Emotional numbness

[troisette]

It's strange, I feel as though a part of me has become numb, an emotional safety measure to protect me. Six months after the end, four  months no contact - an  eighteen month  relationship.

I go out and socialise and I have fun, I really enjoy myself - but not 100%. I also need time alone, to not have to be sociable. There's a little bit of me that's numb, grieving my ex who is an everpresent hum in the back of my mind. A diminishing hum, not the cacophony of last summer and autumn, but still there.

A friend whose company I really value and enjoy has just told me that he can't see me at present - maybe ever, that he's fallen in love with me and it's too painful for him to know that we can never be more than friends. I feel very sad about this, I don't want to be the cause of heartache for someone else and I will also miss his company very much. I have responded honorably, I want to protect both of us. I know he doesn't attract me in the way he wishes.

I'm forgetting the bad memories of exBPD, in some ways this is good. Although friends warn me not to forget the bad memories. The good memories are becoming amorphous, just an overall feeling of the happiness when things were good. I feel very sad.

Has anyone else gone through this stage?

[fromheeltoheal]

Hey troisette-

I'm sorry you're feeling sad, and yes I've been there.  Interesting though, we have a tendency to make negative emotions 'bad' when they just are, as important a part of the human experience as positive ones.  Maybe you're feeling sad because you're supposed to right now?

It's strange, I feel as though a part of me has become numb, an emotional safety measure to protect me.

Yep, exactly, been there too.  I've been learning about Complex PTSD lately, going into psych mode a little, and just read this passage from Pete Walker's book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving last night.  Your post reminded me of it some.

The survivor, who is seeking a healthy relationship with his emotional being, will strive to accept the existential fact that the human feeling nature is often contradictory and frequently vacillates between opposite polarities of feeling experiences. It is quite normal for feelings to change unpredictably along continuums that stretch between a variety of emotional polarities. As such, it is especially human and healthy to have shifts of mood between such extremes as happy and sad, enthused and depressed, loving and angry, trusting and suspicious, brave and afraid, and forgiving and blaming.

Unfortunately, in this culture only the “positive” polarity of any emotional experience is approved or allowed. This can cause such an avoidance of the “negative” polarity, that at least two different painful conditions result.

In the first, the person injures and exhausts himself in compulsive attempts to avoid a disavowed feeling, and actually becomes more stuck in it. This is like the archetypal clown whose frantic efforts to free himself from a piece of fly paper, leave him more immobilized and entangled.

In the second, repression of one end of the emotional continuum often leads to a repression of the whole continuum, and the person becomes emotionally deadened. The baby of emotional vitality is thrown out with the bathwater of some unacceptable feeling.

A reluctance to participate in such a fundamental realm of the human experience results in much unnecessary loss. For just as without night there is no day, without work there is no play, without hunger there is no satiation, without fear there is no courage, without tears there is no joy, and without anger, there is no real love.

Most people, who choose or are coerced into only identifying with “positive” feelings, usually wind up in an emotionally lifeless middle ground – bland, deadened, and dissociated in an unemotional “no-man’s-land.”

There's a lot more to it, but that stuff speaks to me.

I'm forgetting the bad memories of exBPD, in some ways this is good. Although friends warn me not to forget the bad memories. The good memories are becoming amorphous, just an overall feeling of the happiness when things were good. I feel very sad.[/quote]
Initially my feelings were mixed, the head was fighting the heart, uncomfortable and confusing although I knew my head was right.  So I made a list of all the sht she pulled, added to it as I remembered stuff, and read it as much as I needed to, to help my head, and eventually my heart aligned with it and thanked me.  I needed to do that to give myself no question about my decision to leave her, but with time it just stopped mattering; when we create an empowering vision for our future, take steps towards the life of our dreams, and let momentum build, our focus shifts and the past just fades, taking the borderline with it.  So remembering the bad memories can be a good tool, until you don't need the tool anymore.  Take care of you!

[troisette]

Thank you htoh, a lot of sense in what you say.

Yes, not to forget the bad stuff, one worry is that I might be beginning to idealise my time with exBPD via amorphous happy memories. This probably not disconnected with the shock of love declared by someone else and knowing that I cannot reciprocate. And then, unhealthily leading on to question whether I ever will be able to love again.

