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Science shows the brain literally rewires after a friend breakup. But there's a way to move forward.

“Friendship breakups are often a private kind of pain.”

Photo credit: Canva

Breaking up with a friend hurts.

Imagine this: you’re scrolling through Instagram and suddenly come across photos of your former best friend living their best life—without you. Your stomach drops to the floor, every muscle in your chest tightens, and, without warning, you’re sniffling over someone who once knew your Jamba Juice order by heart (medium Strawberry Whirl with a caffeine boost) but now treats you like a stranger.


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If this resonates with you, know that you’re not alone. Friendship breakups are one of life’s most devastating experiences, yet society either chooses to ignore them altogether or expects us to “get over it,” as if it’s no big deal.

Spoiler alert: it is a big deal. And we have the science to back it up.


The science and psychology behind friendship breakups

Here’s something that might surprise you: when a friendship ends, your brain processes it in much the same way as it would a romantic breakup. The same neural pathways light up, the same stress chemicals flood into your system, and you feel like your heart is breaking into a million tiny pieces.

Ugly crying into a pint of ice cream would not be uncalled for in this situation.


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Research shows that up to 70% of close friendships don’t make it past the seven-year mark. This doesn’t mean that we’re bad at friendship; rather, it’s a reflection of the fact that people change, grow apart, and that life unfolds in unexpected ways. However, knowing the statistics doesn’t make a friendship breakup any less brutal when you’re experiencing it firsthand.

When you lose a close friend, your brain goes into emergency panic mode. Known as the mood stabilizer, serotonin levels drop after losing a friend, leading to mood instability, anxiety, and depression symptoms. The brain goes through dopamine withdrawal, creating feelings of emptiness and a loss of pleasure.

Your amygdala—the brain’s alarm system—freaks out, sending waves of stress signals through your body. Simultaneously, the same regions that process physical pain (the ones that would activate if you broke a bone) start working overtime to process that emotional pain.


woman, sad, brain, head, emotions Woman with her head in her hands.Photo credit: Canva

This is why we use physical terms to describe heartbreak, like "crushed,” “broken,” or “torn apart.” Because in these moments, your brain truly cannot distinguish between physical and emotional pain.

The grief no one talks about

Friendship breakups can be especially painful because our society isn’t built to acknowledge them. When a romantic relationship ends, friends and family typically gather around to offer emotional support and say things like, “You’re better off, sweetie," or “It’s their loss.”

But when a friendship falls apart? Crickets.

Unlike other forms of loss, friendship endings involve ambiguous grief: mourning someone who is still alive but is no longer present in your life.


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This phenomenon is also known as “disenfranchised grief," and refers to the type of pain that does not receive social recognition or support. A friend is someone who has left an indelible mark on your life, and yet, society tells you to get over it because, after all, it’s “just a friend.”

“Losing a close friendship can hurt just as deeply as a romantic breakup, if not more in some cases,” explains Charlotte Fox Weber, psychotherapist and author of What We Want, in an interview with Stylist.

“You’re not just mourning the present reality of the friendship; you’re grieving what it once was—the laughter, the shared experiences, the dreams you built together, and the promise of what life might become.”

Healing happens in stages

The good news is that you’re not broken. This pain will not last forever. Healing from a friendship breakup, much like any other form of grief, happens in waves. Some days you'll feel fine, while others you may want to hide under the covers and stare at old pictures of the two of you. The “good old days.”

First, allow yourself to feel everything. Seriously. Be sad, angry, confused, hurt. Hurl the dictionary and the thesaurus at your grief. Cry in the shower. Scream in the car. Your feelings are valid, even if no one else seems to recognize them.


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Next, practice self-compassion. Talk to yourself kindly and use words full of love. If a family member was going through something similar, would you tell them they were being dramatic? Hopefully not! You would wrap them in a tight hug and remind them that they are worthy of love and friendship.

Finally, get curious about the lessons this experience has taught you. What have you learned about yourself through this friendship? What do you want to do differently in future relationships? Pain can often be our greatest teacher, even if you prefer to learn your lessons more gently.

Plot twist: You’re stronger now

Here’s something no one tells you about surviving a friendship breakup: it makes you resilient. Look at you! You have navigated through one of life’s most under-recognized heartbreaks and emerged in one piece. You sat with difficult emotions, comforted yourself, and became your own best friend when you needed one the most.

That’s not insignificant; that’s everything.

