Ritalin comments on Open thread, Oct. 20 - Oct. 26, 2014 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: MrMind 20 October 2014 08:12AM

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Comment author: Tripitaka 25 October 2014 11:51:43PM 2 points [-]

The question "is heartbreak the way humans experience it right now a good thing" is one of the more complex questions about the human condition,yes. My mental modell of all that is kinda like the following:

On an neurochemical level, the way "love" stimulates the reward-centers has been likened to "cocaine".Its an extremely strong conditioning, addiction even. So of course your brain wants to satisfy that condition by all means possible. If we have a look at popular culture, its kinda expected to have extreme reactions to heartbreak: people fall into depression, start rationalizing all kinds of really crazy behaviour (stalking, death threats, lifechanging roadtrips) etc etc.

To avoid all that you have to thoroughly impress on your emotional side that its over: thats why some people do the whole "burn everything that connects me with her", others just overwrite that old emotion with new (irrational)emotions like anger, hold a symbolic funeral, repeat it to youself everyday in a mirror etc.

Unfortunately I am not aware of studies about optimal treatment of heartbreak, but common wisdom is: NO contact at all in the beginning, allow yourself to grieve, find solace with friends/familiy, and somehow redefine your sense of selfesteem- take up painting/coding/comething you have always wanted to do. If one wanted to go the rational route: research neurochemistry, find out wether its really like cocaine-addiction, do whatever helps with cocaine-withdrawal. (or the other most closely related drug-withdrawal).

Comment author: Ritalin 26 October 2014 10:07:20AM 0 points [-]

The main problem, as far as I'm concerned, isn't heartbreak itself, but the way I enter an altered state around her. To put it simply, I can't think straight. It's like being intoxicated, or in terrible pain. Getting over an ex is tough. But right now I'm more interested in getting over my feelings when around a loved one, rather than becoming paralyzed and my mind becoming blank.

Comment author: Tripitaka 26 October 2014 12:37:35PM 0 points [-]

Sorry I failed to make myself clear. To put it simply back: it feels as if you are in pain or intoxicated, because thats exactly what it is, http://www.pnas.org/content/108/15/6270.short for example. Your system 1 is in desperate need to get its fix OR stop the hurting, even if system 2 is fine. The obvious way to combat it and your accompanied loss of agency is to precommit in some way to stop being around them, but also to ignore their wishes in the future. The way this happens for a lot of people is rationalizing undesired qualities to their expartners, having strong peer pressure etc. Because system 1 is so strong on this front, depending on your own stability, it can actually be dangerous to fight it too much with system 2. For the whole system 1 against system 2, mindfulness meditation is useful.