[justasking]

Hello All

Everyone talks about rock bottom when the WAS is depressed. I understand they reach this when they have nothing else to lose and everything has failed.

When does it occur? Does it occur in replay, depression or withdrawal. If in replay is it after the awakening when they start to realise what they have lost?We know that depression fluctuates throughout the journey and at times it is more intense.

[Buggy31]

Great queston!  Ask myself this one a lot.  I would imagine, based on what I've read and one of the charts contained in RCR article that rock bottom is liminality.  The awakening would just cause them to end replay behaviors but the true work and reality is to be found in liminality when they must face what they've done.  THis is just my interpretation.  I don't have any experience with the depression stage of liminality.  Although I've seen  depression throughout and feel I've seen my H approach liminality and come close and then grasp onto replay again.  Interested what others will say.

[trusting]

If I were to guess what rock bottom was for my H, it was during depression and he seemed to hit more than once over a period of about three or four months or so.  He could barely put one foot in front of the other, seemed so totally unmotivated by much, looked terrible, etc.  It seemed to coincide with when I saw much of the replay behavior diminish.   But who really knows - I can only go one what I observed outwardly and the little bit he shared - maybe his true inward rock bottom is/was a different time.

[Trustandlove]

I remember a line from one of RCR's articles -- something to the effect of :

"Rock bottom isn't nice -- who would want to go there?  They may come close and then claw their way back up again, or even bounce on it several times".  That's seriously paraphrased, but it's the idea.

I've watched my H bounce, I think; he hit what I thought was rock bottom about 6 months in; I saw another big bounce 18 months in, then another 2 1/5 years in....  a bit of one at just under 3 years in, but that time I actually saw him bash it back.  Fight it. 

Sorry I don't have a good description to give; I think "real" rock bottom is when they see what they think, kind of like at the beginning of the crisis if that makes any sense, that "I have GOT to change this, or I'll lose everything". 

[OldPilot]

My guess is that the depression stage is a reaction to hitting rock bottom, which occurs at the end of replay.
What outwardly we see in depression stage looks like rock bottom but I believe it is the MLC'ers way of navigating out of the tunnel and up and out of the rock bottom. I must say that withdrawal is not exactly a pleasant stage either. FWIW.

[Trustandlove]

So on that basis, has mine hit it several times?  Does that mean that he has made decisions, even if I don't like them? 

[OldPilot]

So on that basis, has mine hit it several times?  Does that mean that he has made decisions, even if I don't like them?

NO T&L you do not know the decisions that he has made and will not until he breaks withdrawal.

[Mermaid]

T&L, has he stopped replay behaviours? Has he found a style of life he can live with, or is he still in denial?

If he is still in replay, deluding himself, or trying to find better solutions, he hasn't made any final decisions.

[Trustandlove]

Has he found a style of life he can live with?  Sometimes I think he has, then not.  He has a wonderful flat, a job he says he loves, and apparently a woman.   

But then I know he's still not completely happy, as he's said that "it would all be so much easier if he thought I had given up on him", and that he 'wants me to move on'.   

He does feel an obligation to provide for us, which he does, but it is also true that he can't bear to be thought of as the bad guy. 

He himself has said that the way things are is what has happened, rather than it having been a decision, meaning the children not coming for weekends at his any more.

I don't know if he is deluding himself, but I guess I sort of think that he is trying to find better solutions, or if not that, then thinking that "it will be better when _______" and fill in the blank depending on the topic:  better when x happens at work; better when his mother's house gets sold and there will be money for her care home (and he's planning on there being some left afterwards....); better when I "move on', better when something else. 

But this is gettting off the topic of rock bottom..... 

[ece711]

Just a wild guess...  but based on some alcoholics, and or drug addicts which I have spoken to, even the ones that were in and out of rehab, for them their description of hitting rock bottom is more like when they say to themselves "what am I doing to myself?", or "what have I done to myself?", "I've got to do something about this addiction!". (sort of like "realization").  I'm not sure if this is applicable to MLCers...  could be close though.  Something as simple as trying to quit smoking, sometimes not until they get sick is when a smoker will start saying the same things.