WEBVTT - Heartbreak: A Journalist Studies the Science of Divorce

0:00:14.916 --> 0:00:21.036
<v Speaker 1>Pushkin, Hey, Slight Changers. I'm excited to share that we're

0:00:21.076 --> 0:00:23.436
<v Speaker 1>going to launch new episodes of A Slight Change of

0:00:23.476 --> 0:00:26.756
<v Speaker 1>Plans on February twenty eighth. I cannot wait for you

0:00:26.836 --> 0:00:29.676
<v Speaker 1>to hear them. In the meantime, I wanted to share

0:00:29.756 --> 0:00:33.716
<v Speaker 1>something special with you. It's a new audiobook from Pushkin Industries,

0:00:33.916 --> 0:00:36.036
<v Speaker 1>the same place I partner with on A Slight Change

0:00:36.036 --> 0:00:39.476
<v Speaker 1>of Plans. It's called Heartbreak, and it's written and read

0:00:39.556 --> 0:00:43.516
<v Speaker 1>by Florence Williams. Florence is a science journalist, but when

0:00:43.516 --> 0:00:46.396
<v Speaker 1>her husband of twenty five years ended their marriage, she

0:00:46.516 --> 0:00:50.196
<v Speaker 1>became her own subject. Florence set out to understand what

0:00:50.356 --> 0:00:53.276
<v Speaker 1>was happening to her emotions and her body after the divorce.

0:00:53.916 --> 0:00:57.196
<v Speaker 1>She turned to scientists who study social pain, loneliness, and

0:00:57.276 --> 0:01:00.716
<v Speaker 1>the biology of romantic attachment, and she also turned to

0:01:00.756 --> 0:01:03.116
<v Speaker 1>her friends and loved ones to try and piece her

0:01:03.156 --> 0:01:07.676
<v Speaker 1>life back together. Florence recorded her journey that includes conversations

0:01:07.716 --> 0:01:10.556
<v Speaker 1>with her friends hence to date new men, and her

0:01:10.556 --> 0:01:13.956
<v Speaker 1>trips around the country to interview scientists. Her book is

0:01:13.996 --> 0:01:16.996
<v Speaker 1>filled with moments of joy and sadness, and it sheds

0:01:17.076 --> 0:01:21.196
<v Speaker 1>light on the complexity of emotions that can follow Heartbreak. Okay,

0:01:21.276 --> 0:01:24.316
<v Speaker 1>here comes the preview. You can order the Heartbreak audio

0:01:24.356 --> 0:01:26.796
<v Speaker 1>books so that it's sent directly to your podcast app

0:01:27.236 --> 0:01:30.876
<v Speaker 1>by going to Pushkin dot fm, slash Heartbreak, or at Audible.

0:01:33.076 --> 0:01:35.996
<v Speaker 1>When I set out to try and understand the experience

0:01:35.996 --> 0:01:39.916
<v Speaker 1>of heartbreak, both my own and more generally, I recorded

0:01:39.956 --> 0:01:42.796
<v Speaker 1>a lot of my journey as it was unfolding, in

0:01:42.876 --> 0:01:48.196
<v Speaker 1>real time recordings, Oh you are Oh my god, you're

0:01:48.196 --> 0:01:53.756
<v Speaker 1>really going to do this? I don't know. Writing this

0:01:53.796 --> 0:01:57.076
<v Speaker 1>book has been a deeply personal exploration for me, and

0:01:57.116 --> 0:02:00.116
<v Speaker 1>I'm grateful you're choosing to listen. It may sound a

0:02:00.116 --> 0:02:02.556
<v Speaker 1>little different from the audio books you're used to hearing.

0:02:02.916 --> 0:02:05.796
<v Speaker 1>I'll be reading the text, but you'll also hear passages

0:02:05.876 --> 0:02:09.356
<v Speaker 1>from my audio journal, entries and sounds from trips took

0:02:09.356 --> 0:02:16.116
<v Speaker 1>in the wilderness. You'll hear conversations with friends. The only

0:02:16.156 --> 0:02:18.716
<v Speaker 1>advice I have for you is that we are here

0:02:18.756 --> 0:02:23.636
<v Speaker 1>for you, so don't do it alone. And scientists and

0:02:23.796 --> 0:02:27.236
<v Speaker 1>experts who study heartbreak, just because you've been dumped doesn't

0:02:27.236 --> 0:02:29.876
<v Speaker 1>mean you don't just can stop attaching. In fact, the

0:02:29.916 --> 0:02:33.716
<v Speaker 1>brain region that becomes active when you've been dumped linked

0:02:33.716 --> 0:02:37.156
<v Speaker 1>with pain also becomes active when you have tooth pain.

