Seeing pictures of your BPDex

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

So this will probably sound stupid, but I was tooling around Pinterest yesterday afternoon looking for a baked chicken recipe for dinner with my kids.  I accidentally clicked the wrong tab and my old Pinterest messages popped up and I saw some from my uBPDex.  I had totally forgotten they were even there to be honest.  They were from about 6 weeks before our breakup (breakup was 2 months ago) and were us talking about our wedding plans and exchanging ideas in that regard.  She had blocked me on Pinterest after our breakup, but I guess she unblocked me at some point since then because her full profile popped up on my phone.  I'm guessing she did that because she had changed her "profile pic" from nothing to the best selfie I think she's ever taken.  Lord she was gorgeous in that pic.  A couple of thoughts on this.  First, I think they do stuff like this intentionally of course.  Just to gig you in case you try to check on them - which I wasn't even trying to do!  Second, and more importantly to my recovery, when I saw the picture it was like someone hit me as hard as they could right in the stomach.  A thousand good times (or what I now probably falsely see as good times) flooded my head in about 30 seconds and I sincerely felt like I was going to either vomit or bust out in tears.  I've intentionally avoided looking at any pics of her or of us on my phone, of course have put away all of the ones that were up in my house, etc.  Heck, I've not even been able to go on my phone and either delete or move the pics on there to my computer because I haven't felt like I could handle seeing all of them yet.  Anyway, this whole episode really frustrates and confuses me to no end.  How could this bother me so much or create an overwhelming emotional feeling given her terrible behaviors during our r/s and the way she treated me and my kids?  Has this happened to anyone else?  Any thoughts or comments on how to handle internally and emotionally?  Any thoughts on how to handle old pictures of her/us and cards she gave and sent to me that I still have?  It makes me feel much better to just write all this down, but would love some feedback.  Thank you all!

[jarrad2121]

So this will probably sound stupid, but I was tooling around Pinterest yesterday afternoon looking for a baked chicken recipe for dinner with my kids.  I accidentally clicked the wrong tab and my old Pinterest messages popped up and I saw some from my uBPDex.  I had totally forgotten they were even there to be honest.  They were from about 6 weeks before our breakup (breakup was 2 months ago) and were us talking about our wedding plans and exchanging ideas in that regard.  She had blocked me on Pinterest after our breakup, but I guess she unblocked me at some point since then because her full profile popped up on my phone.  I'm guessing she did that because she had changed her "profile pic" from nothing to the best selfie I think she's ever taken.  Lord she was gorgeous in that pic.  A couple of thoughts on this.  First, I think they do stuff like this intentionally of course.  Just to gig you in case you try to check on them - which I wasn't even trying to do!  Second, and more importantly to my recovery, when I saw the picture it was like someone hit me as hard as they could right in the stomach.  A thousand good times (or what I now probably falsely see as good times) flooded my head in about 30 seconds and I sincerely felt like I was going to either vomit or bust out in tears.  I've intentionally avoided looking at any pics of her or of us on my phone, of course have put away all of the ones that were up in my house, etc.  Heck, I've not even been able to go on my phone and either delete or move the pics on there to my computer because I haven't felt like I could handle seeing all of them yet.  Anyway, this whole episode really frustrates and confuses me to no end.  How could this bother me so much or create an overwhelming emotional feeling given her terrible behaviors during our r/s and the way she treated me and my kids?  Has this happened to anyone else?  Any thoughts or comments on how to handle internally and emotionally?  Any thoughts on how to handle old pictures of her/us and cards she gave and sent to me that I still have?  It makes me feel much better to just write all this down, but would love some feedback.  Thank you all!

[fromheeltoheal]

Second, and more importantly to my recovery, when I saw the picture it was like someone hit me as hard as they could right in the stomach.  A thousand good times (or what I now probably falsely see as good times) flooded my head in about 30 seconds and I sincerely felt like I was going to either vomit or bust out in tears... .

How could this bother me so much or create an overwhelming emotional feeling given her terrible behaviors during our r/s and the way she treated me and my kids?

Hi jarrad-

Because you were, and still are, emotionally enmeshed with her, you've formed an unhealthy bond, and 2 months isn't very long.  The good news: it gets better.  There are a couple of things with pictures, you can either look at them repeatedly until they no longer have any power, kind of like living by the train tracks, after a while you don't notice trains, or you can get rid of everything, out of sight, out of mind.  Doesn't matter, whatever works for you, and in the end the goal is to grieve the relationship, process the emotions, and shift the focus entirely from her to you and your kids and from the past to the future.  There's no timeframe, although feeling like you're making progress is good.

[SoMadSoSad]

fromheeltoheal do you think looking at the pics repeatedly till indifference is possible if you find the ex really attractive physically?

