In this Article: When you love someone and they don't love you back, it can feel like your world is ending. Science has even shown that rejection activates the same pain-sensing neurons in your brain that physical pain does. Recognize that pain is normal. When you love someone who doesn't love you back, it hurts. Accepting that your feelings are normal can help you process them. There's nothing wrong with having to grieve, as long as you don't get stuck there. In fact, it's healthier to let yourself be sad than it is to try to suppress those emotions. This will help create a healing space for you to deal with your grief. For example: when you first realize or are told this person will not love you back, then you should take some time to be alone somewhere, even if it's just going for a 15-minute walk at work. If you haven't left your house in weeks, you aren't showering, and you're wearing that ratty old sweatshirt that should really just be burnt, you've gone overboard. It's natural to feel sad, but if you don't try to get focused on your life again, you'll just keep thinking about and loving that other person. Recognize that you cannot control the other person. The only thing you can control in life is your own actions and responses. You can work to control your responses to those feelings, though. Take some time away from the other person. Part of creating space for yourself to grieve and to move on is not having this person as part of your life. You don't have to cut this person out of your life completely, but you do need to take a break from him or her. Ask a friend if you can reach out to him or her when you get the urge to talk to the person you're trying to avoid. Delete the person from your phone so you aren't tempted to re-initiate contact. It will make it harder to keep your distance. Express your feelings to yourself. Express them openly and honestly. Crying can actually be therapeutic. If you want to grab a box of tissues and cry your eyes out, go for it. Realize that you are better off. Stepping back to examine the reality -- without being cruel or judgmental -- can help you get some distance from that feeling of unrequited tragic love. Ultimately, this type of thinking can make you feel even more bitter and angry, rather than helping you heal. This emphasis on bitterness will also hold you back from healing. Your friends may try to villainize the other person for not loving you. You can cry over giving up the mementos, but it's an important step in the healing process. Having those mementos around will only make it harder to move on and that's not what you're after. As you get rid of the item, imagine the balloon drifting away never to be seen again. Just as you have no control over falling in love with this person, they have no control over not falling in love with you. This emphasis on bitterness will also hold you back from healing. Click on another answer to find the right one. Listen to death metal music. Expressing your emotions through creative pursuits, like music, art or a favorite hobby, can be very helpful. You should avoid violent actions such as screaming, shouting, or punching. While this may feel good at first, research suggests that using violence to express your anger, even toward an inanimate object, can actually increase your angry feelings. Click on another answer to find the right one. There's nothing wrong with grieving, as long as you don't dwell for too long. In fact, it's healthier to be sad than suppress your emotions. And crying can actually be therapeutic as it reduces feelings of anxiety, anger and stress. If you want to grab a box of tissues and cry your eyes out, go for it. Read on for another quiz question. Avoid getting drunk and calling or texting the other person. Particularly, in the beginning, you may feel desperate to contact the other person. Drunkenly berating the other person for not loving you, or crying about how hurt you are, can be embarrassing for you and uncomfortable for the other person. It may even hurt your chances of developing a genuine friendship with the person later. This way you won't have the option to call or text him or her. Every time those memories bubble up, can you ever stop loving someone yourself with another thought, activity, or project. Pick up a real page-turner of a book. Find something to engage you for long enough to get the person off your mind for a while. The more of a habit you make of not thinking about the person, the easier it will become. I'll get to you later. When your time is up, move on to other thoughts and activities. Remember that unrequited love hurts the other person too. Make a list of the good things about yourself. Rejection can convince you that your nasty inner critic was right all along. Rejection brings out our worst feelings about ourselves, but that doesn't mean they're right. Try writing down what you love about yourself. You're not the only person to go through it. Rejection can convince you that your nasty inner critic was right all along. Read on for another quiz question. It's hard to heal from unrequited love if you're constantly reminding yourself about the other person. Avoid seeking out that song or place that reminds you of the person or a wonderful time you had together. It can even be a smell like apple pie, because you one time had an apple pie baking contest with him or her, for example. Don't linger over the feeling that it will inevitably bring up. For example: if the song that you associate with them comes on the radio, turn the radio off or change the station. Acknowledge the sadness and regret that comes over you, and turn your attention to something positive or neutral what you're going to have for dinner, that trip you have coming up. You just want to make the healing as easy as possible and constant reminders make that process more difficult. When you've moved on, the triggers might still recall the other person but it will be less painful. Talk it out with someone. It's best to get the emotional and difficult aspects of the can you ever stop loving someone process off your chest. If you cling to those emotions, it will make it harder to release them in the long run. Find someone to talk to about what you're feeling and what you're going through. This could mean a friend that you know won't try to speed up your healing. It could mean a family member who lets you call them when you're feeling upset. It could even mean a therapist, especially if this is a long-term love that you're really struggling with or that is tied up with other issues. One good thing about journaling these feelings is that you'll be able to track your healing process, which will give you proof that it's possible to get over your unrequited love. You can ask them about their own experiences and how they coped. You will have to describe less to them than others and they would be able to understand even more. People who have not gone through what your experience may not be able to empathize the way you would like them to. This can really prove to be a very strong weapon for you and