21 ENTPs Explain What They Do To Heal After A Heartbreak
Each type handles heartbreak a little differently. As rationals, ENTPs often find themselves wanting to make logical sense of their heartbreak – but that isn’t always the fastest road to healing. Below, 21 ENTPs share what they do to heal their hearts when they’ve been broken.
1.
“I squirm uncomfortably on the inside and deal with it alone, miss them incredibly, and try to indirectly get their attention back as a means to talk with them again. I guess my Fe function just wigs out and I get stuck in an Fe-Si loop. Advice: feelings are awful, before getting invested in someone, try to introvert your intuition and try to see how things will play out. Don’t follow impulse. If it’s too late, enjoy the heartbreak. Misery is wasted on the miserable; the bad part is forgetting the one you once loved, and the heartbreak is the learning part. Embrace the pain, learn how to love it before that is gone, too, I guess.”
2.
“When I’m heartbroken I overthink it, until I convince myself it ended and I can’t do anything.”
3.
“I have a very complicated two-step-process:
Step 1. I cry
Step 2. I start rebuilding my life without them or with less of them.
Elaboration: I first have to have a good cry — like in-the-fetal-position-alone-in-my-room-weeping-so-hard-I-get-a-headache-ugly-cry. It’s about the only way I’ve found to really expel/express all the emotions of shock, rejection, disappointment, and pain that I’m feeling. I usually don’t involve people during this cry session because almost immediately after I’m done crying, I sober up and get back to whatever I was meant to be doing. it’s kind of freaky. The emotions are still there but because they’re no longer a pressing issue, I default back to not focusing on my emotions.
I’ve found the sudden switch can be kind of disconcerting for people, heck it’s a bit disconcerting for me too, and it’s almost always awkward to try and explain that I don’t need an hour-long pow-wow to sort out my feelings. If other ENTPs have people in their life who either can handle the sudden mood shift (if other ENTPs do the same thing; I don’t know, this phenomena could be a ‘just me’ thing) or if ENTPs are fine with spending extended time engaging in their emotions, then I’d recommend sharing the experience with others, at least to let those close loved ones have a more intimate idea they how they operate. I’ve heard that this is a good thing.
After the ugly cry, depending on the situation, I start to work out how to have the person take up less space in my life. The length of extraction varies depending on the depth of the relationship. But I find the sooner I can go on living without them the sooner I can get back to feeling like myself and feeling like my life is moving forward.”
4.
“When I’m heartbroken I talk to a close friend, go out, flirt, drink a lot, and maybe have a fling or two.”
5.
“I completely withdraw into myself, spend time on self-nurturing, and get over it quickly.”
6.
“If depression comes into play, do your best to avoid isolating yourself. I know it’s tempting to seclude yourself in order to attempt to rationalize what’s happened, and in a healthy mindset that can actually really help you, but when you feel isolated and cut off from the world, that’s when you’ll be set up to enter that personal hell that is the Ne-Fe loop. Instead, hopefully you have a close knit group of friends that can energize you – an INFJ/INFP to help you flesh out those pesky emotions and face them down (I call it ‘ghost-busting’) and an ENFP or similarly minded individual to remind you of all the options you now have and reinvigorate you with new possibilities and ideas. Doesn’t have to be those exact types, but having different friends filling different roles and balancing you out is key to rounding out your ‘team’ for life, heartbroken or not.
I can tell you that for me, the feeling of being stuck that really makes heartbreak suck so much in the long run (the immediate being the sudden loss of understanding and intimacy), and there is nothing on this planet that kicks that mindset’s ass as effectively as pursuing your creative goals. Go get reenergized and refocused and then hit whatever projects you’ve had on the backburner or whip up a new one (few killer ideas: that old short story, concept album, ride-share app, comedy routine, power suit, or world domination by way of power-suit super penguins) Also, as a last little side note, you may want to avoid the trap of those rebound one night stands..there’s nothing wrong with that in a healthier state of mind but doing it right after heartbreak hits will only isolate you further. Trust me. They won’t bring you the connection and understanding you lost, and getting that physical and carnal rush that you once had while lacking the depth (and can I say ‘understanding’ again? Because that’s what we usually miss most and most likely why we even got into the relationship to begin with) will be a punch in the gut you could really go without right now. No need to go full-blown Hank Moody. Believe me, I know.”