So, take your time. Feel your feelings. Be gentle with yourself. And remember, almost everyone has experienced a loss like this at some point. You’re not behind in life; you’re exactly where you need to be.

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Dad shares 3 brilliant principles for fathers on how to teach sons to respond to setbacks

"We can help them see obstacles as opportunities to make things even better."

fullstrengthfather/Instagram

Kristoffer Koerper (@fullstrengthfather) shares how he taught his kids to overcome setbacks.

Life is hard. Every parent knows that hardship will come into their kids' lives in time, which is why raising resilient kids is a crucial part of parenting.

Instagrammer Kristoffer Koerper (@fullstrengthfather), a husband and father of three boys, shared an insightful post on how he is teaching his sons to respond well to setbacks. In the video, he explains how the family's broken trampoline became a lesson in turning something negative into a positive, and how other parents can do the same with their kids.

"Teaching our young boys how to respond to setbacks: 3 principles I'm working to apply," he wrote in the video's caption.

Koerper begins the video by explaining that the family recently broke its trampoline. "Initially my boys were devastated," he shares as the video shows one of his son's crying. "But instead of seeing it as a loss, I told them that this is an opportunity, guys. We can build something really cool if we just take it apart and use all the parts."

Taking their dad's optimistic lead and suggestions to make a fort or hideout, their attitude "immediately changed. Instead of sulking or crying, they got excited." From there, together they got to work and began to dismantle the broken trampoline to transform it into something new (spoiler alert: the boys decided to make a "secret military base.")

Koerper goes on to share, "As fathers we have a choice. We can teach our kids to focus on what they lose or the challenges, or we can help them see obstacles as opportunities to make things even better. And I believe they carry that mindset into life."

In the post's caption, he went into further detail on three specific principles that helped turn the broken trampoline into a positive experience, and how to instill a proactive attitude in kids when it comes to setbacks.

The first principle he shared is titled "Obstacles Are Opportunities." "I try to teach my boys that setbacks aren’t the end but the beginning of something new. Every setback is a setup for something better," he wrote.

The second principle: "My Reaction Shapes Theirs." "My boys mirror my emotional response to challenges. Stay calm, get excited about solutions, and they will too," he shared.

Finally, he shared the third principle to helping his kids respond well to setbacks: "Encourage Creative Problem-Solving." He elaborated, saying, "Instead of fixing things for my boys, I try to guide them in repurposing and rebuilding. It builds resilience."

Koerper's principles were well received by viewers.

"I love how curious the boys are, curiosity breeds brilliance," one viewer wrote.

"Kids need to have these minor setbacks as it makes them anti-fragile for bigger setbacks as they grow up. Setting a great example out here 🫡."

Another viewer wrote, "I love this. Resilience is something that has to be practiced. Not to mention all the fine motor skills and physical aspects of that exercise, you’re raising great young men!"

"Secret military base 😄 Love this. Keep em resilient and full of the ability to problem solve," said another.

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People think Gen Z lacks resilience because they've been 'coddled.' Let's unpack that myth.

It's not that Gen Z hasn't seen enough. They've actually seen too much.

Photo credit: Canva

Gen Z was raised in an entirely different world.

As a parent of three Gen Z kids, I’ve spent lots of time up close with today’s teens and young adults. Looking at my kids and their Gen Z peers (ranging from age 13 to 28), I’ve noticed where the stereotypes of their generation hit the mark and where they miss. Some stereotypes are just typical complaints that older generations always have of "young people these days," but there's one barb that Gen Xers and boomers frequently throw out that I think is way off: Gen Zers lack resilience because they've been coddled and protected from the harsh realities of life.

If we use "the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties" as a working definition of "resilience," I find Gen Z to be a mixed bag. Some of them show great resilience, some don't. A 4,000-person survey from Cigna Group found that Gen Z struggles with mental health more than older generations do, however, and child psychologist Stuart Lustig calls Gen Z "the loneliest, least resilient demographic alive today." Maybe that's true. But is it really because they've been coddled?

It's not that Gen Z hasn't seen enough. They've actually seen too much.

Some argue that the “participation trophies” and “trigger warnings” have made young people unable to handle hard things. Others argue that parents are too easy on their children. I'll concede that some Gen X parents swung the pendulum too far from their neglected childhoods, becoming "helicopter parents" who resisted allowing their kids to experience the risks, failures and disappointments that ultimately build resilience. But the idea that Gen Z as a whole has been "coddled"—overly sheltered from the harsh realities of life? That one is strange to me.

