This Is Why You Can’t Get Over Your Ex (and How To Change That)

I recieve countless messages and DMs flooding into my inboxes about breakups. More specifically: people are panged with the reality that getting over their ex feels damn near impossible.

To say I don’t understand would be a flat out lie. I’m sure the noticeable crows-feet around my arguably young eyes are from the many nights I spent crying over lost love.

Because the fact is: healing from a breakup is hard. You might be weeks in, still knuckles deep into a pint of cookie dough ice cream. Or perhaps the split just occurred, and you feel like your world shattered into little pieces.

Your heart feels like it’s been replaced with a gaping hole. Your free time is spent longing for all your happiest memories. You lie awake at night, thoughts racing around your head.

Moving on from a relationship is hard. If this is your case, know that you’re not alone. There’s a reason why getting over an ex feels near impossible.

Why breakups hurt:

Breakups change how we identify ourselves.

In college, I dated and lived with a guy who loved working out and eating healthy. While I wasn’t necessarily scarfing down McDonald’s every day, I adapted my habits to meet my boyfriend’s clean ways.

After we broke up, my sense of self felt confusing. It was hard for me to understand if I truly liked certain things or did them because my boyfriend loved them.

This part of sharing hobbies, passions, and being vulnerable with one another is a beautiful part of a relationship. Two people coming together means boundaries of “I’m me” and “You’re you” are blurred.

But that process only makes breaking up more difficult. Research shows that feeling confused about who you are after a breakup makes you feel worse about yourself.

And when you don’t feel confident, it’s harder to imagine a future where you’re not in so much emotional pain.

Breakups alter our body’s chemistry.

Breakups happen on a chemical level. Don’t believe me? Well, the research is pretty extensive in this area.

The first thing that happens when a breakup occurs is that your body produces less of the feel-good hormones known as dopamine and serotonin. This can happen on such an extreme level that many cases of clinical depression occur after a romantic split.

Your brain simply isn’t producing what it needs to be happy, making it harder to see a breakup from a positive light or help put a pep in your step to move on.

The pain of rejection works against our basic instincts.

Humans naturally need to belong. It’s a basic means of survival; more people in a group meant greater chances of fending off predators.

Back before the advent of Instagram, rejection from a group of people meant being cut off from food, water, and other means of survival. While that’s not the case anymore, it explains why rejection brings up negative emotions for people.

A breakup isn’t morning the loss of a relationship; it’s coming to terms with the idea that your ex will no longer be in your life. After spending time getting to know them and sharing Netflix passwords, it can feel like a real blow to your basic instincts.

How we make things harder for ourselves:

Checking their social media is like taking a hit of a drug.

In 2017, while I was reeling from a particularly crappy breakup, a friend of mine sent me a Ted Talk by psychologist Guy Winch.

He used a metaphor about how a breakup is like a drug addiction, and studies show this to be true. You want a hit of the drug but can’t have it. So instead, you turn to different methods to satiate your need for the relationship you once had.

That’s where social media comes into play. You may think social media stalking is harmless, but what you’re doing is reinstating that addiction you have. Instead of giving yourself a fighting chance to move on, you’re hurting yourself simply because you’re taking tiny hits of what once was.

Romanticizing makes it harder to see things clearly.

After my breakup with my boyfriend in college, I moved across the world to China. I can’t say those two were directly correlated, but I’d be lying to say the former didn’t influence the latter to some degree.

But after my plane landed and I moved into my hostel room, memories flooded my brain. Not the times that my ex called me fat or threatened to leave me during every argument, but the good ones.

Like the time he taught me how to surf in Huntington Beach. Or how we pretended to have an imaginary dog living with us.

I romanticized my past relationship. I created a false narrative that my old relationship was better than it was.

That’s because a breakup makes us long for the feelings that our relationship brought us. Negative memories don’t exactly conjure the feel-good emotions of the good times.

Ways to heal from a breakup:

Let yourself feel your emotions.

There’s no use in acting like you don’t feel the emotions you’re experiencing. Just like we wouldn’t want a partner to invalidate our feelings, you shouldn’t do it to yourself either.

Let your emotions rush over you. Allow them to flow in and out as they come.

Feel your anger. Cry out your sadness. And eating all the cake and cheese your broken heart desires. If the urge to talk to someone arises, call a friend or consider talking with a therapist.

Do things you think will make you happier.

In 2017, researchers at the University of Colorado gave some of the participants a nasal spray and said that it helps with emotional pain. Those who used the spray said it helped them feel less sad when seeing pictures of their ex.

What was in this magical spray? Water and salt.

The study was amongst the many on the “placebo effect.” The mere idea that the spray would make them happier did, in fact, change their brains to make them happier.

How can you apply this to your life? Simply by doing the things you believe will make you happier. If that’s seeing your friends, volunteering with animals, or going on hikes, do them.

Create a break-up list.

To this day, my ultimate tool for moving on from an ex is a little thing I like to call a break-up list. I’m not sure if I made this one up or read it somewhere years ago, but it’s effective.

Take out your phone and open your Notes app. Create a list of everything you didn’t like about your ex, from superficial to nuanced to general to specific events. Don’t leave anything out.

Then, when you’re missing them, pull out the phone and read your list. You’ll instantly stop romanticizing the relationship and remember it for what it was.

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Through all of this heartbreak, have compassion for yourself. Breakups suck, and you’re not a bad person for finding it hard to move on.

Just remember that you eventually deserve to be happy, whether that be in a relationship or living your best single life. I know it’s hard to see now, but I promise a better future in store for you.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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