It is often said that reality exceeds fiction, but what happens when fiction becomes the guide to reality?
The year 1774 marked the birth of a novel that would deeply impress the youth of his time. Unfortunately, it also caused a spiral of suicides all over Europe. The Sorrows of Young Werther, by the German great Johan Wolfgang Goethe, tells the story of a young man profoundly in love with Lotte, a beautiful and kind girl who is engaged to Albert. Despite having all the odds stacked against him, Werther can not control his feelings and he openly declares his love for Lotte. Always the sympathetic one, she tries to be understanding toward him. During his courtship, she is never overtly dismissive. However, it is a tale of unrequited love and in the end she has to deliver the bad news. She is forced to make Werther understand that they will never be together. The young student, blinded by his love for her, is is ill-prepared to deal with rejection and decides to take his own life.
It is difficult for us to imagine the enormous impression the story had among the youth, initially in Germany and the rest of Europe later. It was called “Werther fever” and it was a fever indeed. Many youngsters started to dress like the main character of the novel and all of a sudden, students were seen wearing blue coats and yellow waistcoats. However, much more tragic was the number of imitators who followed Werther’s steps and committed suicide.
So what happened to Werther’s brain? Why did he choose to end his own life over a heartbreak? No doubt, there are several cultural factors in play, but neurology today is starting to understand what happens to our brain not only when we are in love, but also when we cannot get love.
Recent studies show that spring is the season of the heartbreak (wherever there is a spring, of course). After the winter months, with the arrival of the good weather, the brain seems to wake up sexually after hibernating for a while. In many countries, lovers are more likely to dump and be dumped around spring time.
Going back to what happens in the brain of a heartbroken individual, first we need to understand what happens when it is in love. Here, three chemicals are responsible for all the feeling of warmth, pleasure, happiness and the silly giggling of the person in love: oxytocin, dopamine and serotonin. Together, they produce one of the most potent “drugs” ever known, what we called “romantic love”. The feeling is incredibly addictive and when our daily dosis of “love” is taken away the whole body reacts in different and unpleasant ways. The amygdala is a part of our brain that is responsible for emotions so, when we suffer from a breakup, it can cause feelings of physical pain, sweating, or increased heart rate.
Our memories are regulated by the hippocampus and this is the part of the brain that tricks us with constant thoughts about the lost love. It is responsible for obsessive thinking about the loved person and deep feelings of nostalgia. Just think of how many love songs have been written under the influence of the hippocampus.
Finally, our decision making and the capacity for planning and focusing on tasks can be seriously compromised. Some people reported an inability to do their job or concentrate on their studies. The area connected to these functions is the prefrontal cortex. Lovers who have been jilted can have a hard time performing even routine tasks.
Age can also be a factor and, whereas an older person can feel similar symptoms, usually they have more resources to cope. Young people, especially when their brains are not entirely developed, can experience a feeling of loss and sadness in a more extreme way. Another study carried out in the United States in 2018 shows that breaking up is the number one factor for a first suicide attempt among adolescents. Even among adults, 27% of all suicides are motivated by romantic factors. We can now understand why Werther was so upset and took his life with the gun that he borrowed from his friend. The problem was that he was considered a hero, a reference for anyone dealing with a similar situation. It was the beginning of Romanticism, a period of time when emotions were more important than reason and logic.
Reduced to its biological factors, a heartbreak is just a chemical imbalance produced by the withdrawal of a certain “love cocktail”. However, the way we deal with a “broken heart” changes around the world and across history. In many cases, it is not easy to separate one from the other but it is something that has happened (or will happen) to most of us and it is supposed to teach us a lesson or two about managing expectations.
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