How does one move from the third stage of detachment to the fourth?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hello everyone,

Maybe this is a topic also suitable for the detachment forum but I'd like to receive tips and opinions from this forum's members on moving from the third stage of detachment to the fourth stage, to creative action as described here

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=136462.0


In my case, it's happening rather organically or through what I'm doing here (I also think detachment started during my relationship) , but I'd like to hear about other things tried by other people.

Thank you,

TW 

[thisworld]

Hello everyone,

Maybe this is a topic also suitable for the detachment forum but I'd like to receive tips and opinions from this forum's members on moving from the third stage of detachment to the fourth stage, to creative action as described here

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=136462.0


In my case, it's happening rather organically or through what I'm doing here (I also think detachment started during my relationship) , but I'd like to hear about other things tried by other people.

Thank you,

TW 

[heartandwhole]

Hi thisworld,

What a great question, which just shows how far you have come. I think creative action does come naturally as the detachment process takes hold. For me, it also included more formal participation in this forum (which helped tremendously) and then about a year after the breakup I decided to finish a degree that I started many years ago. That really got me into another kind of atmosphere and my head into really interesting and challenging activities. Recently, I've also been enjoying some creative writing—something I've done here and there through the years, but only in stops and starts; i.e., usually dropping it during very stressful phases in life.

Serendipitously, I also did some additional training in yoga and bodywork for which the timing couldn't have been better, as it was scheduled right after the (sudden) breakup. I think it really did me good, although the tears flowed embarrassingly often at times.

All that to say that learning something new, acting on a goal, and pursuing my personal interests (yoga/bodywork/meditation, school, writing, etc.) were key for me in my recovery and for gaining new perspective on life and myself.

Do you have an interest that you've put off pursuing that you could now delve into, thisworld? Or maybe adjustments to your lifestyle that would give you more of the qualities in life that match who you are becoming?

I look forward to hearing your ideas, and the experiences of other members.

heartandwhole 

[fromheeltoheal]

Hey TW-

The bottom line is to shift the focus from our exes to ourselves and from the past to the future, as fast as that can happen.

A great tool is to create a vision for your future, the life of your dreams, and then make that vision big, bright and compelling to it pulls you towards it; we're no longer moving away from something, we're moving towards something else.  And then, take one step in that direction, and then another, never losing sight of that vision, and after a while we notice progress, which is inspiring and motivating, so it builds momentum, then the pursuit of our vision takes on a life of its own, and after a while we do pause for a minute and look back, and amaze ourselves at how far we've come, which builds more momentum, and then it becomes natural, we're on autopilot.  And then we are free.

And there's a line there.  We can move really fast, but where are we going?  Without a plan we're usually moving away from something, the relationship yes, but also our emotions around it, and it's critical to move slowly enough to feel everything, process everything.  

I wished I'd known a way to speed that up, never found one.  Right after I left her I figured it would take 3 or 4 months maybe to heal, and then back to my 'normal' life.  Nope.  What I did was dive into work, go drinking a lot in bars, stay hypervigilant and hypersensitive all the time, never slow down enough to actually feel.  You are way further than I was at that stage, but I guess it takes what it takes.  But eventually I hit a wall.  It wasn't working and slowing down and feeling became the only option, the right option.  So I stopped drinking, started getting back in shape, started meditating, started focusing on serenity instead of celebration.  I didn't get to what I describe above, a focus shift from the past to the future and the development of a vision, for over a year after I left her, but by then it wasn't about her anymore, hadn't been for a while, it was about me and all of the things I hadn't faced that had nothing to do with her, although she had given me the gift of shining a spotlight on them so they were undeniable.  Never too late to grow up I guess.

So yes, it takes what it takes, and probably the best advice is don't lose sight of the goal, and first get clear on the goal so you know what it looks like, that comes in handy when we fall down and get back up so we can find it again and get back on track.  Take care of you!

[C.Stein]

TW,

Where were you before your exBPD?  What direction was your life going, what were you doing for yourself? 

