Dear Friend,
Each month I sit down to write this letter with one simple intention — to share something honest, clinically grounded, and genuinely useful about what it means to be human right now. February has been on my mind. Valentine’s Day has a way of stirring things up in all of us, whether we welcome it or quietly dread its arrival. This month I wanted to explore that honestly — the post-Valentine’s crush, the unexpected slump, the longing, and the complexity that this particular time of year brings to so many of the people I work with. I hope something here resonates.
With warmth,
Olena
The Post-Valentine’s Slump Is Real — Here’s Why
If you’ve noticed a dip in mood over the past few days, there is genuine neurobiological reasoning behind it. Valentine’s Day, whether we engage with it or resist it, activates the brain’s reward circuitry. The anticipation of romantic connection — a message, a gesture, a date — releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with seeking and wanting. The actual experience of connection then triggers oxytocin and serotonin, the chemicals of bonding and wellbeing.
But dopamine is a curious thing. It spikes in anticipation far more powerfully than it sustains during the experience itself. Which means that the come-down after any emotionally charged event — Valentine’s Day included — is neurochemically predictable. The wanting was the high. The afterwards is the landing.
For those who found the day disappointing, this drop can feel sharper still. And for those who had a genuinely lovely time, there can be a quieter grief in returning to ordinary Tuesday life — the feeling that something bright has passed.
The Post-Valentine’s Crush: Why It Happens
Here is something that might surprise you: February is one of the most common times of year for people to develop new crushes or experience an intensification of existing romantic feelings — and it often happens after Valentine’s Day, not before.
Why? Several reasons, all of them deeply human.
Comparative longing.
Valentine’s Day holds up a mirror. If you’re in a relationship that feels stale or disconnected, the cultural emphasis on romance can quietly illuminate what’s missing. If you’re single, it can sharpen the outline of what you want. In both cases, emotional awareness rises — and with it, the tendency to notice people around you more acutely.
The contrast effect.
If the day itself was anticlimactic or painful, our minds often seek compensation. We become more attuned to warmth, to small kindnesses, to someone who laughs at the right moment. A crush can feel like emotional first aid — the psyche reaching towards hope.
Attachment activation.
For those with anxious attachment styles in particular, Valentine’s Day can activate core fears around lovability and belonging. In the aftermath, there is often a heightened drive to seek reassurance — sometimes from a partner, and sometimes in the exciting, uncomplicated territory of a new infatuation.
A crush, from a psychological perspective, is rarely just about the other person. It is a projection screen — we cast onto them what we most need to feel. Safety. Excitement. Being truly seen. Understanding what your crush is actually telling you about your own unmet needs can be one of the most illuminating pieces of self-knowledge you ever come across.
Why Some of Us Hate Valentine’s Day — And What That’s Really About
Let’s make space for this, because it matters. A significant proportion of people experience Valentine’s Day not as romantic celebration but as a kind of annual wound.
For those who have experienced loss — the end of a relationship, bereavement, estrangement — the 14th of February arrives as an unwanted anniversary of absence. For those who grew up in homes where love was conditional, inconsistent, or withheld, the cultural spectacle of romantic love can feel alien, even threatening.
For neurodivergent individuals — and this is something we understand deeply at London Trusted Therapy — the social performance required by Valentine’s Day can be particularly exhausting. The implicit scripts around what you should do, give, feel, and express can feel like a language you were never taught. The pressure to perform romance on a designated day, rather than expressing love in ways that feel authentic and natural to you, can create genuine distress.
And for those carrying unresolved grief or trauma in their relational history, February can bring a quiet but heavy sorrow that is hard to name. This is not weakness. This is what it looks like to carry a human heart.
Something New to Consider: The Rise of “Valentine’s Day Grief”
A growing body of clinical attention — and an increasing amount of honest conversation in therapy rooms — is being paid to what some practitioners are beginning to call Valentine’s Day Grief: a recognised emotional response that includes sadness, loneliness, anger, and disconnection specifically triggered by culturally romantic periods.
