[in it]

I agree with that Anjae...

 I read a phrase: the only way to heal a wound is stop touching it.

Rather simplistic and not easy to do.

And I agree Barbies posts are the most painful I have ever read.

Although the pain may never go entirely away, for me ( I have to add here not pain due to what the ex did, although he's the one that destroyed the family which devastated me almost 10 years ago now.) , it's learning to live with it, time passes and pain lessens, hearts and souls can heal. I've grieved the loss of quite a few things over the last few years. That marriage was not one of them.

We all are different and are going to heal at different rates, but I do believe there are ways we may keep ourselves stuck in that pain..it must be familiar somehow to some of us.

[Shining Star]

I think grief is very personal.  We all know people who rebounded fast and start a new life, even after dealing with a runaway spouse.  We also know people who never get through the betrayal and stay in the anger for the rest of their lives.  For me, I think I have healed as much as possible.  This is what I need to accept, not that he left.  I know we can't predict the future, but it is unlikely - no matter how my life turns out - that I will ever say this was a good thing.  I will never believe that the destruction of my family unit was necessary in order for me to grow personally - that the growth from the pain was positive to my life.  Lately, I feel that those around me are measuring my healing.  If I say I had a terrible marriage and thank goodness he is out of my life, then they think I am healed.  If not, I am still "broken" and shouldn't consider dating and re-building.  This type of scrutiny is difficult for me to process.

I did not have a terrible marriage and for many years his words and actions matched.  When it blew up, I was in total trauma and fight/flight mode.  In the end, I went NC to help myself.  I worked on myself, I learned to get in touch with my feelings, I did the best I could financially and recreating a home for myself.  I feel as if I have made great progress, but I feel so judged - by people who have no idea what we have been through.  Yes, it will be five years, and as I said earlier I still have the physical pain in the morning, force myself to start my day, and miss him terribly.  The nights are long as I don't have children living at home to keep me distracted.  Is it still about him or am I just lonely.  If or when I do decide to date, if I am lucky enough to find someone important, will that daily pain go away - maybe, but it won't dissolve 20+ years of life with him.  It will be different, and can be as good, but won't erase the marriage or how it ended.  I am not sure I am making sense tonight, but my point is that - in my humble opinion - we all have so much to deal with and it affects how fast we heal.  Issues from our childhood, the drama in the home before they leave, the damage they do to our self-esteem, financial implications, the breakup of the family, the death of dreams, the lonely nights and days, the loss of extended family and friends all play a role.  Barbie's H may be home but it doesn't change the fact that she must deal with these issues - things can't ever be the same because the marriage died.  My hope is that she and her H are able to find their way to a new life and a new marriage that is stronger than the original.  For any of us, no matter the length of time, the only thing we can do is to continue to work through the process - whatever that means for you.  For me, I need to accept that for the first time in my life I am depressed and anxious.  I am working with a doctor to find a medication to help me.  I also still need therapy.  I also found a life coach to help me identify my own goals since I am so lost and unable to figure it out for myself.  I still need certain friends that let me cry 5 yrs from BD and don't judge me.  Most do, so I have learned who to go too.  I know that when I am lonely and it is night time, I can come to the forum and read and not feel so alone.  I know that I need to do a better job of self care, which I assume will come with continued focus on the depression.  I know that I still need to work on not obsessing over him with the OW - to let it go.  I am still a work in progress, but I am not done.  I will rise from the ashes, and my success story may not be that he returned home, but that I found myself and created a wonderful life.  That is such a different thought than when I started years ago posting on this site.   We all just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other --- until we don't. 

[Anjae]

Hi, Shining.

Glad to know you are seeing a doctor to help you with the anxiety and depression. 

I will never believe that the destruction of my family unit was necessary in order for me to grow personally - that the growth from the pain was positive to my life.

I also don't believe that the destuction of the marriage/relationship that come with MLC was necessary for our personal growth. However, since it happened, it is possible to turn into possitive growth.