7.
“Honestly, you’re not going to make clear sense of it so give up on that. Give yourself to something you care about more than yourself and let the big ideas take you where they will.”
8.
“When I’m heartbroken, I drink a lot (a LOT), run through a train of people (a reckless procurement of sexual partners and friends), and adpot a persona that comes off as more confident than I actually am. Is that what I’d recommend? Not at all. I’d advise my fellow ENTPs to slow down and try to realize– you’re worth more than you think you are. No matter how badly someone else messes with you head, remember: you are the harshest when analyzing yourself. You don’t have to admit that to anyone else– but as long as you find a grasp on your own insecurity, you’ll be okay.”
9.
“My natural reaction is to analyse (and by that I mean over-analyse) every last little thing that I think contributed. It slowly drives me crazy. I’ll try to reason with them, do anything and try everything to get them back. The “staying friends” thing is a myth. Love is like a drug, and I think ENTPs have a predisposition towards addiction, so it’s hard to find the strength to go cold turkey and sever all contact, but it’s essential. Otherwise all you’ll do is get stuck in a loop, going over and over the same events, finding fault with yourself. Go home, cry, get it all out, find a good friend who’ll let you pour out your despair, sleep. Delete their texts and their number (DO IT) Find something constructive to do – make something, write, draw, paint, watch documentaries, go to the cinema/theatre – something that consumes your attention, anything to get you through that horrible withdrawal phase. It may take a few weeks and it’ll be awful, but delaying it only prolongs the pain. Then when it’s passed, get that tough cookie exterior back on.”
10.
“I have to stop feeding my Si. I have a tendency to wallow in memories until I break my own heart over and over. Fixing this means that I need to make new connections with people, throw myself into hobbies, and focus on future opportunities. Otherwise, I’ll drown in my past.”
11.
“Initially, I wanted to keep all the emotions to myself hoping they’ll just dissipate on their own. I pretend that it’s no big deal especially when I’m with my friends. I talk to them about it like I’m not affected emotionally as I tend to joke around and try to rationalise why it’s bound to happen anyway, although deep inside I’m a wreck.
The truth is whenever I’m heartbroken I see myself as confused, frustrated and just outright devastated. It takes a huge toll on my self-esteem but I don’t want anyone to know that. I let the emotions consume me and then I patiently wait for those feelings to die down. It works but it takes so much time. Also, the person responsible for the heartbreak should be nowhere near me. No contact, no meetings, nothing. I try to move on by keeping myself distracted like going out with friends, taking a new hobby, taking a lot of crushes, lowkey flirting, and the last I did was I went back to school for further studies. Just anything that’ll keep my mind off the problem for majority of my waking hours.
At night, I can either cry about it or write about it though most of the time it’s both. It takes time and being alone just feeling those freaking feelings is very hard and I’ve read stuff saying it’s not healthy too. Anyway, when it becomes too much to handle, like 10x harder and the emotions I’ve been keeping in are starting to manifest on the outside world, like getting drunk and high in the most inappropriate of places, that’s when I reach out to a friend and just talk about it honestly. Just a friend, not the whole social media.
My advice for people of the same type as mine is to just let the emotions sink in and let yourself feel the pain no matter how time consuming it can be. Eventually, you’ll just get bored of all the heavy and emotionally dragging stuff, sigh the heaviest of sighs and just break free from them. It takes so much time though but definitely worth the wait. It takes so much time though but worth the wait.”
12.
