Why Some Breakups Are So Hard To Heal
Over the last year, my work as a therapist in Los Angeles has become increasingly focused on a very specific kind of breakup. Not the ones that are painful but manageable—but the ones that completely destabilize people.
These are the breakups that cause spiraling. The kind that make you doubt yourself, your judgment, your future, and even question whether you were ever seeing the relationship clearly. Clients often tell me, “I feel so lost,” or “I worry I’ll be stuck forever.”
As an attachment-focused therapist and EMDR therapist in Los Angeles, I began to notice a pattern. These clients weren’t stuck because they lacked insight or effort. In fact, most had done everything they were told to do.
They worked on their mindset. They tried journaljng daily. Feeling their feelings. They knew setting boundaries was the best decision. But attempts at blocking, muting, unfollowing, and trying to stay busy, often failed or felt too hard to do. Their nervous systems stayed on high alert—replaying, longing, and searching for relief.
The Breakups That Don’t Respond to Logic
These are often relationships where:
You logically understand the relationship wasn’t healthy, but your body still feels deeply attached
You replay conversations, moments, or endings on a loop
You miss the person even while knowing you don’t want them back
You feel ashamed by how strongly attached you became
You question yourself for staying, trying, or hoping for so long
When a breakup creates this level of distress, it’s rarely just about the relationship itself. It’s about what the relationship activated.
What Hasn’t Been Enough (Even Though It’s Common Advice)
This can be uncomfortable to name, but in my work as an attachment therapist, I consistently see that some well-meaning tools fall short for this type of breakup pain.
Mindset work alone often creates more frustration. When your nervous system is dysregulated, positive reframes can feel invalidating—or like another way you’re “failing” at healing.
Journaling, while helpful for awareness, frequently turns into rumination. Instead of helping clients let go, it keeps the relationship alive through constant mental and emotional replay.
Boundaries, especially when used to force detachment, can feel abrupt or even unsafe when attachment wounds are still wide open. You can cut off contact and still feel completely consumed internally.
These tools aren’t wrong. They’re just incomplete for attachment-based trauma.
What I Focus on Instead: Attachment-Based Healing
In my Los Angeles therapy practice, I take an attachment-focused approach that shifts the core question from:
“Why can’t I move on?”
to:
“What part of me learned to attach this way—and what does it need now?”
Rather than trying to eliminate longing or override emotions, we work toward creating felt security within yourself. We slow down and build capacity to be with the parts of you that panic, cling, collapse, or obsess—without judgment or force.
Healing happens when those parts feel understood and supported, not pushed away.
How EMDR Supports Deep Breakup Healing
For many clients, EMDR therapy becomes the turning point.
These breakups aren’t just remembered—they’re relived. Images, words, moments, and sensations replay as if they’re still happening. As an EMDR therapist in Los Angeles, I use this approach to help clients process:
The moments that loop endlessly in the mind
The experiences that shattered trust or safety
The emotional injuries that never received closure
The attachment patterns rooted in early relationships and childhood
Attachment patterns aren’t habits you can simply outthink. They’re nervous system responses shaped long before logic or insight were available.
EMDR allows these experiences to finally be processed and stored as complete, rather than continuing to activate the nervous system as if the loss is still happening.
This Work Isn’t About Erasing Love
The goal of attachment-focused EMDR therapy isn’t to convince you the relationship didn’t matter. It’s to help your body understand that you are safe now, even without it.
When attachment wounds are tended to with care:
The urgency softens
The mental replay quiets
Self-doubt loosens its grip
And space opens for clarity, self-trust, and peace
This is the kind of breakup healing I’ve become deeply committed to as an attachment and EMDR therapist in Los Angeles. Not because it’s trendy—but because I’ve watched people finally breathe again after months or years of feeling stuck.
If you’re struggling to let go despite doing “all the right things,” you’re not broken. Your nervous system is asking for a different kind of care.
And there is another way through.
Want Support Beyond This Blog?
If this resonates, I’ve created a few ways to support you—whether or not we ever work together directly.
You’re invited to sign up for my Breakup Reset, a grounded, attachment-informed reset designed to help calm your nervous system, reduce mental spirals, and begin rebuilding a sense of internal safety after a breakup.
You can also join my newsletter, where I share honest reflections, nervous-system-informed tools, and insights from my work as an attachment and EMDR therapist in Los Angeles—especially for those navigating breakups that feel hard to explain or shake.
And finally, I’m currently working on a self-paced breakup healing course. This course is being created as a supportive tool for people who:
Aren’t able to work with me one-on-one
Want something structured between sessions with their own therapist
Or want to use it alongside therapy with me
My goal is to make attachment-focused, trauma-informed breakup support more accessible—so you don’t have to white-knuckle your way through healing alone.
If your nervous system has been asking for a different kind of care, this may be a meaningful next step.