I ask because for me in many ways my personal forward progress stopped and even reversed in some ways when I met my ex.

Creative action for me might be getting back to the place I was 2.5 years ago, with one difference.  The knowledge gained from honest and objective introspection and some very hard lessons learned.

[thisworld]

Heartandwhole, thank you for your encouraging and inspiring comments. I got the message of balance from your post, starting creative action in a lot of different areas of life. And I hope you truly enjoy your degree and creative writing.

I think creative action started showing its nose in the previous phase of recovery for me, with me trying to interfere my natural thought patterns with some healthier stuff I was familiar with. I tried to develop my own ways of thinking inspired by CBT instead of leaving myself to the flow of my thoughts and that helped me. At some point, remembering a line from my favourite philosopher helped me. "The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic." I tried to see things from this perspective as much as possible - despite some scary factors that affected my life. So, my first creative action was laughter I think.

I also want to write more

I know that I need to connect better with my body as well.

After my divorce, I decided to move to the countryside and now live in a nature-rich spot which doesn't have that many cultural activities of the kind that I like. However, it offers a beautiful life in so many other senses. So far, I have failed balancing my visits to a big city with time spent here. Hopefully, my first creative action will be to balance the two. I need to focus on my health as well. Something I haven't done for a while. I jumped into two activities right after the break-up (ceramics and table tennis) but they made me busier than I could handle and I dropped. Baby steps I suppose. One activity I had started before my ex was photography and I found a very different way of self-expression in that. I'll just go back to it. I'm missing it as much as I miss reading novels - which I have been able to restart as well.

FHTH, thank you so much for the framework you have provided. And I so agree with the idea of moving toward something. That's why a car has a bigger windshield than its rear mirrors:)) I have more or less the conditions for a life of my dreams. I'm an introvert so a life of my dreams is very much related with the serenity and the world I carry in my head. I changed the basic structure of my life after my divorce and am happy with my new life. Simpler than it has ever been and what a good learning experience it is to live simply, slowly. Modest additions to it will make me a content person.

I had a brief relationship with my BPD ex and believe I paid my dues to a life of rescuing previously, admitting eternal defeat. So, I believe more or less ready to go back to my life and forward with it. If I wanted to try my super powers of love, rescuing etc etc, my ex would not be the person I would like to experience these with. (Between you and me, my ex is not a person I find attractive, now that I can see him under a different light, also during his recycle attempts).

To me, it's OK to slip in my emotions. Who doesn't? I measure how well I'm doing with how quickly I can bounce back, trying to be good to myself. Sometimes, I allow myself to leave myself to it knowing that this too shall pass.

C.S.Stein, I so agree. My life regressed in so many ways. I had started a new life in another city with a creative job I wanted to focus more on. I had started my return to nature - or maybe initiation because I always lived in big, crowded, hectic cities and that's not what I wanted. As a person, I'm disconnected from a simple life in so many ways. I'm terribly afraid of the nature in front of my nose actually, my plants die all the time, I can manage crisis situations, know what I should do in protests with pepper gas and have comfortably travelled to high-conflict zones as an activist but I'm just so helpless at the face of my wilted parsleys. I have lived in comfortable homes and under circumstances that suggested I "should" be happy (the dictate of my family that I managed to sabotage in so many ways) and excel. For the first time in my life, I'm living at a much much simpler place, which feels like "home" in a way I'm experiencing for the first time in my life. It is deprived of certain comforts I'm used to but has such a welcoming vibe. It is my "home." Or it was, it got ruined in this relationship. After my relationship ended, I was unable to enter it for a month. One thing I want to reclaim is that connection with this place. I now want to move as well  - I'm my mother's neighbour here and that's not a good idea. But I want to keep this place as some haven or shelter. In either case, I'm now inspired to see the 7 months ahead me as a time to reclaim that feeling.

