Start of a new thread on this glorious Sunday morning before Christmas. Still boggles my mind to think this time last year I was married, ready to re try starting a family, and preparing to spend the holidays with my W. We got married on Christmas eve so this is a rough one this year.
My story seems to be about to end, but yet just beginning. While my W has not wavered about us getting divorced, my real life is blooming in ways I never thought possible. At the end of this calendar year I am starting an adventure that will transition me into a new occupation, and a new way of living - the one that I've always yearned for but was unable to accomplish in my marriage.
Eleven month ago last weekend I thought I had lost everything, thanks to this board, and a willingness to dive into the unknown I can say with certainty that I've gained more than I knew was possible.
Cadet tells us that our WAW's have given us a gift. I argued this, fought against the idea, and dug my heels in the sand around it, not wanting to give my WAW any credit for her actions.
Today I will say that she gave me the greatest gift of my life, the opportunity to completely redesign it in the way that lets me express myself fully. There is no greater gift, so when you find yourself here, use your time wisely. You can do your time, or let the time do you, as they say. Reading threads you can see who's making what choice.
This board is also a gift, one I will be grateful for forever.
Enjoy your Sunday DB'ers, I hope you all find peace in the chaos.
PP & Woofie
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
PP I have often felt that endings and beginnings have similar feelings, there is the mix of excitement and rush but the sadness and trepidation of leaving things behind or letting go. I learning that holding to tight to either the past or the future makes transition between then - I guess the transition place is the now - less comfortable. You have made that transition look a lot less scary and slightly more attractive for me.
PP have done a amazing work in your time here, presented your humanity with great integrity and vulnerability. This was a lovely post to read. You have an ability to simplify DBing concepts for new comers in such a way that is so very kind but on point, empathic but real. I did not realise this was an anniversary time for you. I know that you will take care of you because you know how. Please know you will be very much in my thoughts this week and of this week ending.
PP. you da man !!!!!!!!!!! You have thanked me before for my support and it wasn't deserved. You have overcome huge hurdles that some guys are never able to
You struggled with the DBing at the start but man have you cracked it now.
Let's see how things go with W because I sense change
Your a good man and Im proud to be an online bud.
Your an inspiration to all.
Take care , Rd. xxxx. (. I know , I know but it feels right !!!!!)
You wrote: "Last time she informed me that one of her hesitations around reconciliation was that I was so underdeveloped in the personal development arena, and she was so advanced that we would go back to being a mismatch"
Hemingway wrote: There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.
PigPen there may be a mismatch, but it's not because you're underdeveloped.
Thanks every one for your kind responses. Even a drop in by Sandi!
Sandi I've read everything you've written on here and gained much inspiration from it, thank you for all of the work you do.
Of course, without fail, as soon as I had posted my new thread the Universe reached out to test me. I got a phone call letting me know that one of my longstanding clients was in the ER with abdominal pain, so I went in to lend her some support.
She just happened (thanks Universe) to be in the room next to where I spent two evenings with my STXW when after our miscarriage. Walking into the ER was like getting punched in the stomach.
My client ended up getting admitted and a few of us walked with her as she was wheeled to her room, and of course, we had to go right through the women's center that my STXW and I toured when we first found out she was pregnant. It was all I could do to remain sane.
I kept having to tell myself to take deep breaths and that it wasn't about me, it was about being present for my client. But my goodness do I not want to repeat that process or back to that ER ever again as my STXW was on my mind for the rest of the day no matter how many times I stopped and made myself breath nor how many of the "return to being present" tricks I tried on myself. She just dominated my thoughts.
I'm curious if it takes a replacement set of thoughts and memories to make these go away, or if in time I'll be able to look at the experience of being married to her, living with her, and our ups and downs as something positive and not heart wrenching.
Right now I feel like I've dissociated from any past with my STXW, I pretend that it never existed and then get reminders like this to shatter that protective thought pattern.
That was Sunday, here's to a new week for us all.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
I think its just a matter of appreciating what we have now and giving ourselves time to heal. Realizing that part of your life, while painful to remember right now, was a stepping stone to who you are now.
I can relate on the hospital, I know exactly that feeling. Just a couple weeks back I had to to go see W and S3 after she took him to the ER for pneumonia. All the feelings and pain came flooding back from the last time we took him to the ER, 2-3 weeks after BD. I remember sitting in that room with a cold woman who wanted nothing to do with me, texting OM for hours straight. Several hours into it we ended up having R talk, I remember staring off into the distance thinking the M really was all over, staring through the wall in a trance and thinking my life was over also.
I get other similiar reminders of the pain seeing her a couple times a week, swapping our two vehicles back and forth, her being in my apartment once or twice a week or me being in her house. Some of it does lose its power as time goes by. I think that's why I believe it's just a process of mourning the loss and living the life we have now. Seeing those memories as apart of our life story.
Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be
There is an NLP technique that can help. It's called context reframing. In this case you are associating the bad memory with the hospital. A tendency to phobia response, now you have a second association with your client which can want you to avoid the hospital. This probably isn't useful. This isn't to stop you feeling about the miscarriage, it's main aim is to stop your fear about the hospital.
You could try a dissociation technique. I was learning this to dissociate from the PTSD memories. You may need a therapist but you can do this in a mirror or by recording it. The visit to the hospital with your client is the one to try first I think.
I used this technique by Bandler because my flashbacks in the big house were leading me to trigger in certain rooms where I was abused, and in supermarkets in front of the cold shelves. I was beginning to fear breaking down in public and had started to avoid some supermarkets altogether. I still have memories of the apple juice rant and my supermarket breakdown and I don't have to avoid certain aisles in supermarkets and I can go into my linen room. I can sit in my tv lounge and sleep in the MBR. I often have to put borders around the film and I turn WH into a cartoon baby. I turn off the sound in the film and sometimes give WH a sqeaky funny voice, like a helium balloon. If you would like I can find the links in my thread to the abuse event, the supermarket breakdown and the facing the supermarket. Took me three visits before I could go down breakdown aisle.
Anc if you are reading this was one of my crazy town moments. I lost physical control too. When this happens I find a disabled loos very quickly. I get very anxious indeed. -------------------------------------
Think of the unpleasant memory of the hospital and relive the traumatic feelings just enough so that you can observe yourself and know when it's too much.
Recognizing YOUR reaction to the fear state will enable you to back off if it comes up. It's called calibrating and sometimes the fear is less than at other times, normalise by having a coffee or listening to music for 10 minutes.
Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in a film theater viewing a large screen with a still black and white snapshot of you making coffee or cutting your toe nails (doing something emotionally neutral).
See yourself leaving your body from your seat in the theatre to float or walk up to the theater projection booth until you are safely behind the glass in the project toon booth. In a very detached manner, you can view you sitting at a distance in the audience looking up at the picture of you on the screen.
Stay in the projection booth to run a black and white film of the events at the hospital just as it actually happened. Run the film from beginning to end while watching you in the audience looking up at the film fully engrossed in the negative event. Turn off the sound, you can't hear it in the booth.
Stop if you feel too afraid. However, you are likely to remain resourceful because you are in the position of a disassociated observer in the project toon room (so called fly on the wall position or third position).
Once you get to the end of the film of the hospital visit and the traumatic event is completely over, stop the film in the projection booth so that there is another still neutral picture on the screen. You making coffee, safely at home.
Floating out of the projection booth and out of the audience up to the screen to enter into the final scene of the movie where everything is safe and the event has ended.
Turn on the color. Then run the film backwards very fast in your mind. Super rewind like a DVD player or sky recording on a disk. Rewind very fast in 2 seconds the whole film.
Think about facing the situation in the future or recall the past event and it doesn't seem to have the same effect or you don't really have any feelings about being in the hospital anymore.. The experience has been reframed and the traumatic emotions neutralized.
I can now go to supermarkets!
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
I think its just a matter of appreciating what we have now and giving ourselves time to heal. Realizing that part of your life, while painful to remember right now, was a stepping stone to who you are now.
I can relate on the hospital, I know exactly that feeling. Just a couple weeks back I had to to go see W and S3 after she took him to the ER for pneumonia. All the feelings and pain came flooding back from the last time we took him to the ER, 2-3 weeks after BD. I remember sitting in that room with a cold woman who wanted nothing to do with me, texting OM for hours straight. Several hours into it we ended up having R talk, I remember staring off into the distance thinking the M really was all over, staring through the wall in a trance and thinking my life was over also.
I get other similiar reminders of the pain seeing her a couple times a week, swapping our two vehicles back and forth, her being in my apartment once or twice a week or me being in her house. Some of it does lose its power as time goes by. I think that's why I believe it's just a process of mourning the loss and living the life we have now. Seeing those memories as apart of our life story.
Thanks Fogg, I know you get the particulars of this as you've lived through it too. I know that the next time (knock on wood it never happens) that I have go to to the ER it will be easier as it won't be my first time since the miscarriage. Then it won't be the second time, then it won't be the third. Then I need to figure out what's wrong in my life that's sending me to the ER so often!
Time does heal all of this, and just like being around restaurants and people that remind me of my W, the hospital is one more place where I need to go and get the part of me that's missing back.
Appreciate your thoughts.
PP
M 39 W 36 T5 M3 BD - 1/15 Separated - Same Day Served 9/15 D finalized 6/17
