Breakups will have a negative impact on your life. That is why we notice sudden changes in those people. After the breakup, they don’t show interest in growing in their life and it will lead to major life changes in finances and living situations. Some breakups are very easy to deal but some aren’t like that. It will create uncertainties in your life and won’t let you achieve anything in your life and its because you are emotionally connected to that person and suffering from depression. Yes, you heard it right. If you don’t sort out your break up issues, it will lead you to dangerous consequences and in the end, you will be the victim of depression. After that, it will be very difficult for you to come out of that zone and lead a normal life.
Some people are very good at dealing with their break up symptoms and they are not affected by depression. But, certain individuals cant take this easily and they will experience depression at some point in time during their breakup phase. In extreme cases, the person affected by depression due to the breakup may commit suicide and that’s why a person should know how to cope with depression after a breakup. A person after a breakup normally experiences the following type of emotions. These include
- Angry
- Bitter
- Sad
- Anxious
- Heartbroken
These emotions should go away after a short period of time, but if you are going through these emotions for a long time, it might be a sign of a lot happening within you, and you have to take this issue to your physician and take his valuable suggestions. It can trigger prolonged and severe emotional distress.
Breakup is one of the stressful events and the sudden occurrence of a stressful event may increase your chances of getting affected by depression. It has been observed in a study that the persons who are unable to deal with the breakup have high chances of affected by clinical depression.
When you are in your breakup phase, there are chances that you may not know that you are suffering from depression. It’s vital to keep an open eye on the signs and symptoms during your breakup phase. Because, if you don’t take action on your problem it will increase the severity of the condition of the existing condition and you will be in danger after that.
No one wants breakup to happen in their life though the relationship is not up to the expectations. Because people emotionally connected to their relationships and to their loved ones. If they get separated from their life due to some disturbances they will regret their decision for the whole life and sometimes it may lead them to affected by mental health conditions.
Every relationship begins with the hope of fulfilling their desires and commitments. If you failed in doing so, your relationship with your loved one gets ruined and it leads to a breakup. After that, people start experiencing great disappointment, getting nervous and feeling sad for taking that decision.
A breakup following depression will not let you live peacefully. You will start experiencing abnormal changes within you and around you. Your mind will be filled with full of negative thoughts, unable to follow your routine and forget about your responsibilities, unable to mingle with your friends, not going out to parties, loss of interest in your favorite hobbies, and everything will be disrupted after a breakup only in the case you are emotionally attached to that person and unable to forget her.
If you are carrying these emotions for a long time, it may be an indication that you are suffering from depression. You will start degrading yourself because of the breakup. A person is not changing and still, in a sad mood, it indicates that the person is going through a lot of difficulties and unable to recover from the breakup. If he is in that state for a long period, someone should take initiative for that person and try to change his mind and make him get back to his normal life.
A breakup will rise a lot of doubts within you and questions regarding your future.
- How am I going to live my life without her?
- Will I be happy by inviting another one in my life?
- Am I going to stay alone forever?
These questions you ask yourself will affect your mind negatively and make you feel ambiguous about your future. It’s not an easy task to overcome these emotional feelings you are carrying. But if you stay strong and believe in yourself that you can do it, you will see the change that you would like to see in yourself.
What are the effects of a breakup?
It will be difficult for a person to adjust in their life after a breakup. You will feel different kinds of emotions as your relationship is going to end. Some persons will accept the truth and quickly get back into their normal routine, but for some people, it will become hard to get into their everyday life as they are unable to manage the breakup.
Dealing with depression after a breakup is hard for any person and that will be considered as the toughest phase in their life. Always maintaining a sad face and showing a high range of emotions are considered as a normal reaction after a breakup. But, it’s vital to identify the symptoms of this mental health condition within you.
The main effect of break up is the person who is affected by a breakup will only speak the truth and they don’t like to lie to anyone. So, if someone tells you that he/she is in deep pain after a breakup, please keep in mind that they are telling the truth and respond to them accordingly.
Breakup affects us psychologically and it has been observed in a study that our brain will be affected by the areas associated with feelings of pain after a breakup and this study is published in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
In this study, the researchers conducted this experiment with the help of 40 volunteers who recently broke up with their loved ones. All the volunteers asked by the experiments to go into the MRI machine, and the researchers showed their ex-partners photo and asked them to think about how they were separated by each other. In the end, researchers confirmed that the areas affected in the brain during the study are the same areas affected while you are experiencing physical pain. Edward Smith, a psychologist from Columbia University in New York led this experiment.
