[JohnnyBravo]

These have been really interesting, Nas. Thank you for sharing. I hope you're hanging in there.

[Treasur]

Thank you for that, Nas. Never heard of that way of describing primary and secondary emotions but my goodness that makes a ton of sense.

I did know that about blocking on an iPhone but only bc I investigated blocking options years ago. Death threats tend to make you prioritise that kind of s$it lol.

But you’ve given us all two potential gifts right there bc both bits of info are probably going to be useful to someone. Or someones.

I did not remember those details about your father though. Maybe I forgot, maybe you couldn’t/didn’t share them. But I am so very sorry that all of that, big and small, was part of your life experience. No words really, just sorry (and a bit cross about the unfairness of things sometimes).

I have had patches of deep shame. For me, I think the primary emotion underneath is a kind of fear of the helplessness, almost a kind of despair that life is much more awful than I believed for my first 50 years and that I am so much less. Neither are comfortable....but the despair is like a terrible looming dark hole that I try very hard to avoid. Bc to me it colours everything as pointless. Like that Neitzsche quote about looking into the abyss and it looking back into you....

Thank you for the two gifts. I send you a perhaps pointless virtual hug in return   

[Nas]

Thanks, JB.
It’s crazy Treasur, my father is the only person I have ever blocked.
I have to say, when I scrolled down to the bottom of my voicemails, saw the “blocked messages,” clicked on it and saw a full page of “Dad” over and over and over, I felt that familiar freezing in place followed by involuntary shaking that I have felt many times in my life, including that night I came home, walked into the bedroom and saw my husband’s closet completely empty.


Virtual hug back at ya 🤗

And a bop
🎶 https://youtu.be/LQiOA7euaYA

My therapist is in for an interesting session next week for sure…

[Nas]

I did not remember those details about your father though. Maybe I forgot, maybe you couldn’t/didn’t share them.

I wanted to touch on this yesterday but I was overwhelmed (in general). Something else I read this morning reminded me of it and I’ll post an article link about it if I can find one. This is something I remember learning about after I got into therapy in my early 20s. Overexplaining can be a trauma response, but underexplaining or not sharing can be also.

An example of overexplaining trauma might be repeatedly retelling every single detail of my story, almost like “well if I keep telling you exactly what happened when I was a child and then what happened after BD and then what happened after I was diagnosed with cancer and then what happened when… Blah blah blah“ you will understand how deep my fear of abandonment goes, you will intuit all my needs and maybe just maybe you will care for me and/or won’t abandon me.”

But because being worthy in anything other than a transactional sense of what I could provide was always a foreign concept to me, I have always kind of tended to go much more in the opposite direction of not explaining at all, more like, “don’t tell anyone anything because if they knew everything about your life experiences, they might think you can’t take care of them and if you can’t take care of them you are worthless to them. You are not worthy of being taken care of emotionally or physically, so if you want anyone to stick around, you better present yourself as someone who has something to offer and who doesn’t need anything…”

Anyway, it’s hard to talk about these things - I kind of feel a bit like I’m naked in a town square. But I just think it’s an important reminder that there are things that lay very deep within and when we talk about MLC, there’s much, much deeper layers to the process beyond just “my spouse is in a tunnel, they have to walk through the tunnel, deal with their issues and come out the other side.” They do have to come out the other side, but there are so many things that they may have to deal with in order to do so, and they are deep things, they are not obvious things and they are not easy things. Very rarely if ever does a person simply wake up one day and say “I am simply going to change all of the things are so deeply rooted within my psyche…” I mean, first you have to identify what those things are and that is the step that many people never take.

Anyway I’m just unpicking an awful lot and that particular thing you said stood out because maybe it might resonate with some other LBS, or maybe some other LBS might think some of this rambling even describes their MLCer to one degree or another.

(As far as over/under-explaining, identifying that as part of a deeply rooted pattern is just one step. FWIW, I wrote more and am now cutting details from this post just before hitting “post” and I almost didn’t even hit post…It might sound like madness or it might help explain some things for others. Who knows?)

🎶 https://youtu.be/ePAv4vJS1FA

[Treasur]

I had no need for you to explain, Nas - hello naked girl in the town square from another lol - but thank you for doing so. That was really helpful and thought provoking.

[Nas]

Tips for distress tolerance:
https://healthaid.lemonaidhealth.com/anxiety/distress-tolerance/

“Many people wonder about the difference between stress and distress. Stress is a normal part of life, and the human body’s stress response system can be adaptive and helpful.

But distress is different. Distress occurs when you’re exposed to stress that is severe, prolonged, or both.”

🎶  https://youtu.be/IJFvSj6SYFY   🎶

[WHY]

Exercising 150 minutes per week for four months straight is equally effective as a prescription antidepressant

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430071/

[Zion]

Exercising 150 minutes per week for four months straight is equally effective as a prescription antidepressant

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430071/

I believe it!!!  In the 5.5 years since BD,  intense and consistent exercising made the bestest impact on my happiness level.

[Ready2Transform]

Agreed here too! 2022 was the game changer for me.

Yoga With Adriene on YouTube has just started the yearly 30-Day Yoga Journey for people at any point in the practice (including beginners). It's a gentle way to enter into a regular routine of movement for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene

[xyzcf]

I joined the Yoga with Adrienne 30 day Yoga Journey and it is quite lovely. I truly believe that yoga is one of the most important things we can do to calm our nervous system, relax, breath, increase strength and flexibility, improve our balance and a number of other beneficial things...30 min a day..it becomes a habit and can help with all the stressors we face every day in our lives and in our world.