The evergreenness of emotional pain

I know stages. So many stages that I now know that the last stage of anything usually means it’s either blooming or dying. (There’s no sugarcoating in the human experience.) The extent of some physical invasions by diseases can be classified by stages nowadays. Neat. It doesn’t mean it makes things easier. I think it’s our human nature to not want to know what lies ahead — I blame the fear of the unknown. But it can’t be a bad thing either knowing how you’re going to end.

Anyway, all this preambling is just to ask: does heartache have stages? We are well aware of the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). But at what stage is heartache terminal? Is it when we finally accept it? When we give up? When we’d rather carry on with a heavy heart, until the end of time, because a resolution or closure cannot be reached? I believe there is such thing.

Emotional pain is easy to hide, but hard to decode because, unlike physical pain, it is more complex. You can’t quite explain what you can’t see. Heartache is universally known, but every individual expresses it differently. We don’t really know what anyone is going through unless the heartbroken discloses it, so to measure in stages can be tricky. An MRI or X-ray can detect a broken bone, a torn muscle, a lump, etc., but how about the suffering? What on earth — other than intuition or a conversation — can detect that? Grieving can go on and on and on…with no proper diagnosis. I believe this is how some poets are born. 

Not to diminish physical ache, but overcoming heartbreak takes a special kind of strength. It is the kind of grief that will destroy you if you let it stick around too long. Skin tissue heals, whereas the wound left by a broken heart can be reopened so many times… cured only by a flawless, linear matter of time, which as we all know doesn’t always happen in real life.

Truth is grief can kill. That’s why we are encouraged to strive to be mentally well. I know loving can hurt, but we often forget that emotional pain can be tied to so many other different memories and feelings, not just romantic relationships, that sometimes we don’t take other people’s feelings of depression as seriously as we would if they had a broken leg. So remember:  just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there; it doesn’t mean the sufferer can’t feel it. Everyone just copes differently. And sometimes, maybe acceptance is the terminal stage. You never know. 

When it comes to brokenheartedness, it is best to keep an open mind…and an open heart.