If you break up with the person you love the most, the impact will be on each and every aspect of your life. It will impact on your concentration levels and the other facets of your life. These negative impact on your life is just because of your brain as it stored all the happy moments you spent with your loved one and it will be very difficult for you to erase those memories in your brain.
The breakup effect on dopamine also suffer you a lot. As it is a happy chemical, we feel good when the dopamine releases from the body. Dopamine release from the body only when you do the activity that you love the most and due to the absence of dopamine you always maintain a sad face and affected by the mental health conditions. For some people, after a breakup, they will find someone else who is better than the previous one and all people aren’t like that. As your brain is filled with the memories of your loved one, it will be hard for you to search another girl to replace her and also certain people don’t have second thoughts about loving another person in their life as they already had a bad impression about love in their mind.
What are the healthy and unhealthy symptoms of a breakup?
Frequently it is complicated to know if sorrow and pain are a usual response to a breakup or an indicator of a much more dangerous condition like depression, the symptoms of depression can be varying from moderate to high.
The recovery process begins when you go through the pain after a breakup and this is a normal process. However, this doesn’t indicate all the emotions that you go through in this process are usually responses. The symptoms can be either positive or negative after the breakup. Understanding the distinctions between the symptoms can assist you in evaluating whether you are going through a state of depression.
Minimal interest in the activities you love, difficulty in sleeping, fear, being tearful and sad, showing signs of anger and frustration are considered as the positive symptoms of a breakup. The above symptoms can appear to be alarming. Your emotional condition will enhance day by day as you try to adapt to a new life without your spouse or husband when you are going through a usual reaction following the breakup. We would advise you to calm, as the duration of time that it takes to recover differs from person to person.
It is usual to experience anguish, and sorrow following a split-up. However, you should have a word with your doctor if your symptoms aren’t beginning to get better even after a few weeks of breakup or they are starting to get bad. You must go through a minimum of five out of the nine below mentioned symptoms for an interval of a minimum of two weeks, to identify the condition of depression.
- Going through a feeling of sadness, hopelessness or feeling hollow for the majority of the time in a day or daily.
- Showing minimal interest in your hobbies that you once used to enjoy
- Experiencing sleeplessness or oversleeping
- Loss of interest in food and not experiencing hunger and losing weight
- Eating a lot and gaining weight
- A rise in movements like walking fastly, or showing a substantial decrease in speech pattern
- Being inactive or having low levels of energy
- Going through a feeling that you are of no use
- Unable to concentrate or facing difficulties while taking a decision
- Frequently getting thoughts about suicide or even trying to attempt
Any person can experience a state of depression following a breakup, whereas certain people might be at a huge risk. The reason for depression differs, whereas you might go through these feelings if you have a personal encounter of depression or any other kind of mental health condition. Changes in your hormonal structure or at the same time going through a huge change in your life like getting kicked out from work or death in a family member, are some other reasons that can lead to depression after a breakup.
What are the consequences of a person if his depression condition is not treated?
The risk of difficulties can be reduced by identifying the signs of depression following a breakup and getting assistance for this mental health condition. You might depend on drugs, or alcohol to neutralize your emotional anguish if the depression is not treated. This can also lead to a serious effect on your body. You might go through the following if the depression left untreated
- Joint pain
- Unexplained tummy ache
- Frequent headache
Furthermore, your immune system can be weakened if you experience stress consistently and you will be more vulnerable to infectious bacteria and various kinds of fevers.
Experiencing panic attacks, having problems at the workplace or at school or at home, and thinking about committing suicide is the complication of this mental health condition.
How do you treat depression?
If your symptoms aren’t getting better even after several weeks please consult your healthcare provider.
As per the symptoms that you go through, your health care provider might suggest you take an antidepressant to assist you to manage your emotional experiences.
Be aware of the risks before you consume antidepressants. Increased appetite, weight gain, difficulty in sleeping, and sexual side effects are some consequences of taking antidepressant drugs.