“When I’m heartbroken I go between being completely alone (in my room, taking a walk, etc.) and completely immersed in socialization. Advice to other ENTPs: TRY to socialize when you can, even if you don’t at first feel like it.”
13.
“When I’m heartbroken I take time to be alone and process how I feel. Find solutions to my issues through doing things and self talk. But always a direct solution to the specific issue causing my heart break. My advice would be to rest and to calm the emotions, and to view the heartbreak as objectively as possible. And to deal with it. Not to procrastinate dealing too!”
14.
“I try to logically explain away the parting of the relationship to cope. I also go into self improvement mode. I usually start a project or make a plan that in my head I have convinced myself will save me and heal the pain. I will reason that now that the relationship is over I can pursue x and y.”
15.
“The type of heartbreak greatly affects the coping mechanism that I use for solace. I can break this down to two different types of heartbreak that I have experienced:
Firstly, social heartbreak. This type of heartbreak consists of being seen as lesser than the peers around me. This, I propose, is much more complicated than a passionate/romantic heartbreak. In this way, those around one has weighed one’s worth as unbefitting as to be included in their social circle. When such heartbreak occurs there for me one way to emanate, that is to obtain ‘grit.’ The substance in which we proliferate onward and upward. I suppose that this may sound beneficial or even possibly lacking of substance on paper, however through my experience of social heartbreak getting my head out of my anus and into reality is the first step to moving on. Here comes the mind boggler. One would assume that to excel one’s social standing one is to obtain a higher level of pride to enhance one’s grit, however I argue the opposing view. I object that we do the opposite. I propose we descend into our own valley of humility. For in my experience, the meek and humble attract true friends where as the prideful become the pariah through popularity. When I think of myself less the heartbreak of others’ approval dissipates as steam from a boil. My worries are lifted and absolved from the distain and unfortunate depression that a social standing has on a person.
Secondly, we have passionate heartbreak. Passionate heartbreak is the ‘typical’ type of anguish in which most have experienced and most have (eventually) found comfort. Though I have suggested Social Heartbreak is more complicated, I do, however, propose passionate heartbreak damages more thoroughly and the solace is often elusive. Matters of the heart and emotion are often dismissed by others as irrational and irrelevant. This is, of course, completely false. These emotional wounds need attention to heal. Healing is much like that of a physical wound. There are proper steps that one must take to ensure a proper closure of the metaphorical laceration. For myself (ENTP) I typically have an incessant need to over rationalize, simplify and dismiss matters of my emotions. This is not a healthy management of feelings. My advice for ENTPs fighting passionate and romantic heartbreak is as follows: Feel your emotions. With the tendency to rationalize a part of us that is not meant to totally make sense, it stands to question: if it ought not to make sense, we ought not take the time to make sense of it. To feel your emotions is to take it all in. Really let the reality of the break fill you. Breathe in the pain and exhale the agony. This longing and gut-wrenching emotion in which you sit is real and that’s okay. By designation or by chance, we have both emotions and logic. To neglect one is to deny oneself. By feeling it, I mean truly feeling it, we have taken our first step of acceptance. Which coincidentally is our first step of recovery.
Keep trying new things. As an ENTP I know that we thrive on the next challenge. I have seen others and myself get bogged down in our shadow function and interact with the world in a way that withdraws us from society faster than monotony. Taking the steps to choose our outlook can make all the difference in healing. When one starts a day in a gloom, one tends to be looking for reasons to endorse the negativity, however when one makes a conscious effort to look for the positive one can still find the flower in the midst of thorns.
When an ENTP is heartbroken, the temptation to become complacent and indulge in circular thinking of meaninglessness is very real. Fight it. Be true to you. We need to stay true to ourselves. We have an incredible theoretical nature inherent to our existence and a keen ability to master any obstacle in our path. Use this gift as a way to think of abstract solutions to our pain, recognize that there is a solution to the emotional blunder and do what we do best; solve the problem. This, of course, is after we have fully allowed ourselves to feel the true depth of our emotion. This first step is essential for our desired outcome. Skipping to step three will only give a logical solution to an emotional problem. It is, in the same way, putting a bandaid on a bruise. In other words; useless. The reality is there is no step by step solution for any one individual or for any one situation. Even within our 16 types there are beautiful idiosyncrasies from person to person. Emotional pain is real and it sucks. The best solution we could ever find is to take one step at a time. Baby steps.”
