How can you mend a broken heart?
SO goes the question Al Green asked in the classic love song: “I could never see tomorrow. I was never told about the sorrow...” When one is in a romantic relationship, it can always feel like blue skies, sunshine and grand vistas. We ride waves upon waves of euphoria, especially when we’re in the first few months of a romance. Our mood is elevated and our desire to be with our lover reaches almost obsessive levels, i.e., we want to be with our special person all the time. In fact, neuropsychologists have described these feelings almost like a cocaine-high, as hormones like oxytocin and vasopressin link up with our brain’s reward system, making us somewhat “addicted” to our significant other.
These obsessive feelings may be somewhat tempered in a friendship because of the nature of the relationship; there is no romantic component involved. Friendships are formed among likeminded people who share the same interests and attitudes in life. We often come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, age groups, educational accomplishments, and, yes, political leanings. Hanging around with our cliques also feeds the reward system in our brain, making us feel joyful as we spend a meal or a movie together. Unsurprisingly, a study by cognitive scientists in 2018 even found that friends share the same brain waves, reacting similarly to the visuals shown them.
The bonds are strong in friendships, and even when we don’t see our closest friends for years (perhaps because he/she has moved to another country), when we do get together, it’s like we never spent time apart. We pick up immediately where we left off, and continue conversations started a decade ago like it was just yesterday. And it’s comforting to relive important events and milestones celebrated, while laughing hysterically over remembered people or places and significant incidents connected to them.
But unlike a romance, we are able to form different sets of friendships or cliques with other groups of people who don’t normally interact with each other. For instance, there is a group of friends I like sharing dinner and gossip with, but have a different set of friends with whom I like watching theater productions or concerts. On the other hand, society will typically frown on people having multiple romances and couplings.
When a romance ends, however, it often feels like a punch in the gut that the wind is knocked out of us. We double over, agonize over the loss, unable to get up. In my youth, over a first love, this involved endless crying in a locked room until I fell asleep in my bed. Then there is even more endless crying with a close friend while downing several glasses of the favored alcoholic beverages. It’s like living in a telenovela, with forever flashbacks and replays in my mind of the time spent with my lover, that maddening shuffle between the happiest period in the relationship and the depressing end. Over and over again.
At the time, I struggled to identify the exact moment when things started going wrong, or what I could have done better to smoothen over the relationship’s kinks. To no avail of course. Sometimes, there are just no answers and some people are just wrong for each other. Work eventually saved my sanity. It gave me something to focus on, a sense of purpose, and pushed me to accomplish my goals even harder.
It took awhile for my heart’s broken pieces to be put back together, but, yes, it did happen. And suddenly I was no longer thinking about him and I was laughing again around friends while we still drank like fishes of course. Eventually, the massive weight of depression and despair had lifted. If I had a car, I’d probably be luckier in parking. Hahaha.
In Dyan’s (not her real name) case, she was in a relationship for three years but as time went on, they evolved into different people and the relationship became “toxic.” She and her partner would fight, with neither of them budging from each of their positions in the argument.
“It’s not easy to adjust to the idea of not being with someone or not having something that we have been used to. But as experience has taught me, although it takes time, people are able to move on and move forward. One of the best advice given to me is to be kind to yourself while you go through the process of healing. And it starts with acceptance—that is, allowing yourself to grieve and feel the feelings which may come in waves. Suppressing or avoiding these feelings will lead to much more serious issues (and even meltdowns) later on.”
Dyan says she was able to pour her energy into other pursuits. “I suddenly had an abundance of time to pursue my other passions. Doing these things will open new opportunities and allow you to meet new people, reminding you that there’s a big, wonderful world out there for you.” Also, this period of healing allows people to look inward and reflect on one’s life. “I once read a quote: ‘Ang paghilom ay ang tahimik na paguwi sa iyong sarili.’ Perhaps soon after, when the time is ripe and in your favor again, you will be ready for God’s best.”
Because people bond over similar ideas or the same beliefs in life, we think our friends will be around forever, and only distance or perhaps death can break those ties. So in some ways, the end of a friendship can be more difficult than losing a lover.
Amelia (not her real name) says she was friends with P for the longest time: “She used to be a stop for me in the US. As in every time I would go, I would go out of state to see her. We were that close.”
Amelia describes P as “wonderful, funny and beautiful.” But because her friend was rich, Amelia had always felt P’s husband was just staying in the marriage because he was comfortable. P knew she was stuck in a loveless marriage and was no longer having sex with her husband. “So she finally looked for love and found it, or maybe sex, and I was happy for her because she deserved to be happy,” says Amelia.
But as time went on, Amelia could no longer support P’s various affairs. “I didn’t condemn her ha. I felt she should separate from her husband, and probably she didn’t want to hear it. So she decided she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore,” Amelia narrates. “It was very painful because it wasn’t what I did to her, but it was because she felt I couldn’t be the friend she needed. I actually did everything I could do to save the friendship until I just stopped because the rejection was painful. Time healed the pain and the hurt.”
And so, even as Al Green cries out for someone to help mend his broken heart, there is a flicker of hope, “a feeling that I want to live and live and live.” A broken heart doesn’t last forever.