0:02:39.436 --> 0:02:42.996
<v Speaker 1>Why does that seem sort of appropriate? So's it's a

0:02:43.116 --> 0:02:47.356
<v Speaker 1>very painful experience and it can last a long time.

0:02:48.036 --> 0:02:51.596
<v Speaker 1>You'll even hear me in therapy. Yeah, just the whole

0:02:51.956 --> 0:02:54.676
<v Speaker 1>universe of dating is much more dramatic than being in

0:02:54.716 --> 0:02:58.556
<v Speaker 1>a twenty year marriage. I figured this is an audiobook,

0:02:58.876 --> 0:03:02.516
<v Speaker 1>you might as well really hear it. The highs, the lows,

0:03:03.156 --> 0:03:08.036
<v Speaker 1>the sometimes crooked path to a heart, more whole. Here

0:03:08.076 --> 0:03:26.196
<v Speaker 1>we go. I hope you enjoy it. My biggest problem

0:03:26.236 --> 0:03:31.116
<v Speaker 1>at the moment was the portable toilet. It was just

0:03:31.156 --> 0:03:34.076
<v Speaker 1>too heavy. It was weighing down the bow of my canoe,

0:03:34.316 --> 0:03:37.356
<v Speaker 1>which was already loaded with eighty pounds of water and

0:03:37.436 --> 0:03:40.836
<v Speaker 1>a double walled cooler filled with fairly ridiculous items like

0:03:40.876 --> 0:03:45.636
<v Speaker 1>coconut milk, ribi steaks and cage free liquid, whole eggs,

0:03:46.876 --> 0:03:51.996
<v Speaker 1>three blocks of ice, ten days or the water. I

0:03:52.036 --> 0:03:54.356
<v Speaker 1>have so much food, like why did I grad onions?

0:03:54.396 --> 0:03:58.156
<v Speaker 1>And that's me night one alone on the river making

0:03:58.196 --> 0:04:01.716
<v Speaker 1>an audio diary are really more of an audio rant.

0:04:01.956 --> 0:04:06.156
<v Speaker 1>Heavy food, huge cooler takes up three quarters of the boat.

0:04:06.436 --> 0:04:09.396
<v Speaker 1>I'd also brought a fetching beach parasol. It was just

0:04:09.436 --> 0:04:12.676
<v Speaker 1>too much stuff. But the toilet seemed a particular rebuke.

0:04:13.116 --> 0:04:15.076
<v Speaker 1>Why does something you shit in in the desert have

0:04:15.196 --> 0:04:19.316
<v Speaker 1>to be made of ammunition grade twenty millimeter steel? It doesn't.

0:04:19.716 --> 0:04:22.636
<v Speaker 1>And the canoe was small. It just feels really heavy,

0:04:22.676 --> 0:04:24.636
<v Speaker 1>like I can move it in a straight line. But

0:04:25.436 --> 0:04:27.156
<v Speaker 1>if I had to make a move, if there are

0:04:27.156 --> 0:04:34.756
<v Speaker 1>a rock coming, I mean I cannot move it. The

0:04:34.836 --> 0:04:38.116
<v Speaker 1>ill conceived toilet was just one of the many small

0:04:38.196 --> 0:04:41.356
<v Speaker 1>and giant mistakes that led me to this moment cursing

0:04:41.396 --> 0:04:45.116
<v Speaker 1>alone in the wilderness. There were the mistakes in my marriage,

0:04:45.596 --> 0:04:48.956
<v Speaker 1>the cosmic mistake to my mind of the divorce, the

0:04:49.036 --> 0:04:52.356
<v Speaker 1>wrong men I'd fallen for in the year since my separation,

0:04:53.116 --> 0:04:57.636
<v Speaker 1>the friendships I'd overburdened. All of these were yes, weighing

0:04:57.636 --> 0:05:00.716
<v Speaker 1>me down. If I thought about the heavy ship metaphors

0:05:00.756 --> 0:05:04.556
<v Speaker 1>too long, my head hurt. Most recently, there was the

0:05:04.596 --> 0:05:08.156
<v Speaker 1>poor decision made because I was possibly having a hot flash,

0:05:08.196 --> 0:05:11.076
<v Speaker 1>to launch this leg of my journey a day early,

0:05:11.236 --> 0:05:15.596
<v Speaker 1>at seven pm, in fading light, just above a small rapid,

0:05:15.956 --> 0:05:18.796
<v Speaker 1>in a canoe that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

0:05:19.636 --> 0:05:22.156
<v Speaker 1>Then again, it was August and it was ninety seven

0:05:22.196 --> 0:05:25.716
<v Speaker 1>degrees in Green River, Utah, even a teenage boy would

