Mend is an app and online community that serves as an online refuge for the brokenhearted and personal trainer.

Mend founder, Ellen Huerta, a former Google employee said it started after she went through an heartbreak.

“Mend started very organically after I went through a breakup,” she said.

“I had a lot of resources at my disposal — I had supportive friends and access to therapy — but I still was having such a hard time moving forward.”

According to her, she found sites offering breakup advice to be disappointing.

She said she set out to build a better digital experience where users could shake their feeling of helplessness and take action.

Mend started as a newsletter focused on recovering from heartbreak.

The company is now working with a tech company, Muckerlab who created it into an app.

In less than a year, the app has been downloaded in more than 100 countries, and many Mend users return for the supportive community.

“One of my personal missions is to erase the shame and taboo of heartbreak as something to just get over,” Huerta said.

She counsels the Mend community that it’s not just emotion that causes a wave of intense feelings, it’s also biology.

“It’s different for everyone,” Huerta said.

“But when you go through a separation with someone who you have been intimate with, your body can tell that there’s been a separation. You’re giving off hormones, and they are giving off hormones, over time you become addicted to that source of feel-good hormones.”

Azeez