I have been financially exploited in this relationship (due to my decisions mostly but I was placed under very strange situations I was inexperienced in I believe) and due to some earlier decisions of mine, it has had a big effect on me.  My NPD mother saved me big time - enough reason to detach from my ex immediately:)) Now, I have constraints for 7 months - two months have passed already, yippeee!-  and will be back to my normal in October-November hopefully.

So , yes, first gotta go back to where I was first - with a difference:))

Gratefulness helps me. This could have been way worse. Spring is here, I'll be swimming very soon and seasonal change (I'm so grateful for seasonal change) helps me so much.

Maybe creative action starts with re-organizing my life - I so need it, it's my weakest spot and working free-lance certainly does  not help if you are a procrastinator like me. (I'm super structured in institutions and super lazy free-lancing, I need to cure this.)

Back to affordable and enriching activities like taking photographs, cycling, the seaside. Back to learning how to observe nature in ways I have never learnt in the city and back to making peace with my camera until I can get a better one (swearing at the murky lens is allowed:))

Catch up with new hobbies I have neglected for so long: soap making and cheese making:))

And I can even think of some more:))

Thank you everyone for your opinions. (It takes me longer to respond to things on this board, but I carry your comments in my head:))

[unicorn2014]

I'm not leaving yet but I appreciate this post as it points the amount of work it takes to leave a BPD relationship. I like the concept of unhealthy bonding. Thank you for the link.

[C.Stein]

C.S.Stein, I so agree. My life regressed in so many ways. I had started a new life in another city with a creative job I wanted to focus more on. I had started my return to nature - or maybe initiation because I always lived in big, crowded, hectic cities and that's not what I wanted. As a person, I'm disconnected from a simple life in so many ways. I'm terribly afraid of the nature in front of my nose actually, my plants die all the time, I can manage crisis situations, know what I should do in protests with pepper gas and have comfortably travelled to high-conflict zones as an activist but I'm just so helpless at the face of my wilted parsleys. I have lived in comfortable homes and under circumstances that suggested I "should" be happy (the dictate of my family that I managed to sabotage in so many ways) and excel. For the first time in my life, I'm living at a much much simpler place, which feels like "home" in a way I'm experiencing for the first time in my life. It is deprived of certain comforts I'm used to but has such a welcoming vibe. It is my "home." Or it was, it got ruined in this relationship. After my relationship ended, I was unable to enter it for a month. One thing I want to reclaim is that connection with this place. I now want to move as well  - I'm my mother's neighbour here and that's not a good idea. But I want to keep this place as some haven or shelter. In either case, I'm now inspired to see the 7 months ahead me as a time to reclaim that feeling.

Nature is wonderful and cathartic.  There is a beautiful symmetry and simplicity in our natural environment that is lost to most in modern day society.  Immersing oneself in nature brings about a peaceful serenity within you mind and spirit.  Away from the phones, the internet, all the modern day distractions and just be.  Watching nature go about its day reminds me of the simple things in life.  It puts life in perspective and reminds me how truly petty and superficial most things in our society are.

I also enjoy photography and it became my "retreat" as my emotional pain increased in my relationship.   I see now the time I was spending out taking pictures increased dramatically in the last six months of our relationship.  I think I was using it a coping mechanism or perhaps even emotional avoidance.  When I am engaged in photographing nature I felt a sense of peace and I wasn't thinking about what a mess my life and emotions were. 

I was close to nature as a kid growing up in a very secluded area.  I had a film camera and I enjoyed photography as much as a kid can with the limitations of film.  I got away from that as an adult but started enjoying it again when I met my ex due to her interest in photography.  This is one of the few things I am extremely grateful to her for. 

Then I completely lost interest in it when I emotionally died a couple of months after being thrown away by her.  I am slowly beginning to pick it up again but at times I find it a painful reminder of my ex.  I do at times curse her though as she accompanied me on many excursions and her ghost follows me pretty much everywhere I go.  I hope that will pass soon.

If you need some help with your wilted parsley send me a PM.  Plants are something I understand.  I wish I was a tree, life would be so much simpler.   

