Imho it IS a trauma response probably.
And the good thing about that is that it is like a coat you are temporarily wearing.,,,it doesn’t define who you are or will be. But traumatised brains throw up some weird stuff, so forewarned is forearmed and gently slowing your roll is perfect for traumatised brains.
There is something strangely familiar about my trauma response. And it is really scary to look at.
It actually throws me back to my childhood in which I was fighting for my mother's love, or at least: visible/tangible signs of her love for me. She was emotionally quite unavailable, she was too young to be a mother, and my father was away all the time to provide for us.
I remember this horrible feeling of not being sure I was loved and I don't have any memories about how I acted when I felt this uncertainty, but I can imagine myself crying and pleading in a way babies do when they feel distressed.
My parents recently told me that I was a quiet and "nice" kid. But that was after being a baby. I feel like I was hanging on an emotional thread when I was a baby and by the time I was a toddler or young child, I already had coping mechanisms in place as I understood very early on that by being the quiet, non-demanding kid, I could get something from my mother. I feel like my mother was overwhelmed since the day she found out about the pregnancy.
Now, with my MLCer, I have this same dynamic. When there are no visible/tangible signs of his love for me, there's a buildup inside of me, and with the next trigger, it explodes! I become that baby who can only express through crying, and there are different ways of crying: sadness and distress. But as an adult, of course, through my crying in distress, the cry becomes lashing out in anger with words. I'm not a baby anymore, but emotionally, it feels like that.
I often have recurring dreams of not being heard and seen when I'm distressed. Throughout my life, I have failed quite a lot in having people around me understand that I'm distressed or in stress. It's like I always have to repeat myself (and then being called a "nag" or "party pooper"). I know how it feels when you have to deal with being distressed all by yourself even when around other people.
I can see that I always surrounded myself with mostly emotionally unavailable people. Even when there were emotionally available people around, I would focus on those who were not, like only those who existed and needed to hear/see me.
I lost friendships because I couldn't see what I did have, and people just stopped trying after a while.
Not to say that my husband stopped trying, no, he is one of the emotionally unavailable people in my life in that sense that I was there for him emotionally, always, but when I needed emotional support from him, he didn't seem to have a way to deal with that. Even when I was sick, it was like he was irritated with me, like I was doing it on purpose. At least, my mother would care for me when I was sick, like I would care for my H when he was sick, but he couldn't do the same for me.
The interesting thing is that I learned to regulate my emotions and nervous system in the past years because I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder back in 2014 and have had years of therapy and work on myself, shadow work even, since then. Before BD, I felt very confident about taking care of myself emotionally, while my H seemed to be the one who was struggling, but he didn't allow me to help (after BD, he told me that he was scared of my inner strength, by the way).
I think we became emotionally incompatible and BD was the wake-up call I needed to understand that I deserve someone who is able to be emotionally open with me. I don't know if my H will ever be. It's not that he really was before this all happened.
Having almost NC for a little while and now this huge trigger with my FIL helps me realize that it's better for me to just let go of all those people who don't fit into my life anymore because I've changed. I need to focus on the present and future instead of holding on to the past that isn't fitting for me anymore.
My R with my H gave me the space to transform from a victim of CEN into an emotionally mature and thriving person. I was at a high before BD when it came to my self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Even though my H was sliding into that depression, emotionally, it was my best year so far.
Of course, BD was traumatic... And grieving for a 23-year relationship is not an easy thing to do.
But what if this is actually the best thing that could happen to me right now? I more and more see that it was inevitable. And the question is if my H and I will ever reconcile because... will he ever be the man that I need/deserve?
In the first months after BD, it was impossible to think about not reconciling. I really needed the whole MLC concept/theory to get through these first months. But now... I don't know. He just doesn't seem to be the man who could ever be emotionally open enough for me so that we could both thrive together. It might be so that he needs other things now, because I've grown into a person who's just not right for him anymore, and I cannot compromise what I've gained within myself. I cannot lower the bar or go back to where he felt "safe" with me.
I need to get through this... the trauma, the grieving process... and I need to let go of my CEN trauma from the past, which I was in the process of doing. I need to let go of the H I knew because it's no longer fitting for me. We would make each other miserable if we tried. And I can't see my H changing into the man I need and deserve. Maybe, someday, who knows, but maybe it is more realistic to just let go and after I healed from this ordeal, to open myself up to a man who's more my equal in this equation.
If I hold on or go back, I'll just attract more of the same misery. And I'm done with that now. I really am.
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Me & my MLC man