There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and heartbreak.
Though heartbreak is inevitable, it is one of the most painful things one can experience. And for college students who are beginning to figure themselves out, heartbreak can be a defining moment in their young adult life.
“We’re all going to experience heartbreak whether we want to or not,” said Dori Lansbach, assistant director of Relationship IQ and adjunct professor of Communication. “The danger is just holding onto that heartbreak and living in the past and allowing it to define you.”
Dealing with Heartbreak
Junior Cassandra Barron said heartbreak, either romantic or platonic, has been one of the most transformative things she has gone through. Despite this, she said the pain is like no other.
“When I think of heartbreak, I think of lying in bed and not talking to anyone for like eight days at a time,” Barron said. “And eating a lot of ice cream.”
Kelly Haer, director of the Boone Center for the Family, said she has noticed students struggle to validate their emotions when their relationships has ended.
“Heartbreaks are just like other losses,” Haer said. “It’s important to go through the grieving process to grieve well. We need to both name the loss — use our words, our cognition, to identify and be clear around what is lost. We want to engage our hearts and our feelings to be able to feel connected with the pain associated with the loss.”
Lansbach said that to heal from heartbreak, one must be willing to reflect on the relationship — what went wrong and what went right — and who they were in the relationship.
“Healing can only happen when you’re willing to do that hard work and take a look inward,” Lansbach said.
Self-reflection has helped Barron in her healing process after losing a friend or partner, she said.
“When a relationship fails, most of the time it’s a two-person effort for the relationship to fail,” Barron said. “So having the maturity to think about it deeply and to reflect on how you were wrong, really helps you grow as a person.”
Knowing that her feelings, no matter how big, are temporary also helped Barron heal from heartbreak.
“You don’t have a choice except to move forward,” Barron said.
Heartbreak in Different Types of Relationships
As someone who has experienced both romantic and platonic heartbreak, senior Isabella Joiner said the main difference is what comes after.
Following a breakup, romantic partners can turn into friends — depending on the outcome of the breakup. But, for two people who have decided to end their friendship, Joiner said she wonders what choice they have other than to become strangers.
“Personally, friendship breakups are harder to go through than relationship breakups, because your friends, you pour so much into and they pour so much into you,” Joiner said.
Her healing process after a friendship breakup is longer, Joiner said. In romantic relationships, there typically is a build-up to the breakup that prepares one’s heart for the end. But in friendships, the end often sneaks up and isn’t always clear.
“You do realize it’s [a friendship is] over because you go to hit send on a meme or something that made you think of them and it’s like, ‘Wait, that’s not where we are anymore,’” Joiner said.
Relationships and Identity
In relationships, students said, it’s easy to feel all-consumed. When one meets someone they have a strong connection with, they become fully enamored with that person. Those two lives become interwoven and can feel as if nothing else or no one else matters, Lansbach said.
“If we tie our identity too strongly to a relationship, we put ourselves at a greater risk for heartbreak and not being able to move on after that,” Lansbach said.
Some students said being overly involved in a romantic relationship has led them to shut out other relationships in their lives and has left them stranded after a breakup.
“I pulled away from my friends and I pulled away from building those deep connections with them,” Joiner said.
As an introvert, sophomore Will Alhadeff said he only confided in his significant other, and once their relationship ended he felt like he had no one. Alhadeff found himself in a pit of loneliness after his breakup because he didn’t know who he was outside of it.
“I thought that that was most of what I had to offer, the fact that I had that person,” Alhadeff said.
Although difficult, going through heartbreak led Alhadeff down a rabbit hole of self-reflection, which he said allowed him to find himself.
“[I realized] I’m a lot more than the relationships I have with other people,” Alhadeff said.
One of Joiner’s pastors from home shared a message on relationships that has stuck with her ever since.
“Imagine you and this person carrying a chest,” Joiner said. “In that chest goes all of your memories, all of the time spent together and everything that’s been put into that relationship. When the breakup happens, you can put down the chest and you’re able to walk away because you didn’t put yourself in that chest.”
When a relationship ends, one grieves the relationship, the person they lost and the person they were in that relationship. Barron said being in a relationship meant having to mold herself into what someone else expected or needed her to be.
In her breakup experience, Barron said she found freedom in not being defined by another person.
“You don’t have to fit into some type of box or anything like that,” Barron said. “For me, and my personal experience, not having to fit into something that someone needs is liberating.”
The Healing Process
Healing from heartbreak is not a linear process, Lansbach said. People move through the stages at their own pace and should take their time grieving a person who has left their life.
In processing heartbreak, Haer said people respond to the pain in one of four ways: blaming, shaming, controlling or escaping. She said it is important for one to pinpoint how they respond to the pain so they can develop healthy coping strategies.
