Mental Health Counseling for Heartbreak: Real Dangers of Lost Love
Broken Heart: Do you need Professional Therapy and Counseling
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, stress cardiomyopathy
There seems to be a growing trend in the world of Psychology which overlaps into an area that sadly has always been a trend in the world throughout time…heartbreak.
If you’re old enough to read this article, chances are you’re old enough to know the pain I’m talking about.
It’s the kind of miserable ache that millions of songs, poems, letters, movies, and Hallmark Channel special presentations have been built around for centuries. As the saying goes, it’s a story (and pain) as old as time, the agony of having someone break your heart.
Yet as many words and cheesy movie scenes as nearly all of us have experienced in our lifetime, that unique agony has always remained something of a mystery in many ways. For example, the majority of people would consider it an emotional wound for the most part, but very few would argue it can’t leave you physically devastated in endless way. How many nights sleep have been lost to that torment of replaying the key moments in lost relationships on the movie screen of our minds. Watching the best and worst scenes on a maddening endless loop, trying to freeze, erase, or delete scenes we wish we could relive or rewrite completely.
Those nights not only have massive physical impact on our hours of sleep, which min turn impact exhaustion, but they play a role in skyrocketing other “never fun” conditions such as anxiety, depression, stress, dehydration (lots of tears requires a lot of water), loss of appetite, fatigue, and overall drop in self esteem.
There have even been multiple articles and news stories written in the last few years explaining the possibility of extreme cases being fatal when causing conditions such as stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. The theory behind the belief in heartbreak actually breaking a functioning heart being that certain hormones and physical reactions which many researchers believe go along with significant life events such as:
• Loss of income, job, security
• Unexpected death of a significant relationship
• Divorce
• Intense fear (which can be related to loss of relationship)
Add to these, the suspicion that a previously diagnosed psychiatric disorder seems to play a role in the condition and it’s more understandable that what used to be thought of a right of passage into adulthood is more and more often being viewed as a serious medical condition which should be treated with therapy and/or ongoing counseling to lessen the damage and shorten the time the “hurt” actually causes long lasting, more serious hurt to your body.
The good news is the effects and causes are usually more reversible than in the long feared “heart attack” situations that strike as a result of blocked arteries that happen due to fatty buildup and blood clotting in the walls of the arteries. With broken heart syndrome the same arteries are providing less blood as a result of constriction causing reduced blood flow.
Not Just a Couch Trip Anymore
An understandable reaction to the recent attention being given to the topic of lost love can be seen in the area of psychology not only through traditional channels such as LMFT and family counseling sessions but through more modern channels such as online coaching.
Yes, you read that right…Coaching.
But this coach isn’t wearing a whistle and polyester shorts screaming at you for dropping a pass or running the wrong play. This coach is more concerned with the thoughts running endlessly through your mind and tormenting your tear ducts with dehydration and plaguing your friends with endless support calls.
The good news is you won’t have to fear running extra laps or being benched for the big game. The bad news is you may have to stick to strategies that involve “benching” your compulsion to text your ex one more time, write a heartfelt letter to explain beautiful future they could be throwing away, or spend another evening clicking through all those Facebook pictures you can’t bring yourself to delete.
That could very well be the kind of coaching advice you receive from Coach Lee, an online resource many people are using to not so much get over the losing the love of your life, but the much more welcome alternative of winning your ex back. Which, anyone would have to admit would usually be the much-preferred route to getting over any agonizing romantic loss.
But don’t expect advice to follow the script of one of those movie scenes mentioned earlier. The truth is the medicine for your emotional well being can taste just as bad as that old cough syrup your family doctor used to force you to swallow. An example of this form of tough -love recovery game plan is described by Lee when he explains “The dumped person will constantly call, text, beg, plead, cry, show up at their ex’s home or workplace and all of it only serves to prevent your ex from missing you. It has the exact opposite effect in a strong way.”
The recovery coach believes this approach does two things. First, it not only creates a longing in one who initiated the break up for that contact they’ve become accustomed to, it forces their mind to remember the good moments and question the decision that took you out of their lives. Secondly, and maybe more importantly from an overall emotional health perspective, it helps encourage the broken-hearted to begin rehabilitation by adjusting to the withdrawals that come from an ended valued relationship.
Whereas, Lee comes from a behavioral analyst background there are other sites and resources from traditional and formal studies in counseling and therapy which are also popping up to help address the recent spike in trying to heal the kind of wounds that many have been taught can only heal with time.
It turns out that not only does time not actually heal all wounds, it can make a lot of them more dangerous if left unaddressed.
