Broken Heart Syndrome: Causes, Symptoms And Treatment
Romantic relationships can be a rollercoaster of emotions Moments of euphoria can be followed shortly by bad seasons marked by relationship crises.
That is why, sometimes, something that we could call “broken heart syndrome” appears Of course, it is not a disease, but a set of symptoms that go hand in hand with 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, just because broken heart syndrome is not a disease does not mean that we should give up trying to alleviate its effects; It is perfectly legitimate to want to be well and save ourselves a good amount of suffering. To do this, we should start with a definition.
Broken heart syndrome is the set of psychological states and processes through which the discomfort generated by a heartbreak or a breakup is expressed.
It can appear, for example, in cases of unrequited love, after being aware of infidelity, or when discovering that the person for whom we had feelings is not what we initially believed.
In short, broken heart syndrome is made up of emotional and physiological elements (such as anguish and stress), cognitive (such as recurring thoughts) and behavioral elements (such as the desire to physically reunite with that person or some nervous tics produced by anxiety).
As always, when intervening on the psychological problem there are more specific aspects that must be studied case by case and others that are more general. The first, in case the discomfort is very intense and persistent, would be useful to address with the help of psychotherapy, but in many other cases it is possible to focus on certain basic rules so that the emotional pain decreases more effectively through strategies that is responsible for implementing oneself.
Let’s look at some of the possible situations in which broken heart syndrome can appear.
1. The unilateral breakup
In cases where our partner has ended the relationship unilaterally, there are two things that cause discomfort: the fact of no longer enjoying the partner’s company in the usual way and, at the same time, the indecision about what needs to be done.
Regarding the latter, in the medium and long term the best thing for everyone is to assume as a fact that the relationship has ended and that it is not up to us to reestablish the previous ties. Believing that one can make the other person come back and everything remains just as it was in the best of times Not only is it unreasonable; is having a possessive view of the other person
Therefore, in this scenario our efforts must focus on feeling good about ourselves again regardless of whether we are in a relationship or not. This article may be useful for this:
2. Infidelity and cognitive dissonance
Both in cases in which the other person has committed infidelity (understood as a transgression of the fundamental agreements on which the relationship has been built) and in which a facet of the other that we did not know and that we reject is discovered, the idea is similar: There is new information that does not fit our beliefs about what we thought the relationship was
This phenomenon of “lack of fit” between ideas is called cognitive dissonance, and it 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 see if what we know now is irreconcilable with our feelings. To do this, for example, we can explore alternative explanations for what happens, some that serve to reach a conclusion opposite to the one we initially held
Then, we judge which of the explanations is more reasonable and best describes 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 can also occur when there has not even been a real relationship
In these cases it is important focus on preventing irrational and unfounded beliefs undermine our self-esteem, something that can happen because, by 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 made us little by little begin to live in an imaginary world in which the relationship has already begun to exist (long before it did so in the real world). ).
In the same way, we must ask ourselves why it should affect our self-esteem if we were not able to build a stable relationship. with that specific person ; After all, many people live perfectly without even knowing them or knowing them by sight; No one is predestined to meet a specific person and not the others.