0:05:25.716 --> 0:05:28.956
<v Speaker 1>be having a hot flash. Camping at the shadeless Town

0:05:28.996 --> 0:05:32.956
<v Speaker 1>Park was an unbearable option. Running a desert river for

0:05:32.996 --> 0:05:35.596
<v Speaker 1>a month in the height of summer was probably another

0:05:35.636 --> 0:05:39.876
<v Speaker 1>bad decision. But here I was. An outfitter named Craig

0:05:39.996 --> 0:05:42.836
<v Speaker 1>had rented me the fifteen foot canoe with a broken thwart,

0:05:43.236 --> 0:05:47.316
<v Speaker 1>splintering gunnals, and the tanker toilet. The boat was the

0:05:47.356 --> 0:05:50.036
<v Speaker 1>color of lipstick you wear when you're trying too hard.

0:05:50.756 --> 0:05:54.596
<v Speaker 1>It did, however, match the parasol. Craig dropped me off

0:05:54.636 --> 0:05:57.796
<v Speaker 1>at the ramp. He laughed and said, just remember, if

0:05:57.836 --> 0:06:01.436
<v Speaker 1>you don't know, knots make lots. He then snapped a

0:06:01.436 --> 0:06:04.196
<v Speaker 1>picture of me surrounded by all my gear and drove

0:06:04.236 --> 0:06:09.956
<v Speaker 1>off in his air conditioned pickup. To be clear, I

0:06:10.076 --> 0:06:12.236
<v Speaker 1>do know how to tie knots, and I generally know

0:06:12.276 --> 0:06:14.836
<v Speaker 1>what I'm doing in the wilderness. But my own canoe

0:06:14.916 --> 0:06:19.116
<v Speaker 1>lay upside down in Washington, DC, where it petulantly awaited

0:06:19.156 --> 0:06:23.116
<v Speaker 1>better days, and where until recently I also petulantly lay

0:06:23.796 --> 0:06:27.636
<v Speaker 1>often right side down. After my husband decided to leave

0:06:27.716 --> 0:06:31.836
<v Speaker 1>our twenty five year marriage because among other things. He

0:06:31.876 --> 0:06:36.876
<v Speaker 1>said he needed to go find his soulmate. Still nothing

0:06:36.916 --> 0:06:39.876
<v Speaker 1>in my prior canoeing experience had fully prepared me for

0:06:39.916 --> 0:06:42.596
<v Speaker 1>the reality that I could barely alter the trajectory of

0:06:42.636 --> 0:06:45.436
<v Speaker 1>this boat. Once I got it into the river, only

0:06:45.476 --> 0:06:48.516
<v Speaker 1>a few small inches of freeboard lay between the water

0:06:48.636 --> 0:06:50.996
<v Speaker 1>and the top of my gunnals. I stared at the

0:06:50.996 --> 0:06:54.716
<v Speaker 1>approaching shoals. I glared at the toilet, glinting like a

0:06:54.796 --> 0:06:58.556
<v Speaker 1>smug brigadier in the twilight. When the river split into

0:06:58.556 --> 0:07:00.796
<v Speaker 1>two channels, I chose the one on the right, but

0:07:00.876 --> 0:07:05.116
<v Speaker 1>the current grew fast, shallow bumpy. The canoe scraped over

0:07:05.156 --> 0:07:09.596
<v Speaker 1>some rocks, thence more, and started to list sideways. I

0:07:09.636 --> 0:07:12.476
<v Speaker 1>pushed my feet back into my river shoes and hopped

0:07:12.516 --> 0:07:15.236
<v Speaker 1>out into the shin deep water, figuring I'd have an

0:07:15.276 --> 0:07:18.036
<v Speaker 1>easier time keeping the boat upright and off the rocks

0:07:18.076 --> 0:07:21.276
<v Speaker 1>if I were outside it. My heart was beating fast.

0:07:21.596 --> 0:07:24.156
<v Speaker 1>I cursed myself for not tying down my gear better.

0:07:24.956 --> 0:07:27.876
<v Speaker 1>The boat bumped along upright, and I jumped back in.

0:07:28.796 --> 0:07:31.036
<v Speaker 1>I knew I needed to pull over in camp. Soon

0:07:31.316 --> 0:07:34.676
<v Speaker 1>before I got any darker, I grounded the boat under

0:07:34.716 --> 0:07:38.676
<v Speaker 1>the first available scruffy gravel bar for my first night

0:07:38.876 --> 0:07:42.076
<v Speaker 1>ever spent alone in the wilderness. I'd be camping within

0:07:42.196 --> 0:07:47.996
<v Speaker 1>sight of the Inner State. I can hear I seventy.