These are kids who have done active shooter drills in their classrooms their entire childhoods, and not just as a “this is something that could happen” but as a “this actually does happen with alarming regularity.” Boomer and older Gen Xers may have hid under their desks in Cold War bomb drills, but no bombs were actually ever dropped in the U.S. Gen Zers have seen the aftermath of their peers being murdered in classrooms over and over again.

What Gen Z has been exposed to is mind-boggling compared to what their parents saw ask kids, thanks to being the first generation to never know a world without the internet. Where Gen X had access to a daily newspaper and a half hour of nightly world news, Gen Z has been subjected to constant sensationalized news streams on cable TV and the internet 24/7. But it's not just the vast amount of news. Thanks to smartphone cameras and social media, today's teens and young adults have also borne witness to scenes of violence, tragedy, and trauma unfolding in real-time, on-the-ground, all around the world.

five young adults standing looking at their phonesGen Z is the first full "digital native" generation.Photo credit: Canva

Where boomers and Gen X might have seen someone's dad's Playboys, Gen Z has grown up with devices that contain disturbing, hardcore pornography. Even if they haven't accessed or tripped across explicit content themselves, it's very likely that someone in their peer group has shown them pornography that kids in previous generations would never have been able to access. And it's happening at younger and younger ages.

There's no precedent for the world Gen Z grew up in

There's anxiety that comes along with all of this exposure, even for full-grown adults who have a foundation of a simpler time to reflect back on. Gen Z never had a simpler time. They were born into the ocean of anxiety. Then they got hit by a once-in-a-century (hopefully) global pandemic, adding another layer of uncertainty to the mix.

As a whole, Gen Z hasn’t been sheltered from the harsh realities of the world; it's been bombarded by them in ways that previous generations simply weren’t during their youth. Humans—even children—have experienced hard things things for millennia and evolved to build resilience to life's challenges. What humans haven't experienced until now is having an overload of information and tragic news and disturbing content from around the world available at their fingertips 24/7. There's simply no precedent for raising kids in this world, so raising Gen Z has been one big collective experiment.

Even if conscientious parents have done their best to protect their kids from its pitfalls, the internet is not a separate thing from our lives like it was in its early days. Gen Z has grown up in a digitally connected world. Even parents who manage to hold off on phones or other internet-enabled devices longer than most eventually had to give because it's become nearly impossible to be an active participant in society without the internet. Those of us who grew up in a non-digital world can attest to how much the internet has changed our lives in various, often drastic, ways. Gen Z was born into that world, and despite being "digital natives" are not immune to the anxiety and overwhelm that comes with it.

Maybe we need to rethink what resilience looks like for the "digital native" generations

All of this means that resilience for Gen Z may look different than it did for us. Their young brains have been taxed in ways ours were not. They've had to process so much more, filter so much more, learn how to navigate so much more than we did. I actually think they're doing pretty well, all things considered. They may struggle with mental health a bit more than previous generations, but they're also so much more aware of it and willing to get help with it. They may not stay in jobs with unhealthy work environments and poor work-life balance, but that doesn't mean they're soft—quite the opposite, in fact.

I'm not saying Gen Z couldn't use some good old-fashioned life lessons about picking themselves up and dusting themselves off. But I do think we need to acknowledge that being the first internet-enabled generation has affected them in ways we are just beginning to grasp, and that adjusting our expectations of resilience and reevaluating what resilience looks like for them might be in order.

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She was 15 when men threw acid in her face. They told her she’d be ashamed forever.

ReSurge International helped Muskan Khatun reconstruct her body, and now she’s using her voice to advocate for burn and gender-based violence survivors.

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Muskan Khatun was only 15 when she survived an acid attack in Nepal.

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When Muskan Khatun was 15 years old, a group of young men started teasing her on her way to school in Nepal. She found it disturbing and uncomfortable, but they wouldn’t stop.

“I finally told my family,” Muskan says. “My dad confronted them, scolded them, and even slapped one of them. After that, they stopped bothering me for about three months.

“Then, one day, when I was heading to school, I saw them again. This time, they had a jug of acid. They tried to make me drink it, but I refused. In anger, they threw the acid on my face, hands, and chest.”

