The Standard Group Plc is a multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper print
operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The Standard Group is recognized as a
leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key influence in matters of national and international interest.
By Dr Pius Musau
Unless it is your first love, we have all been down the path of broken relationships. It is a common thing spend more time worrying about possible fall out, than devising ways of keeping the relationship strong. Among the many things science has thrown our way is a concept of a broken heart syndrome in which a jilted lover can progress to a heart attack.
The broken heart syndrome
A dumped man remains suspended between the blissful world he knew and the reality he faces of having been left. There is a rush of hormones, key of which is the testosterone that tells him this can’t be happening to him. It caresses his ego and the unfolding event stupefies him. He gets into a denial before a quick jump into a state of anger.
When he is done with throwing things around and displacing his anger on the wrong people, he starts bargaining; promises to change and be the good man she wants. He then lapses into depression before reality dawns on him and finally accepts that it is over. This syndrome is similar to all responses to traumatic events and the concoction of rushing hormones was thought to precipitate a heart attack.
Surviving a heart break
One needs not die of a broken relationship if mature enough to get into one in the first place. For those with experience, there was one before and will definitely be another after this. The following can kill you:
• Skewed thoughts and thinking that you can’t get someone else or not good enough to be loved.
• Receding into a shell of self- pity, while keeping everything to yourself.
• Misplaced hope of reunion, which keeps you in the bargaining state.
• Resorting to temporary measures to alleviate the pain like excessive drinking, seeking sympathy or rushing into another relationship.
• Courting greater pain by sticking on a routine that evokes bad memories.
Life is never that kind to give us all we need in a single package of a partner and occasionally even the relationship breaks up. How we handle it will determine our state of health during and after the relationship.
— The writer is a consultant urologist and lecturer at the department of surgery, Moi Uni
join