Why Are Breakups So Hard They Could Kill You?

Breakups are incredibly hard. In my opinion, they are the second hardest kind of pain people have to endure. The only disaster that overtakes the pain of a breakup is some sort of illnesses.

Everything else in this world pales in comparison with breakups and their difficulties. Not even the death of a family member can leave a person as devastated as the separation from our romantic partner.

Some breakups are easier than others, but most long term relationships that come to an end cause unbelievable pain and suffering.

The only people who don’t get affected by them are psychopaths and narcissists. As for everyone else, we get affected to quite a big degree.

In some uncommon cases, dumpees don’t seem hurt by the breakups at all or actually aren’t. Those are normally the people who have detached a long time ago and dumpers only broke up with them because they stopped putting in the effort.

I suppose we could say that in such cases, dumpers are actually dumpees as they are the ones who suffer from the separation.

In this article, we’ll talk about the reasons why breakups are so hard and how they can kill us if we don’t find a way to ease our anxiety.

The biological aspects of breakups

Call it our nature, genes, blood or wiring, but human beings are programmed to bond and stick together.

Through bonding, we have survived various climate changes, apocalypses, food shortages, interpersonal conflicts, and wars, and just about everything disastrous.

Human beings have been cooperating together through good and bad for over 160.000 years. Humans from that era are called Homo Sapiens Idalhu or Herto Man.

Although they may not have been as physically or intellectually advanced as Homo Sapiens (current human species), their brains’ primal functions worked similarly if not the same way as ours.

Furthermore, when we continue going back in history, we encounter an even older type of human species which is often mocked for its lack of intelligence. People from that time are known as the Neanderthals, and they lived 400.000 years ago until 40.000 years ago.

Their brains’ size was larger than ours today, but the size alone didn’t make them any smarter than Homo Sapiens. Despite the species existing over 400.000 years ago, the Neanderthals were no numbnuts either. They were great hunters, artists and very empathetic toward one another.

And last but not least, we have Homo Habilis which lived around 2 million years ago.

There are many other types of primates, but the point I’m trying to convey is that humans always needed other humans to survive.

Emotional and psychological codependency began to form a long time ago when humans resembled the Chewbacca character from Star Wars way more than actual humans.

They bonded through sex and empathy and grew attached to one another just like many other mammals in this world.

It’s always been in our nature to care for one another and always will be.

What about the brain?

According to Wikipedia, scientists believe that the first signs of brain structure appeared over 521 million years ago and included the most primitive and underdeveloped functions. Basically, the brain merely guaranteed survival.

A slightly more advanced brain is believed to have existed in mammals about 250 million years. The basic functions were more advanced and entailed emotional, sexual and fighting behaviors.

Cerebrum – the largest part of the brain developed roughly 200 million years ago. Its primary roles are language, thinking and the processing of information.

This means that people have had the ability to think, feel and adapt to their surroundings for ages. From generation to generation, humans evolved and grew in size, posture and brains.

The bigger we grew, the smarter we became and the more we relied on others for emotional and physical comfort.

We needed others to feel warm when the nights got cold and relied on them when we got sick.

If we didn’t sympathize and take care of each other, people would have gone extinct before we even had the chance to develop into the beings we are today.

The psychological aspects of breakups

Humans changed little by little over the thousands of millenniums and learned to work together.

As we became more and more dependent on each other, we developed the ability to appreciate each other and at the same time—learned how to bond on a deeper level.

Today, whenever we feel valued or emotionally and physically fulfilled, our brains reward us by releasing a chemical called dopamine.

This pleasant sensation throughout our brains makes us feel euphoric and safe in a relationship.

Dopamine is also known as the happy hormone which is also extremely addicting. Whilst we are in a relationship with the person we love, this hormone (as well as other hormones) course through our brains on a daily basis.

We don’t even realize how addicted we are to happy hormones until our supply is abruptly cut short.

So when we don’t get this basic, yet prominent drug, our brain start to beg for it. The brain is suddenly willing to do anything to get a hit of these hormones.

The pain from the withdrawal tries to reason with our left side of the brain – the left hemisphere which is responsible for logical thinking and convince us that we need to reconcile.

That’s when the real mindf**k begins. Suddenly, we begin to act like junkies who haven’t gotten a hit in a day and as a result, resort to appalling deeds.

Just how the junkie begging for a hit is the least bit appealing to society, so is begging our exes to give us another chance. Dumpers see how miserable we look when we become desperate so they become incredibly repelled by the sight of our behavior.

Signs and symptoms of breakup stress

It goes without saying that stress is a huge killer. Every negative emotion puts a strain on our bodies and takes life away from us.

Even though our bodies and minds are reinforced to protect us from temporary stress, prolonged exposure to unpleasant emotions can have long-term consequences.

Here are 50 breakup signs and symptoms that could end up taking years away from your life span.

These are just the symptoms of stress which are practically harmless in low amounts. But the longer the anxiety, stress, and pain go on for, the higher the risk of experiencing the long-term consequences of stress.

So if you’re worried about your breakup and feel unwell, you need to find a way to stop ruining your health immediately!

If you don’t, stress will slowly but surely harm you and eventually destroy you inside out.

