No contact/release with grace gang, thread 2

[kc sunshine]

Hi all,

Okay, I'm on day 12. Whew, still haven't checked her facebook though I can awfully close the other day. It is still hurting, particularly the thoughts of her living with someone else (they moved in two weeks ago), and her daughter getting close to that new person... .the three of them being a new family. Whoa, the reality of that is just sinking in. It all happened so fast!

But I'll keep trying to stay focused on me, building the life I want to live. Here's on my today's list:

Get the house set for the birthday party
Birthday party! Laugh with friends.
call my mom and laugh with her

That's it!

[khibomsis]

Er, happy birthday KC! keep growing in grace and wisdom.  , Khib

[UnforgivenII]

I am 15 days nc (broken nc after 18 days beforre). I am not well. The pain changes his shape. Sometimes it is in my throat, sometimes stabbed in my Heart. I am no more bedridden. Just fatigued. Not able to think straight. Been to therapist. La.ast time it did not help.

[UnforgivenII]

It was my birthday too in this pain. We will have better ones 

[kc sunshine]

Happy birthday Unforgiven! Yes, we will have better ones

I'm looking at the side bar here and I think I move between the five stages... .it is so totally not linear! I even sometimes have trouble really really truly wrapping my mind around the fact that she has a really bad mental illness. It is such a weird illness-- one that was directed mostly at me and her daughter, but not towards other people. .

Anyway, the keep busy/moving forward list for today is going to be:

laughing and singing with the kids
eating well
swimming
talking with my mom
hanging out with a friend later
going to church, praying

What are you guys going to do?

It was my birthday too in this pain. We will have better ones 

[UnforgivenII]

Working
Watching Netflix (I love it. It keeps me sane)
Having my hair done
Cuddling my cats
Enjoying my precious son

KC they direct their hatred towards the ones who love them MOST.

[kc sunshine]

This sounds great UnforgivenII! I love what you say about your son!

Today is day 14-- my two week mark. And my birthday!

Here's what I'm gonna do:

Get things done around the house
organize my upcoming trip
laugh with my kids
have people over later
facetime with my mom
swim
yoga (already did that!)
go back to bed after yoga (already did that too!)
try to think about two weeks NC as an accomplishment not a tragedy (well in the big picture it is a tragedy-- BPD is such an awful disease and it is so sad that it is in this world and that my ex and her daughter have to suffer with it, but in the little picture it is two weeks closer to better mental and emotional health for me.

Working
Watching Netflix (I love it. It keeps me sane)
Having my hair done
Cuddling my cats
Enjoying my precious son

KC they direct their hatred towards the ones who love them MOST.

[kc sunshine]

Rough going over here, day 15 of NC. I broke down and checked her facebook... .I think triggered by the fact that she didn't say happy birthday or anything to me on my bday. I guess in a way I can think of facebook as   a buffer between actually getting in real live touch.

I know NC is a road towards emotional health, but it is a hard one. I wish she and I were able to do release with grace instead.

Anyway, here goes today-- it is beautiful here.

[khibomsis]

KC, don't beat up on yourself when you backslide,just forgive and keep on keeping on. My theory is that there are parts of ourselves which have holes in them due to broken childhoods or other traumas,  and the BPD partner somehow enables us to connect with those parts. So it's not just about missing them, it is that we fear losing that connection our full selves as well. Hope that  makes sense, at least for me it explained the utter sense of loss. It was easily the most painful experience I have ever survived.
 
NC gets easier with time. Maybe think about what in the relationship made you feel good about you and practice doing that emotional work for yourself? Just a thought... .

[UnforgivenII]

Watching Netflix
Celebrating 20 days NC
Planning event with friend
Coming to terms to the fact I lived a lie

[UnforgivenII]

KC do not peek on FB. It is contact. It brings you back.

[UnforgivenII]

And I got nothing for my birthday too. How nice

[uniquename]

NC since 8/8. Today was one of the first days I could work a whole 8 hours if I got up and got in. Still here at home. I was struggling with this before our separation 6/11 too. I was already overwhelmed. Work assures me we're good. I just wish I could get there and get working. Instead I linger at home and am anxious cause I worry (realistically) once I'm there nothing is going to get accomplished. I'm looking forward to a back to school picnic and a meeting for my hobby this evening. Have tentative plans with friends Saturday night. Really looking forward to church on Sunday.

[kc sunshine]

You guys are so right -- checking Facebook only brings me pain and gets me further away from my goal of detachment/freedom. Sometimes I waver on this as a goal though, frankly. Does anyone have any tips for making it more fully your goal? I suppose two ways that i can think about it are:

1) detachment from all desires/longing is the key to happiness in a Buddhist sense. So I can think "I want to be happy" as a goal and then detachment is the way to that happiness.
2) if by some miracle my ex and I could get back together, I'd need to be much more detached than I was so that I could hold onto myself in it. So even in the "I still love her sense" the practice of detachment is a good one.

Another thing is that I have to be better about learning my triggers that make me more likely to do things like check Facebook. Right now those things are being tired and hungry. Also I think her not contacting me for my bday was a big trigger.

[pjstock42]

I just checked the calendar and realized that it's been 50 days of successful NC with me, which includes absolutely 0 seeing anything about her on social media - I suppose this is cause for a mild celebration? 