0:07:50.236 --> 0:07:52.836
<v Speaker 1>I haven't even gone under I seventy yet. I'm between

0:07:52.876 --> 0:07:57.796
<v Speaker 1>I seventy and the airport. I'm like, what the fuck

0:07:57.836 --> 0:08:05.796
<v Speaker 1>am I doing? I guess this really a good idea.

0:08:07.396 --> 0:08:10.036
<v Speaker 1>By this point, I'd already been addling the Green River

0:08:10.156 --> 0:08:13.236
<v Speaker 1>for two weeks with friends and family, had run Split

0:08:13.316 --> 0:08:17.476
<v Speaker 1>Mountain and Desolation Canyon, among other stretches. Everything was so

0:08:17.516 --> 0:08:20.996
<v Speaker 1>aptly named. The first white men to run these canyons

0:08:20.996 --> 0:08:23.556
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and fifty years ago hated most of it.

0:08:24.156 --> 0:08:28.676
<v Speaker 1>Country Worthless, scrawled one in his journal. Now it was

0:08:28.716 --> 0:08:32.316
<v Speaker 1>just me and the sound of air brakes. I spent

0:08:32.356 --> 0:08:35.556
<v Speaker 1>the night awake, be raiding myself for existing in the

0:08:35.596 --> 0:08:38.556
<v Speaker 1>first place, and then be raiding my husband, and then

0:08:38.636 --> 0:08:41.716
<v Speaker 1>scheming about how to jettison the toilet because there was

0:08:41.836 --> 0:08:43.676
<v Speaker 1>no way I was going to haul that thing for

0:08:43.716 --> 0:08:47.116
<v Speaker 1>the next two weeks. I was here because I needed

0:08:47.116 --> 0:08:52.076
<v Speaker 1>to jettison so many things. A year's worth of fear, dismay,

0:08:52.356 --> 0:08:56.436
<v Speaker 1>and loneliness, some bad habits acquired to stave off those feelings,

0:08:56.996 --> 0:09:01.396
<v Speaker 1>a peevish and lingering sense of abandonment, my stubborn attachment

0:09:01.516 --> 0:09:04.596
<v Speaker 1>to a man who clearly was no longer in my boat.

0:09:07.276 --> 0:09:09.596
<v Speaker 1>A year and a half earlier, i'd a life that

0:09:09.676 --> 0:09:13.276
<v Speaker 1>seemed worth keeping afloat. I was a science journalist with

0:09:13.356 --> 0:09:16.876
<v Speaker 1>two trusting and kind hearted teenagers and a husband who

0:09:16.956 --> 0:09:20.996
<v Speaker 1>ran a venerable and useful nonprofit. We had moved a

0:09:21.036 --> 0:09:24.316
<v Speaker 1>few years before from Colorado, and I missed our former

0:09:24.356 --> 0:09:27.156
<v Speaker 1>life out west, but we had a comfortable house near

0:09:27.196 --> 0:09:29.756
<v Speaker 1>the Potomac River and a goofy mutt to walk the

0:09:29.756 --> 0:09:33.956
<v Speaker 1>towpath with. I thought our long marriage was fundamentally sound

0:09:34.076 --> 0:09:38.716
<v Speaker 1>and totally salvageable. We'd seen each other through academic degrees

0:09:38.756 --> 0:09:42.316
<v Speaker 1>and professional milestones, We'd had decades of fun living in

0:09:42.356 --> 0:09:46.196
<v Speaker 1>beautiful places, and we'd produced these amazing little people who

0:09:46.236 --> 0:09:50.116
<v Speaker 1>depended on us for love and hope and stability in

0:09:50.156 --> 0:09:53.156
<v Speaker 1>a world that seemed to be growing only more confusing

0:09:53.236 --> 0:09:58.276
<v Speaker 1>and unjust. Our friends marriages weren't perfect, either, but they

0:09:58.316 --> 0:10:01.156
<v Speaker 1>worked things out. As far as I could tell, nobody

0:10:01.196 --> 0:10:05.436
<v Speaker 1>here was miserable or violent, or crazy or impossibly annoying.

0:10:08.116 --> 0:10:11.876
<v Speaker 1>Having never been heartbroken before, I tended to dismiss portrayals

0:10:11.916 --> 0:10:14.676
<v Speaker 1>of it in popular culture or literature, or even by

0:10:14.716 --> 0:10:18.556
<v Speaker 1>my friends. I'm sorry to say as overwrought, but one

0:10:18.556 --> 0:10:21.276
<v Speaker 1>of the first stages of heartbreak, I soon learned, is

0:10:21.316 --> 0:10:25.156
<v Speaker 1>feeling stunned, even if you shouldn't have been. I'd been

0:10:25.236 --> 0:10:28.636
<v Speaker 1>used to feeling in control, but you can't game heartbreak.