Long term consequences of stress:

• skin and hair issues
• cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks and stroke
• mental health problems
• increased aging
• low libido and menstrual issues
• arthritis
• eating disorders, phobias, and OCD
• gastrointestinal issues, such as ulcers
• premature or sudden death

Can you die from a broken heart?

Studies show that it is possible to die from heartbreak, but it happens very, very rarely.

Whenever it does happen, it usually happens because of cardiovascular reasons – heart failure.

But the most neglected breakup death of all is not caused naturally as it occurs due to self-inflicted reasons – suicide.

Although I don’t have the exact statistics on how many people have thought of suicide, attempted it or actually succeeded, I know many dumpees suffer from severe depression as a result of their breakups.

If you are one of them, please hang in there. I don’t have magic words that will suddenly send all your pain away, but I do promise you one thing. Life does get better and boy does it feel good once you are over your ex.

When you finally leave your ex in the past, you will feel renewed gratitude towards your well-being and a greater sense of appreciation for life in general. But for you to get there, you must persevere through your worst breakup anxiety.

I know breakups suck and I know it’s tough.

If you need somebody to talk to, feel free to join the Magnet of Success discord chat group.

What makes breakups so hard?

What makes breakups so difficult is not just losing the person we love, but rather losing a part of ourselves.

The dumpee’s syndrome and the post-breakup terror (explained in this article) is what makes breakups so hard.

Here’s what they entail:

• fear of loss
• hurt ego and self-esteem
• separation anxiety
• lack of direction
• loss of security
• fear of the ex-partner
• craving what the dumpee can’t have
• attachment style distress
• withdrawal symptoms
• stress from a lack of happy hormones (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins)

When we get broken up with, we often get so blinded we can’t tell left from right. We become so disorientated, the only way we see is backward toward our exes.

But unfortunately, that path is no longer available so we must find a different way and take the leap of faith through the fog into the unknown.

The first step is always the most difficult to take. However, every subsequent step gets much easier as the path becomes clearer with the passage of time alone as well as with your actions.

How can you heal from a breakup?

The fastest way to recover from a difficult breakup is to become happy with yourself again. To become happy means you must start enjoying life. And to start enjoying life, you need to do the things that give your life purpose.

This means you should indulge in activities that you enjoy participating in. Find a way to get crazy obsessed with them and your ex won’t matter that much.

Sure, you will still miss him or her, but getting busy with your life will have become your new priority.

Don’t underestimate the power of getting busy as it’s the best medicine for breakup blues there is.

Also, surround yourself around friends and family that appreciate you. This is the time when you can become a little bit selfish and vent about your frustrations.

One of the best types of therapy is talking about your emotions to the people you trust and feel comfortable around. Whenever you feel down, dial your friends and ask them if they could lend an ear.

Of course, don’t take their efforts for granted. Make sure you show them you appreciate them by treating them to something nice every now and then. If you don’t show appreciation, some people could end up avoiding you.

Nostalgia is your worst enemy

Speaking about avoiding people—you should probably avoid dating others for a while if you feel that it’s too early for you.

If you’re still in the early stages of a breakup and you decide to date someone, he or she could reopen your wounds and destroy your emotional progress to smithereens.

After the breakup, you are very vulnerable as everything reminds you of your ex. Even something as simple as a smile from another person could trigger your nostalgic emotions.

Since dumpees experience enormous amounts of nostalgia, they often miss their exes like crazy and overvalue them too.

The little things that didn’t mean much back then suddenly mean the world to the devastated dumpees.

This occurs due to the exaggerated emotions dumpees go through post-breakup.

And since dumpees feel weak and vulnerable, they unintentionally cast an enchanting spell on normal memories and transform them into priceless ones.

Something as simple as thinking about going to the grocery store together with the dumper can stir up nostalgia—which can soon turn into melancholia.

To prevent yourself from unnecessary grief, steer clear of anything that reminds you of your ex for a while.

Avoid common places, songs, movies, food, or anything that brings back sweet memories. If you don’t, you risk encountering your worst enemy – nostalgia.

Avoiding the no contact rule to get your ex back

Breakups can get especially hard when you deliberately avoid the indefinite no contact rule. This rule is not just about your ex and getting him or her back. It’s also about your health.

Correction, it’s mainly about your health and it should always be that way. So get out of hope zone and don’t think that you can talk your way back into the romantic relationship with your ex. The power of persuasion doesn’t apply to breakups.

It doesn’t matter how good you are with words and how amazing of a salesman you are. You won’t sell anything to a person that doesn’t want to hear you out.

You can spend weeks or months perfecting the most perfect line and it won’t help you if your ex isn’t ready for it.

Your ex must first become receptive to his or her surroundings. Only then will your words and behavior have an impact on the person you’re desperately trying to impress.

But before your ex wants to hear you out on his or her own accord, you may as well pretend your ex doesn’t exist. Your ex isn’t interested in talking so make his or her wish come true.

So if you want to stop suffering or feeling anxious whenever you’re talking to your ex, go indefinite no contact. Once you do, you will go through the 3 stages of no contact and slowly, but surely get back on your feet.

Contrarily, if you’re already following this rule, stick with it as if its the only thing you know how. One day, you will either get your ex back or find someone that puts your ex to shame.

I hope the information provided in this article has helped you better understand why breakups are so painful and how worrying about them is going to kill you. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.