16.
“I realize there are so many better things out there. There are always chances to grow and learn and heartbreak is one of the times where you’re only choice is to push the reset button. I’ll be dragged down for a couple weeks but after that I’m a better version of myself than I ever thought was possible. It takes me so low that I’m forced to look back up.”
17.
“Honestly, I have to think of all the possibilities. The fact that I met someone who broke my heart this bad means there has to be at least 10 other people like that in my lifetime. It’s a matter of time until that comes around, and in the mean time, go explore some awesome stuff. Go find some awesome thing to invest time in and hopefully actually follow through with it. That’s the coolest thing right? Just get passionate about stuff YOU can do, and I think the quest for knowledge and new ideas can definitely get your mind off of a person. And better yet, you’ll probably find someone doing just that, and what’s better than that? And there’s obviously a time to let it out, but think about it logically and even speak logic out loud to yourself, sometimes it helps me to hear it out loud and process that. Maybe that’s an extrovert thing, I dunno. BUT TRY IT. You’re probably smart enough to nail this, JUST GO FOR IT. But uhm, if I can say anything to a fellow ENTP or ENFP, please don’t kill yourself by trapping this entire situation within your head. I know it’s tempting, and inevitable, but eventually get becomes really unhealthy. Get some distance. I should shut up now, this is probably going to be the longest post on the whole dang thing, if even selected that is. But yeah, if you read this far, you’re a champ. Cheers!”
18.
“My first instinct is to ignore what has happened and find all the reasons why it is a good step forward, but I’ve learned that I need to take time to wallow in how I feel, despite what my logical assessment of the situation is. I’ll reserve a day to stay in and have wine or drink tea and think about how sad I feel, and not try to justify anything. Then, when I go to bed that night, I remind myself that tomorrow is a new day and I’ve had my time to grieve and with the new day comes new opportunities to move on and learn from the situation. As long as I can say to myself that I did everything I could and would make the same choices because I am incapable of being anyone but me, I can move forward. I will take time to ask myself whether I think this pain I feel will still be there in three months, in a year, in ten years. And then I decide that whatever lessons I can learn, I must learn them so that the pain I feel is the cost of something that will make me stronger, better, and more compassionate for the future. For my ENTP peers, I would say this: you know why things happen and why you did the things you did along the way. Don’t forget to take the time to feel too, but don’t dwell in that place. Be kind to yourself, but set a limit on the melodrama and when that time is up, hit the ground running.”
19.
“I give myself one week maximum to cry over breakup and be sad. Then I think about everything negative that was in our relationship, I rationalize every aspect. Also, I think about the previous breakups and how I survived them all, so I will this one too. Next, I call my friends, throw a party and I simply move on. But I’m not a very sensitive and emotional girl, so it may be easier for me.”
20.
“Allow yourself to cry often, because sometimes that shit just HURTS and there’s no way to reason or think your way out of it. Sooner or later you just have to let yourself feel the pain. Don’t let your mind whir incessantly with theories, questions and what-ifs. Get off social media. Read good, fast-paced fiction. Find a new project or hobby you can get excited about. Go for a run. Meet new people. Be honest with yourself and your feelings (even though that sounds like the lamest thing ever).”
21.
“The hardest part is to accept that there is no way back, because as ENTPs we always see a thousand possibilities of how it could actually still go right and work. As long as we are hoping, we will constantly be disappointed and cannot move on. You will have to come to the conclusion that it will not ever be working again, no matter how hard you try. Once you have crossed that point, the rest will follow and your heart might be able to start healing again.”
