Broken Heart Syndrome
By: Natalie Jeanne Maddy
Tags: Energy, Broken Heart, Science, Love, Healing

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Broken Heart Syndrome

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is very real

“You can die of a broken heart — it’s scientific fact — and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we’re together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.”

— Abby McDonald

Heart racing. Palms sweating. Stomach churning. Head spinning.

Breathing shortens. Chest squeezes. Neck tightens. Arms are heavy.

All the signs of a heart attack are present. But what if these signs, these symptoms, these tell-tale signals that you’re physically having a heart attack are real — too fucking real — but your heart is otherwise physically healthy? Your arteries aren’t clogged. You have normal levels of cholesterol, even. You have no history of heart failures, nor does your family. You eat well, you exercise regularly, you have normal blood pressure, and your heart is beating along to the rhythm of your life. To the rhythm of your life. Of. Your. Life. YOUR LIFE.

Maybe that’s the issue then:

YOUR LIFE is fucked up mentally or emotionally or spiritually or maybe a combination of any or all of the aforementioned,

so you have a heart attack.

Because your heart is beating along to the rhythm of your life. YOUR LIFE, man. YOUR LIFE is inducing stress to your heart, forcing it to behave as if being attacked. But see… it’s you who is attacking it — allowing the forces, the influences, the outsiders of your life to weigh you down to the point of exhaustion and depletion and submission. Submission to keep living the way you are, but it’s your heart who suffers when ignored, mistreated, denied the proper attention it fucking deserves.

Except, you aren’t ignoring it in a physical sense. Rather, in an emotional sense. A mental sense. A spiritual sense. But you still have the symptoms and feelings of those signalling an actual heart attack, despite it being healthy physically.

Why?

Because your heart isn’t happy, thus causing the rhythm of YOUR LIFE to speed up and intensify the beating of your heart. You’re stressed because your heart, albeit a healthy heart, isn’t happy, only following suit of your mental and emotional and maybe even spiritual state. But your body doesn’t know that on a cellular level — it knows not why you’re stressed or replete with sorrow, so it acts on the fact that you’re stressed and leaves it at that — so it feigns a heart attack until it actually becomes a heart attack, trying to wake you the fuck up, lest you die of a broken heart (a broken heart, not in the literal sense but in a metaphorical sense — obviously). But metaphors can become literal, if you allow them. Will you?

Haven’t you ever wondered why the term broken heart derived in the first place? According to Queensland Health, “your brain registers the emotional pain of heartbreak in the same way as physical pain,” so when people say their heart was broken, it’s because it feels that way, even if the heart isn’t literally breaking. The body hardly knows the difference.

So you were rejected. Your heart was snatched from the chest and stomped on, into a tiny million pieces, but you need your heart to live, so it was put back from whence it came and tries to keep beating, to match the pace of YOUR LIFE. But YOUR LIFE is a fucking mess, so it beats faster, causing you to sweat and have night terrors and feel the effects of suffocating, even if you have sufficient air in which to breathe. Your heart hurts so fucking bad that it might just explode, if you dwell on it for too long. So you try to distract yourself. You take up a new hobby, but you’re not fully present for it because your heart keeps telling you it’s failing, and you’re not caring for it. So you try to fix it yourself, but your dizziness keeps distracting you from understanding the severity of the situation. You then keel over because your stomach is mirroring your heart and is now churning itself silly, as if that might save your broken heart.

so you were rejected

Your heart was broken. Your heart is broken. Your heart is shattered. Your heart is on the verge of an attack. But who is ready to pounce on you, attacking your heart along the way? Is it your ex-lover? Is it work? Is it a loss of a friend? A denial? Death? Illness? Or is it you allowing your mental and emotional issues to reside inside your heart far too long, until they manifest themselves into physical issues?

Is it also you who neglects to see the difference between an emotional breaking heart and a physical breaking heart?

Maybe it’s time to start caring for yourself not just physically but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

There’s a name for this pseudo-attack because it is quite a serious condition and can actually arise complications or even lead to death, should people suffering from this condition not take the proper care they need — to heal, to cope, to survive. So researchers have come to call it takotsubo cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as: broken heart syndrome.

broken heart syndrome: a syndrome that can be caused by heartbreak, or more accurately, the stress of a heartbreaking situation

so you were rejected

we were rejected

I was rejected

How the fuck do I cope with a broken heart? How the fuck do I keep living, when it feels like half my heart is missing? How the fuck can I possibly sleep at night, knowing my heart is inducing stressors from that of an actual heart attack, though my heart is healthy physically (for now)? How the fuck do I survive this attack? This rejection? This broken heart syndrome? This thing called life? How?!

I heal. I cope. I talk. I listen. I care.

I heal my heart by filling it with love — the love stemming from my own damn heart, not from someone else’s.

I cope by denying the habits that used to give me comfort and instead drive my car toward passions and excitements and joys. Even if the joys are little joys, for the time being.

I talk to others so they can hug me when needed but also, so they can fully understand what I’m going through. How else would anyone know to be such a friend?

I listen. To myself. To others. To my heart. To what my body needs: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I listen to my heart beats until they become steady and strong and fierce again. I listen to other people’s survival stories, knowing full well I’m not alone. I’m never alone.

I care for myself but also others. I fill my heart with love so I can be a bright light in my community and in this world. I care for my heart by eating well still and exercising and acting out in happiness and love. I care for my life and my health and especially, my sanity. I start giving fucks again, even though not everyone gave a fuck about me, hence the feelings of my broken heart.

I heal. I cope. I talk. I listen. I care.

And then… I wait. I wait for my heart to slowly become itself again, but with stitches and cracks and bruises and scars. I wait for me to find myself again, searching for that identity that was lost along the way, once my heart was shattered and stomped upon until it was nearly unrecognizable. I wait for my mind to dissolve the boundaries of physical and emotional pain the way my body does on its own, knowing not why there’s stress but knowing that there is stress. And then, I act. I act to save myself. I save myself, from myself. From others. From stressors. From triggers. From killers. From thieves. And then I protect my heart, keeping it safe in the confines of my rib cage — isn’t that why it’s called a cage in the first place? Quite so.

So then — when my heart races, sending shivers down my spine and sweat beads to form upon my palms and twists in my stomach and spins in my head, I’ll know what to do. When my breathing shortens, my chest squeezes, my neck tightens, and my arms become heavy, I’ll know what to do. I’ll know that I’m not actually having a heart attack. I’m merely suffering from the syndrome of a broken heart.

But that’s okay,

because broken hearts heal themselves all the time.

And I’ve heard: what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

So here’s to having a stronger heart, after it was broken but then, healed.

And here’s to having enough energy to sustain a heart that needs healed.

We all need healed.