[Treasur]

It was good but I had slightly different feelings from you Treasur about Faith and her reactions.

I guess it is always worth remembering here that, even if some of our experiences seem to come from the same script, we are a sample of one, aren't we? All different people and sometimes our situations are quite different. Perhaps it spoke to me bc my then h did a lot of vanishing....actually that was my real BD....he went awol for 48 hours, just didn't come home, didn't answer his phone, didn't go to work. I had no idea if he was alive or dead. Even now, I have no idea where he was that week; he refused to talk about it when he did show up.

[Kimber]

Great thread and thank you for posting.

I agree that in these days and months days after you are in a very dangerous place both mentally and emotionally.

This board has helped me tremendously. It is a valuable resource and really helped me understand I wasn’t crazy, ready to be put out to pasture or just had failed very suddenly and miserably. I am very early in this but this board (and posts like this) hellp me make sense of it all and keep some perspective.

[New Day Rising]

Following along Treasur. I don't post here too often, but I always like to hear how you are getting on. We're on the same timeline for BD.
You are so right about putting your mental health first. I was too focused with the state of my ex's mental health, I didn't look at my own.

I hope your vaccination didn't cause you too much discomfort. I was poorly for a day or so, but it definitely is a small price to pay to be able to see your mum and uncle! Glad you are doing well.

[gman242]

Treasur, just saying hi! I haven't posted myself in a while because I do feel that you just need to let go and live sometimes and writing here can keep you focused on the MLC. Glad you're well! 

[Dumbfounded]

I spent the other evening catching up on your thread Treasur and then drifted off to sleep before I could post.  Due for another catch up session now.

In the months after BD, I was so focused on LB's strange behavior that my own mental health suffered terribly.  I was completely unaware of this.  My then HS mentor said to me one day - you have suffered a trauma and need to be good to yourself.  And the words took me aback - a trauma?  I was so deep in survival/victim mode that I had no idea that I, myself, had suffered a trauma and needed care.  After that I would tell myself that I had suffered a trauma, a great
and terrible loss, and needed to take care of myself.           

   

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing that, DF.
Yes, it is rather astonishing to realise that some of us do indeed experience PTSD or even perhaps C-PTSD in my case. (The difference is often described as including a loss of sense of self and being a function of multiple or layers of trauma https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder. I had all of these seven symptoms in varying degrees for at least a couple of years....)

I know that when I read some posts here, I can see the 'language' of PTSD in some posters; it is pretty easy to spot if you have experienced it. Not every LBS here has PTSD imho, although most have a period of anxiety and depression. But I feel strongly that PTSD is an insidious beast and prioritising treatment for it in front of any concerns about your marriage or MLC spouse is important....PTSD was way harder to recover from and damaged my life much more than my h disappearing in a puff of contemptuous smoke  And nothing my then h could have said or done could have magically repaired my PTSD once I had it.....although limiting contact helped me reduce the prospect of new trauma while I was trying to recover from the old ones 

And learning more about the mechanics of PTSD helped me get and accept that it was no more a failing of my character or strength or intelligence than getting cancer was or than being in a bad car accident would be. And that the right kind of treatment means you can recover from it even if it leaves a bit of residue occasionally. Which helped too  Living with a PTSD brain and a post-PTSD one is like chalk and cheese 

[Treasur]

I very rarely dream about my xh at all nowadays. Haven't for years. But I have had a couple of doozies lately. Not sure why  well, maybe just a bit of my brain discharging stuff like a waste chute or bc it is my xh's birthday soon so he may be unconsciously on my mind. Idk. Odd.

They are not nice dreams though  although I don't wake up distressed as I would have once done.

The common thread seems to be a feeling of being 'invaded' somehow, either by him or he and owife as a tag team, and a kind of frustrated distaste. Last night (in my dream)  my xh was sitting in my kitchen tapping on an iPad and I realised that MY iPad/iCloud was being filled up with a huge journal he was writing about his exploits and feelings  .....and I was scrambling around trying to find the password or techie solution to shut him out and get rid of it on my screen. While he was ignoring me, of course 
Guess you don't need to be some big dream reading guru to interpret that, do you?

I do find it sad....not gut-wrenching Sad, just normal sad....that he has become this kind of representative thing to me now after he used to be someone so different to me. Just feels like a sad wasteful strange thing really. But it makes sense that it should, so hey, I will celebrate the delights of no longer doubting my sanity. But even if i don't carry the dreams with me into my day, i don't like them much. Ha ha, maybe I just resent even his WTF presence in my head 

I see some stories recounted here about memory loss in MLCers. I was watching a tv documentary a few days ago (about the political run up to Brexit when Mr Cameron was PM) and I suddenly realised that there were a whole bunch of events from about the end of 2016-2018 that I simply don't hold a memory for. I kind of know they happened, if that makes sense, but I have no personal memory of them at all. Or not one that I can access. Strange feeling. I was ok with it but it was still a strange feeling. As if the chronology of ones own life had some gaps, I suppose. I assume that it was/is a PTSD thing. And to be fair, my life is not ruined by being unable to remember Mr Cameron resigning....or Mr Johnson's election or Mr Trump's inaugaration for that matter.  ...and there are plenty of painful things that I am grateful to not remember at all or only in a kind of distant observer way lol. I just thought it was worth sharing in case any other PTSD survivors have been surprised or upset by something similar....wouldn't be at all surprised if something similar affects MLC brains tbh.

