Kummer

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Heartbreak – the online practise

Dear visitors,

surfing the internet has brought you to the „heartbreak site” of the Relationship Doctor’s online practice.

A Heartfelt Welcome!

Chances are it is a very sad experience that has directed you here. You are probably feeling desperate and confused and in search of guidance and advice to help reduce the pain you are feeling inside.

Even looking for help may have already offered you some relief,  so feel free to read, click and surf, since any type of distraction will be good for you right now!

Internet forums will help you when feeling broken-hearted

Since you aren’t interested in anything else right now anyhow, read anything you can find on the web about separation and heartbreak.  You will find plenty of stories similar to yours that will help you realize that you are not alone.

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An online forum can be a great first refuge when you are broken-hearted.  Writing messages and reading replies can help you to clarify the inner turmoil just a little bit.
But – the people who will reply to you won’t be experts for relationship problems and will often be heavily biased by their own difficulties.  However, you can be sure to find sympathetic comfort and compassion that will make you feel better and this will help to heal your broken heart.

When it comes to advice about reconciliation and a new approach though, please be vigilant. Many people will have the best intentions – but have already failed to fix their own relationships. They will offer concepts to you which have already led to their own failure.  In addition to that, you might hear so many different opinions, that you might end up confused and decide for what you wanted to do in the first place, but you may end up hurting yourself this way.

As long as you feel emotional and upset you won’t be able to see the facts, quite like you can’t see the ground of a pond when the water has been stirred up. Only after the mud has settled is the water clear enough that things appear as they are. It’s the same with your soul. You could mess things up badly if you react while being desperate and angry. So don’t, take your time…

Love is the most beautiful feeling in the world, but it doesn’t have a chance without a clear mind!

In case you are still hoping for reconciliation; a carefully planned strategy custom made for your situation will hold great advantages for you.

I, the ‘relationship doctor’, behaviorist and expert for complex relationship issues, am offering a planning strategy specifically for you.  If you wish to speak with me, then simply send me an e-mail, share your situation with me,  or give me a call and then let’s reflect about what will work best for you..

• In case you don’t have any hope for a new start, you know that a hard time is ahead of you. Perhaps your partner has found a new love and left you behind feeling crushed and devastated, and you are clueless as to how you’ll get through the coming days.

• You may feel humiliated and trashed.  You may  be torturing yourself with the question: „Why, why, why?  Is he or she so much better than me? Does my Ex (what a horrible word!) really know what he/she is doing? Will he/she perhaps regret leaving me and come back to me?”

• More questions than answers, I’m afraid! I truly hope that you have some reliable friends who will support you in this challenging phase of your life.

• One minute you will be sad and depressed, the next angry, envious and jealous. While you feel wasted, the other one is having a fabulous time…

• While in the first phase of a separation, you will still have some hope left. Sometimes, this hope is justified and a crisis may even be helpful for a couple to arrive at a deeper understanding for each other. But sometimes, this hope is unsubstantiated. But, as we all know, hope is the last to go…

• In case you were no longer thrilled by your relationship anyway, you will now notice, that in some miraculous way the separation that was forced upon you, the pain and heart break have turned your ‘Ex’ into the epitome of attractiveness and you’re madly in love again, just like you once were, when you first met. You are probably willing to do just about anything to get him or her back!

• If only your Ex would give you another chance, right?  You would love to prove how much you’ve changed, how much you’ve improved,- just to change his or her mind!

But again, please be cautious!

In case this topic is very much troubling you, you can also read more here:  „Partner gone – will he ever return?”

My general advice to you is this:

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© Dave Allen/fotolia.com

•  Be active, go out into nature, even if it’s cold and raining outside.

•  Don’t hide at home to lick your wounds,  -go out, even if you don’t feel like   it  because your heart is heavy.

• Nothing will be better for your stressed nervous system than being out in nature- I’m saying this as a biologist.

• Even if you’re not a bookworm, bookshops offer a plenitude of books that can now be of immense help for you, -making you aware of new perspectives.

• You could read my  pdf file about heartbreak.  Here I describe how evolution has shaped our love life over millions of years, and that it’s basically deeply rooted within our human nature to have our hearts broken at times.  But of course that’s no excuse for your Ex!

• If your heartbreak becomes so unbearable that you feel like you’re gazing into an abyss and don’t know how to move on, please call a crisis intervention team and ask for support.  They have good people who know how to guide you safely through the worst.

• If you’re a man who is not used to revealing a weak side to others, -you can remain completely anonymous when contacting an intervention team.  And please understand that it is far from shameful- even for a strong personality- to have a deep crisis through the loss of a partner.

