[xyzcf]

I read this today and thought about how much pressure we put on ourselves. I have memories, dreams, interactions that are a part of me, and will be forever. Healing means we live with those memories and do not let them destroy us.

"Healing doesn't happen instantly; it's gradual.
There is so much pressure to magically let go and forget, but the journey of moving beyond what
you've known isn't so clear-cut.
There will be days when you remember even when you don't necessarily want to.
Having the memory doesn't mean you're unhealed.
A lived experience sticks with you long after it's over."

Omar Hachem

[Treasur]

This letter to the Daily Mail is a useful reminder perhaps that other people might be just as bewildered as the LBS https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12026341/BEL-MOONEY-son-hes-hurting-everyone.html

It’s pretty textbook, isn’t it? A terminally ill father, abandoned young children, a bewildered LBS, a distraught mother, debt and chaos and an MLCer tripping off into his magic happy with an OW co-worker who seems to have replaced her deceased husband in 2 months, all without seeming to care at all about the distress he has caused to at least half a dozen people.

The advice given to the mother is tbh the kind of advice that ore BD I would have agreed with. What I found interesting now is seeing that my first reaction would be quite different. Now, I believe that you just can’t reach through this level of self-centred entitlement, whatever the reason for it. And that, as Dr George Simon’s says in talking about dealing with disordered folks like this, it isn’t that they can’t see as the letter writer says, it’s that they disagree that someone else’s pleas are relevant to them.

Tbh my advice now would be much more like it is here....to dig deep to accept that this IS the kind of person you are now dealing with (for whatever reasons), to detach emotionally from them hard until or unless that changes in a big way and for everyone affected to limit their contact with him while focusing their energies consistently on their own needs and the family unit he chose to hurt, devalue and leave.

But it is a useful reminder for some of us that some of the MLCers family may be just as bewildered and flailing around on what to do as we LBS feel. We may not like or agree with the choices they make in how they respond to it, that’s true, but these folks explode a bomb in lots of peoples lives, don’t they, not just the LBS?

[Nas]

"Whose reality is more valid?  The individuals on the outside who can see the forest, but not necessarily the trees. Or the person living the experience who can see the trees, but is blind to the forest?"

https://www.differentfunctional.com/blog/the-i-cant-attitude-realism-manipulation-or-something-else

You might see a bit of yourself in this, or your MLCer, or your child, etcetera etcetera...
In any event, interesting food for thought....

https://youtu.be/ZFnEhwmpjXI

[Nas]

I could write an entire 15-page thread of commentary on this, and then probably another whole thread. If I tried to quote here all the things that stopped me in my tracks, I'd essentially be copy/pasting 3/4 of the article. So instead I'll let y'all read and find your own takeaways, if you're so inclined.

Some parts of it resonated for myself and parts of my life pre-meeting my former husband, parts of my life with him, parts of my life post-BD, some of it (throughout, but especially in the 11 "red flags"...shame? narcissism of trauma? fantasy bonds and escape fantasies? Yeah...) described my former H and a few other people in my world in a way that encouraged a different perspective on certain things, and some other parts of it was just really interesting and thought provoking:

https://emdrtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/The-Death-File.pdf
(If you can’t open this link, you can also find it by googling “The Death File in EMDR Processing” by P. Wilensky.

This line in particular made me think of my former husband:
They “hide in plain sight” while pretending to be equally emotionally involved in the relationship.

Anyway, as lengthy as it is, it’s quite an insightful read on many levels.

https://youtu.be/-OO9LloDSJo

[WHY]

https://www.psypost.org/2023/05/a-vicious-cycle-of-sedentary-behavior-and-depression-may-occur-within-romantic-relationships-162706

[Nas]

Five Ways to Take Control of Your Psychological Triggers – I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN
https://www.icfyb.com/four-ways-to-take-control-of-your-psychological-triggers/

Having had to work through a trigger this week (trigger with a small t, not Trigger with a big T), I became aware how far I’ve come in actually being able to identify my feelings, which doesn’t sound like it should be celebrated as a big huge “get me a damn cake” accomplishment, but for me, and especially for the me who has “existed” for the past five or six years, it sort of is.
Labeling my emotions without judgment is not something I excel at, but I continue to do the work.


