly arise in thoughts, do not allow you to concentrate on the present, cause a feeling of discomfort and, in especially severe cases, develop into neurosis.

Resentments are mentally tied to the former partner. On a subconscious level, a person wants to take revenge or achieve satisfaction. There are several ways to close a gestalt.

Revenge

The feeling of revenge pushes the desire to return the former partner and leave him. The psychological clamp is removed, the gestalt is closed.

Proof

The abandoned partner decides to change himself for the better. Guys go to the gym, girls go on a diet. Having changed himself externally, he arranges a meeting with his ex so that he can see the changes. The goal is achieved, the gestalt closes.

Comparison

After a breakup, you work on yourself. A person moves towards his goals, achieves a high social status, increases his value in the eyes of others and finds a new partner of his level. Comparing him with his ex or ex, he understands the difference and closes the gestalt.

Logical path

Requires enormous willpower and self-improvement. It is necessary to realize your complexes, mistakes and do a complete reassessment of values. After accepting responsibility for the past, do what you love, which will make it easier to survive betrayal and separation, and close the gestalt.

Forgiveness

The most difficult strategy for the power of internal work on yourself. It is necessary to fully accept your ex-partner and yourself as you are, with all the shortcomings. Gestalt closes after all grievances are closed.

Leaving into the sunset

To be realized, you must have significance for your ex-partner. You need to part ways without a scandal, wishing them luck. Do not monitor on social networks, do not look for meetings and do not call. Gap for 1.5-2 years, after which you arrange a meeting, say hello and show with all your appearance that you are not suffering. The gestalt will be closed if you really work on yourself and accept the situation.

Psychologist Tatyana Gribanova offers a strategy for closing gestalts, aimed at freeing oneself from anchors and hooks - psychological ties to the past:

staging;
ending with fantasy;
liberation through story;
acceptance and resignation to the situation.

The essence of the strategy is to act out dialogue scenes in which the ex-partner asks for forgiveness and accepts the apology. This helps to free yourself from psychological anchors and express your thoughts and feelings.

It is necessary to repeat the story according to the script 5-6 times; over time, the events will be perceived as a boring series.

How does severe depression associated with a breakup manifest itself?

You can identify your depression by the following signs:

- Depressed emotions every day, manifested desires to feel sorry for oneself and sympathize;

— Once-favorite hobbies have ceased to bring joy (for example, a hobby no longer captivates or evokes vivid emotions);

- Deterioration in appearance (for example, unkempt clothing, lack of makeup in women, tired face);

- Sudden changes in mood during the day.

People around you may be the first to notice deviations in a person’s usual behavior. That is why most often close people immediately offer help. Without support, the duration of depression after a breakup can be about 1-1.5 years, depending on the strength of the psyche and life circumstances.

Psychologist's advice

Advice from psychologists will help you survive a separation from your loved one after betrayal. Restoring mental balance requires working on yourself.

Give yourself time to grieve

The first time after a breakup, you need to give free rein to your emotions. For the pain to subside, it must be accepted and felt. Lock yourself at home for a few days, cry, order your favorite dish, listen to sad music and release all your emotions as much as possible.

Burn all your bridges

Get rid of everything associated with your loved one. Collect all the gifts, photographs of you together, and things that remind you of the past in a box. Valuable gifts can be returned or sold. Do not go to extremes - exchange jewelry made of precious metals in a jewelry store for a new product, paying an insignificant difference.

Delete correspondence and SMS, reduce communication with mutual friends. Clear the list of “your” music that reminds you of your loved one. Ask your friends and family not to mention him in your presence.

Important!
Block your ex on all social networks, delete your phone number or send it to block. The habit of monitoring pages on social networks interferes with recovery after a breakup.

Find the Source of Joy

Psychologists advise finding a way to obtain the joy hormone endorphin, which restores the nervous system. Buy a trip to the sea, start home renovations, or sign up for courses to learn a foreign language. Do something that you have been planning for a long time - it will distract you and give you strength.

Create a new look

A visit to a stylist will help dull the pain after breaking up with a man and get through the first difficult period. Change your look - hairstyle, hair color, buy new stylish things. Become a different person, literally. This point helps to get rid of old memories; a new image is life from scratch.

Don't fill the void with new relationships

Replacing an old love with a new one is the worst way to quickly get over a breakup. A series of new partners will aggravate the feeling of loneliness. Stay single until the moment when you stop seeing old love in people of the opposite sex.

Don't drown out the pain with alcohol

Alcohol is a simple and affordable way to relieve mental pain, but don’t get carried away with it. Arrange a meeting with a friend or friend, talk over a glass of wine or a glass of cognac, but do not drink alone. A constant state of intoxication releases stress hormones and disrupts awareness of the situation.

Advice!
Don't call or text your ex while under the influence of alcohol. In the morning you will be ashamed of this action.

Don't try to stay on friendly terms

Many people think that by remaining friends with their ex-partner, they can eventually improve their relationship and become a couple again. All attempts to return old feelings will result in new stress. Watching your loved one build a new relationship is a serious blow to your mental state.

Analyze the quality of the relationship

Calmly and judiciously sort out the reasons for the breakup. Analyze your partner’s behavior and your own, realize possible mistakes. This will help prevent them from happening again in the future.

Make a list of your own achievements

Breaking up lowers self-esteem; to raise it, understand yourself and your own life, environment and write a list of your achievements. Masterly mastery of a musical instrument, reliable friends, a collected collection of rare stamps - make a list of what you can be proud of.

Don't try to return

The feeling that everything can be returned after a conversation is fear of the future. Psychologically, you are in an old relationship and do not understand how to live without a partner. Try to wait out the desire to return and do not try to look for meetings. This will humiliate you and hurt your self-esteem.

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