But now I feel all my hard work has been undone. He's got me thinking about him 24/7 again, my stomach is is knots and sometimes think i could go back. WHY AND HOW DO THEY MANAGE TO DO THIS TO US?
As others have said, your hard work is not undone. You have a year of NC and you need to give yourself credit for that. What I am learning -- and I have a long way to go -- is that this is a process of unhooking from complex attachments. My uBPDxgf had a way of pushing buttons -- which according to some studies I've read translates to an "amygdala hijack" when we are flooded with emotion. The prior experiences are imprinted at the most primitive level in our brains and until we can open some space for the cognitive brain to regain perspective and control, we are tied into knots.
I wish I had a good answer for your question. We can only turn attention back to ourselves. I'm finding that I get tied into knots by certain memories. All I can do is challenge my own thinking. Her voice still echoes in my head, painting me black. Or, I just let myself feel miserable that I participated in the relationship in the way I did.
Listen to what your feelings indicate. We don't want the BS of these relationships anymore. Have you ever heard of Tara Brach? She writes, "It's not what's happening... . it's how you respond."
She writes:
"I often use the metaphor of the second arrow because I find it just so helpful. The Buddha told a parable and the teaching was:
“If you get struck by an arrow, do you then shoot another arrow into yourself?”
If we look at the way we move through the day, when something happens, when we have pain in our body, when somebody treats us in a way that feels disrespectful, when something goes wrong for someone we love, that’s the first arrow. Our mind and body go into a reactivity that does not help to bring healing. We blame others, we blame ourselves. That’s the second arrow."These storms pass. We are evolving. Thanks for posting here. We're all in this together.
