Mental health! Heart Breakdown!
Let’s talk about often publicly “not-discussed” topics, Mental health! Heart Breakdown!
Do we treat our mental health the way we treat any other issues, maybe like a bone fracture? Most often, NO!?
Does this – “Mental Breakdown” or “Heart breakdown” not trouble us the way a fracture does? Is this at times not the same as any other unbearable pain, about which you wish to speak out, consult and take medications??
You know this might cause insomnia, intrusive thoughts, or immune system malfunction.? 40% of people feel clinically measurable depression, psychological injuries that may impact in multiple ways like turning you into a much introverted or reversed person, your social-digital life might immensely change. People have even experienced Alzheimer’s disease in some cases. In the worst case, it may cause you a sense of Cardiac arrest, intense headache, heavy chest, and difficult breaths. It might suffocate you intensely.?
Your brain releases love hormones called Oxytocin which keeps you attached. During stress, it releases CRH, cortisol, catecholamines, and thyroid hormone, which causes different levels and types of stress and anxiety to you. To balance both of these, the brain keeps searching for dopamine. While you go through a heartbreak, your brain goes through a deficiency of Dopamine and oxytocin, this leaves the brain filled with excessive Cortisol, and this makes us more restless which further hits the secretion of more cortisol. To balance dopamine deficiency, you tend to eat and sleep more. You might not feel like doing anything, productivity may just go down much. You may end up feeling lethargic.? Your senses might get affected, you might remain lost in your thoughts for long, you might not pay attention to details and things around. You got to be present with all your senses!?
This pandemic, elongated lockdown, work-life imbalance, at times the hectic-toxic office, academic pressure, career goals, long-distance miscommunications, and many more reasons might have lead to situations where you are either on the verge of losing your loved ones or you might have just lost them, maybe for-ever. And this might impact your mental health immensely. You might be feeling lost, stuck, unwanted, unlovable, a lot of headaches, no willingness to eat, sleep or do anything, in a nutshell - shattered. Now how to deal with this??
First of all, we need to understand what this relationship has brought to you, both the good and the bad things. You might need to put equal or even more effort to come out of it, than what you had put in maintaining that. In such a situation, you depend on three things, mind – in regards to emotions; time – for memories; and acceptance – to move on.?
You at times might need to identify that your brain is trying to trick you. Heartbreaks bring a high dramatic pain and the brain tries to equalize it with similar dramatic actions based on instincts or emotions it receives. For some of us who are very sensitive to sudden changes of emotions or thoughts, this could turn into a much drastically painful, or – mental disbalance.?
We become obsessed with getting out of the troubling questions that haunt us a lot, we seek answers for the very irrelevant, undefined questions which just might not have an exact explanation. And we chase these questions or people, just because that we want to satisfy, better to say the anxiety of our brain, to balance all the stress and anxiety hormones. We crave to find a fix.?
Most of the actions that we usually take, like, stalking on social media, reading old chats, stalking pictures, trying to connect back continuously, getting nostalgic on old memories, unfinished plans, and a lot more. All of this tends to feed your addiction, which further misbalances the brain. You might need closure to stop this addiction, and distract yourself when this imbalance hits you. Maybe quickly get into something else, some other work or hobby. Maybe just take a long walk, listen to soothing music (not the heart-breaking ones though :p).?
Your mind might give you a lot of hopes of getting back what you lost, which might be just false and impractical. It will remind you of good times ignoring all the bad memories you had, toxic discussions you went through. You might imagine or hallucinate that person, their smiles, their good-bad habits. Your mind may portray as if all that you had was just perfect and ideal, and you would never get that back. Your mind fools us a lot. It is just this that you may not get the person, but yes you get all the other things back eventually once you move on, or you discover new things, as we all are much unique in most of the horizons and common in some ways.
It’s good to look out for social or psychological support. You might be going through a tough battle within your mind. We need to maintain emotional hygiene and psychological health.?
We sustain psychological injuries more than anything else. Interestingly, most of them could be treated, but we tend to ignore them. Can you tell someone with a broken leg, to just walk it off its just in your leg! No? Then why do we say this psychological issue is just there in your mind, just get it off???
You might find yourself very lonely, full of failures, your mind might trick you with frustration and a lot of anxiety. You might find yourself helpless, convinced with the fact that you can’t succeed, demoralized, defeated and you need to fight and cut off this emotional cycle before it begins. Stop emotional bleeding. Reject some feelings, stop talking bad about yourself. Do not add more to the injury. You do not deepen or scratch the wound more, rather you try to let it heal, heal with time! Then why do you deepen the psychological wounds????
