Why do breakups hurt so much?
Whether you initiate a breakup or you are broken up with, the ending of a romantic relationship can cause anyone a great deal of emotional distress. For young adults who are emotionally sensitive, breakups can feel particularly hard to cope with. You might feel like you’re in total emotional freefall, and want to either withdraw completely from the world or explode, lashing out at people around you to try to ease some of your pain.
Rejection sensitivity can make breakups hurt more
Rejection sensitivity is a form of emotional sensitivity that leads some people to feel deep fear, upset, and/odialectical behavior therapy (DBT)r anger when they encounter a perceived or real rejection. A breakup is definitely a rejection, and even if you initiate the breakup, the distance (and distress) of your ex can feel like a rejection as well. For those sensitive to these experiences, breakups can lead to an overwhelming flood of emotions.
Breakups are a blow to self-esteem
Whether you experience rejection sensitivity or not, the ending of a relationship can be a blow to your self-esteem. As a young adult, this may be the ending of one of the first long-term relationships you’ve ever had. You may worry you’ll never find happiness or love again, or that there’s something wrong with you. Even if your friends and family reassure you, you might struggle with harsh thoughts and feelings that feel permanent and overwhelming.
What led to a breakup can cause long-term distress
Breakups happen in relationships that aren’t workable any longer, for at least one person if not both. There are often stressors in a relationship that lead up to a breakup, and you, your partner, or both of you may have contributed to the strain. While a breakup is an end to the romantic relationship, the echoes of abuse or fear of replaying toxic dynamics in future relationships can continue after that ending.
Who you are and what your future looks like may feel uncertain after a breakup
You’ve likely been in this relationship throughout a time of tremendous growth and change, where you are developing a full sense of who you are and what you want your life to look like. Losing that component of your life can feel like everything is uncertain and unstable; if this relationship wasn’t forever, what else could fall apart? What futures that you’d planned for won’t happen now? Who are you, without this person?
DBT can help you cope with intense breakup emotions
Using DBT skills for young adults to build a life worth living takes the sting out of breakups
Throughout these intense breakup emotions, it’s important to remember that you won’t always feel like this. It’s also important to remember that you have the power to navigate your emotions without allowing them to take over, especially if you have the added support of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for coping with a breakup.
By using DBT skills to adjust your behaviors and to participate fully in your life even when struggling with strong emotions, you build for yourself a life that is worth living, even without your ex in it. By changing your actions, you can, in time, change the impact of your feelings, creating an approach to life that helps you make it through even the hardest emotional experiences.
Mindfulness returns you to now, lessening the hurt of the past and fear of the future
The DBT skill of mindfulness helps you focus on right now, redirecting your attention away from harsh scenes of your breakup or the difficult experiences that led up to it. Mindfulness helps you remember this by asking you to observe yourself without judgment, noticing thoughts and feelings but letting them pass by without qualifying them, or yourself, as “good” or “bad”. They’re just thoughts, they’re just feelings, and though they might be distressing, they are just for now, not forever.
DBT skills for young adults remind you that you have control over your attention, and by using mindfulness to focus on everyday tasks and experiences right in front of you, you can use being present to pull yourself out of emotional freefall. If you’re able to focus your attention on what you’re doing in the moment, for example, by using the What and How DBT skills, you can allow the self-judgmental thoughts and fears that overwhelm you to come and go, and still participate fully in your life, even through the pain of your breakup.
Opposite action keeps your emotions from taking over
DBT can help with coping with a breakup by giving you specific actions to take when emotions start to overwhelm you. One such DBT skill is Opposite Action. It sounds simple, but it takes practice: when you have an urge to do something that goes against your values or the desired outcome of a situation, you choose to do the exact opposite.
When your overwhelming emotions are pushing you to start arguments with your ex, or demand their time, Opposite Action will encourage you to talk to your friends instead, or write in a journal, or to set a firm boundary of not communicating with your ex anymore. If your feelings are pushing you to shut down and stay away from others, Opposite Action will encourage you to get up and get out of the house. Go to your favorite coffee shop or out to the movies with friends.
Opposite action is particularly helpful for pushing you to create a life that feels like it’s worth living, even if you’re grappling with strong and difficult emotions from your breakup.
You can reduce your suffering through radical acceptance
When a breakup leaves you fearing for the future of your love life or feeling like you’re worthless, you might try to argue, bargain, or fawn your way back into the ended relationship.
Instead of focusing on “what ifs’ and what might have been, radical acceptance asks you to recognize the facts of the situation, fully, without judgment or argument. You don’t need to feel calm about, or agree with, the ending of your relationship. But with radical acceptance, you look at what is, and you fully accept it.
Radical acceptance can help you manage your emotions and reduce your suffering by helping you recognize reality. When you notice your mind resisting reality, thinking things such as “I wish it wasn’t this way!” or “I need to talk to them one more time for closure”, remind yourself of the facts of what has happened, and that it is not your responsibility, nor is it possible, for you to change the past.
This acceptance gives you an opportunity for thoughtful reflection on what has happened and lets you choose what you want to do next. It allows you to focus on what you can control (like how you treat yourself, the relationship choices you make in the future, or the boundaries you establish from now on forward) without being pushed by shame or fear to try to change the past.
Suffolk DBT can help you pull yourself out of emotional freefall after a breakup
The emotionally overwhelming experience of a breakup can shake up your sense of self in difficult, disorienting ways, especially if you struggle with rejection sensitivity. You don’t have to stay stuck in this emotional freefall, and it can be especially helpful to reach out for extra support after a breakup. The empathetic and expert therapists at Suffolk DBT can help you learn and use coping skills that actually help you emotionally recover, even after the toughest heartbreaks.
If you’re a young adult who has recently gone through a breakup or you are dealing with anxiety, BPD, depression, or other mental health challenges, connect with us at Suffolk DBT. Our compassionate team is here to help you find acceptance, emotional balance, and a life worth living!