• Or send me an e-mail via „contact” here on this website, and I will share my thoughts about your situation with you. Perhaps there is a small chance that the advice can be utilized to help influence your Ex-partner,- perhaps in more ways than you imagined!

Heartbreak and it’s effect on body and mind

A gut feeling had been telling Marian for a while now that something was wrong between her and her boyfriend Ralph.  At first there were only little things that didn’t sit right with her, hardly noticeable, but now they have become way too large to overlook. They lived together for three years and planned on getting married this year. Like any woman in love Marian wanted to improve the situation between the two of them, but it seemed to only make things worse. Finally, a dramatic argument brought clarity: for since six months now Ralph has been involved with another woman and can’t imagine a future with Marian anymore.

Marian feels as if she is in a free fall. Two weeks later he is gone, leaving her behind feeling devastated and broken-hearted. In her heartbreak, all she can think of, day and night is: Why-why-why?

It may sound like a paradox, but it is the heartbreak that is making her hold on to her love even more.

„If only I could hate him, then it would be easier!”

Four weeks later,  Marian has lost 20 pounds of weight, which is a catastrophe for a petite woman like her. At work, she feels worn out and over challenged, to focus on her work seems hardly possible, and her superiors have already expressed some concern about her increasing quota of mistakes. Since weeks she can’t get over a simple flu and when she moves her head too quickly,  she becomes dizzy.
In addition to feeling broken hearted she now has to worry about losing her job as well.

Heartbreak is psycho-social stress

Heartbreak is pure stress. Mind and body react to the loss of a loved one, either  through death or separation, with symptoms of a severe depression. A heartbreak depression can make people suicidal or cause grave psychosomatic disorders and illnesses.
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Via several interconnected hormonal circuits in our midbrain, heartbreak causes an increased release of the stress hormone Cortisol from our adrenal glands. Cortisol is identical to Cortison, the substance physicians treat inflammations with, but it will cause a greater susceptibility for infections if applied for a longer period of time. Together with Adrenalin, Cortisol is supposed to prepare the body for either fight or flight when in emergencies. Since heartbreak is a constant condition for what may be quite a while, it results in a chronic stress situation, harming body and mind.

Heartbreak can eventually lead to high blood pressure, it can damage our heart and blood vessels, as well as suppress our immune system. In this way,  heartbreak can ultimately lead to cancer. That we can die from heartbreak may appear as an old myth, but actually, there is a deep truth to it!

Heartbreak makes you dumb

©Zerbor/fotolia.com

©Zerbor/fotolia.com

Each severe depression – as heartbreak – has a dramatic impact on our brain. Neurobiological studies  show that psychosocial stress changes the architecture of nervous pathways in the Hippocampus.  Due to the rise of the stress hormone Cortisol, a loss of nervous pathways is taking place. The Hippocampus plays a central role in processing emotions and saving memories.

It is no big surprise that people with a heartbreak depression suffer from listlessness and concentration(al) dysfunction. Now you can understand that you really are bereft of your usual potential when lovesick!

But the effects are reversible.  Antidepressants annul the effect of Cortisol and allow the nervous paths to regenerate and grow back, but only after a while. So there is a cure for it, at least for the physical symptoms.

The four common phases of heartbreak

Denial of the separation

In the initial heartbreak phase, abandoned partners makes huge efforts to talk their partners out of leaving. They find themselves unable to accept that the relationship could be over. Pleading for another chance, admitting to mistakes and willing to work hard on their personality, they are willing to change. They want to spend more time with the partner who is leaving, so they can demonstrate their progress. The partner, however, tries to avoid these situations and blocks all efforts.

Constant arguments

In the second phase of the separation, the abandoned partner grows more and more desperate. The efforts to mend love seem to be in vain. The partner continues to withdraw, tired of having to explain and to justify. Crushed, a person who has been left can feel like they’re losing ground and can react in quite irrational ways. If there is a third person involved, extreme jealousy may become a torture. His or her behaviour may alternate between extreme submissive kindness and open angry rebellion. Depending on the abandoned person’s personality, this phase may become a physically dangerous time for the one who wants to leave…

Heartbreak and depression

This phase is marked by deepest depression. Frequent arguments have destroyed so much between the two, that the leaving partner usually avoids contact with the abandoned partner. So there is nothing left to fight for, nor any opportunity to do so. A general feeling of hopelessness can overwhelm the left partner. In this phase, some people have committed suicide.

Accepting and letting go

This is the final phase of heartbreak. The phase of licking wounds is over, the wounds are now almost healed and becoming scars. The forsaken person has accepted the separation. In this phase, he feels liberated and is able to move on and get involved with a new partner.

Depending on the length of their relationship, the circumstances of separation, the gender, the personalities involved and so forth, this scenario will last about 1-4 years.