Thoughts on Heartbreak—In Bits And Pieces 💔
As isolating as it is, heartbreak unifies us as humans.
Heartbreak No. 1
“I’m going back to my place.” It was a Saturday evening at the end of March. My then-boyfriend was tracing the line of a parking spot with his shoe.
“What?”
“I need some time to myself,” he said without looking up. “I’m going to play video games with Jack.”
“Oh, okay,” I said as he got into his car.
We spent most of our hours together, especially on weekends, but things felt different that particular Saturday. We hadn’t seen each other all day—I went biking with a girl friend and he enjoyed cozy solo time at home.
I watched him speed out of the parking lot. Standing beside my car, my cheeks burned, my ears pressed into the center of my brain, and my heart moved into my throat. And then, I unraveled. My cheeks drained, the pressure in my head released, and my heart imploded in my throat. At this moment I knew: our relationship was over.
I was twenty-three years old, and this was my first heartbreak.
We had our official break-up conversation the next day and returned one another’s belongings.
In the days that followed, I was a shell of myself. I forced myself out of bed to minimally meet the obligations I could effortlessly accomplish before and during our relationship—going to work, cooking, exercising. The only thing that got me through each day was the promise of being swallowed by my bed each night.
In the months that followed, I questioned my self-worth and the realness of our love. Was I even that great, if I was unwanted? Was it even that great, if it had ended? I questioned having loved a person capable of breaking my heart. I worried I would never find someone again. I doubted that love like this, let alone better, existed.
I searched for solace in conversations with friends, in the flow of creative pursuits, in day-to-day distractions. I journeyed from disbelief, to denial, to anger, to sadness. I negotiated the duration of each of these emotions, not sure how long was “normal” for each stage.
It was only in the years that followed that I found peace. Snapshot memories of our relationship brought me joy. Self-reflection showed how I’d grown in partnership.
Only when the pain of heartbreak completely subsided could I acknowledge the beauty in what it represented: my capacity to wholly love another person.
My Childhood Fear of Heartbreak
Though we never explicitly discussed it, my parents did not condone dating. My parents met in India when they were children, got married in their early twenties, and recently celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary. As a child, I surmised from their story that the only thing less acceptable than dating was breaking up.
Once when driving me to school, my mom said out of nowhere, “You can’t go around holding hands with multiple people” (I wasn’t holding hands with anyone). Her view on love was shaped by her South Asian culture and upbringing: a generations-long tradition of arranged marriages, and the promise of finding love in your spouse. I internalized her conservative approach to dating, and believed that you date a person who you are sure you will marry.
I saw break-ups as failure, and heartbreak as the consequence of that failure.
When I watched breakups on TV, my heart hurt. I was six when DJ and Steve broke up for the first time and fifteen when Rory and Jess let go of another. I ached with real pain for these fake characters.
As a result of media and my parents’ beliefs, I feared love because I feared heartbreak.
In seventh grade, a friend told me he loved me. I didn’t know if I loved him back. I avoided him the rest of the day. That night, I sat in bed journaling my feelings in the hopes of understanding them. I decided that because I didn’t want to marry him, I probably didn’t love him. The next day, he awaited my answer outside our classroom. Panicked, I blurted out, “I don’t like you!” For the next fifty minutes of Period 7 Science, I watched him barely hold back tears at his desk.
Back then, observing the pain of heartbreak—heartbreak I caused—only heightened my fear of heartbreak. Now I know that in breaking his heart, I broke a part of mine too.
Defining Heartbreak
I often wonder what constitutes romantic heartbreak. Do you have to have been a certain age for it to count? Do you have to have reached a certain timeframe or phase of a relationship for heartbreak to be real? Do you have to have said, “I love you” to your ex-person? Does there have to have been a relationship, or is there heartbreak in pining, chasing, and recognizing unrequited love?
Does love have to end in order for heartbreak to begin?
After healing from my first heartbreak, I occasionally questioned if it was heartbreak at all. But I only questioned it because time softened the pain so it was eventually negligible.
Romantic heartbreak is an emotion that you define for yourself. It overtakes you in a situation that by your definition, deserves it. Like any emotion, its disappearance does not mean it never existed at all.
