What heartbreak does, and how we can heal after a breakup or loss
As a psychologist, I meet many people with broken hearts. Anyone who has experienced heartbreak will probably remember the shock, the disbelief, and the strange feeling that the world has suddenly become distant while everyone else continues with their lives as though nothing has happened.
But the most overwhelming part of loss is often the emotional pain itself. Every breakup and every loss brings its own suffering, and much of our recovery depends on how we respond to that pain.
We often hear that time heals all wounds. But is waiting really enough?
Why Do We Feel So Alone in Heartbreak?
How we experience and recover from loss depends on many factors: the nature of the relationship, our personality, coping strategies, personal history, and current circumstances.
One of the most important factors, however, is the support we receive from the people around us.
When we lose a close family member, others generally recognise our grief and offer sympathy. But when the loss involves a romantic breakup, rejection, or the death of a beloved pet, the response can be very different.
These forms of grief are often minimised, even though the emotional pain can be just as real and devastating.
After a breakup, our minds also become preoccupied with finding explanations. Why wasn’t I good enough? What went wrong? Could I have done something differently?
Talking about these questions is natural, especially in the early stages. But when we revisit the same painful thoughts for weeks or months, we may end up reopening the wound rather than allowing it to heal.
Our friends and family may also become exhausted by conversations that never seem to move forward.
This doesn’t mean we should stop seeking emotional support. It means recognising the difference between processing our feelings and becoming trapped in repetitive thoughts that keep us suffering.
Not Only Long Relationships Can Break Our Hearts
We tend to believe that only the end of a long, serious relationship can truly devastate us. In my practice, I often see something different.
Sometimes a brief relationship, or even a single date, can trigger unexpectedly intense heartbreak.
Heartbroken After Just One Date
One of my clients had spent a long time living independently. Work demanded much of her energy, opportunities to meet new people were limited, and self-confidence had never come easily.
Eventually, my client joined an online dating platform and met someone. The date went extremely well.
The following day, however, a message arrived. The other person had enjoyed the evening but didn’t want to meet again.
My client was devastated, struggling to concentrate on everyday responsibilities. Soon, the self-blame began: What’s wrong with me? Why did I allow myself to hope? Why am I so upset over just one date?
Yet emotional pain is not always proportional to the length of a relationship.
After a promising encounter, our expectations can rise remarkably quickly. We may lose not only the person we have just met but also the imagined future that was beginning to take shape.
Embarrassment can make things worse. We may feel ashamed of being so deeply affected by just one date and withdraw from the very people who could support us. One of the most harmful things we can do is dismiss our own suffering simply because we think it shouldn’t hurt this much.
Grieving the Loss of a Pet
The death of a beloved pet can also cause profound grief, sometimes even more intense than losses that society considers more significant.
One reason is the closeness of our everyday bond.
A pet may have been present in nearly every part of our daily life for years: greeting us in the morning, waiting for us to come home, and offering companionship during difficult times.
When that companion dies, we lose not only the animal but also part of the structure and comfort of our everyday lives.
Grief becomes harder when others fail to understand it. Yet the depth of our love and loss is not determined by whether other people consider the relationship important.
Why Heartbreak Can Be Harder When Living Abroad
Many of my clients are Hungarians living abroad, and I repeatedly see how much more complicated a breakup or loss can become when someone is living in another country.
If we moved abroad with our partner, losing that relationship may also mean losing the person who connected our old life with our new one.
If our partner was local, they may have been our bridge to the language, culture, friendships, and customs of our adopted country.
After the breakup, we may suddenly feel that we no longer belong.
Family and old friends are far away, and emotional support may be limited to phone calls or video conversations.
In these circumstances, building our own friendships and support network becomes especially important. We need connections that belong to us independently of the relationship we have lost.
What Happens to Our Brain During Heartbreak?
Heartbreak can feel like an emotional terrorist. It invades our thoughts, hijacks our attention, and makes it almost impossible to concentrate on anything else.
The expression broken heart suggests a single emotional injury. In reality, heartbreak affects our entire system: our emotions, bodies, thinking, daily functioning, and relationships.
Understanding these effects can help us respond more effectively.
Emotional Pain Is Real Pain
In a study led by Ethan Kross, researchers examined people who had recently experienced an unwanted romantic breakup.
When participants were asked to recall their rejection, some of the brain regions activated overlapped with those involved in experiencing intense physical pain.
This doesn’t mean emotional and physical pain are identical. But it helps explain why heartbreak can be so overwhelming.
When we have a severe headache, we accept that working and concentrating may be difficult. Yet after a painful breakup, we often expect ourselves to function as though nothing has happened.
Romantic Rejection Can Resemble Withdrawal
Research by Helen Fisher and colleagues suggests that romantic rejection involves brain systems associated with reward and motivation, including systems also implicated in addiction.
This may help explain the powerful longing we experience for someone who no longer wants to be with us.
We think about them constantly. We struggle to sleep, lose our appetite, feel anxious, and search for excuses to contact them.
Social media makes this particularly difficult. Checking an ex-partner’s profile can become a way of temporarily satisfying the urge to feel connected.
