run to is more pain. This time you have two stars to guide you. First, that
feeling good is ultimately based not on what happens to people, but what
they do about it. And second, thatmoving away from depression generally
involves moving toward fear.
To see what I mean, let’s look at another case of loss. Instead of facing
the pain of his separation, Alonzo tries to escape it.
The False Hope Explosion
“I brought the papers to her yesterday,” Alonzo says. “She smiled
and asked me how I was doing. Like, you know, she really cared.”
A tear of joy glistens in his eye. “I told her I loved her. She said
she knew. And she put her hand right here on my shoulder.”Alonzo is clearly grasping at straws. His attempt to create hope for
rekindled love out of basic decency will just make him feel worse because
it diverts him from the mourning labor that is the only thing, short of a
miracle, that will make him feel better. You’ll do him no good by encour-
aging his misperception, even if it does calm him temporarily. To really
help him, you must gently turn him back to face his pain.
“Alonzo,” you say. “She’s filed for divorce. Just because she patted
you on the shoulder doesn’t mean she’s changed her mind.”
“I know,” Alonzo says. “It’s just that it hurts too much to
imagine living without her.” He collapses into sobbing.There are several lessons here. The first is practical. After the breakup
of a relationship, the people involved shouldn’t see each other, because
painful misinterpretation is almost inevitable. Getting over a breakup involves
moving the lost love from the heart into the memory. It can’t happen if the
people involved are still making regular contact, so they shouldn’t.
I have been giving this advice to divorcing people for close to 30
years. No one takes it, and everyone says later that they wish they had.
Rejection hurts, whichever side of it you’re on, but as we’ve seen, the
only way out of psychological pain is through it. It doesn’t matter
whether the pain is caused by loss or guilt over inflicting a loss on some-
one you once loved.
180 ❧Explosions into Sadness