[thisworld]

You are so right C.Stein. Nature is cathartic - even when I try to deny it. Where I live, it's interesting. Holiday resort like place with 18 to 30 entertainment through the summer, but come winter there is a beautiful emptiness, a completely different portrait which I find more pleasing than crazy summers actually. Before the pwBPD, I experienced a very creative winter here, experiencing something like this for the first time in my life. There are certain images associated with places and there was a pleasure in discovering a completely different aspect of this place. Superficial things never gave me much pleasure, but admittedly, I didn't avoid trying to repress unhappiness with those. And that didn't help much.

When I started Al-Anon some years ago, I realized how unhealthily inward I had turned because of my sorrow. I remember trying to feel the wind and sensations around me as part of my programme, to feel the wind on my skin. When I managed to feel it one day, I sat down and cried. It was catharsis for me. We are always connected to other things in a sense. Air is nature. Since then, grounding myself and trying to feel sensations have always helped with self-soothing. 

Another cathartic experience for me is skydiving. I can only do tandem diving and am not planning to go one inch beyond that. This way, I can enjoy everything without putting the effort:)) It's marketed as an adrenalin-loaded, "bombastic" experience in my country but depending on how you approach it, it can be the most serene thing as well. (The free fall is quite symbolic in its own way I think.) I feel like completely reformatted after it.

As for film photography, that's how I started, too. One day I'd like to go back to it. I like the contemplation in it, the more careful approach you have to have so that you don't waste film. And the element of waiting and surprise. Thank you for reminding me actually. I totally forgot about this. I'm a bit afraid of photography, too. Photographing people will remind me too much of photographing my ex, but I can start with a bit of nature I suppose.

As for parsley, thank you! For the time being, it seems that I'm experimenting with drying my herbs while they are still connected to the ground. Direct spice-making:))

[fromheeltoheal]

And I so agree with the idea of moving toward something. That's why a car has a bigger windshield than its rear mirrors:))

Nice!  Reminds me of an old saying that has been bandied about to the point of triviality: "You can't drive forward looking in the rear view mirror".  True but boring, although it does embody the focus shift from the past to the future and elicit the mindset that if we keep doing what we've done, we'll keep getting what we've gotten.  I like yours better, elicits the belief that the future and the now are more important than the past.

(Between you and me, my ex is not a person I find attractive, now that I can see him under a different light, also during his recycle attempts).

Yep, same thing for me, and once I started learning about the disorder all her stuff became transparent, which took away its power.  And then of course the next piece was wondering how and why I had gone so far down the rabbit hole with her, shocked really, like What the heck?  Which leads to paying attention moving forward, listening to gut feel, tolerating ZERO abuse, not settling, practicing self compassion and self protection, tools that build a really great life, only gotta be open to them, and it takes what it takes... .

[thisworld]

FHTH hi!

I think I benefit from the accidental creativity of a foreign language speaker, but if you like it more that way, enjoy! And maybe, there is something like coincidental creativity in detachment as well:))

I'm shocked, too - some of this was very shame-based, which I then reframed here as guilt and find it easier to deal with. My relationship was brief, so, to this day, I think it could have been much easier to deal with it if I didn't have to deal with so much fear and trouble afterward. I mean the phase after the break-up was more traumatic - so full of fear, anxiety and a lot of concrete problems. Sometimes I think there was no way I could have guessed something like this. I mean, yes, he was narcissistic, yes, I associated it with drug associated problems. But in the end of the day, he was emotionally cheating, crazily dismissive (like an abuser) and had rages. The first was heart-breaking but not much. I mean, we were new, he wasn't my trusted partner who started this  after a while so I didn't associate it with a dissatisfaction in our relationship - I mean, what can I do if a man chases me like that and then starts these things from day 1, it surely is not my issue. To me, it's different from a long-term relationships where dissatisfaction arises but can also be solved (perhaps) through building more intimacy etc. The rest of the behaviours, we talked about them but there was no motivation to put some effort into it. I made up my mind separately and detached in the relationship - I don't think I was attached that much anyway, I mean what is there to attach? (I was watching with worry). But then, the whole thing just exploded (boundaries may have done this). I had vocalized them before as well but not in the same "tone". So, maybe he ignored them, too - they should have been red flags for him:)) I would be OK with spending a couple of months with a pointless relationship and move on. But what happened after this explosion and the break-up is where I was badly traumatised - due to my own circumstances as well. I had no idea that those red flags could culminate into this. I still need to work on how much to own and how much to externalize - without ignoring my role in this.