If you are carrying your emotions with you for a long time, then you will be in that phase forever. So its better to find someone whom you can trust and tell them what happened in your past. By doing this, you will get to know that you have one person in your life that you can share all your feelings and sorrows.
Have a word with your physician if your symptoms aren’t getting better, or if the side effects are severe. Your physician can prescribe the right dosage or suggest you take a different drug. Your physician might also suggest you consult a psychologist or prescribe counseling as per the level of depression you are experiencing following a split-up, to assist you to manage your feelings particularly getting thoughts of committing suicide.
Coping with Depression after a breakup
Sadness and Depression are not the same: People should know the difference between sadness and depression. It is quite normal for the people who recently broke up with their loved ones to feel sad, cry, giving up on their current tasks and responsibilities and also persons should understand that it is a part of the healing process. You should take this condition seriously only when you are suffering from the symptoms such as fatigue, thoughts of doing self-harm, going through a lot of emotional pain, frequently thinking about yourself that you are worthless, valueless, hopelessness, feeling difficult to make a decision and unable to concentrate on the things.
Maintain a Journal: if you think you are suffering from depression, or ambiguous about your condition. Maintain a journal and make a note of what you are going through in a day. Making a note of your symptoms will help you to assess yourself later. Never forget to take that list with you at the time of appointment with your physician. For instance, if you want to play sports but couldn’t play because of her remembrance, add that feeling into your list and write like “tried to play cricket with the friends but unable to pay attention to the game due to her frequent thoughts running in my mind”.
Set a Deadline: If you are feeling depressed because of your breakup, set a deadline for your emotions and if you didn’t recover from those symptoms within the deadline set by you, consult your physician immediately. Normally, from an expert’s point of view, if a person not recovering from the breakup symptoms even after 2 weeks, they should immediately make an appointment with their physician so the ideal time for you to set the deadline is two weeks.
Have a word with Your Physician: Please consult your doctor if you would like to take treatment for your condition. Your physician may recommend drugs or therapy in order to correct the chemical imbalances in the brain. You don’t need to worry about taking treatment for your brain sometimes it can get sick just like all the body parts. Depression is a common problem and they can get back to their normal life very quickly if they take the right treatment in the initial stage.
Call Emergency if you’re in Danger: If you are getting frequent thoughts about suicide, don’t sit like an idol instead of that grab your phone and call 911. There are many healthcare centers that can help you and give you the best treatment for your problem. So, whenever you find yourself in a dangerous situation and getting suicidal thoughts, don’t hesitate to call emergency numbers, they will come and rescue you and take you to the nearest hospital.
Managing Your Emotions: It’s not an easy task to handling your emotions especially if you maintained a long relationship with your loved one. Due to this reason, recovering from the breakup may take a little longer time than expected. There are some theories that recovering from the old relationship takes about half the time that the bond lasted. For instance, if you maintained the bond with your loved one for eight months, then as per the theory it will exactly take four months to recover. This theory is different for everyone and it completely depends on the individuals.
Maintain your space and take time: Most of the people feel sad, express anger, and frustration after a bad breakup. Some people get separated from their ex due to some other issues and they don’t have reasons to show anger, frustration on each other. it will be difficult for them move on in their life after the breakup and there is only one solution for those people to get back on their track and that is to cry loud and mourn for the lost relationship. Only expressing their feelings naturally is the best solution for them.
Don’t keep anything that reminds your loved one: Even after forgetting her completely, you may be tempted to go back to her if you have your loved one belonging with you. Even though it is difficult for you to throw all the belongings of your loved one, but you have to do it for your growth in your life and in order to move on in your life.
Make some New Habits: Your feelings are hard to control and you are in a state of expressing those strong emotions, but you don’t know how. Here are the various ways to express your strong emotions in a healthy way.
- Express all your emotions to yourself by seeing you in a mirror
- Take a paper and put all your emotions into writing
- If you are a painter, express your feelings through painting
- Smashing ice cubes in the bathtub
- Cry loud where no one can listen to you
- Go to the gym regularly and do heavy workouts
Engaging in your Favourite Hobbies: Ask yourself a question that what are my favorite hobbies and make a list based on whatever comes into your mind. In the process of doing so, you might find new hobbies that interest you.