Not good. Thinking into the future with trepidation and  remembering the past through rosy lens - instead of staying in the here and now and remembering how I got here!

[fromheeltoheal]

Yep, been there.  I'd say looking into the future with trepidation is not a compelling future, bolstered by the fledgling belief of whether you will ever be able to love again.  And of course if the future isn't something to look forward to the past will look rosier.

We can get stuck in a timeframe that way, past, present or future.  The past is useful in reflection to build wisdom, the future gives us direction, and life happens in the present, best to use all three, although we can get stuck.

And the best way to fight something is don't fight it, create something new.  Seems you're basing things on your love of other people, you loved the borderline and you don't love the current guy, so that leaves you with nowhere to go and fond memories of where you've been.  One tack that has been working for me is to practice self love and compassion for self, that isn't dependent on anyone else and is something I can control, and living life from that place, and taking it into the future as I create the life of my dreams, it tends to get all over everything and the folks who show up are the folks who are supposed to.  Something to look forward to?

[thisworld]

It's strange, I feel as though a part of me has become numb, an emotional safety measure to protect me. Six months after the end, four  months no contact - an  eighteen month  relationship.

I go out and socialise and I have fun, I really enjoy myself - but not 100%. I also need time alone, to not have to be sociable. There's a little bit of me that's numb, grieving my ex who is an everpresent hum in the back of my mind. A diminishing hum, not the cacophony of last summer and autumn, but still there.

Hello Troisette

Some people call what you are going through No Contact Amnesia. We tend to forget.

I think that numbness is also caused by an inner journey that we sometimes have subconsciously. After some repetitive difficult relationships we tend to question certain things about ourselves silently. When this finds a voice, numbness goes away a little bit.

When I think I might like my ex again, I just think of his confidante. That woman, their relationship, sums up what I have been avoiding. Never again.

You were more motivated a couple of weeks ago and you even had a new friend you might be interested in. What happened with that? Has that affected you as well?

Stay strong

[Euler2718]

with time it just stopped mattering; when we create an empowering vision for our future, take steps towards the life of our dreams, and let momentum build, our focus shifts and the past just fades, taking the borderline with it.

Thanks for the hope. I think I will try to look forward to this. I think I *am* moving forward but 50-80% of my brain is still having discussions with her. In the discussions, I always do the thing that will make it work out forever, haha! The first week it was 90% of my brain (fortunately you only need 10% to drive to work and do your job).

[troisette]

   Good words heeltoheal; your words struck a chord. I am working on my co-dependency and should be attending to my own needs whilst also considering others. Yes, to centre my life around the presence of a man is not sound. Despite a great career, from which I am now retired, the simple pleasures of domesticity and family life have always been the things I value most. I need to give more thought to balance.

 This world; yes! What a good and  sobering thought! The memory of the two lead supplies... .their behaviour and his. Erk!

You mention my friend thisworld, he is the one who has told me that he has fallen in love with me. A mixture of feelings: guilt at his unhappiness that I cannot reciprocate and sadness at what may be the loss of a good friendship which was also fun.

Without wishing to sound away with the fairies, I posted on another thread that my intuition told me that the full meaning of the relationship and subsequent break-up with BPD had yet to be revealed. And I think this is part of it, a huge learning process. Not only understanding why I became involved with ex, which is linked with my co-dependency but also the obverse side; experiencing someone who says loves me, who is gutted that I cannot reciprocate: I'm treading so carefully the thin line between defining and maintaining my own emotional boundaries whilst also respecting his feelings but not rescuing him.

This is big stuff for me and I'm navigating my way carefully, and not without difficulty.

[thisworld]

Troisette 

I think it is somehow a gift of life that we were so repulsed by these confidante dynamics (which, to me, shows we understood loyalty and fairness very differently from our exes). The moment my mind slips into some habits, I think of the confidante. It has never failed me:)) I'm happy that it worked for you as well:))

As for your friend, I think there is always something nice in being loved by a friend - even though it changes a lot in terms of friendship and sometimes means loss. Still, it shows that someone saw something beautiful in you and it's a gift. For the future of your friendship with him, I hope he can integrate his feelings after a while and chooses to continue the friendship if he feels like he can do it. Would you like to offer it to him at some point?