When your partner breaks trust, when a friend betrays a confidence, or when beloved family belittles you, it's going to sting. It is entirely possible that someone can love you desperately with their feelings but not be able to love you through actions in the way you need. Racing thoughts, feelings of emptiness, irritability, nausea, sleep deprivation, feelings of paralysis, ambivalence, crying, foggy brain, deep sadness, and anger are all common reactions when we feel heart-torn and emotionally toxic.
We develop external coping skills to manage challenging emotions. Relief behaviors like drinking, eating, sex, gambling, exercising, reading, and sleeping are some external methods of distraction that can work to temporarily alleviate current mood states. Internally though, your nervous system is battered trying to manage overloads of sensations while your brain sorts out cause and effect, blame, shame, and hopelessness. This neural and psychological hammering has damaging results. It will not help you feel better. In fact, resolutions are delayed or often seeded in revenge or negative self-talk.
If you think you are broken and need fixing, rethink it! You were hurt and need healing. That shift in perspective alone can foster self-compassion instead of self-hatred. Remind yourself that there is nothing wrong with your 'person'. Realize you need to unlearn old patterns, embrace new behaviors, and heal the wounds that may be festering from long ago. It takes more than time to heal. It takes reflection and conscious creation of elevated emotions like gratitude, invisibility, courage, and connection. Healing begins the moment you stop pretending that you are not hurt! Until then, it's 'hair of the dog that bit you'. There's more toxicity waiting in your next relationship. More emotional hangovers. Same pain, different name!