[WHY]

Question for the vets:

If you could send ONE of Hearts Blessing’s articles to family, that would explain MLC in a nutshell, which piece of writing would you recommend?

A lot of them get religious and complicated and I suspect it will go right over a newbies head. 

Any ideas?  TY. 

[Nas]

I think I would first advise you to take a step back and be truly radically honest with yourself about why you feel the need to send an article to family in the first place. If you are trying to rally support, that support should simply come from the fact that you need support. They don’t need to know what you think is possibly going on with your wife, unless you are secretly hoping they will read it, completely buy into the idea of MLC as a diagnosable mental health disorder and try to intervene. If that’s the case, I see nothing good coming of that but the potential to go sideways is pretty high. More than likely, you will be disappointed that they don’t see the same things in your wife that you see. And even if they do, any intervention from them would likely push your wife away even further.

This is a really painful and really unfair thing that is happening, WHY, and I’m sorry it’s happening, but it is happening and it cannot be stopped. If your wife is in crisis, she needs to go through it on her own. The only thing you can do is accept the reality of what is happening now, live as if she’s not coming back, and if you choose to, keep hope for her healing and the possibility of reconnecting with her in the future.

[mcm64d]

WHY........I agree with NAS, but I will add on a separate note that nothing Heart's Blessing writes is in a nutshell. great writing, please do not misunderstand, but nothing close to being concise imo.

I like the following links myself, on top of content here and HB. They were helpful to me in early goings but only for ME and no one else associated with my marriage.Helped me whenever I felt a huge amount of guilt or responsibility for my circumstances. There is a lot of people on here that say it wouldn't matter what I have done, this would have happened anyway. I don't know I can ever think that, as I prefer to learn from my mistakes even if it means taking a little too much blame, as long as it makes me better.

Hoping these help.....big caution: I do not know what research or the credentials held by the authors..... big consideration should be paid to that in taking their words as truth.....


https://www.goodpsychology.net/blog/is-a-midlife-crisis-destroying-your-marriage
https://www.guystuffcounseling.com/counseling-men-blog/unraveling-the-confusing-stages-of-midlife-crisis

[Nas]

https://psyche.co/ideas/theres-a-reason-some-of-us-find-it-easier-to-change-than-others

“In the rare cases where an individual’s personality consistency changes, this likely reflects the influence of the environment (which usually increases stability) or stochastic factors (which reduce it). Thus, how stable you are is a byproduct of your own disposition (a quality you carry within yourself), your environment and the life experiences you’ve accumulated thus far. It is likely that all three processes co-exist within each individual’s life – but it is the certain combination of them and their influence on an individual that results in their own unique level of personality stability and the changes in it across time.”

🎶 https://youtu.be/sHPl35Sty10

[Nas]

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-face-uncertain-situations-and-embrace-opportunity

“Uncertainty is a universal human predicament: ‘the future’s not ours to see’, as a song once put it. While people often feel pretty certain about many things – including the sense that the rhythms of daily life will continue on as usual – each of us inevitably confronts situations in which the lack of certainty is obvious, and faces the displeasure of not knowing what will happen next.”

When I read this, I immediately thought this is kind of what happens at bomb drop. Most of us are just kind of chugging along in life, fairly certain about what our lives are and that they will continue as usual and then, boom, everything changes all at once.

BD shatters the illusion of certainty that we have fallen into during long marriages. We are certain that marriage is an unalterable state. We are certain that routines will stay in place, daily life will be somewhat predictable, joys will be shared, arguments will be resolved, decisions will be made jointly.

***

“It seems that people who have had bad past experiences – such as being abused in childhood, or feeling abandoned or not cared for – tend to be more pessimistic and respond more negatively to uncertain situations. By contrast, people who remember having a positive childhood tend to be more optimistic, and respond more positively to uncertain situations. The research suggests that a person’s long-term history can be temporarily counterbalanced by more recent events (eg, positive events might lead to a boost in optimism), but that one usually returns to the baseline level of optimism or pessimism.”

I think this is true because when something positive happens, it does open up the possibility for me to look more optimistically at a potential future of some sort. I would think that a sustained uptick in positive events would keep that optimism going, but as soon as life goes back to its baseline difficulty, optimism starts to fall away also.

