Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory offers a map for the icy grip in your stomach when you see they’ve posted a new picture, smiling, without you. It explains the way you rehearse conversations in your head that will never happen, crafting the perfect combination of words that will finally make them see. You check your phone, not with hope, but with a kind of self-flagellating dread. You scroll through old photos, not to remember the good times, but to pinpoint the exact moment it all went wrong. This isn’t love. This is a haunting. And the ghost that’s rattling your chains isn’t your ex. It’s fear. It’s the fear that you’re not enough. The fear that you’ll be alone forever. The fear that you made the biggest mistake of your life, either by letting them go or by choosing them in the first place. It’s the fear that the gaping hole in your chest is a permanent fixture, a new and terrible organ you’ll have to carry for the rest of your days. You’re not mourning a relationship; you’re terrified of the story you’re telling yourself about what its ending means. You’ve made the absence of their love a referendum on