How To Tell If Your Post-Breakup Depression Isn't About Missing Your Ex

Getting dumped is really painful. Most people think the main reason for that gnawing pain is because you lost “the love of your life."

You think you have lost “The One,” and you don't know how to carry on without them. In reality, however, love is not the single thing that causes depression during a breakup.

In reality, there are combined causes for the pain you feel. And ironically, most of these are not related to love at all.

Understanding the reasons behind what you're feeling enables you to take control of your emotions. It will help you realize why you're feeling a certain way right now.

This will then help you to fall out of love with your ex, recover and move on faster.

Here are five psychological things that could be the reasons behind to your post-breakup depression:

1. You're worried about the future.

“How long will I stay single and unhappy? What if it takes forever? What if no one would want me anymore? Will I ever find a person who will love me as much as I will love them?”

One of the major factors that lead to the terrible way you feel after a breakup is concern for the future.

But this pain has nothing to do with your ex or any “love” you think you have for them — it has to do with your own personal worries.

If, after the breakup, you found someone else… you would then forget the worries you have about the future. This will then make the pain disappear.

Concerns like this should be isolated from the love you think you have for your ex.

2. Bottled-up emotions are now coming back to the surface.

People in relationships sometimes use the relationship as a way to run and hide from other negative emotions and personal problems. These problems could be family issues, financial difficulties or struggles regarding work or social life.

If this is the case, you will really feel bad after the breakup because you've lost your escape from reality.

You will really feel bad after the breakup because you lose you've lost your escape from reality.

Again, this element is not related to your ex or how you feel about them.

You're likely projecting your unhappiness with your life onto your breakup because it's easier to place the blame on something that's obviously painful — like a breakup — than it is to admit the problem was within you all along.

3. Your pride is damaged.

When you get dumped, it's natural for your pride to take a hit. And when your pride gets hurt, you translate it into pain.

Learning how to handle this on its own will enable you to take control of this particular element of the pain you're experiencing. After all, a bruised ego doesn't equate to heartbreak.

Some of the pain you're feeling is your pride's pain, not your heart's.

Some of the pain you're feeling is your pride's pain, not your heart's.

4. You're having self-confidence issues.

“What is wrong with me? Is there something missing or lacking? Am I not smart or good-looking enough? Where did I go wrong? What else could I have done?”

When you get dumped, it's normal for you to think something is “wrong” with you. This element of your pain, however, is not related to love or your ex. It's actually about how you perceive yourself.

It roots from self-esteem and self-confidence issues that should be addressed independently to lessen the pain you're feeling.

5. You've lost your routine.

When you're in a relationship, you get used to certain routines you did as a couple. This includes traveling together, celebrating anniversaries, having a time of day when you check up on each other, etc.

Any person who experiences a change or loss of such routines will go through withdrawal. This is the last element that contributes to the post-breakup pain you feel that is not intrinsically related to your ex.

You will feel this emotion regardless of who you're in a relationship with and how much you loved them. It should not be confused with the feeling of love.

Think of it this way: You will experience this in all failed relationships you will have. It's the loss of the routine that hurts, not the loss of the person.

It's the loss of the routine that hurts, not the loss of the person.

The pain you feel after a breakup is not solely related to love, but rather is caused by combined emotions and feelings rooting from personal thoughts and experiences.

Understanding the reasons behind the pain after a breakup empowers you because you can then realize the depression is not always going to be related to love or to your ex. This helps you take control of these emotions and deal with them separately.

To get over someone fast, you need to dismantle false beliefs about love that have been instilled in us by the the movies we see and the music we listen to.

In place of these false beliefs, you need to place the reality of what really causes your pain after a breakup.