Broken Hearts: What Are The Answers For Healing?
Throughout our lives, we all experience some type of trauma that involves death, betrayal, failure, or discomfort. But for many of us, the most traumatic experience that will change so many facets of our lives is a broken heart. A broken heart that will leave us permanent scars that will last the rest of our lives.
For many people, broken hearts will leave them questioning their character, affecting their ability to trust, leaving them in a deep dark depression, isolating themselves from others, and building a wall so high around them that it is almost impossible for anyone to enter. While all of these effects of a broken heart will be short-term, many of them will cause permanent damage to the psyche.
Many people argue that healing a broken heart is a lot like dealing with death and going through different stages of grief. While everyone will have unique experiences and will treat them differently, the lasting effects are almost all the same. Two people who are very close to me have experienced broken hearts that have left them missing opportunities and damaged them to the point where relationships will probably never exist again in their lives. In order to protect the identities of these two individuals, this article will refer to them as Rachel and Chris.
Rachel, a 26-year-old woman, experienced more than one heartbreak. However, your situation is unique. She was in relationships that were often physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually abusive. Rachel dated the masters of manipulation, so to speak. In each of her relationships, she became very codependent and convinced herself that she needed the person she was with and that no one else could be better for her. These patterns became a constant in her relationships to the point where she was almost drawn to that guy or the lack of better words, dependent on these behaviors. Now this statement means that Rachel was looking for these behaviors in the guys she dated, she’s gearing more toward the idea that she began to embrace the idea that these behaviors were more the norm for her and all relationships.
In her last relationship, one that would end up compromised, she experienced a major trauma. The physical and sexual assault was taken to a whole new level. This time it resulted in suicidal thoughts, deep depression, the idea that he could not escape, and even hospitalization. She was literally imprisoned by her partner to the point that she was accepting the idea that leaving the situation was not even possible, whether she wanted to or not. This led to a series of events that forced his hand to abandon the situation. One of Rachel’s parents took a stand and forced her out of the situation without her having a voice. Her mother literally drove and picked her up and said “come with me”.
Of course, Rachel experienced a broken heart after her forced removal from the situation she was in. She experienced all the effects of a broken heart; questioning her character, impairing her ability to trust, left her in a deep and dark depression, isolating herself from others and building a wall so high around her that it is almost impossible for someone to collapse to enter. According to Rachel, her “coping” is characteristic of her personality type, an INFJ. While this statement may be true, in my personal opinion, I think you are using your personality type to overshadow what is really going on. He lives in fear of being in a relationship again because he prefers to walk away from relationships rather than see that his idea that “no one is good in the world” is really wrong. As a result, he moved miles from home and began living a life of solidarity.
Like Rachel, Chris also experienced big broken hearts that have had a lasting impact on his life. While they share similar circumstances and had similar effects, the way Chris dealt with their broken hearts is very different from Rachel’s.
Since Chris was a teenager, he experienced heartaches associated with relationships that mostly involved betrayal. All these relationships caused him to question his character, affect his ability to trust, leave him in a deep and dark depression, isolate himself from others and build a wall around him that not even the best of destroyers could tear down.
Chris’ last two broken hearts come from a marriage that ended due to adultery and a relationship that was at the end of engagement but ended due to the girl moving out. Both had a lasting impact on Chris’ ability to let people join his inner circle. He would often drive people out and begin to isolate himself from situations that he could not control. Therefore, Chris felt extremely lonely and deeply depressed. His life became unmanageable to the point that he was on the verge of committing suicide twice, one of which was on the verge of succeeding. In addition to suicide, depression, and building a wall, Chris began to lose confidence not only in himself but also in others. He began to embrace the idea that all people were born to hurt others and that self-centeredness was simply a part of life. As a result, Chris stopped dating, became very cold and emotionless to avoid attachment, and eventually become disappointed again.
Now fast forward almost a year later. Rachel decided to move to a place she had never visited before to continue her education and start a new life for herself by escaping the situation in which she found herself living in her old town. Chris also made some lifestyle changes. He reviewed the basic components of his life to reestablish himself personally and professionally.
Now living in the same city, Chris and Rachel began working in the same workplace. Call it just a coincidence or call it destiny, they met, started talking to each other, and started dating. Natural chemistry and their history helped develop a special bond between them that most people thought made them inseparable. But before things could get better, they got worse. The effects of previous relationships began to develop that wall that Rachel had broken down to let Chris come into the picture. This wall was caused by external factors mainly influenced by people who had only seen Rachel in abusive situations. The feeling of never being able to trust again began to wash over Rachel. While experiencing all these effects of his trauma from previous relationships, he let out a good one. One that would have been his fairy tale ending. Instead of living a happy life with Chris, Rachel cut her contact with him entirely leaving herself in pain, pain, emptiness, confusion, and the lack of a better word, alone, everything she had ever experienced with. your traumatic relationships except this. The time was out of fear that he had found happiness, but that it was too good to be true.
Chris also experienced the same effects. After the short stent that resulted in a crushing blow to him, he returned to the ways of having a cold heart, stopping trusting people, and feeling betrayed. Although this was a different type of betrayal, he classified it as the same as before because he experienced the same emotions. While he had every right to be upset, Rachel didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Like Chris, Rachel also had a right to feel like her. However, if Chris had accepted, acknowledged, and respected Rachel’s thoughts, feelings, and emotions, Rachel could have come back to him. Instead, Chris took it out on Rachel and said a few things that reminded Rachel of the abusive relationships in her past. Although Chris is not like the boys from Rachel’s past, in her eyes she only saw him as another boy who hurt her and would hurt her later on causing her lifetime damage just like the rest of them.
The story of Chris and Rachel’s broken hearts continues to this day. They are both fighting the loss of the other. Now Chris and Rachel are grappling with how to heal a broken heart, which has been a struggle for both of them over the years, resulting in vulnerability and not knowing how to deal with their emotions in a way that is more conducive to them.
In conclusion, is there really a right or wrong way to deal with a broken heart? No one can really answer that except the person who is dealing with it. Our friends and family give us support and opinions on how to deal with a broken heart, but they all have a difference of opinion that leaves the broken in a state of confusion and places them in a deeper zone of depression. For Chris and Rachel, their quest for healing will continue until their answers are found.
