Broken heart
A broken heart (also known as heartbreak or heartache) is a metaphor for the intense emotional stress or pain one feels at experiencing great loss or deep longing.
[1][10] And while it is recognized that mourners go through initial period of numbness leading to depression and finally to reorganization and recovery, most modern grief specialists recognize the variations and fluidity of grief experiences differ considerably in intensity and length among cultural groups, individually from person to person[9] as well as depending on the amount of investment put into the relationship.
When the loss involves "being left" or "unrequited love",[12] in addition to the above, this mental searching is accompanied by obsessive thoughts about factors leading to the breakup, and possibilities for reuniting with the lost individual.
Major depression is composed of a recognizable and stable cluster of debilitating symptoms, accompanied by a protracted, enduring low mood.
[19] The process of self-attack can range from mild self-doubt to scathing self-recrimination which leaves a lasting imprint on an individual's self-worth and causes them to doubt their lovability, personality-efficacy, and attachment worthiness going forward.
Feeling one's "limited capacity" can produce a fault line in the psyche which renders the person prone to heightened emotional responses within primary relationships.
[24] For instance, in time, couples can become external regulators for one another, attuned on many levels: pupils dilated in synchrony, echoing one another's speech patterns, movements, and even cardiac and EEG rhythms.
[25] Couples can function like a mutual bio-feedback system, stimulating and modulating each other's bio rhythms, responding to one another's pheromones,[26] and be addicted due to the steady trickle of endogenous opiates induced by the relationship.
[3] There are various predisposing psycho-biological and environmental factors that determine whether one's earlier emotional trauma might lead to the development of a true clinical picture of posttraumatic stress disorder.
[21] This would lower their threshold for becoming aroused and make them more likely to become anxious when they encounter stresses in life that are reminiscent of childhood separations and fears, hence more prone to becoming posttraumatic.
[30] Physiological and biochemical changes that contribute to higher physical illnesses and heart disease have been found in individuals that have high levels of anxiety and depression.