On a nicer note, fully recovered from jab and it looks like my timing was fortunate bc it seems as if there are going to be supply issues over the next month or so. Yesterday I was working in the rain in one of my ladies' gardens...soft rain, quite nice....moving a young Cherry and a magnolia to make space for a pear tree to be espaliered in a fan shape today against a fence. And my client was full of excitement about it....isn't that nice? No idea how I have become this accidental gardener as a job but it does give joy right now to me and others and that feels like a good thing.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

I very rarely dream about my xh at all nowadays. Haven't for years. But I have had a couple of doozies lately. Not sure why  well, maybe just a bit of my brain discharging stuff like a waste chute or bc it is my xh's birthday soon so he may be unconsciously on my mind. Idk. Odd.

I still have dreams about my ex and since I have found how well melatonin works, my dreams are much more vivid than they ever were in the past. And yes, I think there is a lots about discharging things.

They are not nice dreams though  although I don't wake up distressed as I would have once done.

Same here, but in mine, I am mean to her. Intentionally mean if not downright cruel. It is so bad that after I say something to her, I feel bad about what I said.
I know that somewhere in my essence, I am still trying to resolve something, to accept and move one, but it still hasn't happened.

The common thread seems to be a feeling of being 'invaded' somehow, either by him or he and owife as a tag team, and a kind of frustrated distaste.

No OM for me, but there is a sense of being invaded, pursued....like, why is she here? There is a sense or feeling of doom, like her very presence is an omen.

On a nicer note, fully recovered from jab and it looks like my timing was fortunate bc it seems as if there are going to be supply issues over the next month or so.

I have one more shot next month and I will feel much better. It is nice to know that I have some level of protection and hopefully, I won't be able to spread it to others.

Yesterday I was working in the rain in one of my ladies' gardens...soft rain, quite nice....moving a young Cherry and a magnolia to make space for a pear tree to be espaliered in a fan shape today against a fence. And my client was full of excitement about it....isn't that nice? No idea how I have become this accidental gardener as a job but it does give joy right now to me and others and that feels like a good thing.

Yes, it is nice to hear how well you are doing.  Just know the  joy that you bring to others in the garden is only equal to or surpassed by the comfort and words of wisdom that you share with all of us on the forum.

Have a wonderful day,

(((((Ready)))))

[UrsaMajor]

Same here, but in mine, I am mean to her. Intentionally mean if not downright cruel. It is so bad that after I say something to her, I feel bad about what I said.
I know that somewhere in my essence, I am still trying to resolve something, to accept and move one, but it still hasn't happened.

oh boy... Do I know ALL bout those kids of dreams.... I had them regularly at the beginning... that invariably ended with me trying to chase her down and apologize so she wouldn't take my kids away from my (like xW1 did) ... along with lots of dreams involving tornadoes (seriously - real tornados like you see in films and TV or, if you are in the Mid-West, real life).... I had to go to time-release melatonin because the regular stuff was just brutal...

Thank goodness I haven't had anything like that in a couple of years now... It was quite enough while it lasted...

[Dumbfounded]

I am a vivid dreamer by nature and in the beginning my dreams of LB and MOO2 were nightly. Literally no rest for my poor tortured brain day or night in that first year after BD.  I can remember screaming at them so loudly in my dreams that it woke me up and my ears literally rang in the silence of my bedroom.   In one dream, we were all arguing on train platform.  A train pulled up and the doors opened and I shoved them both on to the train and the doors shut and the train sped away.   Or I would have dreams of LB and I doing something normal - riding in a car or on vacation and I feel so confused in the dream because LB was acting "normal".  I got to a point where sleeping was more upsetting than being awake and I would stay up as long as I could. I would  workout at the gym until I was just exhausted.  Then I found yoga. 

More recently I only dream of MOO2.  A few weeks back I dreamed that I was at a house - maybe MOO2's mother's or brother's house - but I didn't recognize it.  MOO2 and her whole family were there.  I was taking care of a baby - no idea whose baby it was but I was focused on my task and ignoring all of the other occupants of the house.  And MOO2 was wailing - everyone was trying their best to ignore her, covering their ears and staying out of the room she was in and her mother was bustling about the kitchen tisk, tisking her and telling her it was her own fault she was so unhappy.  I woke up feeling quite pleased that she was so unhappy.           

I also find that I have large chunks of lost memories from the first few years after BD.  Like my brain was just fried and could not process one more thing and I don't blame it.  I also found that as I started to recover I could see things I couldn't see before.  One day BFF and her daughter were over and I stated that the front room was a total mess - and BFF said DF it has been that way a while.  THAT was shocking... and I then began to find things in plain sight - pile of papers I was ignoring , the state of the garage, places that had just not been cleaned for some time.  A dead plant in the hallway that I walk by everyday.   All revealed themselves to me one by one as I felt more myself.  So odd.

Anyhoo, I have acquired a blueberry bush for myself and am just waiting for the weather to break so I can get out there and find it a home in my yard. I was able to bring the dead hallway plant back to life and it is doing quite well in my bedroom now.  It has become sort of a measure of how I am doing  - it has three blooms on it today - life is good.