Emotional timeline therapy

[Depression = 72% of members]

I'm not pushing any book or website, but rather want to share with you all something that greatly helped me yesterday in T.  I'm about 70 days out of a 3+ year r/s I ended with my uBPD/NPD ex gf.  I'll spare the background since many of you may have read my previous posts.  I've been doing individual T for the past 2 years with great personal growth.  I credit my T for helping me see the destructive emotional abuse I was enduring and to help me gain the strength to finally cut the cord.  She was the first couple's T we went to and the only one of the 3 that saw through the smoke and mirrors of my ex gf.  My ex started to see her individually, but quit saying she didn't feel safe.  It was all about my ex refusing to face the pain and fear inside, which basically sealed the fate of our r/s.

The last 70 days have been a roller coaster of ups and downs, and the feelings that I was having during the last weekend had me feeling confused, anxious and down.  I had a regular bi-weekly session with my T yesterday.  My T could see that I was holding on to some things from the last couple confrontations with my ex.  We clearly identified three things that were all forms of emotional abuse and/or passive aggressive behavior.  She then used emotional timeline therapy to help me visualize the abuse, color the episodes (we used colored rocks), locate them around my being, reduce them to very small black and white snapshots and then move them behind me.  That is symbolic of where the incidents really happened in my emotional timeline - behind me.  I cried a lot yesterday in the session, more than any T session I've ever participated in.  I could feel the letting go of the emotions and pain attached to the r/s and abuse, and move to living in the present with the r/s and abuse behind me.  It may sound too simple, but all I can say is that I slept well last night for the first time in weeks.  I awoke not feeling anxious.  There is still work to be done, but WOW, what a difference yesterday made for me.

Anyone holding back from using T to help in your recovery, I can only give you my testimony that it does really work. And, the use of emotional timeline therapy was really helpful for me!

[Madison66]

I'm not pushing any book or website, but rather want to share with you all something that greatly helped me yesterday in T.  I'm about 70 days out of a 3+ year r/s I ended with my uBPD/NPD ex gf.  I'll spare the background since many of you may have read my previous posts.  I've been doing individual T for the past 2 years with great personal growth.  I credit my T for helping me see the destructive emotional abuse I was enduring and to help me gain the strength to finally cut the cord.  She was the first couple's T we went to and the only one of the 3 that saw through the smoke and mirrors of my ex gf.  My ex started to see her individually, but quit saying she didn't feel safe.  It was all about my ex refusing to face the pain and fear inside, which basically sealed the fate of our r/s.

The last 70 days have been a roller coaster of ups and downs, and the feelings that I was having during the last weekend had me feeling confused, anxious and down.  I had a regular bi-weekly session with my T yesterday.  My T could see that I was holding on to some things from the last couple confrontations with my ex.  We clearly identified three things that were all forms of emotional abuse and/or passive aggressive behavior.  She then used emotional timeline therapy to help me visualize the abuse, color the episodes (we used colored rocks), locate them around my being, reduce them to very small black and white snapshots and then move them behind me.  That is symbolic of where the incidents really happened in my emotional timeline - behind me.  I cried a lot yesterday in the session, more than any T session I've ever participated in.  I could feel the letting go of the emotions and pain attached to the r/s and abuse, and move to living in the present with the r/s and abuse behind me.  It may sound too simple, but all I can say is that I slept well last night for the first time in weeks.  I awoke not feeling anxious.  There is still work to be done, but WOW, what a difference yesterday made for me.

Anyone holding back from using T to help in your recovery, I can only give you my testimony that it does really work. And, the use of emotional timeline therapy was really helpful for me!

[heartandwhole]

Madison66,

That is very interesting, thank you for sharing.  I'm so glad that you had a breakthrough yesterday.  It's wonderful when we have a good fit with our T – great things happen.