Heartbreak No. 2, in a Pandemic
My second heartbreak was more painful than the first. Maybe because I loved him more deeply, maybe because I never expected our relationship to end, maybe because it happened at the onset of global pandemic, or maybe, because I simply forgot the pain heartbreak is capable of producing.
In the wake of this heartbreak, my pain was so acute I wished I could request sick leave. The pain was equivalent to that of knee surgery, lasted longer, and did not come with prescription pain medication.
The pain was made more profound when I realized that we still held love for one another in our broken hearts. It was the kind of heartbreak only Maria Popova could accurately describe:
In the midst of what feels like an unsurvivable loss, how do we moor ourselves to the fact that even the most beautiful, most singularly gratifying things in life are merely on loan from the universe, granted us for the time being?
Facing heartbreak at the start of pandemic—before vaccines and before we stopped Cloroxing groceries—I grappled with comparative suffering. How can I be depressed about heartbreak when the world is facing trauma? How can I feel loss when others have lost their partners to COVID? How can I be in pain when unhappy, cheating, and abusive couples are quarantined together?
Still, my heartbreak felt like the end of the world, and the world in fact, seemed to be ending. The poeticism disturbed me.
And now, amidst feelings of heartbreak, as I walk through this pandemic-struck city, I also walk through the ghost town of my relationship. The pizza spot where we both first “knew,” now no longer serving. Our first date-spot-that-wasn’t-a-date, now boarded up and graffitied. As if to remind me, “There is nothing more.” There is no “us.” There is only “me.”
What’s left are only memories and unanswered questions. Things I may never know, while I am left to stare at wooden boards with messages like, “Be back soon,” or more often, “Nothing in here to steal.” No reason to pry, no reason to wonder.
Nothing here to steal but my broken heart.
—Ro’s Journal, April 2020
Heartbreak is isolating, and only time heals it. Being stuck in social isolation and the slowness of pandemic time magnified these characteristic qualities of heartbreak.
In the absence of distractions or many real-life conversations, I started following dating coaches like Ali and Shaun Galanos on social media. They host frequent AMA’s, and while the details were different, I was surprised to find heartbroken masses on social media experiencing the same feelings as me.
Each person’s heartbreak, like each person’s love, is both unique and uniform. I slowly learned that heartbreak, as isolating as it can be, is also one of the most unifying experiences we have as humans.
On Hushing Heartbreak
We shout our love, and whisper our heartbreak. We mostly discuss our heartbreak once we’ve healed, when it’s far in the past, or even only after we’ve found love again.
A coworker once mentioned in a meeting, “I’m going through heartbreak right now.” I was shocked. At the time, I was shocked because her statement seemed unprofessional. Looking back, her statement was not unprofessional, but simply unexpected in the workplace.
Why don’t we talk about heartbreak-in-the-moment more broadly? Is it too painful? Do we not know what to say to the heartbroken? Is it akin to admitting failure? Do we want to avoid thinking about it? Do we not think it significant?
If we openly share engagements and marriages with colleagues and acquaintances, why not include heartbreak in our repertoire of acceptable social topics? After all, it too, is transformative.
Inviting Heartbreak Conversation
Repeatedly disappointed by Google search results for, “how to heal heartbreak,” I opened a conversation around it. How do others think about heartbreak? Is there a tried and true way to cope? What does the data say about finding love again?
This week, I sent an anonymous survey to a random set of over 50 friends. I asked about their experiences and feelings on heartbreak.
Of those that responded, 84.6% have experienced what they define as heartbreak, and a majority of them have experienced it 2 or 3 times. Happily, 69.2% have fallen in love since their most recent heartbreak.
When asked what was helpful in addressing heartbreak, common responses included talking about it with friends and passing time. One response deserves public acclaim:
Q: If you've experienced romantic heartbreak, what helped (or is helping) you address it?
A: Obsessively drawing out our astrology charts to prove that we weren't meant to be.
(Bravo, sweet friend, whoever you are ✨)
After my first heartbreak, I poured the pieces of my heart into writing, and after my second, into running and bread-baking. Losing myself in time and craft was the heartbeat of my healing journey.
