Facts About Rejection In Unrequited Love.
Rejection truly hurts, and it harms us not just emotionally but also mentally. Here are some lesser known facts that explain different effects of rejection on our feelings, thoughts, and behavior. We should start by analyzing why rejection affects as much as it does:
- Rejection and pain occupy the same space in our brain. Same part of the brain is triggered when we encounter rejection as when we encounter physical pain. This is the reason rejection affects so much (neurologically). Actually our brain reacts in the same way to rejection and physical pain.
- Tylenol decreases the painful effects of rejection. In a study testing the theory that rejection has an effect similar to physical agony, scientists gave a few members acetaminophen (Tylenol) before asking them to recall an experience of rejection. People who took Tylenol reported essentially less emotional pain than people who took a sugar pill.
- Rejection served an important role in Evolution. In our past, being outcast from our tribes was worse than death, as we were incapable of surviving alone. Psychologists say this led to our brains being programmed to send signals when there is a risk of rejection. Individuals who are capable of reading these signals sent by the brain, are more careful in their ways of life and avoid being in situations like unrequited love, in order to avoid rejection and the pain associated with it. On the other hand, those of us who are unable to understand these signals fall in love with someone who is eventually going to hurt us in the long run. Like i said in my blog “Obsession or Addiction?“, a love-obsessed person finds it difficult to accept reality of rejection and loneliness and is more often found waiting for the beloved to return into a broken relationship or accept the previously declined proposal. The random increase in the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the body, keeps providing energy for the unrequited lover to continue to wait for one person endlessly. However, this supply of energy is intermittent due to random rise and fall of neurotransmitters in the lover’s body, which leads them to experiences of fluctuating highs and lows.
- People who are more capable of handling rejection are better social survivors than those who are not. Since it is important for humans to stand out enough to be noticed, individuals who let the pain of rejection in love affect them, find themselves fearing public eye and are less capable of being outstanding in most aspects of life. Rejection in unrequited love makes them scared of being socially outcast. This leads to the individual being depressed and not too confident in life. With lack of confidence, they in turn increase their chance for rejection in the future as well.
- We remember the social embarrassment caused by rejection in unrequited love, longer than we remember the pain of a physical injury. Think about an incident when you experienced excruciating physical pain and your brain will say “oh! That was painful!”, but at the end of the day, that thought will not leave you sleepless and physically hurt. Now remember a moment of rejection (really, don’t—simply trust me), and you will be overwhelmed with the same emotions you had at the time, and your brain will react much as it did at that time too. Our brain absorbs and holds the memory of rejection, because we are social beings with the need to live in groups.
- Unrequited love and being rejected shakes our fundamental need to “belong”. When we get rejected, this need destabilizes and the detachment we feel becomes unbearable. It hurts to be in that situation and at such time our instinct leads us to connecting with someone who loves for who we are. Someone who understands and accepts us the way we are. Reconnecting with people who care about us, or contacting friends and family, has been found to be helpful in reducing the pain of unrequited love. Feeling alone and detached after a rejection, nonetheless, affects our behavior, confidence and self-esteem in the long run.
- Being rejected in love makes us look down upon ourselves, and we start believing that there is something lacking in us. We start finding faults in ourselves, when we are already hurt and need support. While rejection is mostly a matter of choices and difference in lifestyles, we continue to torment ourselves over our shortcomings and make it even more difficult to overcome the pain of rejection.
- Rejection brings down our IQ. Thinking about the moment of rejection makes an individual score lower on tests for short-term memory loss and problem solving skills. This explains why, no matter how much our friends and family want us to understand that that one relationship was not meant to be and reason it with us, we fail to see the truth of the situation. Our brain is temporarily “out-of-order”!
Share your experiences in the comments section and i will add them to my future blogs.