You didn’t see that coming. The person you thought you couldn’t live without has decided you can. You feel as though you have been sucker punched; blindsided; hit below the belt. Those gut wrenching feelings of rejection and hurt you are now experiencing are causing actual physical pains. This is not phantom pain you are feeling. You are not delusional. (Not with the pain piece anyway; maybe with the “til death do us part” piece) Regardless, Researchers now know why we feel physically wounded when the hurt we are experiencing is emotional.
The researchers rounded up 40 volunteers who had just been ditched by a partner within the last six months. They wanted to be certain those feelings of rejection, hurt and humiliation were still intact. Next the subjects were touched with a hot probe while they lay helpless in a brain scanner. (Yes, the humiliation of just being “burned” by their partners wasn’t physically painful enough for these poor saps. They had to literally be “burned” to prove the point.) Apparently the heat of the probe was similar to that of holding a hot cup of coffee without the protective cardboard guard. It can be done but not forever. For the second part of the experiment the subjects were asked to concentrate on a photo of their ex-lovers and think about the break-up.
So what happened was the same area of the brain lit up whether mentally reliving the rejection (emotional pain) or being burned by the probe (physical pain).
Researchers concluded humans have evolved to feel actual pain at separation. Way back when it wasn’t safe to be alone with Mufasa on the prowl, our very survival was dependent on being connected to others. No one has ever enjoyed being rejected; ignored; excluded from a group or being eaten by a Sabre-toothed tiger.
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