" An air of disbelief, sorrow and pain filled the waiting area of a big 5-star hospital. Turn by turn, each of his family members got a glimpse of him from the small window on the door. At 32yrs of age, Vikram a smart, educated and very well earning stock analyst fights a battle between life and death.
His action- to fall in love with a girl who broke his trust.
His reaction- consumption of poison to escape the unbearable emotional pain."
There are millions of Vikram's out in the real world. Relationships are slowly becoming more and more fragile. A breach of trust can lead to severe mind-body reactions that go unnoticed and undetected by family and friends until an unbelivable action happens.
There are few essential points which everyone has to keep in mind when dealing with broken relationships:
1. The meaning - in human psychology, scientific research on more than a million people has confirmed that breach of trust in a psychologicaly commited relationship constitutes the 2nd most dreadful cause for IMMEDIATE development of thought, emotional and psychologcial problems.
2. Clinical Relevance- in 90% cases it leads to a clinically relevant problems like acute stress disorder and major depressive disorder.
By clinicaly relevant it means- the increased generation of painful thoughts and emotional pain leads to breaking the boundaries of mind-body defences. This causes excess functioning of the brain, leading to decreased production of neuro-chemical serotonin in the brain.
A serotonin deficient brain creates a vicious circle of-
emotional pain ---> decreased neurochemical ----> more emotional pain.
This leads to altered behavior and emotions away from a persons normal personality.
3. Invisible pain - Emotional pain is only experienced by the sufferer.
The family and friends only detect a fraction of it by reading facial expressions and body language. They normally fullfil their duty by "counseling" thru comforting words and examples.
Such an effort is extremely important and useful. Unfortunately its value disapperas as soon as a person is left alone and flashbacks of old memories start happening.
4. Pain is proportional to attachment- higher the attachment and investment of love into a relationship, the higher the pain on it breaking.
5. Death trap.- If left unattended the pain crossess all boundaries of mind and body leading to devastating results.
a. It starts by affecting soft skills like concentration, memory, sleep and appetite.
b. slowly it progresses deeper into personality making a person easily irritable, getting angry without reason and taking irrational decisions in haste.
c. as it gets severe it can induce suicidal thoughts
d. The increased functioning of the brain requires extra load of chemicals. This is taken from the body. This causes a breach in the brain-body defense barrier. Its effects on the body are noticed as following:
i. decreased immune system - a person falls ill frequently -specially common cold, cough, lung problems.
ii. heart problems- hypertension, palpitations (feeling your own heart beat), chest pains.
iii.digestive problems- constipation, a change in more than 5% weight/month.
iii.digestive problems- constipation, a change in more than 5% weight/month.
iv. skin problems- development of pimples, black spots under the eyes, older-look on the face.
v. hair problems- increase in hair fall.
6. How to fight it?
The best way to fight it thru natural means, is using the psychological technique called venting out.
its very important to let the harming images, feelings,sounds and emotions out of your brain.
this can be achieved thru writing it down in a dairy, talking with friends, yoga or meditation.
Also planning the day to such an extent that it keeps you engaged in some or other kind of mental activity is extremely important.
The mind is a kid.- if you can decrease those harming thoughts for 3 weeks, it will start to forget on it's owns.
7. Alcohol and nicotine - its important to avoid alcohol and nicotine/tobacco.
These are the most popular ways to escape the emotional pain.
Unfortunately both of them have a tendency to stimulate the brain in those specific areas, which make painful memories long lasting. This increases the healing period and in some cases can make those images permanent.
This is one of the reasons why sad songs, or movie scenes can trigger an uncontrolable flashback with surge of sad emotions.a classical example of the same is jagit singh's music and its popularity among those who drink.
8. A good support system is very important. - the support from family and friends is essential to fight this battle. Unfortunately after 1-2months, most family and friends start feeling frustrated. They feel that listeing to the same story again and again is just an attention seeking act by the sufferer.
In some cases, Religion and religious leaders become great support systems. One should not run-away from using their services to help one-self.
9. New age Options. - Its the 21st century. Science has moved light years ahead in the last 50yrs. Brain mapping, brain scanning and new research tools have found specific hyperactive parts of the brain responsible for recurrent generation of emotional troubles. consulting a professional in this field is always helpful.
a. Family doctors/ general physicians- they are great motivators and usually the 1st people to be consulted by family and friends. Their general skills in this topic are useful for minor depressive cases. In case of major problems their lack of expertise in the field of psychological problems makes them ineffective for long term cure.
b. the psychiatrist- a psychiatrist isn't just a "mad-persons" doctor anymore. Research in the field of emotional, behavioral and psychological problems has crossed leaps and bounds to enter a new modern age.
Movies like "taare zameen par", "a beutiful mind", " lage raho munna bhai", "the aviator" , "the matchstick men" prove the modern day and modern man's inquisitiveness to learn about the deepest secrets of the mind from a scientific way.
the old and discarded outlook of electric-chair executing weird psychiatrist is left for those with non-progressive view-points based in 19th century.
The scientific psychiatric approach in such cases is a dynamic module which utilizes the life, mind and thought changing tools of counceling, along with physical protection thru limited period administration of soft-medications ( new medications that non-sedative and non-addictive with fewer side-effects than normally prescribed anti-biotics)
Remember-
"Love is an arrow which shoots happiness through your heart. But if the arrow breaks, it can bleed it to death"
Being healthy is based on making informed and consented choices at the right moment.
Hope this little article helps you to gain knowledge on how to help those who go thru the traumatic experience of broken trust.
Dr.Hemant Mittal (MBBS, PG.DPM)
contact- eksoch@gmail.com
Doctor,
ReplyDeleteI agree your posts cover all the details that you require to share with the readers. But at times, I lose interest in reading such a long post...
Kisi ne kahin par kaha tha...
Your post is like a girl's skirt.
Long enough to cover what is desired to be said.
Short enough to maintain anxiety of the readers.
Nice post .... will be very helpful for those in need,
ReplyDeleteA very comprehensive post Doctor!! Made me appreciate more than i did some of those people who were friends when i needed a friend!! Thank you!!
ReplyDeleteGood article.Good health is definately about making the right choices at the right time. But there are quite a number of people out there, who still believe tha a psychiatrist is 'a mad person's doc'
ReplyDeleteVery Very good post. thanks :)
ReplyDeletethanx for giving a very comprehensive post.It is very disappointing when after repeated counseling
ReplyDeletethe patient reverts back to his old status.Lots of patience is needed.
a very good article sir.... sir it exactly what happens when some one gets ditched in a relationship..... i don't know what kind situation that i was going through after she(my girl friend) left me alone.. but when i reading this article, i got a clear picture that how i was behaving during that period....now every thing is fine... thank you very much for such a good article...
ReplyDeleteGood article sir...
ReplyDeleteYes & if some one already faced with a heart brk ( & left untreated emotionally) simultaneously enter a second relationship....they become more possessive of tht relationship.....& when faced again with some controversy...the fear of loosing this 1 is too high....I dont know Doc but i am facing this kind of problem with 1 of my freind....plz guide me....she is become irrational thinker....shouting all the time....some times in tears sometime simply hate things....i mean difficult to handle....
ReplyDeleteemail me at eksoch@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteor if you from mumbai take an appointment and both of you can meet me for the same.
I appreciate your effort... and your understanding of pain in love... nice article...
ReplyDelete