Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Heartbreak -- Researched somewhat...

Now that November is just a month and a half away and the NaNo Prep has only fifteen days to go, I figured I’d start on the research. Getting a link from Buzzfeed gave me the idea of getting started with heartbreak. I don’t know, yet, what I’ll write about for this year’s NaNo, but I bet it will include some heartbreak somewhere.

A heartbreak is painful; we all experience it at one time or another, and often, several times over. It is, sometimes, a faint ache, and other times, a huge throbbing, raw wound. We feel sad, lost, empty, alone, and angry. Some of us withdraw from friends and family and have a hard time going through the daily routine. Our work suffers; we lose sleep and appetite; we feel hopeless.

Just as the “Time heals all heels” saying, time also heals or diminishes the heartache somewhat. To heal better, seeking support from loved ones or a therapist, not expecting from oneself to bounce back immediately, appreciating every small step on the way to recovery, and staying active helps. Also, we must refrain from unhealthy behaviors such as getting drunk, engaging in casual sex, withdrawing from people, and beating oneself up. And all this applies to our characters, as well.

According to an ABC News broadcast, heart-break   affects people physically first on the adrenal glands that churn out cortisol and adrenaline and cause all kinds of havoc in the body, starting with high blood pressure, stomach problems, breaking down of the immune system, skin problems, and hair loss.

But what it does to the brain is the most interesting. Rather than try to summarize it, I’ll quote the whole thing-from psych-central  , which mentions mainly the heartbreak from a lost love-because this may help me and other writers.

“Brain

It's like clockwork: Your eyes hit that photo of the two of you and--boom!--awful stomach pit. You feel sick, yet you can't look away. That's because the moment you saw his face, blood started rushing to your brain's pleasure center, the ventral tegmental area. These are all the good times talking.

The command center for craving and longing also lights up. It demands attention--one reason you're obsessed with driving by your ex's house, stalking his Facebook page, or trying to replace him with some other satisfier (welcome, merlot and Ben & Jerry).

But rejection also sends blood flow to two other areas: the secondary somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula, both involved in producing physical pain. That's why you may feel achy all over, not just in your heart.

Initially crowded out by the above responses, your left prefrontal cortex slowly starts to light up. This part of your brain is responsible for reassessment and evaluation--the one saying, Maybe it's for the best. A mere whisper now, this signal will get stronger as time goes on.”

The Buzzfeed link that gave the idea of researching heartbreak to me was about fifteen authors’ quotes on heartbreak. The link is: Author-Quotes  

I typed the quotes for referral, if an occasion should arise in my novel or as prompts for any future project.

Here are the quotes:

"Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow."

Sylvia Plath - From The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath


"The heart was made to be broken."

Oscar Wilde - From De Profundis


"It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you."

Toni Morrison -From Sula


"There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it's the right unhappiness."

Jonathan Franzen - From Freedom


"The saddest thing about love, Joe, is that not only the love cannot last forever, but even the heartbreak is soon forgotten."

William Faulkner - From Soldier's Pay


"You can't keep a cool head when you're drowning in love. You just thrash around a lot and scream, and wear yourself out."

Margaret Atwood -From The Robber Bride


"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."

James Baldwin


"Hearbreak is funny to everyone but the heartbroken."

Jeffrey Eugenides - From The Marriage Plot


"I feel like someone after a deluge being asked to describe the way it was before the flood while I'm still plucking seaweed out of my hair."

Norman Rush - From Mating


"The greatest tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love."

W. Somerset Maugham - From The Summing Up


"An agony. The exit like the entrance - but reversed. A palindrome: gut-tug

Lorrie Moore - From A Gate at the Stairs


"Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - From Collected Stories


"The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder."

Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own


" While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You mist wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

Samuel Johnson - From The Life of Samuel Johnson


"Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don't."

Stephen King - From Hearts in Atlantis