can also help you to make you very resilient in your tougher times. One of the big side-effects of rejection of all sorts, but especially romantic rejection, is feeling disconnected or isolated from others. You may not be able to have the relationship you want with this one person, but you can strengthen your relationships with the other people in your life. Since emotional pain often manifests physically, spending time having fun with loved ones can help you recover from that unrequited love. Having fun reduces your feelings of anger and can help you feel positive. So go see a silly movie, sing drunken karaoke, bounce on a giant trampoline -- have fun, laugh, and learn to heal. Certain patterns of thought can sabotage your healing process and make it far more difficult to move on. You are fully capable of loving someone else. What you feel now is not how you're going to feel for the rest of your life, especially if you're actively working towards feeling differently. It happens to everyone and you have been strong enough to get over it. So, feel proud of yourself for that. Treat this as a learning experience. Nobody wants to have their heart broken. However, if you can reframe this romantic rejection as can you ever stop loving someone experience to learn and grow from, it will become can you ever stop loving someone than just a sad time in your life. You can use it to motivate positive growth for the future. But you were strong and brave enough to be vulnerable. You may find it helpful to talk through this with a therapist. You may even come to a better understanding of your emotions and needs. Studies show that doing something new, such as going on vacation or even taking a different route to work, is one of the absolute best ways for you to break old habits and replace them with new ones. Visit a new part of town. Try a new hangout on Saturday night. Get into a new band. Learn a new hobby, like cooking or rock-climbing. This is a time when a lot of people chop all their hair off, or get a tattoo. It's best to wait until after the initial healing before making this sort of change. Because you've been so caught up in loving someone, you may have forgotten what it's like to be just you. Healing from unrequited love is a great time to can you ever stop loving someone out who you are aside from your feelings for another person. Develop a new gym routine. While you've been spending so much time obsessing over this other person, important aspects of you have been languishing on the side of the road. Get involved with the things and the people you didn't have as much time for while you were dealing with this unrequited love. Learning to avoid this type of fallacy will help you feel less emotionally damaged. Push yourself outside your comfort zone. Trying new things will help get you out of your normal routine and won't have associations with the person you're trying to get over. This will make it so that you're too busy trying new things to obsess over that person who didn't love you back. Too much comfort has been shown to reduce your motivation to make changes. A tad of uncertainty will help you transform things in your life that need work. Taking controlled risks and challenging yourself allows you to accept vulnerability as a fact of life, making you less likely to feel destroyed the next time something unexpected happens. Pushing yourself to take risks, even small ones, will help keep you from withdrawing into a shell of fear. So pick up the phone and have some fun. Read on for another quiz question. Know when you're ready to move on. There's no set time period for moving on from unrequited love. Everyone goes at a different pace. However, there are some signs that you're ready to move on from the person who wasn't interested in loving you. A lot of times when you're in the grieving stage you tend can you ever stop loving someone get a little self-absorbed. When you start taking an interest in what everyone else can you ever stop loving someone been doing you'll find that you're well on your way into the healing process. In fact, you've started expanding your repertoire to include things that aren't about love, or the pain of love. Even when you're ready to move on, you can sometimes hit a relapse if you're not careful. It's like taking the stitches out of a wound too early. It's healing up nicely, but it's not ready for strenuous exercise quite yet. You've already put in a lot of work to get over them and that work will pay off. Setbacks happen and if you give up right away, it will be harder in the long run. Get back in the game. Put yourself out there, meet new people, flirt, and remind yourself how great it feels to be a catch. Just enjoying the presence of new people can be a big pick-me-up. You've stopped wondering whether the person will call you. When you stop checking your phone constantly for their text or wondering if the unknown number that called is them, you are ready to move on. But even when you're ready to move on, you can sometimes hit a relapse. Avoid doing things with the other person or letting them back into your life until you're sure that this won't upset you. And keep in mind there are other signs that you are ready to move on. You've stopped fantasizing about your unrequited love suddenly realizing that they do, in fact, love you. The only thing you can control in life is your own actions and responses. However, there are other signs that you are ready to move on. You've stopped seeing your own story in songs and movies about unrequited love. It is definitely a good sign if you've stopped equating your situation to every love song and movie. You've probably already started expanding your musical repertoire to include things that aren't about love or the pain of love, which is another sign of healing. Still, there are other signs that you're ready to move on, too. You take an interest in friends and family again. Caring about other people again is definitely a good sign that you're ready to move on. A lot of times when you're in the grieving stage, you tend to get a little self-absorbed. When you start noticing what everyone else has been doing, you'll find that you're well on your way to healing. However, there are other signs that you're ready to can you ever stop loving someone on, as well. You will know you're ready to move on when you stop wondering whether the person will call you or change their mind and start taking an interest in friends, family and hobbies again. Remember there is no set time period for moving on. Everyone goes at a different pace. Read on for another quiz question. That way you'll also interact with new people and realize that you can be successful, too. But don't force that person to be in love with you. Rather than bottling up your emotions, talk to a friend about your feelings. You can also distract yourself by spending time with your friends or getting involved in something new. For more help, including how getting rid of mementos can help, read on. Trudi Griffin is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Wisconsin.