0:10:28.916 --> 0:10:32.396
<v Speaker 1>It overtakes you. When my husband decided to live on

0:10:32.396 --> 0:10:36.396
<v Speaker 1>his own after three decades of togetherness, the cliches of

0:10:36.476 --> 0:10:40.396
<v Speaker 1>heartbreak felt not like melodrama at all. I felt like

0:10:40.436 --> 0:10:42.876
<v Speaker 1>I'd been axed in the heart, like I was missing

0:10:42.876 --> 0:10:46.676
<v Speaker 1>a limb set adrift in an ocean, loosed in a

0:10:46.796 --> 0:10:52.716
<v Speaker 1>terrifying wood. I felt imperiled. Our dad had dissolved into vapor,

0:10:53.036 --> 0:10:57.316
<v Speaker 1>and I couldn't grasp what remained. I plodded through my days,

0:10:57.796 --> 0:11:01.236
<v Speaker 1>cooking for our son and daughter, walking the dog, and

0:11:01.476 --> 0:11:05.036
<v Speaker 1>making most but not all, of my deadlines. I would

0:11:05.036 --> 0:11:08.236
<v Speaker 1>have moments of collapse, and then I'd get back up,

0:11:08.396 --> 0:11:13.196
<v Speaker 1>feeling vague and dance at the same time. We spent

0:11:13.236 --> 0:11:17.796
<v Speaker 1>another six months, still living together and drafting, painfully drafting

0:11:17.956 --> 0:11:21.916
<v Speaker 1>a detailed parenting plan. By the time he took his

0:11:21.996 --> 0:11:24.716
<v Speaker 1>small blue suitcase and rolled it out of the kitchen

0:11:24.756 --> 0:11:28.276
<v Speaker 1>door forever. I'd already lost twenty pounds I didn't want

0:11:28.276 --> 0:11:32.076
<v Speaker 1>to lose. I couldn't imagine a life without him, or

0:11:32.116 --> 0:11:35.356
<v Speaker 1>ever trusting men again, or being able to love or

0:11:35.476 --> 0:11:39.756
<v Speaker 1>be loved. Having just turned fifty, it all seemed even

0:11:39.836 --> 0:11:49.516
<v Speaker 1>more impossible. I was completely existentially freaked. This is heartbreak.

0:11:50.716 --> 0:11:53.836
<v Speaker 1>Now I would be facing an uncertain future without the

0:11:53.916 --> 0:11:57.036
<v Speaker 1>partner i'd had since I was eighteen years old. I'd

0:11:57.036 --> 0:12:00.036
<v Speaker 1>have to figure out somehow who I was without him.

0:12:00.636 --> 0:12:03.676
<v Speaker 1>There was no blueprint. None of my close friends was divorced.

0:12:04.076 --> 0:12:08.756
<v Speaker 1>I felt, in so many ways alone. This also is

0:12:08.836 --> 0:12:12.796
<v Speaker 1>hard break. Physically, I felt like my body had been

0:12:12.796 --> 0:12:16.396
<v Speaker 1>plugged into a faulty electrical socket. In addition to the

0:12:16.436 --> 0:12:20.516
<v Speaker 1>weight loss, I'd stopped sleeping, I was getting sick, my

0:12:20.636 --> 0:12:24.236
<v Speaker 1>pancreas wasn't working right. It was hard to think straight.

0:12:25.156 --> 0:12:29.036
<v Speaker 1>This too is heartbreak, and it's what finally propelled me

0:12:29.116 --> 0:12:31.836
<v Speaker 1>to seek some answers. Not only did I want to

0:12:31.836 --> 0:12:34.836
<v Speaker 1>figure out what was happening to my body, I needed

0:12:34.876 --> 0:12:38.716
<v Speaker 1>to roll myself upright and get better. I tried to

0:12:38.716 --> 0:12:42.036
<v Speaker 1>find refuge everywhere I could, and that meant sometimes in

0:12:42.076 --> 0:12:46.236
<v Speaker 1>the rational arms of fields like neurogenomics and the psychology

0:12:46.316 --> 0:12:50.156
<v Speaker 1>of social rejection that sounds like middle school snubs but

0:12:50.396 --> 0:12:54.036
<v Speaker 1>actually describes a vast ocean of pain stretches from the

0:12:54.036 --> 0:12:57.876
<v Speaker 1>playground to broken marriages like my own. You know, we

0:12:57.956 --> 0:13:00.916
<v Speaker 1>are a not only a pair bonding animal, but we

0:13:00.956 --> 0:13:03.356
<v Speaker 1>are a group animal. I mean, for millions of years,

0:13:03.716 --> 0:13:09.036
<v Speaker 1>you know, alone individual was a dead individual. What I

0:13:09.276 --> 0:13:12.836
<v Speaker 1>learned talking to scientists, reading their papers, visiting their labs

0:13:13.076 --> 0:13:17.516
<v Speaker 1>was fascinating but unnerving. Despite having lost my mother to

0:13:17.596 --> 0:13:20.756
<v Speaker 1>cancer when I was in my twenties, I'd never experienced

0:13:20.836 --> 0:13:25.716
<v Speaker 1>the disorienting, sorrow, shame, and peril of losing my life partner.