[fromheeltoheal]

Hey SMSS-

fromheeltoheal do you think looking at the pics repeatedly till indifference is possible if you find the ex really attractive physically?

There's a difference between looking at them and obsessing over them yes?  And how about taking it a step further than indifference?  If you intentionally focus on the abuse, disrespect, infidelity, whatever it was you tolerated, while you're looking at the pics, it will create an association in your head, one that might be more accurate, and then every time you look at the pics you get a negative reaction, regardless of what she looks like.  As with most things, what matters is what you make it mean.

[Sadly]

Different things work for different people I guess. For me looking at them was torture, My gorgeous rock star good looking and sexy. I couldn't do it, it broke me every time. I have deleted and got rid of everything which hurt me so much to do, like throwing a lump of my life away, but, like NC for me it was the only way. It's like the FB stuff, never ever could or would I torture myself by looking, why would I, I felt tortured enough by his illness as it was. Different strokes for different folks I guess. It's not one size fits all.

[jarrad2121]

Thanks for your reply heeltoheal!  I honestly feel like I just need to get rid of them permanently, but two things on that front.  First, I really don't feel like I'm up to it at the moment considering how yesterday's event shook me.  Second, I question whether I want to permanently get rid of ALL pictures that commemorate 2 1/2 years of my adult life (I was married to her at one time as well, FYI).  But I know that I can never be with her again, so I lean towards just ridding myself of it all as bad as that may hurt at the time.  It's just really confusing, and maybe part of that is just my heart not having caught up to my head.  Because intellectually I dang well know how toxic, volatile, and disastrous this r/s was to me and my kids and the destructive path(s) it had me headed down in many regards.

[jarrad2121]

Sadly, I feel the same way you do entirely.  I would never intentionally look at her Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media or other outlet where I might see pics of her in any respect.  This is why I felt so strongly when I saw that picture yesterday.  It's really a catch 22 I guess.  There's probably no good answer.

[bunny4523]

@jarrad,

I don't know why some of us focus on the negative we had in the relationship while others focus on the good.   

I like what  heeltoheal recommended: If you intentionally focus on the abuse, disrespect, infidelity, whatever it was you tolerated, while you're looking at the pics, it will create an association in your head, one that might be more accurate, and then every time you look at the pics you get a negative reaction, regardless of what she looks like.

I think that is what I did without even realizing I was doing it which really helped.  Now I'm wondering if you tend to feel more anger when you take that approach.  Because I did struggle with that for awhile, I felt like he took my life and crumbled into a bunch of pieces.  I had to take my power back by rebuilding my life so the damage wasn't so visible to me, emotionally, financially and physically (I had sold all my furniture and appliances to move in with him).  Once I started replenishing the physical things and felt like I was back to my loving self, I felt better and stronger and the anger went away.   

This is such an awful disorder the way you get devalued and dismissed at a whim.  With no recollection on their part about what they loved about us or why they were with us.  Not even acknowlegedment that we have any good qualities worth keeping around as a friend even.  Such a hit to our self-esteem.  Morbid that the one you are closest to has such awful things to say about you.

xoxo to all,
Bunny


 

[fromheeltoheal]

If you intentionally focus on the abuse, disrespect, infidelity, whatever it was you tolerated, while you're looking at the pics, it will create an association in your head, one that might be more accurate, and then every time you look at the pics you get a negative reaction, regardless of what she looks like.

I think that is what I did without even realizing I was doing it which really helped.  Now I'm wondering if you tend to feel more anger when you take that approach. 

Good point bunny.  Intentionally focusing on the negative is a tool we can use to detach, because really, weren't the relationships a mixture of good and bad?  And in the end the bad outweighed the good, which is why we're here, but we can have this tendency, this urge, this obsession, to focus on the good or how good looking our exes were or whatever and ignore the bad, and spend time ruminating and missing them, which makes no sense when you look at the entirety of what happened, but we do it anyway, so consciously focusing on the negative can counterbalance that for a time, and as we detach we can adopt a more balanced view of our exes, which is probably more accurate, with a little compassion for them thrown in too, which is more peaceful.

[findingmyselfagain]

It's been 6 years almost to the day since we broke up... .after falling in love, getting engaged, and then suddenly the r/s was destroyed just a few days after the wedding shower. It took me a long time to get past just struggling. I made the effort but it was HARD.

I boxed up the cards and gifts and put them away. I haven't disposed of them yet. I still have pictures stored electronically somewhere.

For 2 reasons mostly,

#1 I wanted a reminder of the pain so I would be a lot more careful going forward with relationships.

#2 I wanted to keep some compassion for her because I know that whatever it is she's dealing with is pretty terrible.

#3 Maybe a distant #3 is a reminder that it actually did happen. That as crazy as it felt to be over with, it did actually happen. LOL