Things were going well for Dakota Chesser. The SBHS sophomore and her boyfriend were both on the cheer team, and so they got to hang out all the time. Everything felt right. Until he stopped acting like himself. One day after practice, she asked him what was wrong. She was stunned by his answer; he wanted to break up with her.  

“He told me that he lost feelings [for me]” said Chesser, “I felt anger, sadness, and confusion.”

When she confronted him about his change of heart, it ended things for good. She was heartbroken. 

“This messed me up for a while,” said Chesser, “Even though I was in love with him, he felt nothing towards me. I felt neglected and lied to for a long time,”

Breakups, especially teenage breakups, are hard. According to Dr. Rahul Jandial M.D., Ph.D, a dual-trained brain surgeon and neuroscientist, a heartbreak in teenagers can hurt more due to the fact that at that age, hormones are stronger.

“A passionate love it’s more difficult to get over, because it goes beyond anything normal,” said Dr. Jandial. 

Having your heart broken is one side of the coin. There’s also the other side, doing the heart breaking, most of the time, not intentionally. That was the case with SBHS junior Justin Gomez, Chesser’s ex.

“I’m the type of person that doesn’t like hurting people on purpose,” said Gomez, “so when I lost feelings for my girlfriend at the time I decided that it was best to tell her instead of being in a one-way relationship.” 

There are many reason teenage romances end. For Gomez, it was the fact that he had lost feelings for Chesser. But for others, is not about losing feelings, it’s about being afraid of those feelings. This was the situation for  SBHS Junior “A” (Name withheld by request). She let that fear push her away from the person she loved. 

“I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t,” said A, “That was until I let my brain get the best of me.”

She started snooping around her significant other’s Instagram. While doing so, she would compare herself to all the beautiful girls he followed, which made her self-esteem drop to an all time low. 

“I thought that I would never be good enough for him and that he deserved someone better,” said A, “so I broke things off.”

She was afraid of her feelings for him. Later on, she realized breaking up was an excuse to run away from those feelings. She let her insecurities get the best of her and thought  breaking up would be an easy way to avoid heartbreak. 

“I really loved him,” said A “I just never got the chance to tell him because I was scared of admitting it and instead I made a decision that I knew would make him get away from me.” 

There are a lot of ways teens can deal with heartbreak.  There’s exercise, going out with friends, staying in bed with a good Netflix show, and staying of social media. For A, words are not enough to express how sorry she is, and she regrets her decision everyday. She likes to think that what she did was the right choice so he can find someone better. But deep down, she knows that she lost the person that made her feel at home.

“He deserves someone to love him the way I didn’t let myself love him,” said A.

Chesser threw herself into her cheer activities and tried to date other people in an effort to distance herself from her feelings. After a while she started to love herself again. Now she’s at peace with herself. It took her about two months to heal from the heartbreak.

“Now I realize that what he did was his own decision and I had nothing to do with that,” said Chesser.