WHY AM I SUCH AN EMOTIONAL WRECK?
Suffering the loss of a love is a true emotional crisis. Emotional abandonment can be as painful as grief over death, perhaps even more. This grief can burrow deep within us where it undermines our self esteem, wreaking havoc on our lives and even interfering with future relationships if left unchecked. This can happen when we don't learn how to properly handle the intense feelings that abandonment and rejection can have on us.

Rejection and unrequited love can create a very deep and personal wound. It undermines our sense of self worth and destroys our security. We may feel intense feelings of panic, anxiety, hopelessness, longing, isolation, self-blaming, anger, resentment, helplessness, unworthiness, and despair.

NOTE: Leaving a narcissist creates its own special set of emotional difficulties. To read up about narcissists and why it's so difficult to let go of a relationship with a narcissist, please visit Breaking Up With Your Narcissist.

I FEEL SICK TO MY STOMACH.  IS IT NORMAL TO FEEL PHYSICALLY ILL?
Well, sure! Your heart is broken! Your body reacts physically to almost any - in fact, to just about all - emotional pain. Your head pounds. Your pulse rate quickens. Your stomach turns. You lose your appetite one minute and eat a half of a gallon of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream the next. You oversleep, suffer from insomnia, or have nightmares. You have cramps, nausea, and dizziness. You¹re edgy with friends and family, hyper-vigilant to the most innocent of remarks, and absolutely consumed with obsessive thoughts of your lost loved one. The thought of going to work, going out with friends, or even getting out of bed is mortifying! Your body may ache all over and you may feel like you just ran a marathon.

WHY MUST I GO THROUGH THIS PAIN?
Feelings of hopelessness, panic, anxiety, depression, and even - especially - desperation are normal in the initial stages of a break up. Thankfully, these intense feelings gradually reverse through your journey of personal growth and recovery. It is necessary to go through these emotions and work through your grief systematically. You cannot by-pass, skip over, or get around grief. You have to go through grief in order to release it.

WHO CAN I TURN TO?
Friends and family, although well-meaning, soon become bored and uneasy with your constant moaning and whining. And face it, you are moaning and whining! They get frustrated when they have offered you their opinions and advice, and you chose to not follow it. Unfortunately, their well-meaning opinions are usually, 'he was such a jerk - get over him, already!' or 'she was a liar and a cheat - you can do so much better!'

Unfortunately, some people going through a painful break up will seek for temporary solutions to kill their pain. These can be very self-damaging and harmful methods such as drugs, alcohol, or even a one-night stand. Some will (I, for one) even go as far as getting emotionally addicted to their grief - using it as a sort of 'rebound relationship'. Depression is also very common.

Recovery shouldn't be yours alone to handle. Counselling, therapy, and recovery groups are available to help you. Our very own Lifted Hearts Community (http://liftedhearts.com) and Breaking Up Net (http://breakingup101.com) are great recovery support groups that connect you with others who are either going through the devastation of a break up, on the road to recovery, or well past the bridge and have happily and thankfully fully recovered and moved on. Our communities there, and our support boards, will help you along the way, pointing out and identifying rough bumps on that road and holding your hand all the way.

Lifted Hearts Community (http://liftedhearts.com) and Breaking Up Net (http://breakingup101.com) are available to you as encouragement throughout your troubled times, and as a life-long friend forever after that. Your neighbors there provide unprecedented support and guidance, along with insightful techniques and tricks for overcoming your heartache. Add a huge dose of compassion and understanding and that's what makes up our wonderful communities. We know the agony of losing someone you love.

AM I MEANT TO BE ALONE?
Some of us attract, or seem to be attracted to, emotionally dangerous or unavailable partners. You may believe your chronic break up history may have to do with you being unlovable, unattractive, emotionally unstable, or unworthy of a respectful and loving mate. Unfortunately, some of us do subconsciously choose mates that will verify these feelings in us. It's almost as though we are looking for constant feedback of these low self-esteem feelings. Perhaps we are somewhat addicted to false values, searching for security outside of ourselves, mistaking our worth based on that of having a partner, or even that of unrealistic childhood dreams and adolescent idealisms.

Take this time now to reflect back over your relationships and see if you aren't consistently attracted to those who may be emotionally unavailable (a challenge), or those who need fixing, have addictions, or other emotional problems and issues. The problem may not be that you are meant to be alone, but rather that you need to learn that you are worthy and whole with or without a partner, and then make the conscious decision to be more selective in your choice of future mates.

Until you can get an understanding of yourself and what motivates you, you may be destined to be chronically heartbroken.

IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?
Sometimes we carry issues with us from the past that interfere with our everyday life, our relationships, and our overall happiness. For a much more in debt look at this theory, read the online webBook, How to Get Over a Breakup (http://lovehurts.us).You may find how earlier losses, abandonments, rejection, and disappointments may be interfering with your healing process. You might find that you are maybe racked in pain from past events that you no longer even remember.

You may feel like you are always on the outside looking in. Or feel trapped in a loneliness you did not consciously choose, forced to always feel like you are singled out for misery. Maybe you believe you're just plain incapable of being in a relationship. Maybe your deepest fear is that you will never find a mate that you can have a healthy relationship with.

This just simply isn't so! You are just caught in a pattern of past hurts, a pattern you can't escape from until you identify its source and listen to yourself. Our online webBook, How to Get Over a Breakup (http://lovehurts.us), will shed much light on this subject, enabling to have more healthy future relationships, and recover from the grief of your current break up.

CAN I GET ADDICTED TO MY GRIEF?
Yes! Chronic heartache is usually a sign of emotional hunger, and, without realizing it, we can become addicted to our grief. It holds our hand and comforts us, never leaving our side. Grief can actually take the place of your lost mate in your mind. In a sense you can become 'conditioned' to having your grief always there waiting for you, like a loving, comforting friend.

IS THERE A 'QUICK-FIX' METHOD THAT WILL KILL THIS HORRIBLE PAIN?
No. You may numb it, but you can't hide from it. There are things that will make us feel temporarily better, but grief will still remain. You need to feel your grief in order to release it. You can't skip over it, pass it up, or pretend to be okay. Many have tried to self-medicate their hurt and emptiness by food, alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, smoking, revenge, friends, socializing, television, sleeping, and therapy. Grasping at methods to avoid your grief only makes your grief seem more in control of you, instead of you in control of it. Feeling your grief is the best way to 'fix' it..

Holding grudges, anger, and resentments can keep you emotionally attached to the pain. You must find forgiveness in your heart for both yourself and those who have hurt you, either deliberately or unintentionally.

HOW CAN I FIND FORGIVENESS FOR SOMEONE WHO HURT ME SO?
Forgiveness is for you, not for them. They may never even know you have forgiven them! Forgiveness is just in letting others go and giving them the human right to be 'wrong'. Forgiveness is not in saying, 'you hurt me - but that's okay', it is in saying, 'you hurt me and that isn't okay, but I forgive you anyway because you are only human and humans make mistakes.'

Forgiveness is also about you. Forgive yourself your own role in your break up. You are human, you messed up - big deal! Haven't we all messed up? Painful lessons we learn in life are actually rewards we get paid in the end.

IS IT GOOD TO CRY?
Of course! Otherwise why would we have that great ability to cry and release our sorrows and embrace our souls. Not only is crying good for you, it releases a chemical in our brain that actually acts as a muscle relaxant. If we deny our grief and repress our feelings they often surface in other self-destructive ways, such as anger, rage, overeating, drugs, alcohol, sex, smoking, depression, emotional-indifference, or the inability to have healthy relationships in the future. That's a lot of self-imprisoning just to avoid a few minutes of tears! It actually takes more courage and bravery to feel hurtful feelings and grief, than to not. Allowing and acknowledging our pain is a very brave thing to do.

If, however, you feel your pain is over-extended or out-of-control, you may excel your healing as well as gaining emotional benefits in seeking help from outside sources, such as therapy, counselling, friends, family, co-workers, or joining a support group, such as our wonderful Lifted Hearts Community (http://liftedhearts.com) and Breaking Up Net (http://breakingup101.com).

CAN I SAVE MY RELATIONSHIP AND GET MY PARTNER BACK?
Of course it's possible! All is not lost, but the trick is to know how to do it. Often times we do the complete opposite of what we should when trying to regain a lost love. What we end up doing is pushing them even farther away - exactly what we didn't want! To learn more about the techniques needed to stop or undo a breakup visit the website, how to Stop a Breakup (http://stopabreakup.com). It has helped hundreds and hundreds of people save their relationships and regain their partner's love, and it may help you, too!

Also, you may want to find out why you were dumped to begin with! Otherwise, getting back together may just be a short interlude from being terminally single. For men there is information here (http://thedumped.com) on Why Women Dump Men, and also for men there is great information on why women are disloyal at Why Women Cheat (http://whywomencheat.com). For women they can find out here (http://manmagnet.net) what, exactly, makes a man attracted to them and want to stay with them. And for those involved with a commitment phobic partner, you'll find tips on how to get a commitment, plus eye-opening and insightful information about your CP (that even they don't know!) here (http://commitmentphobia.net). Why get back together if you're just going to break up again? 

~by Tigress Luv

For more information about getting over the pain of breakup, please read How to Get Over a Breakup, by Tigress Luv, the Breakup Guru.

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