What Happens to Your Brain When Someone Breaks Your Heart

After you’ve been dumped, how do you pick up the pieces and find happiness again? Science offers insights.

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When my husband packed up and left for good, I went through drug withdrawal.

I wasn’t addicted to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, or any other intoxicant. But I experienced the same common symptoms: crying spells, lethargy, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, and loss of appetite.

I also relapsed like an addict. Long after my husband moved on, any random signal — a restaurant, a melody, a joke, a TV show, anything really — could send me into a fresh spiral of panic, anxiety, and tears.

I’d compulsively replay cheesy breakup songs. I’d retell my victim story again and again to anyone with ears. I’d binge-watch true crime shows and root for the jilted lovers who followed through on their revenge fantasies.

If it sounds like I was a little bit nuts, you’re right. But what I didn’t know at the time was that my brain — overdosing on some brain chemicals and starving for others — was doing exactly what it was designed to do.

The jilted brain

At some point in our lives, nearly all of us experience the anguish of rejection…