Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
Florence Williams
Chapter 7
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If Wager's metaquestions are about pain and placebos, Donaldson's are about grief. What is happening on a cellular level when we experience heartbreak, and why do some of us seem to take much longer to get over it?
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Complicated grief, sometimes called persistent bereavement disorder, is characterized by prolonged sadness, yearning, and longing, a sense of disbelief and difficulty accepting the death of a loved one. People with this condition may compulsively avoid reminders of their loved one and yet also be stuck ruminating over aspects of the loss. It's as if the loss just happened, over and over again. People tend to get diagnosed if they still feel acute grief after 6 to 12 months, but it's a controversial label because some losses, particularly the death of a child, are understandably debilitating for many years. Still, most grief is expected to lessen over time, to enable those left behind to regain some periods of joy, fulfillment, and normal functioning. At what point does normal grief slip into pathology?
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In the wild, life for a prairie vole is short and intense. Resembling small hamsters, they are plump and apparently delicious. "They are the popcorn of the prairie," said Donaldson. "Everything eats them. Snakes, coyotes." It's not uncommon for Mom or Dad to pop out of the nest for some foraging and never return home. Their lives last perhaps several months.
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Prairie voles are even a bit more loyal to the idea of coupledom than we are, at least these days, in late-stage capitalism. Once paired up, 75 percent of them will stay together until one dies, even when the female isn't reproducing. If the male dies, the female will rarely lasso up a new mate. If she dies first, 20 percent of males will pair up with someone new. Prairie voles are inveterate snugglers with their mates and their pups. They even console each other during stressful times, piling on top of each other, hugging, nuzzling, licking, and grooming. On the internet there are pictures of voles hugging and they slay me. Within a few days of their first mating encounter in a lab, males and females will overwhelmingly prefer to spend time with their lover over all others, even when sexy newcomers are dangled like taffy before them.
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Remarkably, what Donaldson seems to be zeroing in on is an essential element of grief: yearning. "We think this is a proxy for incorporating the finality of the loss," she said. How hard is the vole willing to work to lift the door to be with his mate? And how long does it take for "acceptance" to set in that she is no longer there? Moreover, what is happening in their brains as these decisions play out?
Chapter 15
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He quoted the French political and religious thinker Simone Weil to me. "Above all, our thoughts should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive."
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Eric explained that Weil, who was something of a mystic and died of tuberculosis and starvation at the age of 34, believed that much suffering in the world occurs because we attempt to "eat beauty rather than see it." What she meant, he explained, was that when we pursue something, when we try to possess it and make it serve us, it becomes about our needs and our ego, and then we can't really love what we are seeing.