Broken heart syndrome: causes, symptoms and treatment
Loving relationships can become a roller coaster of emotions . The moments of euphoria can be followed shortly after bad seasons marked by the couple crisis.
That's why, sometimes, something that we might call "broken heart syndrome" appears . Of course, it is not a disease, but a set of symptoms that go hand in hand with a marked emotional pain that, on the other hand, is not so uncommon throughout life and is experienced by many people at a time or another.
Now, that the broken heart syndrome is not a disease does not mean that we should give up trying to mitigate its effects; It is perfectly legitimate to wish to be well and to save ourselves a good deal of suffering. For that, we should start with a definition.
What is broken heart syndrome?
The broken heart syndrome is the set of states and psychological processes by which expresses the discomfort generated by a love disappointment or a breakup of a couple.
It may appear, for example, in cases of unrequited love, after being aware of an infidelity, or discovering that the person for whom we felt something is not what we originally believed.
In short, the broken heart syndrome is composed of emotional and physiological elements (such as anxiety and stress), cognitive (such as recurring thoughts) and behavioral (such as the desire to physically reunite with that person or some nervous tics produced by the anxiety).
- Related article: "Love and falling in love: 7 surprising investigations"
How to feel good after a disappointment
As always, at the time of intervening on the psychological problem there are more specific aspects that must be studied case by case and others that are more general. The former, in case the discomfort is very intense and persistent, it would be useful to address them with the help of psychotherapy, but in many other cases it is possible to focus on certain basic rules so that emotional pain diminishes more effectively through strategies that is responsible for implementing oneself.
Let's see some of the possible situations in which broken heart syndrome can appear
1. The unilateral rupture
In cases in which our partner has ended the relationship unilaterally, there are two things that produce discomfort: the fact of not enjoying the company of the couple in the usual way and, at the same time, the indecision about what you have to do
Regarding the latter, in the medium and long term the best thing for everyone is to assume as a fact that the relationship is over and that it is not up to us to reestablish the links of before. Believe that one can make the other person return and everything continues as it was in the best times not only is it unreasonable; is to have a possessive vision about the other person .
Therefore, in this scenario our efforts should focus on feeling good again with ourselves regardless of whether or not we have a relationship. This article may be useful for you:
2. Infidelity and cognitive dissonance
Both in cases in which the other person has committed an infidelity (understood as a transgression of the fundamental pacts on which the relationship has been built) and in which one facet of the other is discovered that we did not know and that we reject, the idea is similar: there is new information that does not fit our beliefs about what we thought it was in relation to .
This phenomenon of "lack of fit" between ideas is called cognitive dissonance, and can generate a lot of anxiety.
In these cases, it is necessary to reflect on the belief system on which our idea of the relationship is based and to see if what we know now is irreconcilable with our feelings. For this, for example, we can explore alternative explanations about what happens, ones that serve to reach a conclusion opposite to the one we hold in the beginning .
Then, we judge which of the explanations is more reasonable and better describes the reality, in a simpler way and without leaving so many loose ends. That belief system, which may or may not be new, will be the most appropriate to integrate this new information and to act accordingly.
3. Unrequited love
Broken heart syndrome may also appear when there has not even been a real relationship .
In these cases it is important Focus on avoiding irrational and baseless beliefs minen our self-esteem, something that can happen because, losing sight of a possible future scenario that had excited us, we can perceive this as a personal loss, something that speaks to ourselves for "having failed".
We must examine what happened and the way in which our expectations were making us little by little start to live in an imaginary world in which the relationship has already begun to exist (long before it did in the real world ).
In the same way, we must ask ourselves why it should affect our self-esteem if a stable relationship is not built with that person in particular ; After all, many people live perfectly without even knowing it or knowing it by sight; Nobody is predestined to know a specific person and not the others.
