by Maggie Miller

Created on: June 04, 2009

To be concise: breakups are buzzkill. Most of us go through life in a generally happy state, enjoying the more invigorating moments, empathizing over the sad ones with friends and a 12-pack of cheap beer, learning what it's like to fall hard on your glut and the difficulty associated with getting back up again.

But sometimes we hit a snag and we're down for awhile. There's no possible way to "get back on that horse" and keep going; you're down, you're feeling hopeless, and you don't have the energy or drive to pull yourself out of it. It's like faceplanting on a mountain side after landing on your knees and slamming your head into packed ice at about 10 miles an hour sans helmet. You can't get up. You want to lay there and hope hypothermia really is a pleasant, painless death.

Even though we don't want to hear it, the truth is, almost everyone's gone through a devastating breakup before. It's just that everyone handles things differently. When Christine was dumped, she was upset for two months. The pain never really went away, but two weeks after her boyfriend admitted he didn't love her, she snagged a big-jawed, big-gunned bartender and stuck to him for most of the summer. Shar goes out, gets wasted, and surrounds herself with a small crowd of adoring - and sometimes questionable - bed companions. Everyone's hopeful and positive during the day, but when night rolls around and we've all retreated to our separate beds, we find loneliness there waiting and wonder when Mr. Right is going to pop up or if he simply isn't out there.

For me, getting dumped is one of the worst feelings I've ever had, and no one night stand is going to pull me out of it. Depression sinks its teeth in hard and I find myself overly anxious, constantly teetering on the precipice of tears, and unwilling to pull myself out of bed. I lose all desire to make myself look attractive, 'sexy' is out the door, and I'm so filled with awful feelings, emotions, and thoughts of the past that the term 'broken heart' doesn't apply; broken signifies something missing, and I feel like my pots boiling over.

First things first. Recognize that it's okay. It's normal for some people to feel like that. As long as you're not doing any harm to yourself (and if you're even thinking about it, you should quickly land yourself a psychologist), you're in a position that many before you have been in.

It's okay to talk to people, but you have to get a few things straight. First, friends are usually willing to

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