Saying we had a terrible marriage when we didn't does not make sense. Why would people think it equals being married? What happened had nothing to do with the marriage. It affected the marriage, but it does not pertain to the marriage. MLC belongs to the MLCer.

I know that I need to do a better job of self care, which I assume will come with continued focus on the depression. 

I hope you are able to further work on your self care and that the depression gets better.

[Anjae]

Posting it also here at Xyzcf request.

Thanks Anjae.

My therapist introduced me to this several months ago....it is amazing how in such a small chart, it has explained so many things to me...like why do I feel shame?

I wanted it posted here to refer back to. The goal is to spend as much time as possible in the green zone and there are many techniques you can use to "train" your body's responses to the reaction you have each time you are retraumatized.

http://rubyjowalker.com/PVchart7HD.jpg

[MyBrainIsBroken]

BD was June 29, 2014, so soon it will have been five years. I still don't understand how this could have happened. I've been on AD medication and in therapy for depression for more than four years. I'm surprised my health insurance continues to pay. I recently started learning in therapy how to connect with the broken parts inside me. The goal is to become stable enough to be able to do EMDR therapy. I still have a long way to go.

I still don't understand why I'm still alive but I continue to go through the motions every day. I don't expect that my life will ever get better. I continue to come here to read the forums because I am unable to connect with anyone in RL and the only person I can talk with in RL about how I feel is my therapist. It's hard to write about it on here but at least I can read other people's descriptions of how they feel which match how I feel and then I don't feel quite so alone.

[Milly]

Brain, I feel very much like you. My BD May 2014 so I'm also facing that daunting reality that it's 5 years and nothing has changed. I'm also on ADs and have been going to therapy for 4 years. I also have trouble really connecting with people in RL because I can't share this side of my life. They wouldn't understand.

I'm still in disbelief that this is where my life has ended up. My goal now is to reach a kind of acceptance. I suspect if I could find someone new and fall madly in love again, it would propel me forward. However, I doubt that the loss of 30 years will ever truly go away. There's not enough time to recreate another 30 years and this leaves me feeling bitter.

I would like to understand this chart better, I'm not getting it.

[xyzcf]

Hi Milly,

The chart helped me to understand my feelings, why after so many years I was still feeling so far from what I felt like before BD. Anxiety, depression, fear, shame. The right hand side of the chart explains what your body is doing when you are in these states.

Fight/flight is a protective mechanism that the body will go into when faced with danger. It is what allows a mother to run faster and scoop her child out of the road when a truck is almost going to run her child over....when people are suffering from PTSD, their bodies enter habitually into the fight flight mode....when a new trauma happens, it may not even seem very big to others, we can also go into a freeze mode. This happened to me when after 9 years, he divorced me out of the blue....I had an episode of dissociation which was frightening but if you look at "freeze" it actually is something that can happen.

Th goal is to be able to stay in the green zone, which is in all ways healthier for you. The therapist that I go to teaches me to be aware of how my body feels and ways that I can change that feeling to bring me back into a calmer place, a place where my body functions can continue in a normal rather than heightened way.

I hope that explains things a bit.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

I don't know how it's possible to recover when the person you have loved, trusted, and depended on for decades sudden and inexplicably rejects you and turns to somebody else. In an instant 36 years of my life became meaningless.

I also had a revelation during therapy similar to xyzcf's. When I was a child, my father was the only person I could count on yet he kept hurting me over and over. My therapist told me I'm experiencing the same thing now with my wife.

Thanks to everyone for sharing, especially Milly and xyzcf.

[Anjae]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/04/stress-anxiety-knees-weak-palms-sweaty

Quite an interesting article on stress, the many health problem long time stress causes and research on the matter.

«“The biggest single risk factor for depression is stress,” says Bullmore. Understanding better this connection could open up new opportunities for treatments targeting immune activity and could even make it possible to intervene before depression occurs in people at risk.»

The article also has an explanation on the role of the three stress hormones: adrenaline, cortisol, noradrenaline and its chemical formula.

Will put also put it on the neuroscience thread.

[xyzcf]

Very good article.