I have mentioned in other topics that I sometimes feel like I don't understand the full benefit of NC but I've realized that this is because I have no experience of what NOT practicing NC feels like. In that sense, I wonder where I would be right now if I hadn't found this board / other resources and instituted full NC almost directly after the discard? It's been 2 months since that event and while I still don't feel anywhere close to being "normal" again, it has been about 2 weeks since I had any kind of overwhelming emotional breakdown and I am happy for that because for a while it was such a normal occurrence.

As much as I am thankful for the fact that I've been able to have this great streak of NC, it does bother me quite a bit to think of the fact that this person whom I cared so much for is basically nonexistent to me now; outside of continuing to cause me emotional pain strictly from memories. The woman who I thought that I was going to marry and have kids with is now nothing more than a figment of my imagination and that is something that will definitely take time for me to fully accept. Either way, I continue to have faith in NC based on what I have read from other users here and I have no plans of breaking it.

[kc sunshine]

Hi all,

I'm at the three week mark and wow this is as long as it has ever been. There are lots of things that are different about this time around-- the two hugest ones being that she imposed NC and also that her girlfriend moved in with her (also three weeks ago). She didn't contact me at all for my birthday which was very tough. People on this board say the three week mark is difficult and I am finding that it is. It feels very real now, like this is it. I'm sad and I miss her. I'm trying to feel the feeling, lean into it, acknowledge it.

[UnforgivenII]

This is it. This is it with someone who treated us like dirt and made their best to destroy us.
What a blessing.
Today I was driving and listening to music and it was beautiful.
It is beautiful.
What have we done wrong? Nothing. My heart is clean.

[kc sunshine]

And on the moving one side, here's what I'm going to do get going into my own life today:

take a shower (it's the little things!)
have breakfast
contact the people I'd like to interview & set up a time with them
go to the bookstore and check out new books
call my mom (she's very sick)
call my kids
think about detachment as a good life goal, not only as an ex-imposed necessity

[kc sunshine]

Oh that is so lovely, unforgiven. I love the image of you listening to music.

Did she try to destroy me or was I collateral damage to her trying to save herself? 

This is it. This is it with someone who treated us like dirt and made their best to destroy us.
What a blessing.
Today I was driving and listening to music and it was beautiful.
It is beautiful.
What have we done wrong? Nothing. My heart is clean.

[khibomsis]

every BPD is different, KC, but I reckon a bit of both. With me, I had become my exes' trigger and gosh, was it painful to live in that world of push/pull. Yet also in some ways I think we are not quite real to them. When you become the projection of somebody else's trauma it is objectification in a way and that makes us what? Objects. Not really thinking feeling human beings. So if you are expected to re-mother/comfort and you don't live up to that they do intentionally punish you. Mostly, though, I suspect you are just there when their s--t hits the fan.
Everybody I see on this board sooner or later asks themselves some version of the question"did my ex ever really care?" And the short answer is that as long as the answer matters you are not over them. So I think you are on the right track with detachment. Keep on keeping on, KC. You're doing great!  , Khib 

[Larmoyant]

I've been following this thread with interest. Sort of sitting on the sidelines wanting to join in. It's been 11 days since my ex texted me that he has moved on (despite me ending it 7 months ago) so technically I've been nc since then, but I'm scared he'll come back and I will answer. So I can't join yet, but I'd like to.

[uniquename]

I was telling someone today in my NAMI family-to-family class that the new date the NC protective order lasts is 9/9. I said, is that next week, 2 weeks? And when I realized it's another 2 weeks I thought to myself how wonderful. It's ups and downs but I'm on an up today. NC Day 18

[trainwrecked1]

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum but wanted to contribute to this thread as no contact is a difficult thing.  I read this on FB and every time it crosses my mind to look at his FB (it's been almost a month) or even his family members/friends' pages (its been almost two weeks), I say "discipline" based on the below definition:

Discipline -  is the habit of acting in the moment based on a decision you made in advance, regardless of your current feelings. - Lois Evans (Dr. Tony Evans wife)

Hope it helps someone else. :-)

[kc sunshine]

This helped me right now! I managed to not check her facebook .

Today what is on my mind is trauma bonding, and emotional abuse. Ugh.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep on keeping on.

Today:
breakfast
talk and laugh with my mom
meet with activists here for my book
see friends
exercise (walk the stairs)
pray
start to transition to "building a new life" boards

Hi All,


Discipline -  is the habit of acting in the moment based on a decision you made in advance, regardless of your current feelings. - Lois Evans (Dr. Tony Evans wife)

Hope it helps someone else. :-)

[kc sunshine]

Hi all,

Day 21 NC, three weeks. Moving into the fourth week of it, by far the longest we've gone. It was my ex that imposed NC and we both are sticking to it.

I'm not sure that NC is helping me move on. It feels more like being ghosted, like people are talking about. But I'll keep on doing the other things that hopefully will help-- trying to lean into the feelings, ground myself in my life, work towards goals.

Yesterday I felt kind of empty, today I'm feeling sad. I went to church last night and prayed for acceptance and trust in God's path for me. That, combined with thinking about the Buddhist emphasis on detachment, gives me some peace.

[UnforgivenII]

25 days of no contact. The pain is less. No more a knife in my Heart. Just sadness. I am doing well. I should eat more. I am having bits of peace and joy here and there.

Realizing that my cat loves me more thank he ever had.