And thank you so much for the metaphor - it was a rabbit hole. Exactly. We ended up in a rabbit hole.

I'm emotionally ready to move on - I was in the relationship, too. Certain things contradicted with my understanding, my values (not just values related to intimacy). I need to think about the mirroring phase in this regard and will do soon.

For the rest of your post, yes, exactly. I think about all those standards (zero abuse, not settling etc) separately. It is so important for me, for my whole life actually. 

[fromheeltoheal]

I'm shocked, too - some of this was very shame-based, which I then reframed here as guilt and find it easier to deal with. My relationship was brief, so, to this day, I think it could have been much easier to deal with it if I didn't have to deal with so much fear and trouble afterward. I mean the phase after the break-up was more traumatic - so full of fear, anxiety and a lot of concrete problems... .

... .But what happened after this explosion and the break-up is where I was badly traumatised - due to my own circumstances as well. I had no idea that those red flags could culminate into this. I still need to work on how much to own and how much to externalize - without ignoring my role in this.

Yes.  We feel guilt when we think we did something wrong, we feel shame when we think we are wrong.  I agree TW, getting my ex out of my life was the easy part, and borderlines have an uncanny knack of getting hooks into any cracks in our ego boundaries, monopolizing on any insecurities, all with the intent to ensure we won't leave, granted, but also very traumatic when the coping skills we'd developed to make it through life crumble and we're left naked, scared and without a model of the world that works.  And also an opportunity and a gift, moving forward, and a gratitude to someone who rocked our world enough to inspire real change.  That was my experience anyway.  

And thank you so much for the metaphor - it was a rabbit hole. Exactly. We ended up in a rabbit hole.

Yeah, that's from Alice in Wonderland, where Alice goes down the rabbit hole in search of adventures into the unknown, and it's become a piece of the zeitgeist, a catch-all term to describe any descent into unknown and/or crazy.  Our relationships were certainly that, yes?

[thisworld]

Yeah, that's from Alice in Wonderland, where Alice goes down the rabbit hole in search of adventures into the unknown, and it's become a piece of the zeitgeist, a catch-all term to describe any descent into unknown and/or crazy.  Our relationships were certainly that, yes?

I think of mine more along the lines of Orwell's dystopia, 1984 actually. History constantly rewritten and a reality dictated on me. But I like Red Queen's Reign of Terror now  

[fromheeltoheal]

Yeah, that's from Alice in Wonderland, where Alice goes down the rabbit hole in search of adventures into the unknown, and it's become a piece of the zeitgeist, a catch-all term to describe any descent into unknown and/or crazy.  Our relationships were certainly that, yes?

I think of mine more along the lines of Orwell's dystopia, 1984 actually. History constantly rewritten and a reality dictated on me. But I like Red Queen's Reign of Terror now  

Yikes!  Ever see the movie Body Heat?  My ex reminds me of that femme fatale, and our relationship would have ended the same way had I not bailed.

[thisworld]

Wow FHTH, the rabbit hole sounds almost cozy now!

[fromheeltoheal]

Wow FHTH, the rabbit hole sounds almost cozy now!

Yep, rabbit holes are easier to climb out of, gotta pick empowering metaphors yes?

[C.Stein]

Photographing people will remind me too much of photographing my ex, but I can start with a bit of nature I suppose.

Humans, with respect to our natural environment, have become much like parasites.  Parasites don't need to be photographed.   

As for parsley, thank you! For the time being, it seems that I'm experimenting with drying my herbs while they are still connected to the ground. Direct spice-making:))