A broken heart creates a strange kind of heavy hangover. Everything looks the same but feels slightly rearranged. Your playlists betray you. Your apartment feels booby-trapped. Even brushing your teeth feels like a scene from someone else’s life. No one preps you for this kind of freefall, so you’re stuck learning as you go.

The emotional whiplash makes sense. Psychology Today notes that heartbreak isn’t a single loss. It’s the collapse of the relationship, the friendship inside it, the imagined life you built around it, and the version of yourself you knew inside that structure. Therapist Kenneth J. Doka describes this period as a “transition,” which lines up with William Bridges’ idea that transitions feel confusing because they drop you between identities. That middle zone creates the

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