Julie Answers: How do I overcome heartbreak?

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Lisa wrote: My boyfriend left me a few months ago. I feel destroyed. Every relationship I’m in they always leave. I have no motivation. Can’t focus at all. Every morning I have extreme anxiety. I’m always shaking. Just feel so down. I always blame myself. Always crying.

Dear Lisa,

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, because you already know it all too well, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: You are suffering through a severe case of heartbreak, and it is awful. There’s a saying that, “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” While I would argue that in the grand scheme of things that is probably more true than not, I also know that many people in your position (which really is almost everyone who has ever lived, at some point in their lives) have seriously doubted the truth and wisdom of that statement. How can anything possibly be worth this amount of pain, ever?

We don’t need to go into the whole worth it/not worth it question right now. The important thing to remember, when the pain is at its worst, is that what you are going through is a universal experience that people do survive. In Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up, he tells a story of a time when he was young and going through heartbreak. Someone asked him what was wrong, and when he said his girlfriend had…