But it’s interesting because in really looking honestly at the totality of my life, despite the trauma, I was not averse to uncertainty - it was all I really knew. I couldn’t even conceptualize anything else. But as long as I had a base level of stability, I’ve generally embraced some degree of uncertainty. My former H was rigid, unbending. I’m far from set in my ways; in fact, I’m very open to possibilities. I don’t need to know exactly what’s coming next. I like change, actually. I like to be surprised. I like being open to risks even if they don’t work out. But I also need to feel like whatever changes, I’ll have a safe place from which to either revel in the change or regroup from it. Call it controlled spontaneity, the ability to embrace change with the knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, total destruction isn’t imminent, you have what you need to recover. That doesn’t mean that when change occurs, you are unaffected. It means that the damage, the heartbreak, the loss, the grieving, they all still exist and they still have to be felt and processed, but they’re processed from a stable platform and, imo, have a real possibility of taking you to whole new places you never imagined, and that can eventually turn change from unwanted and scary to exciting and revelatory.

🎶 https://youtu.be/nXsZfu24MDs

[xyzcf]

This article on grief and loss specifically addresses the fight/flight/freeze response.....it is reassuring to me that the physiologial symptoms that follow trauma are recognized and is part of our body's coping mechanism...albeit not always helpful when they get turned on too long. She addresses triggers and how the brain processes things and gives practical suggestions as well as reinforcing what we know about exercising, yoga and other practices that bring the body to a more peaceful place. She also mentions how you cannot avoid the feelings that you have.

Although this was written from "the holidays" that we just went through, we have seen many here write about how difficult that is. The information pertains to  anytime as our loss and grief are very real all year round.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/29/health/grief-how-to-cope-wellness/index.html


End of the hour. A therapist's memoir by Megan Riordan Jarvis

"What happens when a trauma therapist is traumatized by loss? Esteemed trauma therapist Meghan Riordan Jarvis knew how to help her patients process grief. For nearly twenty years, Meghan expected that this clinical training would inoculate her against the effects of personal trauma. But when her father died after a year-long battle with cancer, followed by her mother’s unexpected passing while on their family vacation, she came undone. Thrown into a maelstrom of grief, with long-buried childhood tragedy rising to the surface, Meghan knew what she had to do―check herself into the same trauma facility to which she often sent her clients. In treatment, trading the therapist’s chair for the patient’s couch, Meghan took her first steps toward healing. A brave story of confronting life’s hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they’d ever get through it."

[Nas]

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-is-there-such-a-thing-as-true-love-but-not-true-grump

Maybe this is just my decidedly opposite of rose colored view of the world, but I think people’s capacity to lie to themselves is staggering. And so deep rooted they don’t even know they are doing it. So if a person can’t even admit to themselves that the emotion they feel is a projection or justification for something they really want to do, how can they actually process their emotions in an honest way?

This article has layers for me, and spurred some deep thoughts, but I’ll leave it here for you to read and get your own takeaways. IMO it’s very interesting to muse on…

🎶 https://youtu.be/aMnaa__JZbU

[xyzcf]

On another posters thread, a relatively new person to MLC, it was mentioned to try and recognize the moments that occur when you feel at peace. In recognizing them, they start to add up, indeed, you may be able to create such moments and as you become more aware of this feeling, start to right yourself through this storm.

A turning point for me was recognizing that I did not feel joy. I knew what joy was supposed to feel like, but I couldn't feel it..and I very much wanted to.

In today's yoga class, the teacher read the following poem which I think expresses how we can open ourselves to joy even when life in the midst of pain.

JOY CHOSE YOU

Joy does not arrive with a fanfare,
on a red carpet strewn with the flowers of a perfect life.

Joy sneaks in, as you pour a cup of coffee,
watching the sun hit your favourite tree, just right.

And you usher joy away,
because you are not ready for it.
Your house is not as it must be,
for such a distinguished guest.

But joy cares nothing for your messy home,
or your bank-balance,
or your waistline, you see.

Joy is supposed to slither through the cracks of your imperfect life,
that’s how joy works.

You cannot invite her, you can only be ready when she appears.

And hug her with meaning,

because in this very moment,

joy chose you.

By: Donna Ashworth

[FaithWalker]

Lovely poem XY.  It was wonderful when I discovered joy again, despite the pain and the hardships.  That's the thing about joy, as opposed to happiness.  Joy comes in spite of pain and sorrow.

[WHY]

I find this woman extremely in touch with components of MLC.  She covers limerance too.  It's mind blowing.

I feel that toxic shame is exactly what my W feels right now.  Maybe it was there in the past, but not all of it lines up and Im not certain.  But in replay, oh hell yes, it's clearly there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y47iJrbO2ug