The hurt of my first heartbreak infiltrated my bones and settled in the pit of my soul, somewhere around my midline but far deeper than my physical body goes. I was prepared for the first bout of emotions: denial, bargaining, anger and sadness, but I was not prepared for the pain. The roots of Him had dug into every part of my being as if they were twisted around my nerves. And then, from somewhere around my sternum those roots were being ripped out of me, shredding everything that obstructs their escape. Occasionally I thought I was going mad; how is this devastation affecting me so physically, what is happening in my body, and how do I make these feelings stop?
Living within our brains we have something called the ‘caudate nucleus,’ which is associated with our brain’s reward system. In other words, it’s the place that goes “oooh yes, do it again,” when our brain produces dopamine and oxytocin as a result of something we’ve done. An example of people exercising their caudate nucleus is by using cocaine. Cocaine, much like morphine and indeed love, fills our brain with neurochemicals that make us feel great. Our brain remembers the pleasure we feel and what caused that pleasure and wants us to do it again and again and again. Hence why addiction exists. So when we’re in love our brain is inundated with neurochemicals, making us absurdly happy and unknowingly addicted. So when our hearts get broken the lovely neurochemicals disappear and our brain begins waiting, itching, starving for the next fix, much like a detoxing drug addict. We love, we become addicted and when that love leaves us we experience withdrawal.
At first, when He broke up with me, I was devastated, but that devastation only grew; I was waiting for a ‘fix’ of Him for a longer period than I’d ever had to while we were together. When I would try, and eventually fail, to fall asleep, I would remember what it felt like to listen to Him fall asleep, His breath would change and His body would twitch next to me. I had longed to feel that again. When I would fold my washing and come across the blue dress He loved, I would remember that sunny Saturday we spent drinking sangria, cooking that fish and trying our hardest to keep our chili-covered hands off one another. I wished I could go back to that. I was constantly craving Him and us, what we were and what we could have been.
First comes love, then comes heartbreak, then comes adrenaline flowing through our veins. Adrenaline is the hormone and neurotransmitter that tells our body something isn’t right, it fills our body with cortisol, which makes us stressed. During heartbreak, in the absence of dopamine and oxytocin, our brain fills with cortisol. Over an ongoing period of time, stress can cause a magnitude of physical distress. Our blood sugar elevates, we lose calcium from our bones, some of our immune responses become less effective, our blood pressure rises, muscle mass decreases and we experience a loss of cognitive function. If that isn’t enough, our gut health is also hugely affected by our emotional state. When our gut isn’t happy we can experience nausea, indigestion, pain, cramps and even stomach ulcers.
This is the reason some people either lose or gain a substantial amount of weight after a break-up; your gut may cause you to eat obsessively or have no appetite at all. So, post-break-up we feel stressed, confused and unable to eat normally. I am usually an emotional eater, any emotion is an excuse for indulging in something delicious, but as soon as we broke up I felt like all I could do was vomit. I didn’t eat for days and when I did I was full after one spoonful. This man that I loved had been ripped away from me and the devastation, disbelief and absurdity of that cruelty had rendered me helpless. I eventually started to eat again, trying to push the sadness down deeper inside me. I remember feeling like I was constantly running out of air. And then the pain, the pain was an entirely different beast.
When we experience physical pain (a broken arm, a gunshot wound, etc.) the insula and anterior cingulate cortex in our brain light up. This place in our brain, hidden in the space separating the temporal lobe from the parietal and frontal lobe, also lights up when we experience heartbreak. So I was not imagining it, when it felt like someone had plunged a knife into my stomach or like my bones were burning, disintegrating into dust. That pain is as real as that of a physical injury. Surely if heartbreak pain is the same as physical pain, painkillers can be used to dull the agony, as they would with other injuries.
Although it’s not recommended, there have actually been studies that have found daily doses of acetaminophen can reduce heartbreak pain. Ironically, it’s also been found that love can be used as a pain-killer. Love activates the same parts of the brain that morphine and cocaine do, and is actually quite effective as a means of relieving pain.
I remember being in hospital while we were together, pumped full of narcotics and in agonising pain from a kidney infection. As soon as I saw Him come in through the hospital curtain the pain began to dull. I remember He kissed me and for that time I felt nothing but happiness. Throughout our relationship, I remember thinking, “even if this ends badly, I will be so glad and so grateful for the happiness He has given me.” The very few times since we had broken up, I feel that is usually accompanied by a fleeting sense of calm. There was still pain deep within me. It felt like a perpetual sinking, all my organs dragging down to somewhere that could not be reached.
Heartbreak can sometimes feel like a form of insanity. The insomnia is terrifying and exhausting. The ongoing stress levels of a breakup can either cause no sleep or too much sleep. For me, this resulted in restless, nostalgic, insomnia. It’s as if my brain knew exactly when my head hit the pillow and choose that moment to go into over-thinking mode. It’s as if a ‘best of’ montage played throughout my head and it became impossible to think of any relationship flaws. I started thinking about the craziest of things.
What if He comes to my house to apologise and proclaim His love for me? What if I wake up tomorrow and I’ve travelled back in time six months? What if He comes to my work tomorrow with flowers and begs for me back? None of that happened. It was irrational thinking. And the further I ruminated on every facet of the relationship the crazier I got. I would think, should I text Him and tell him how much I want Him back? Should I ask Him for the roll of film he took when we went on our last adventure. Should I go to His house and demand he gives me back the beautiful Aran Island beanie my mum bought Him in Ireland. I didn’t do any of that, nor should I have. It was unhelpful thinking. And my brain was fully aware of that at the time.
On top of everything happening in the brain of the heartbroken, there is intense conflict between the rewards centre and the orbital frontal cortex. The rewards centre is addicted and trying its hardest to get the dopamine and oxytocin release it wants, whereas the orbital frontal cortex is trying desperately to learn from emotions and control behaviour. Imagine the orbital frontal cortex is the little angel on one shoulder and the rewards centre is the devil on the other. The angel is telling you to control yourself. The devil is telling you to do whatever you can to get Him back. Conflict ensues.
When we finally ended things we agreed to cease all social media connection. We knew it would be for the benefit of us both. A couple of weeks into that, one of my favourite artists released a new song and she reposted something from Him in creating hype for the release. Seeing that was like taking a bullet, and then for some reason, I stood in front of the gunman and begged for another round to go off into me. No matter how hard I had tried I couldn’t help but look further. I looked at his Instagram and saw exactly what I hoped I wouldn’t. He was having fun, moving on and being happy. Or at least that’s what it looked like. The humiliation, defeat and breathlessness I had felt were amplified by my exhaustion, and even with melatonin tablets and Ativan, I couldn’t sleep.
It can be comforting to understand what causes you to feel a certain way; it helps you rationalise what you’re going through. The reality is that although what I was feeling could be explained, heartbreak is still incomprehensibly devastating. No amount of science could make the void in my body feel full. There was no piece of research that made me stop longing for and loving someone who, I thought, had washed His hands of me. There is nothing that could stop me experiencing my feelings from this heartbreak, and I’m grateful for that.
If I could, I would have opted out of those feelings. But if I hadn’t had felt this so absolutely, the pain would have set up home in my soul and feasted on my happiness forever. The feelings slowly left me, they passed with time and one day I caught my breath again and felt healed. But in that period of heartbreak, I felt that pain in its entirety and was comforted by the fact that it was real, and we were real. I loved Him and that heartbreak was proof of the beauty and profundity of my first love, and indeed my first heartbreak.
Photo taken by Jackson McRae
