Day 4 After the Breakup

Day 4 after the breakup, or the moment when the psychological anesthesia wears off.

During the breakup 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 lift and the anesthesia wears off. And then there is very intense pain — sharp, heart-wrenching pain. Clients say that it hurts 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 their heart is going to burst from the pain, then I believe them, because it is a psychological and neurobiological process. When we experience emotional trauma, our body begins to help us survive and starts to release a series of stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline. These help us survive in times of crisis. They numb the pain, suppress deeply painful emotional experiences, and mobilize our nervous system to help us deal with the practicalities of divorce and bureaucracy.

In the first few days after a divorce, the human brain often operates in beta wave mode, which is fast, focused, and works at a problem-solving frequency associated with survival—fight or flight, tension, escape 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 waves allow access to feelings, memories, and internal integration, but at the same time open the door to pain. And so it is a day when pain makes itself felt. It is described as pain in the chest area, 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 indeed feel like breaking down under the weight of all these emotions. And this indicates that this is the moment when true mourning begins. It means that everything that was real was love, was connection, bodies and brains were tuned into a common alpha wave rhythm. This shows that the partnership and connection were very important. As they say, on a soul level.

This article is dedicated to the fifth day, because after a breakup, it is one of the most psycho-emotionally powerful days. On the one hand, the fifth day may 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 to be able to 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 allow yourself to 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 part of ourselves. And yes, this encounter 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 the way through.”