0:13:27.076 --> 0:13:31.516
<v Speaker 1>Romantic heartbreak can cause complex emotional trauma, as with lass

0:13:31.556 --> 0:13:34.396
<v Speaker 1>associated with the death of a partner. It can dismantle

0:13:34.476 --> 0:13:38.276
<v Speaker 1>your identity, But the grief of this type of heartbreak

0:13:38.436 --> 0:13:42.236
<v Speaker 1>is compounded by rejection, which I came to learn we

0:13:42.436 --> 0:13:46.076
<v Speaker 1>humans feel as a deeply evolved threat to our survival.

0:13:48.236 --> 0:13:51.956
<v Speaker 1>Breakups are common, and heartbreak is nearly universal, and yet

0:13:51.996 --> 0:13:55.356
<v Speaker 1>it wallops us. About thirty nine percent of all first

0:13:55.396 --> 0:13:59.196
<v Speaker 1>marriages in the US, end and divorce psychologists rank this

0:13:59.236 --> 0:14:02.996
<v Speaker 1>event or what one eighteen fifty two medical text book

0:14:03.036 --> 0:14:07.556
<v Speaker 1>called the slow tortures of connubial disturbance as one of

0:14:07.556 --> 0:14:11.476
<v Speaker 1>the top stressful and sequential life experiences we have, just

0:14:11.636 --> 0:14:14.316
<v Speaker 1>below the death of a loved one. For as long

0:14:14.356 --> 0:14:18.196
<v Speaker 1>as there has been literature, writers have rendered heartbreak, connubial

0:14:18.316 --> 0:14:22.076
<v Speaker 1>or otherwise, as akin to physical pain, and specifically to

0:14:22.116 --> 0:14:25.516
<v Speaker 1>a kind of pain bound to the expectation of more pain.

0:14:26.716 --> 0:14:30.476
<v Speaker 1>Could tell Us used the word excrucior the particular and

0:14:30.596 --> 0:14:34.636
<v Speaker 1>agonizing feeling of being nailed up by your palms exposed.

0:14:34.996 --> 0:14:39.036
<v Speaker 1>Susan Sontag dumped by feckless Jasper John's when he left

0:14:39.076 --> 0:14:42.556
<v Speaker 1>a New Year's Eve party with another woman, was similarly graphic.

0:14:43.436 --> 0:14:46.836
<v Speaker 1>It hurts to love, she wrote, It's like giving yourself

0:14:46.996 --> 0:14:49.836
<v Speaker 1>to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the

0:14:49.956 --> 0:14:54.716
<v Speaker 1>other person may just walk off with your skin. And

0:14:54.836 --> 0:14:58.076
<v Speaker 1>here's poet Anne Carson, whose lover of five years told

0:14:58.116 --> 0:15:02.116
<v Speaker 1>her he no longer felt what he called spin woman

0:15:02.276 --> 0:15:06.436
<v Speaker 1>caught in a cage of thorns, unable to stand upright.

0:15:09.236 --> 0:15:12.636
<v Speaker 1>There was plenty of heartbreak art, so much art, But

0:15:12.876 --> 0:15:15.636
<v Speaker 1>I wanted science. If this was such a common and

0:15:15.716 --> 0:15:19.836
<v Speaker 1>devastating experience. Why wasn't there a validated protocol for recovery

0:15:19.956 --> 0:15:23.876
<v Speaker 1>beyond weep dancing while belting out Gloria Gainer. Where was

0:15:23.916 --> 0:15:26.996
<v Speaker 1>the research and what did it say? You'd think after

0:15:27.036 --> 0:15:29.716
<v Speaker 1>a million years of hominin sighing at the moon over

0:15:29.836 --> 0:15:32.236
<v Speaker 1>lost love, we would have figured this out by now.

0:15:32.716 --> 0:15:35.476
<v Speaker 1>Why did nature design us to be so deeply, even

0:15:35.556 --> 0:15:39.316
<v Speaker 1>operatically sad? Why was heartbreak so hard to get over?

