During the separation period, love, anger, pain, resentment, and indifference can fluctuate in an incomprehensible sequence, and sometimes these emotions and feelings can overwhelm a person all at once.
In the first days after a painful breakup or divorce, people may experience a strange numbness — a strange, almost surreal calm that masks the intensity of the loss. For some, it feels like clarity, for others — like distance from themselves. But around the fifth day, something often changes. The mental fog begins to clear and the anaesthesia wears off. And then what remains is very intense pain — sharp, heart-wrenching pain that clients describe as pain that goes to the bone.
This is not meant to be a symbolic or lyrical digression, because the pain is real and if a client tells me that they feel like they are going to die from the pain, then I believe them, because it is a psychological and neurobiological process. When we experience emotional trauma, our body starts to help us survive and releases a bunch of stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline. These help us survive in a crisis. They numb the pain, suppress deeply painful emotional experiences, and mobilize our nervous system to help us deal with the practicalities of separation and bureaucracy.
In the first days after separation, the human brain often operates in beta wave mode, which is fast, focused, and works at a problem-solving frequency associated with survival—fighting or fleeing, tension, escaping from immediate danger. This psycho-emotional state allows you to endure and survive, but not to feel.
However, after a few days — often on the fifth day — the hormonal wave begins to subside. Adrenaline levels drop and the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. Brain waves gradually switch to slower alpha or even theta waves, especially during moments of calm or rest. These allow access to feelings, memories, and internal integration, but at the same time open the door to pain. And that is the day when pain makes itself felt. It is described as pain in the chest, which is the body’s visceral reaction to the loss experienced. Anger, guilt, longing, regret, all the emotions that were previously suppressed now begin to flow. It may seem that a person is mentally breaking down. And there are so many emotions and feelings that one can actually feel like they are collapsing under the weight of all these emotions. This indicates that this is the moment when true mourning begins. It means that everything that was real was love, was a connection, bodies and brains were tuned into a common alpha wave rhythm. This shows that the relationship and connection were very important. On a soul level, as they say.
This article is dedicated to the fifth day, because after a breakup, it is one of the most psycho-emotionally intense days. On the one hand, the fifth day can seem like a psycho-emotional breakdown, but on the other hand, it is a return to oneself, to one’s true feelings. If you want to cry, then let the tears flow. If you feel anger, then let it express itself, not to attack or take revenge on someone, but so that you can define for yourself what has happened and what impact it has had on the processes in your psyche. On the fifth day after the breakup, the psyche transitions from survival mode to the integration process.
This is easier to say or write than to do, but allow yourself to simply be with what is, what comes, what hurts. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Nothing needs to be fixed. Just be and let be. Because healing is never linear. But every time we allow our emotions to flow without suppressing them, without justifying them, and without rushing anywhere, we regain a piece of ourselves. And yes, this meeting on the fifth day after the breakup is certainly very painful for someone, but childbirth is also painful, and if you allow something new to be born, psychologically holding your own hand and reminding yourself to breathe, then psychologically you can be reborn, going through everything, because, as Jung said, “The shortest way out is through.”
Psychotherapy 
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