What makes this particularly interesting is who experiences it most acutely. Research consistently shows it is not only single people, but people in relationships — sometimes deeply committed ones — who report the sharpest distress around Valentine’s Day. Unmet expectations within partnerships, the gap between the relationship we have and the one we imagined, and the suppression of relational disappointment in order to “perform happiness” all contribute.
If this resonates, it may be worth gently asking yourself: not “why don’t I have what those people have?” but rather “what does this feeling want me to know about what I need?”
The Fascinating Science of Longing
There is something almost beautiful in the neuropsychology of romantic longing — even when it hurts. When we yearn for someone, the brain activates regions associated not only with reward but with motivation and goal-directed behaviour. Longing, in other words, is the brain’s way of mobilising us towards connection. It is not pathology. It is design.
The philosopher and psychoanalyst Esther Perel has written extensively about how desire requires distance — that the erotic imagination thrives not on certainty but on the space between people. This is partly why new crushes feel so electrically alive. There is still possibility. The story hasn’t been written yet.
But it is also why long-term relationships require conscious tending. When distance collapses entirely into domestic routine, when everything is known and nothing is anticipated, desire can quietly go underground. Valentine’s Day — stripped of its commercial excess — might actually be doing something useful in inviting couples to reintroduce a little mystery, a little deliberate attention, a little of that space in which longing can breathe.
A Fresh Perspective: Redefining Valentine’s Day
One of the most interesting cultural shifts of recent years is the growing, entirely sincere movement around redefining Valentine’s Day altogether. Galentine’s Day — the celebration of female friendship — reflects something important: that our deepest emotional nourishment does not only come from romantic partnership.
Attachment research supports this. Secure, warm friendships activate many of the same neurochemical pathways as romantic love. The oxytocin released during genuine laughter with a close friend is indistinguishable, biochemically, from that experienced in romantic intimacy. We have, as a culture, rather undersold the profound importance of platonic love to our mental health.
In our clinical work, we see this reflected clearly. People who maintain rich, honest, reciprocal friendships show markedly greater emotional resilience, faster recovery from relational trauma, and significantly lower rates of anxiety and depression. If your Valentine’s Day was quiet, and your friendships are alive, you may be richer than you think.
How to Be Kind to Yourself in the Post-Valentine’s Period
Notice the story you’re telling yourself.
Post-Valentine’s low mood is often accompanied by a particularly harsh inner narrative. “Everyone else has what I’m missing.” “I should be further along by now.” “If I were more lovable, things would be different.” These stories are not truth. They are the brain’s pattern-matching under emotional pressure. Noticing them — without trying to immediately silence them — is the first, essential step.
Tend to your body.
The mind-body connection in emotional regulation is not metaphor — it is physiology. February’s cold, grey light genuinely suppresses serotonin. Deliberate exposure to daylight, even on overcast days, makes a measurable difference to mood. Movement, warmth, and nourishing food are not indulgences right now. They are medicine.
Reconnect with people you actually like.
Not performatively — not the social obligations — but the ones with whom you feel genuinely yourself. Even a brief, honest conversation can shift the neurochemical landscape of a difficult day.
Sit with the longing rather than fleeing it.
This is perhaps the most counterintuitive but most clinically important suggestion. Romantic longing, grief, the ache of an unmet need — these feelings are not emergencies. They are information. When we stop running from them, they often have something specific and useful to say.
A Final Thought
At London Trusted Therapy, we believe that emotional life is not a problem to be solved but a landscape to be navigated — with curiosity, compassion, and support when needed. Valentine’s Day, in all its commercial imperfection, does at least do one genuinely valuable thing: it reminds us that connection matters. That we are wired for love — romantic, familial, platonic, and self-directed.
If this February has stirred something in you — a longing, a grief, a question about your relationships or your sense of self — that stirring is worth honouring. You don’t have to resolve it immediately. But you might consider bringing it gently into the light.
We are here if you’d like support in doing so.
Warmly,
Olena and the Team at London Trusted Therapy