0:15:40.196 --> 0:15:42.796
<v Speaker 1>If I learned the answers, maybe I could speed it

0:15:42.916 --> 0:15:46.796
<v Speaker 1>up and feel better. Much has been written about the

0:15:46.836 --> 0:15:50.036
<v Speaker 1>science of falling in love, but very little about what

0:15:50.076 --> 0:15:53.676
<v Speaker 1>happens on the other side. Only in recent years has

0:15:53.716 --> 0:15:57.276
<v Speaker 1>science begun to excavate some of the literal biological pathways

0:15:57.316 --> 0:16:00.596
<v Speaker 1>of this brand of pain. If you place someone who

0:16:00.596 --> 0:16:03.356
<v Speaker 1>has recently suffered heartbreak in a scanner, parts of the

0:16:03.396 --> 0:16:05.956
<v Speaker 1>brain light up that are very closely related to the

0:16:05.996 --> 0:16:09.076
<v Speaker 1>parts that fire after receiving a burn or an electrical show.

0:16:09.476 --> 0:16:12.756
<v Speaker 1>And if some study subjects are unfortunate enough to receive

0:16:12.796 --> 0:16:17.836
<v Speaker 1>an electrical shock after heartbreak, the pain will hurt more. If, however,

0:16:18.036 --> 0:16:21.556
<v Speaker 1>you shock someone who remains in a loving relationship and

0:16:21.636 --> 0:16:24.316
<v Speaker 1>they hold their loved one's hand or gaze at a

0:16:24.356 --> 0:16:27.556
<v Speaker 1>picture of their devoted squeeze, the pain will hurt much less.

0:16:28.276 --> 0:16:32.036
<v Speaker 1>Even more remarkable is the understanding that heartbreak reaches far

0:16:32.196 --> 0:16:36.676
<v Speaker 1>beyond emotional anguish to influence physical health. People who have

0:16:36.716 --> 0:16:41.156
<v Speaker 1>suffered lost love face an elevated risk of serious medical woes.

0:16:41.596 --> 0:16:45.156
<v Speaker 1>It's not just their metaphorically sundered hearts, although cardiac risk

0:16:45.276 --> 0:16:48.636
<v Speaker 1>is part of it. Their cells look different, their immune

0:16:48.636 --> 0:16:53.116
<v Speaker 1>systems falter, even their language skills drop off. Why would

0:16:53.156 --> 0:16:57.036
<v Speaker 1>evolution equip us with an operating system so easily weakened

0:16:57.156 --> 0:16:59.956
<v Speaker 1>by an event as common as the denial of love?

0:17:00.836 --> 0:17:04.636
<v Speaker 1>One genomics researcher when so far as to say heartbreak

0:17:04.756 --> 0:17:08.516
<v Speaker 1>is one of the hidden landmines of human existence. The

0:17:08.636 --> 0:17:12.476
<v Speaker 1>language heartbreak may sometimes sound mundane, but the havoc and

0:17:12.596 --> 0:17:16.116
<v Speaker 1>inflicts on our brains and bodies is trenchant, profound, and

0:17:16.236 --> 0:17:21.956
<v Speaker 1>until recently understudied. Among the documented downstream effects of rejection, grief,

0:17:21.996 --> 0:17:27.916
<v Speaker 1>and loneliness are fragmented sleep and fatigue, increased anxiety, poor

0:17:27.956 --> 0:17:34.916
<v Speaker 1>impulse control, depression, cognitive decline, altered gene expression, and early death.

0:17:36.356 --> 0:17:38.876
<v Speaker 1>Why should your immune system care if you've been dumped?

0:17:39.516 --> 0:17:41.756
<v Speaker 1>What skin does a white blood cell have in the

0:17:41.796 --> 0:17:45.636
<v Speaker 1>game of love plenty. It turns out some of our

0:17:45.676 --> 0:17:50.556
<v Speaker 1>cells listen for loneliness. They adjust their work accordingly, sometimes

0:17:50.596 --> 0:17:53.956
<v Speaker 1>with devastating consequences for the rest of your potentially feeble,

0:17:54.196 --> 0:17:58.116
<v Speaker 1>truncated life. I was eager to reverse course. Since my

0:17:58.236 --> 0:18:02.676
<v Speaker 1>cells unfortunately appeared to be listening. New advances in genomics

0:18:02.836 --> 0:18:06.556
<v Speaker 1>experimental psychology promised to show me exactly how they were

0:18:06.596 --> 0:18:11.636
<v Speaker 1>responding and what I might do about it. I set

0:18:11.636 --> 0:18:14.756
<v Speaker 1>out to experiment on myself to see if I could

0:18:14.836 --> 0:18:18.836
<v Speaker 1>understand the way heartbreak changes our neurons, our bodies, and

0:18:18.916 --> 0:18:21.756
<v Speaker 1>our sense of ourselves. I would have my nervous system

0:18:21.756 --> 0:18:25.396
<v Speaker 1>monitored while viewing pictures of my x at different points

0:18:25.436 --> 0:18:29.836
<v Speaker 1>after Splitsville. I would measure my threat mediated biomarkers of inflammation.