We need to gain more self-esteem, more strength. Protect yourself from rumination, you might over chew most of your thoughts, stop that. Stop replaying old memories, or habits you liked. This nostalgia targets or induces more negativity and pain. If it overwhelms, then it might even cause a cardiac arrest, you might find your chest heavy, and may experience a headache. Force yourself to change the focus to cut down the urge of rumination. Battle negative thinking by taking action when you are lonely, you need to change the responses to failure, precisely towards that negative thought.
You need to understand that you do have an option to live a happy life, the choice is yours, the decision is yours. The obsession keeps shifting, you just need to redirect it. Our mind keeps jumping from point to point, we need to make it focus on the more sensible things.?
Antonio Pascual Leone says you need to change the emotions, focus and, you need to end or let go of the emotional baggage of the unfinished business to MOVE ON!?
Moving on is just a matter of time? If it took you 6-7 years before, doesn’t mean in this case also it would take that long. It differs, based on your maturity and the emotional baggage you hold on to, the false hopes that you hold on to.?
People generally go through these three steps to get over and move on, as mentioned below.
Step 1: You were upset?
At times we just focus on the good parts that we miss and ignore all the toxicities or bad experiences we have gone through. We need to look at those bad things as well which at times might have given us a perspective that this might not work out well.??
We need to specifically identify what we exactly miss about that relationship or that person, or those unfinished businesses or plans. Once you identified this, you need to analyze if that was worth it? Is it something just unreplaceable??
We need to nullify these wants and needs. And remove them from your nostalgia list.
Our brain is very strong, it holds the memory of age overages. That’s why also our body features are aligned that way, nothing replaces its position. The nose remains where It is supposed to be. Hence, you might be able to just clear the memories, but what you can do is justify to yourself the reasons behind anything that took place. It is moreover that memory that we miss more than anything else.
You gotta keep breathing and tolerate the feelings until you do not feel okay with the new normal. At times it might be very upsetting, you might feel stuck and blame yourself!?
Slow down, where does it hurt you the most? What hurts you the most? Have a very clear thought on what you NEED in the longer run, and what is the WANT that you have as of now, and WHY?
Step 2: Bent out of shape?
领英推荐
Step 3: Anger and grief?
At times when we grieve, our mind reminds us of only the good old days and we tend to forget the bad days which made us feel to just end this, or why am I left so miserable or vulnerable.?
We remain stuck at the unfinished goals/projects. For example, going out for a Bungee jump together tied to one rope, or might be to have your dream child, we all do all that, isn’t it? We make a lot of plans for a future that is not very certain. Now all these goals are never going to get fulfilled, so just get rid of them! That’s what you need the most.?
You need to understand what you resent. What are you fighting for? What do you exactly miss? What are those specific losses? Can’t they be repainted, maybe with someone else? Will you not find someone else, just as you had found them. You will just give it some time.
Are you chasing those plans or memories, or the person itself, or what? Most of the time we are just running after those unfinished goals, the memories or the experiences we had, and we repent the same. Every fact that all this has ended and you would never be able to finish them is what makes you anxious and gives you a sense of sadness, sorrow, and aloofness.
Grief is not just about crying, it is much larger in expression. You need to finish the feelings. This is going to be a little tough and is an implicit process. You may find yourself moving out of this, and then all of a sudden something might pull you back, at times it may pain, but – HOLD ON! This will be sorted one day. Even a scratch that you get on your hands, takes some time to heal, and till then it keeps paining.?
What could be the outcome?
Loss is indeed painful. What happens when you lose your favorite pen or gadget, which you might have been using daily??
You feel sad about it, you remain a bit restless, you tend to keep searching for it. But you do not remain in the same situation over a long time, you replace it with a new one, and this time maybe with another type of it, which has different or better features or so. Then, how are we not supposed to get attached to humans? Or pets? We do. But, why remain stuck? Move On!?
You might often hit a nostalgia vortex, but you need to make sure that you do not remain in it any longer. Keep yourself engaged. Explore new hobbies or career opportunities. Make an escape passage for yourself. Cultivate hope in your mind, do not let nostalgia or fear take it over. Speak to people and socialize.?
Finally, do not forget, I am there to listen to you. Feel free to reach out if there is anything you wish to talk about. I’ll be happy to help.?
?
?
???
?
????
?