How To Heal From "Broken Heart Syndrome"

Call them the broken hearts club: six women, none a stranger to heartache. The Early Show brought them together at New York's romantic Tavern on the Green.

Terry's boyfriend had been cheating on her for four months with a woman his friends introduced him to. Erica's ex called her on the phone at 10:30 p.m. and dumped her.

Heart break is something few escape, no matter who you are — just look at Jennifer Aniston and supermodel Christie Brinkley.

Susan Anderson, psychotherapist and author of "The Journey from Abandonment to Healing," says that while a broken heart can be one of life's most severe tragedies, it isn't always acknowledged in the same way as other life crises.

"Most of us have had serious heartbreaks. It's what marks us. It's what affects our self-esteem and our ability to trust another person," she told The Early Show national correspondent Susan McGinnis. "It's not a validated form of grief. When someone dies, you receive cards and there's a funeral and an acknowledgement about the grief. But when someone leaves you there is — you don't get a bouquet of flowers from your relatives."

Without that validation, people find different ways of relieving their pain. Judy tends to redecorate. Tracy went on vacation. Rachel and Ophira did yoga.

"I tried the yoga thing and all it did was give me the focus to think really evil thoughts," Ophira said.

It's more than just thoughts — a breakup can have physical effects as well.

"You produce all these stress hormones that actually affect your memory," Anderson said. "And it causes you to lose weight."

"I was thrilled with the 20 pounds, but I lost 20 pounds out of just being so devastated by it," Judy said.

What these women may not know is that a heart can come a lot closer to actually breaking than you might think.

"It is a lot like a heart attack in some ways," Dr. Ilan Wittstein said. "People can come in with all the same symptoms that heart attack patients have: chest pain, shortness of breath."

Dr. Wittstein at Johns Hopkins Medical Center is among several doctors who identified what's now called "broken heart syndrome."

In fact, a large number of patients who have had this come in after some kind of emotional trauma, such as the death of a loved one, a sudden motor vehicle accident and some kind of fright.

"A breakup can cause this," Anderson said. "We've had, actually, a couple of people we've seen in who had a break up or learned about a spouse's infidelity and confronted the spouse, experienced signs and symptoms of the syndrome."

None of the broken hearts club members' hearts gave out, and most don't, but one nearly universal trait is self-blame.

"That's often the first question we ask ourselves when it does happen to us," Anderson said. "It may feel like the pain is never going to end. But heartbreak veterans and other experts say it typically does. And it can start with a little help from your friends."

"One of my girlfriends actually put her number in his number's location in my cell phone so if I ever got the urge to call him I would call her instead," Judy said.

Anderson says the next step is to turn the abandonment into an opportunity.

"When you can soothe yourself, calm yourself, distract yourself, entertain yourself, heal yourself, you gain confidence that you can count on yourself," she said.

Tracy said women who have gone through difficult breakups need to do something that can make them fee successful.

"An activity that makes you feel like I have control again," she said. "I can actually achieve something. That's just going to help restore your self-esteem."

Terry said that in the aftermath of a breakup, women need to listen to themselves and heal on their own terms. Erica said she now treasures time alone and the time she spends with her family and friends.

Anderson said this group is making the right moves.

"These women used their heartbreak as an opportunity to change their lives — to become involved in new things," she said. "If you can find the humor in it, you can connect with other people going through it."

Appropriately, Ophira moved into stand-up comedy.

"I'm a firm believer that happiness isn't funny, so you better be talking about something sad," she said. "I would say, no matter what you think, you will always have another relationship. If you think that you're not going to, let me tell you, you're not gonna be so lucky."

For more information on how to get over a broken heart, check these sites: BreakupGirl.net, Abadonment.net, HeWontCommit.com
Ophiraeisenberg.com, Hopkinsmedicine.org, and Humorlounge.com.