Habituation is a term used in the field of suicidology. It is the gradual process of overcoming the fear of pain and death - a necessary condition for suicide - by repeated exposure. The theory says that a higher pain tolerance and lower fear of death, acquired through practice, are conditions that increase the likelihood of a completed suicide. This makes intuitive sense.
There is something generalizable here to rejection in a romantic relationship. Repeated exposure to the threat of the loss of love gradually increases the Rejected's ability to accept the ultimate loss. The loss of love, or of the Beloved, is as abhorent as self-inflicted death. Acceptance of that loss is equally unnatural. However, perhaps not logically or emotionally, but physically- the perceived loss is accomodated. The body comes to believe. The pain becomes less exquisite. The connection, rooted in the heart, is severed or uprooted. There is a numbness where there had so recently been every variety of sensation. All music stops.
There is something generalizable here to rejection in a romantic relationship. Repeated exposure to the threat of the loss of love gradually increases the Rejected's ability to accept the ultimate loss. The loss of love, or of the Beloved, is as abhorent as self-inflicted death. Acceptance of that loss is equally unnatural. However, perhaps not logically or emotionally, but physically- the perceived loss is accomodated. The body comes to believe. The pain becomes less exquisite. The connection, rooted in the heart, is severed or uprooted. There is a numbness where there had so recently been every variety of sensation. All music stops.
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