Recovery is rarely a straight line, either. One day we may feel hopeful; the next, angry, desperate, or overwhelmed by sadness. These emotional fluctuations do not necessarily mean that we are failing to recover.
What Keeps Us Stuck After a Breakup?
During intense emotional pain, we often turn instinctively towards behaviours that promise immediate relief but may prolong our suffering.
1. Searching Endlessly for Answers
After a breakup, it is natural to want to understand what happened.
We reread messages, revisit photographs, and replay conversations, searching for the moment everything changed.
But closure doesn’t always come from the other person.
Repeatedly asking for explanations or monitoring an ex-partner’s social media may keep us emotionally attached to the loss.
Sometimes the healthiest choice is to create digital distance: muting, unfollowing, or temporarily blocking an ex-partner.
Not as punishment, but as a way of protecting ourselves while we heal.
2. Self-Blame and Idealising the Past
After rejection, negative beliefs about ourselves can become particularly powerful.
I wasn’t lovable enough. If I’d behaved differently, we’d still be together. I’ll never find anyone else.
Over time, we may begin treating these painful thoughts as facts.
At the same time, we often idealise the person we’ve lost. We remember their smile, their kindness, and the happiest moments together, while overlooking conflicts, disappointments, and the times we felt unhappy.
Moving on doesn’t require us to see our former partner as a bad person. It requires us to remember the relationship realistically, rather than through the selective lens of longing.
3. Making Our World Smaller
After a loss, we may begin avoiding places, people, and activities associated with painful memories.
One client, for example, stopped participating in a previously enjoyable sporting activity because it had become too closely connected with a former relationship.
Avoidance may offer temporary relief, but over time it can make our lives increasingly restricted.
Recovery often involves gradually reclaiming these places and activities, creating new experiences that are no longer defined by the past.
The same applies to photographs, gifts, and other reminders. We don’t have to discard everything immediately, but it helps to notice whether keeping certain objects close is comforting us or repeatedly reopening the wound.
How Can We Heal from Heartbreak?
Time can help, but time alone is not always enough.
Our thoughts, habits, and choices can also influence how we recover.
1. Begin Accepting That the Relationship Has Ended
We often wait for one final conversation, a convincing explanation, or some sign that reconciliation is possible.
But letting go frequently begins when we stop organising our future around the possibility that the relationship will return.
Acceptance doesn’t mean that the pain disappears immediately. It means gradually allowing ourselves to imagine a future beyond the relationship.
2. Replace Self-Criticism with Self-Compassion
Imagine how you would speak to a close friend going through the same experience.
You probably wouldn’t tell them they were weak, ridiculous, or unlovable.
Why, then, do we speak to ourselves this way?
Self-compassion is not self-pity, nor does it mean refusing to acknowledge our mistakes. It means responding to our suffering with the same understanding and kindness we would offer someone we care about.
3. Interrupt the Cycle of Rumination
When we repeatedly replay painful memories and thoughts, we can become trapped in the past.
Mindfulness can help us redirect our attention towards the present moment.
We might focus on our breathing, the sounds around us, the sensations of walking, or the activity we are doing.
The goal is not to force difficult thoughts away. It is to notice them without judgement and gently return our attention to the present.
4. Rebuild the Parts of Life That Feel Empty
After a breakup or loss, we miss more than a person or a pet.
Our routines change. Weekends feel different. Shared plans disappear, and the future we imagined may no longer exist.
It can help to identify where these gaps have appeared and gradually introduce new routines, friendships, interests, and sources of meaning.
Gradually, we can find new ways to spend our time, reconnect with people, and enjoy things we may have neglected.
5. Rediscover Who You Are
In a close relationship, I and mine gradually become we and ours.
When the relationship ends, we may lose not only our partner but also part of our sense of identity.
Recovery involves reconnecting with our individual interests, values, goals, and relationships.
We don’t necessarily need to become the person we were before. Sometimes healing means discovering who we can become after the loss.
A Broken Heart Doesn’t Have to Mean a Broken Life
Healing from heartbreak is not a competition, and there is no universal timetable.
There will be easier days and difficult ones. Sometimes an unexpected memory or encounter may bring back feelings we thought had disappeared.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re back at the beginning. Healing often happens unevenly.
What matters is that we don’t simply wait for the pain to pass. We can take small, deliberate steps towards recovery: seeking support, treating ourselves with compassion, and gradually rebuilding our lives.
If you’re struggling after a breakup, rejection, or another significant loss, and feel that the people around you no longer understand why you’re still hurting, I would be happy to help.
I offer psychological consultations both online and in person, in English and Hungarian. You can find more information and appointment options at www.anitasarkany.com.
Anita Sárkány, Psychologist
References
- Winch, G. (2018). How to Fix a Broken Heart. TED Books / Simon & Schuster.
- Kross, E., Berman, M. G., Mischel, W., Smith, E. E., & Wager, T. D. (2011). Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. PNAS, 108(15), 6270–6275.
- Fisher, H. E., Brown, L. L., Aron, A., Strong, G., & Mashek, D. (2010). Reward, addiction, and emotion regulation systems associated with rejection in love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 104(1), 51–60.