Talk with yourself: Speaking with you in the sense, find out what you need right now. If you are going through a bad phase, ask yourself “what can get me out of this zone?”. Plan something to reduce the severeness of the situation. You will get many ideas if you start talking with yourself in order to get out of that danger zone. Ideas may be like
- Speaking with your childhood and recollecting all those memories
- Spend some with your pets
- Playing your favorite sport
- Doing household chores
- Go to your neighbor’s home and making new friends
Make Future Plans: Now, you are all set. You have to accept the truth that your bond with your loved one has ended. Its time to take care of yourself and think about your future. you have to make a big plan for your future without your loved one and also should start taking your career seriously. It’s not a big deal if you haven’t achieved your goal, but make sure that you remember all your goals during the process of following your goals.
Take Care of Yourself: Make a schedule and follow it regularly in order to see the best version of yourself. It may be hard to follow your schedule in the beginning stage but you need to stick to your routine at any cost. Also, have some patience in order to see the results and take your own time to adjust to your schedule. Please keep in mind that there should be no turning back after started following the schedule.
It will be difficult for you to focus on your health when you are suffering from depression. Always remember one thing in your life i.e.., something is better than nothing. Look for several ways to take care of yourself and don’t forget to reward yourself when you achieve something in your life. It’s not a big deal whether it’s a big achievement or small achievement, just celebrate it. If you are not interested in going to the gym and doing the workout, do some mini workouts while staying in the home like try to lift your legs while you are watching television, or lifting a two kilograms weight while lying in bed.
Don’t forget to work on your basic hygiene like brushing your teeth and showering properly. During your depression stage, it will make the daily routine tasks a little bit difficult, so, people stop doing those ordinary tasks just because they are lazy. Brush your teeth once in a day, and also do bath regularly and use baby wipes in order to clear your armpits.
If someone is offering you help, don’t hesitate to say yes. Because, when you are suffering from depression, it will be difficult for you to engaging in a task and initiating tasks. If you are in desperate need of help, call your neighbor and explain to them your situation and they will help you in one way or another way. Asking help is also an art and you should behave like a gentleman.
Spend time with your family members: keep yourself available to your family members and giving your precious time to them will not only beneficial for them but also for you. You need support from your family members when you are suffering from depression and it is possible only if you agree to spend some time with them. If you are going through a bad phase, convey this issue to your family members and take a quick decision about your problem by discussing it with the members of your family. Don’t refuse any help which is offering by your family members because all they want from you is to recover from the depression. You can see the positive results only if you are open to them, and sharing everything with them. ask your family members to get you out of the discomfort zone. Following are the examples of how you can ask your family members for help.
- My mind is filled with her thoughts and I am unable to forget her. Please take me also while you are going out
- Can anyone spend some time with me right now? Because I want to share my feelings with someone and I alone can’t handle these feelings
- I want someone to take care of me
- I need a hug
- I don’t know what to do right now. I am feeling lonely. Shall we play some games?
- I desperately want to go to her home. Will you be with me for a while, and help me not to do that?
Ways to manage depression without the help of a doctor
Exercise: Going to the gym on a daily basis will be helpful to maintain sufficient energy levels that are required for the body. With the help of exercise, your body can be able to release endorphins, which is a feel-good chemical. Try to go to the gym for at least four times a week.
Keep Busy: keep yourself busy by doing your favorite activities and don’t available to anyone. Do a new activity when you are feeling low or depressed like
- Reading a book
- Going for a walk
- Playing a sport
- Talking with your best friend
- Start a project around the house
Get Plenty of Sleep: Have a sound sleep every night and if you are facing any difficulties while sleeping consult a physician immediately. Your brain works tremendously well if you sleep adequately.
Herbal and Natural remedies: if you want to treat your mental health condition in a natural way there are many natural remedies which you can take to ease the symptoms of depression such as
- St. John’s Wort
- S-adenosylmethionine
- Omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil.
Talk with your physician about your treatment options and make sure that your doctors know you are opting for a natural remedy.
Conclusion
It’s not easy for a person to move on in their life with depression after a breakup. You can fight your mental health condition with the right treatment and also by welcoming new people into your life or making new friends. There are many alternative therapies to treat your mental health condition like meditation, acupuncture, and massage therapy.
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115386/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31150432
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2016673
Sirisha B