I’m not unique in my coping strategy. Though respondents had differing views on what did and did not help them address heartbreak, they unanimously agreed on two things that never failed them:
Taking on new routines, personal projects, or activities
Passing time
How beautiful that getting through heartbreak, even if slowly, is guaranteed: our actions are in our control, and the passing of time is life’s only constant.
Our Brains on Heartbreak
Even neuroscience avoids heartbreak.
The body of research studying our brains on love overwhelms what little we’ve done to understand our brains on heartbreak. According to author Helen Fisher, “many scientists simply underestimate the power of heartbreak, but they also find the excitatory state of falling in love more alluring.”
Last week, The Atlantic published an excerpt from Florence William’s book, “Heartbreak: A personal and scientific journey” (I am currently #23 on 5 copies at the SF Public Library). The excerpt uses brain science to explain why the pain of heartbreak subsists. When heartbroken people see images of their ex, the activated areas of the brain are the same as those of when we they were in love—areas associated with craving and emotional regulation (and cocaine addiction). We crave this person like a drug we cannot have. Worse, when our love is not reciprocated, the activated areas of the brain are the same as that of physical pain.
But here is the most flabbergasting part of the science:
Through the study of prairie voles, behavioral neuroscientist Zoe Donaldson found that the brains of both in-love and heartbroken prairie voles made more corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a generator of stress hormones, than the brains of unpartnered voles. CRF is unused by in-love brains, but it is generated so that the brain is prepared to handle stress if heartbreak should follow.
[When the bonds of love are broken], the enhanced stress machines are prepared to respond to heartbreak quickly. As much as it hurts, the misery may be adaptive: It drives us to reconnect with our lost partners after brief separations, and it keeps us coming back home.
We are evolutionarily adapted to love—and to manage heartbreak.
Heartbreak’s Hardship and Beauty
Heartbreak is hard for so many reasons. For me, it’s tough to reconcile how someone I loved so deeply can also be the cause of my deep pain. It’s challenging to accept that while our love was shared, the heartbreak is solely mine to face.
When I asked about heartbreak’s hardships, survey respondents shared difficulties of letting go of what could have been, the demolition of self, and that sometimes there is no concrete reason for a breakup—but it must happen. This all resonated with me.
Q: What, if anything, makes romantic heartbreak hard?
A: The hardest thing for me was realizing and understanding the fact that something I believed so strongly to be permanent was not.
A: The feeling of worthlessness. You compare yourself to others like "Why am I not good enough?" "What could I have done differently?" […] Even if you broke up with them, the self-doubt and the feeling of failure is a heavy weight to carry.
A: That it isn't as clear when/if/how to end things, and that heartbreak can just happen—it isn't always a clear "person made a mistake" dynamic, but just realizing it isn't a fit, or something isn't working, and that slow unwinding is devastating.
Still, every respondent agreed that beautiful aspects of heartbreak exist, and shared what that looks like for them—a feeling so strong it reminds us of our vitality, the opportunity for self-growth and release, and the comfort of connection to humanity in this unifying emotion.
Q: What, if anything, makes romantic heartbreak beautiful?
A: The feeling of sadness and pain is overwhelming and really beautiful. As someone who doesn't experience very strong emotions, romantic heartbreak was by far the strongest, most all-encompassing feeling I've ever had.
A: Both of my romantic heartbreaks were the most important growth periods in my life. It certainly did feel like a renewal and an opportunity to build from scratch again.
A: Woof, that you often have to have the courage to do it to yourself, but doing that can feel eventually liberating—admittedly, much, much later.
A: The beautiful thing about heartbreak is that you feel legitimately connected to the lowest feeling possible for humans. It’s the ultimate connector.
Parting Thoughts
When I accidentally fell in love for the first time, I finally understood why people allow it to happen, and why crazier people search for it. Love is so, so great—and with time and healing, worth the heartbreak.
If I could parent my younger self, I would assure her that while heartbreak is painful, it is also beautiful. It is beautiful because it cannot exist where love did not.
After chancing heartbreak, surviving it, and falling in love once afterward, I now sit in the space between heartbreak and falling in love again. From this spot, I wholeheartedly believe—I must believe—that heartbreak immortalizes our past love, and propels us closer to love again.
Have you been thinking about this too? Do you have a similar (or different!) perspective? Start a conversation with Ro and the Unabridged Ro community or share this letter with a friend.
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