“[We] hope a person finds themselves in the blame, shame, control and escape and then invite them to lean into the antidote,” Haer said. “Instead of blaming others, we can nurture others. Instead of shaming ourselves, we can value ourselves. Instead of seeking control, we can practice balance — give and take. Instead of escaping, we can stay reliably connected.”
However, Haer said it is important for someone to not let heartbreak paralyze them. Having healthy coping mechanisms is vital for healing from heartbreak, she said.
“It’s helpful to take action to do some type of work whether this is journaling or drawing a picture that represents the pain or the loss,” Haer said. “Creating some type of monument or something physical that acknowledges the loss as a part of the grieving process.”
The impact of heartbreak depends on the context of a specific relationship, Joiner said. A relationship may be easier to let go of if one decides to end the relationship.
Joiner said she has broken up with people in the past because she has experienced hurt. Thus her decision to end the relationship has been an act of self-worth.
“Growing up, it was always taught [that] you put others before yourself,” Joiner said. “When I have to choose myself, that’s what’s hard and that’s what hurts because it’s very much outside of who I am.”
For Joiner, the feelings of self-worth and selfishness can get muddled and lead to feelings of guilt. When the shame becomes overwhelming, Joiner said she reminds herself why she ended the relationship.
“[I] just remember my reasons for it [the break up], they’re reasons that have helped me become the person that I am,” Joiner said. “Without the breakup, I wouldn’t be who I am.”
Personal Growth
Transformation is inevitable when going through heartbreak — however, it can take many forms.
Heartbreak can do one of two things. It can build up one’s walls or it can open one’s heart, Lansbach said.
Joiner said heartbreak has impacted her both positively and negatively. Going through breakups in her relationships has made her approach people more cautiously.
“I’m slower to open up,” Joiner said. “I have found I’m slower to kind of be myself [around new people].”
On the other hand, Joiner said she has become more accepting of the possibility of relationships ending, which has allowed her to let people in more willingly.
“My mom would say this growing up, ‘Everyone is in our life for a reason, a season or a why,’” Joiner said. “For me, working through that helps me go into new friendships and new relationships.”
One of the important lessons one can learn from failed relationships is what they want out of one and what type of person they want to be in a relationship with. Lansbach said she has noticed a lot of people jump into relationships without knowing these things.
To avoid jumping into a relationship too quickly, one should use both logic and emotion to make that commitment, Lansbach said.
“There’s a really good balance of following your heart and your head and allowing both of those components to develop your relationship over time,” Lansbach said. “But again, people fall into trouble when they think too much with their heart or maybe too much with their head, and it blows up your feelings.”
Holding Onto Hope
One of the keys to healing from heartbreak, Haer said, is clinging to hope. This sense of hope can carry people through the pain they feel in a way that is healthy and empowering, rather than all-consuming and debilitating.
For some students, this hope comes from a relationship with God.
“If a student has a relationship with Christ, and knows that God is good, God is in control, God is with them, God has a place for them,” Haer said. “That stability and truth and hope really allows a person to be more honest and open and true and connected with their pain.”
For Joiner, her relationship with God instilled in her a firm belief in His promise.
“There’s beauty in heartbreak and God can still use me,” Joiner said. “He can still use my broken heart, He can still use me even though I feel shattered.”
When Alhadeff was wrestling with feelings of loneliness after his breakup, he turned to God. He began to read the Bible more intentionally and, through that, understood God’s plan for him, Alhadeff said.
“He [God] really cares for us,” Lansbach said. “He cares for the brokenhearted, and He wants to be with us.”
Having a community is also vital to healing from the end of a relationship.
“It’s so crucial to have a good network of people, friends, family, maybe counselors, therapists that really know you well, and know what you need, and also know how to take you through that healing journey because it can be so layered and so difficult to go into and really sit with those feelings,” Lansbach said.
Barron said heartbreak has allowed her to be a solid support system for her friends who have also been heartbroken.
“If you’re able to support them through that and love them through that, it shows how true the friendship is,” Barron said.
Joiner said going through heartbreak taught her many lessons but the one thing she has clung onto is the sense of self-worth she gained from it.
“No matter what happened, how a relationship ends or a friendship ends, I am still worthy of the good and the love and the joy that is in my life,” Joiner said. “Just because something ends doesn’t mean I no longer deserve to be happy. Just because now I’m in this state of sadness and heartbreak, doesn’t mean that I deserve to stay in it.”
–––––––––––––––––––––
Follow Currents Magazine on Twitter: @PeppCurrents and Instagram: @currentsmagazine
Email Yamillah Hurtado via yamillah.hurtado@pepperdine.edu
