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after just a few days, I'm hurting again... .  that's more, I feel like an addict: I need him, I need to see him, to touch him, to talk to him. And I can't... .  I'm going crazy. I'm not sure which stage it was the one which gave me a week or so of relief, after two weeks of despair, bursting into cry every ten minutes. Perhaps it was some sort of denial, or bargaining, I don't know, but now I feel as if I'm starving without him. And I'm not sure about this stage either... .  

Hi Billa,

You are stronger than this... .  go out for a walk or talk to your friends\family... .  try distracting yourself from the thoughts of him... .  I know exactly how you feel - mixture of anxiousness and restlessness but it will pass... .  i have been talking to myself and pushing myself to stay strong and i am not weak... .  don't fall prey to your feelings... .  

We in this community are here for you ... .  you can do this... .  |iiii 

thank you, Crystalclear  :)

I feel exactly the same. Exactly. You are not alone. He called my ex husband last week to ask about me and it has been all I'm clinging to.

Hi Billa!

That is one of the worst feelings, but it WILL pass.  This may sound silly, but think of it like you're on a diet, or think about something that you know is really bad for you, and begin to associate all of the negative feelings you have towards that thing with your ex.

Let's say you're cutting out donuts because you're dieting.  Yeah, they're good and you want one.  But then you remind yourself that animal fat is used to make them, they're fattening and they're just bad for you period.  If you have one it'll ruin all of the progress you've made thus far.  Your ex is a big, yucky donut filled with animal fat.  You don't need him!

Maybe I could've chosen something more disgusting, but yeah.  I hope this helps a little.  Here's another tip for you:  as each day passes, it becomes more and more real that this thing is finally over.  Eventually you get used to waking up and not talking to him, and then you stop expecting to hear anything.  I know that seems like a long ways away, but you'll get there.  Feel free to message me if you need to talk.

Best,

Sango 

Hey Billa ... .  here's advice from a long-term survivor of the state you're in now (I had it bad originally, as you'd see from my initial posts, and then had 10 long months of NC while I knew he was seeing someone else, and that didn't make it better, and then I started a friendship with him which temporarily made it better because we had a lot of contact and I was getting those pleasure centers hit frequently, but at the price of depending on the contact to feel good ... .  he's gone now, that's another story, but I've been back in complete "withdrawal" for 2+ months now).

For me, that craving actually was something I held onto and didn't/don't want to let go of because was my last tie to him.  Does that make sense?  On days when I'm strong & really do want to not feel that way, I know what to do.  If you want to get rid of that feeling and really separate from it for a bit, here's what to do.

It really works to allow yourself to be absorbed in something else.  Like a good book.  I still almost don't let myself read because it takes me away from thinking about him.  But if I do let myself read, it takes me away from thinking about him -- it works!  The trick is to allow yourself to be re-directed.  When I become aware that I myself am resisting my conscious efforts to feel better, I realize some firmness about "hey now, I actually AM going to stop thinking about this for a little bit" is required to get past my actual secret desire to keep thinking about him.

On the days when I do read, clean, talk with other friends, do laundry, work hard, whatever, I absolutely do feel better and I do feel a reduction in that addicted craving feeling.  But when people would give that advice about "what are you doing for yourself?" I would resent it because secretly I didn't want to do anything but be connected with him in my thoughts.

So then, here's my trick for that.  You can assure yourself, because it's true, that absolutely nothing is going to get worse if you take a break from it for an hour, or 10 hours, or a day ... .  or a week.  The only possible thing that might happen is that it might get better.  Any interactions you might possibly have with him would go better (no matter how you define that) the stronger and happier you are by that point.  The opposite would be true if you were to reach out in a position of need and weakness.  Even better of course, you might not want him anymore.  But the point is, no matter how you define success, whether he's part of that picture or not, things get better when you step away from this obsessive focus.  The trick is to let yourself take a vacation.  You lose nothing by doing it.

Patientandclear,

This is the second post today of yours that has really struck me.  Thanks for this.  This is very interesting and has helped me too.

Patientandclear, I see this in myself so strongly.  Been thinking about him almost with every waking thought.  It is like an addiction.  It is the last tie, since he's not here physically. 

Something weird I learned concerning energy:  If you're thinking about your ex, he often doesn't end up missing you, or feeling the pain of his loss of you - because you're still sending him energy through your thoughts.  I know not everyone will believe this, and the goal is not to disappear him from your thoughts so that he'll start missing you.  But how I think of it is that with all this excessive thinking about him, I'm really only energizing his life, and neglecting my own.  My laundry ends up not getting done, my bills end up not getting paid, etc... .  but he's receiving the energy of my thoughts.  Just another way that I hold on to him with one hand, and chose to make him more important than my own life with the other hand.

I look forward to the day when I take my life, my thoughts and my emotions back 100%, from someone who doesn't want them anymore anyway.

Yep totally agree!

Hey Billa, Like any addiction, it is hard to kick but take it from me that a relationship with a pwBPD can be just as devastating emotionally, physically and financially as any drug addiction.  So maybe you can look at it as something you need to go through to get to that serene and happy place.  Hang in there, LJ

it's so painful for all of us and, stunningly, in most cases, we passed and are passing through the same experiences, it seems that peple with BPD are sort of computer-programmed... .