0:18:30.556 --> 0:18:35.076
<v Speaker 1>By better understanding the ailment, I would perhaps find some remedy.

0:18:37.036 --> 0:18:40.556
<v Speaker 1>This book traces the general trajectory of heartbreak, from the

0:18:40.676 --> 0:18:45.196
<v Speaker 1>moment of shock to feelings of rejection, to grief and loneliness,

0:18:45.556 --> 0:18:50.116
<v Speaker 1>and finally toward a measure of repair. All paths through

0:18:50.156 --> 0:18:54.556
<v Speaker 1>heartbreak are different. Mine was messy and strange, and often unexpected.

0:18:54.916 --> 0:18:57.596
<v Speaker 1>I came to dismiss some of the conventional approaches to

0:18:57.636 --> 0:19:01.196
<v Speaker 1>recovering from rupture, especially the ideas that you shouldn't form

0:19:01.236 --> 0:19:04.076
<v Speaker 1>other attachments too quickly and that the key to healing

0:19:04.276 --> 0:19:08.636
<v Speaker 1>is the commonly traded bromide of loving yourself first. Both

0:19:08.636 --> 0:19:11.556
<v Speaker 1>of these sortations fell short for me. I had to

0:19:11.556 --> 0:19:15.796
<v Speaker 1>improvise a different course. Ultimately, I would orient toward the

0:19:15.836 --> 0:19:19.356
<v Speaker 1>far shore of heartbreak through bombs, much less obvious, but

0:19:19.436 --> 0:19:25.436
<v Speaker 1>supported by evidence, beauty, agency, and purpose. I would try

0:19:25.476 --> 0:19:30.036
<v Speaker 1>a regiment of solutions and substances, mostly legal, but not entirely.

0:19:30.676 --> 0:19:33.516
<v Speaker 1>I would travel across the US and to England and

0:19:33.556 --> 0:19:37.756
<v Speaker 1>Croatia to meet the researchers, practitioners, and ordinary people who

0:19:37.756 --> 0:19:39.716
<v Speaker 1>were ahead of me and learning how to move on.

0:19:40.676 --> 0:19:44.316
<v Speaker 1>Some of them were dealing with loss and serious emotional trauma.

0:19:44.516 --> 0:19:47.476
<v Speaker 1>I'm not equating my pain with theirs, but I believe

0:19:47.516 --> 0:19:50.316
<v Speaker 1>we can learn from people in extremists about the systems

0:19:50.436 --> 0:19:53.836
<v Speaker 1>governing our emotions and our health, and the lessons and

0:19:53.916 --> 0:19:57.396
<v Speaker 1>potential treatments that apply to all of us. What I

0:19:57.436 --> 0:20:02.716
<v Speaker 1>found was extraordinary, surprising, and immensely helpful, and would change

0:20:02.756 --> 0:20:06.996
<v Speaker 1>the way I think about the world, our health, our relationships,

0:20:07.076 --> 0:20:11.516
<v Speaker 1>and what it means to be human. I would hike

0:20:11.596 --> 0:20:13.796
<v Speaker 1>my heart back to life whenever I got a chance.

0:20:14.156 --> 0:20:18.036
<v Speaker 1>I would try trauma cures, nature cures, psychedelics, and a

0:20:18.116 --> 0:20:22.636
<v Speaker 1>makeshift clinic. Companionship of many flavors. If you don't know,

0:20:22.756 --> 0:20:30.636
<v Speaker 1>knots make lots. Before long, I'd end up here. Okay,

0:20:30.796 --> 0:20:37.556
<v Speaker 1>night one river mile one nineteen, silt working its way

0:20:37.756 --> 0:20:42.436
<v Speaker 1>under every fingernail. I knew what wreckage lay upstream. Everything

0:20:42.436 --> 0:20:45.156
<v Speaker 1>else was a question mark. It was clear there would

0:20:45.156 --> 0:20:50.076
<v Speaker 1>be no fast heartbreak ac Also, I hated scorpions, but

0:20:50.156 --> 0:20:54.116
<v Speaker 1>at least I knew what I needed for now. It

0:20:54.196 --> 0:21:02.076
<v Speaker 1>was to lighten my load. Thanks for listening. If you

0:21:02.116 --> 0:21:04.596
<v Speaker 1>want to hear more, you can order the Heartbreak audiobook

0:21:04.676 --> 0:21:08.156
<v Speaker 1>directly at Pushkin dot fm, slash Heartbreak, or at audible