The attackers were arrested, and good samaritans nearby got Muskan to Kirtipur Hospital, where she was treated by local ReSurge surgeon and Country Director, Dr. Shankar Man Rai and his team. Resurge International is a non-profit organization that provides free reconstructive surgical care and trains surgical teams in low-income countries around the world to increase access to care for people who need it, like Muskan. ReSurge’s team in Nepal has treated 141 intentional burn attacks like Muskan’s over the last seven years.

ReSurge helped Muskan take her life back. But that was only the beginning of her story.

ReSurge International

One teen’s perseverance created historic change in the law.

“As I learned more about the laws in my country, I realized the justice system didn’t provide enough protection or punishment for such crimes,” Muskan says.” It felt like a bigger hurt than the acid attack itself. That’s when I decided to raise my voice and work towards changing the laws to ensure justice for others like me.”

Muskan wrote to the Prime Minister just days after her attack, but got no response. So she took her voice to the public. For two years, she courageously shared her story and advocated for better laws.

Finally, the Prime Minister invited her to his residence. He listened to her experiences and legal ideas, and in just 15 days, he passed a law specifically targeting acid attacks. The law also passed in Nepal’s parliament in record time.

“This was the first time in Nepal that a law was passed so swiftly,” Muskan says. “The new law was very strict, including a life sentence for offenders, marking the most severe punishment in Nepal for such crimes.” In 2021 Muskan was awarded the prestigious International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award by the U.S. Secretary of State for her work to end acid attacks.

Muskan Khutan's awardsMuskan has won multiple awards for her advocacy work.Resurge International

Muskan is not alone. Acid attack survivors around the world have raised their voices to get laws changed—but that’s not the only battle they’re fighting.

Constructing laws is one thing. Reconstructing your burned body is another.

Chemical burns leave survivors with painful scar contractures that restrict movement over the affected areas, forcing them to also relive their trauma every time they look in the mirror or field questions from people about what happened to them. However, burn scars require specialized surgical care, which often isn’t readily available or affordable in most low-income countries.

That’s where ReSurge International comes in.

With a conservative estimate of 10,000 acid attacks each year (many countries don’t keep official records of acid attacks and an estimated 40% of attacks go unreported, according to Acid Survivors Trust International), the surgical needs just for intentional burn victims is significant. Additionally, with 80% of acid attack survivors being women, the gender-based violence aspect of the issue cannot be ignored.

But there’s a gap in surgery accessibility between people in high-income nations, where plastic surgery is often viewed as elective and cosmetic, and those in low-income countries, where it more often addresses critical medical needs.

One way ReSurge is closing that gap is by training the next generation of reconstructive surgeons across Africa, Asia and Latin America, in countries where acid attacks are high. Rather than only sending in surgeons from the outside, ReSurge trains and funds local surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and occupational therapists, focusing on capacity building and prioritizing locally-led solutions with an extra emphasis on training women to close the gender gap in medicine and surgery. Just last year, ReSurge transformed the lives of over 25,000 patients and trained more than 5,000 medical professionals, with 85% of their surgeries being conducted by local partners.

Raising awareness is another way ReSurge is working to ‘close the gap.’

Seeing a potential for a powerful partnership, Resurge orchestrated the first face-to-face meeting between Muskan and fellow acid attack survivor and Woman of Courage Award Winner, Natalia Ponce de León from Colombia, in June of 2024. Like Muskan, Natalia has worked tirelessly to advocate for survivors’ rights and successfully inspired change to her country’s laws. She currently runs a foundation to ensure survivors of chemical attacks get the medical, psychological and legal care they need and deserve. Through the power of mentorship and mutual support, these two remarkable women will be able to increase their reach and amplify the impact of the incredible work they’re already doing.

Muskan Khutan and Natalia Ponce de Le\u00f3nMuskan and Natalia are working together to advocate for acid attack survivors.ReSurge International

Preventing more attacks like the ones that changed Muskan and Natalia’s lives requires a multi-faceted approach, as does care for survivors who are living with the aftermath of such violence. Survivor advocates and organizations like ReSurge International working together to ensure that care is accessible for all is a reminder of what humans can do when we set our sights on solutions and keep striving to implement them in the most effective way possible.


Interested in helping? This giving season, ReSurge is matching every gift for twice the impact. To make a gift to support patients like Muskan, read their stories, and learn more about how ReSurge International is closing the gap to reconstructive surgery, visit resurge.org/closing-the-gap

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