Frontiers | The AIP Model of EMDR Therapy and Pathogenic Memories
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01578/full

Reading about triggers led me down the rabbit hole of AIP, adaptive information processing, which “hypothesizes that when a memory is encoded in such excitatory, state-specific form, the original perceptions can be triggered by a variety of internal and external stimuli. In the view of the AIP model dysfunctionally stored memories form the basis for future maladaptive responses, because perceptions of current situations are automatically linked with associated memory networks of these unprocessed, dysfunctionally stored memories. For instance childhood experiences also may be encoded with survival mechanisms and include feelings of danger that are inappropriate for adults. “

“These memories lack the feeling of remembering, as described by Barry as memories without “memory awareness” (Barry et al., 2006). This contributes to the lively, actual experience, and sometimes makes it difficult to connect symptoms to the memories behind them.”

(Memories without memory awareness feels like the phrase I’ve always been searching for.)

This all makes me think of my internalized reactions to the little t triggers and the big T Triggers and all caps HOLY F%#K TRIGGERS, and my former husband and his lashing out abusively and burning it all to the ground in response in part to what I assume were his triggers. It makes me think of my sister-in-law who is currently seeming to be doing a step by step acting out of the literal “how to have the perfect MLC” handbook.

Things have been kind of extra difficult in my teeny little world lately and there’s been moments of real “no way out” darkness. Here and there, I’ve been watching my sister-in-law with a mix of compassion and disgust. Not as much compassion as maybe I should have, more disgust than maybe a compassionate person should have. She has truly every resource at her disposal, yet she still chooses destruction at every turn. Same old story. I’ve been on several scenic tours of hell and think I’d still prefer it to an MLC. But f@!k, the work is hard. I can see why people avoid it.

And of course, a song:
🎶 https://youtu.be/fhnrrLxQEVQ 🎶

[xyzcf]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2023/birds-song-nature-mental-health-benefits/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f005

Interesting how listening to birds singing can affect our levels of anxiety and depression. Sometimes we forget the small things that can make a difference in how we are feeling.

[Treasur]

Just been talking to a coaching client about the polyvagal nerve this morning and it reminded me of this article https://ct.counseling.org/2016/06/polyvagal-theory-practice/# which seems to be to be a pretty good way of breaking the theory down into something you might use

[Nas]

Good basic information on hypervigilance.
(I have wondered at times if some MLCer's behavior is sometimes hypervigilance. Even people - myself included - who haven't seemed to lived their entire adult lives being obviously/constantly hypervigilant can be triggered to become more so in the 'right' circumstances.)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fixing-families/202105/are-you-hypervigilant

Enjoy:
https://youtu.be/Hu0-4XCT3H4

[Nas]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inviting-monkey-tea/201902/accepting-reality-feels-unacceptable

"When we can say I accept that this is the way it is—even if I hate it and don’t know what to do about it—then we can at least be in the truth, which ultimately, is the most empowering, brave, and self-loving place from which to create our life."

I think the above statement is helpful when trying to gain one's footing after BD or settling into a new post-BD "normal."
For me in the year after BD, acceptance propelled me forward and empowered me.  I was creating a new life and to do so, I had to accept that the things I had previously put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into creating were gone and I wasn't okay with it but I accepted that it was reality.  (For what I'm facing in life now (unrelated to MLC), it's trite and frustrating and makes me eye roll, so I get it if anyone reads it and feels the same - at first.  But it's important to look past the "feeling" that all is forever lost and really look at your situation and separate what you feel is lost vs what you still have and how you can turn that into something that helps you first stand back up, then move forward, and hopefully eventually thrive.

https://youtu.be/-JDo_xGED0M