Writing

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

Lately I've been having a harder time than usual. The obsessions and dreams of her have started again.
I have a tendency to replay the whole 7 years over and over in my head, both the good and the bad. Sometimes I get confused about what happened when and have a hard time even wrapping my head around what's transpired.

Before I was trying to block out thoughts of her altogether, but since that isn't working I thought about doing the exact opposite; just embracing the thoughts as they come and just writing it all out, everything that's happened (not on here, don't worry... .).

Has anyone found this to be beneficial? Seems like it could be therapeutic but also very emotionally draining.

Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations.

[JJacks0]

Lately I've been having a harder time than usual. The obsessions and dreams of her have started again.
I have a tendency to replay the whole 7 years over and over in my head, both the good and the bad. Sometimes I get confused about what happened when and have a hard time even wrapping my head around what's transpired.

Before I was trying to block out thoughts of her altogether, but since that isn't working I thought about doing the exact opposite; just embracing the thoughts as they come and just writing it all out, everything that's happened (not on here, don't worry... .).

Has anyone found this to be beneficial? Seems like it could be therapeutic but also very emotionally draining.

Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations.

[Reforming]

Hi JJacks0

I think writing can be a great way to process thoughts and emotions. It doesn't just allow us to express our feelings - it makes us name them and look them in the eye which can be very cathartic.

Writing is also about structuring ideas and thoughts - transforming chaos into order and that can be hugely helpful too.

It's definitely worthwhile my only caution would be do overdo it. When you're still very close to grief reliving can be exhausting. I'd suggest writing for a fixed amount of time every day

Good luck

Reforming

[jammit123]

I am a big believer in not fighting the thoughts and letting them flow through you.  Allow the thoughts and feelings to come through.  It takes energy to block them and you don't want to put any energy into the relationship anymore.  Acknowledge the thoughts and feelings as if they didn't even really belong to you.  Say, "Thanks, thoughts and feelings about X!"  Then, blow them back out into the universe, sending them on their way.  The key is not to DWELL.  If you dwell you get stuck and your energy will get blocked.

Writing and catharsis is absolutely therapeutic.  The more you FEEL and let go, the closer you will be to acceptance and healing.

Sorry if this is too new agey!  Just my thoughts on the matter... .

[beggarsblanket]

I live through writing, and my love life shows it. I write obsessively about every romance and every romantic failure, many dozens of pages for months. My reaction to my BPD ex was the strongest: hundreds of pages over seven months. Friends have suggested that I should handle romantic losses through distraction, but distraction is pointless when intrusive thoughts are so common. I need to make sense of what happened to me. I need to find order and meaning and value in it. I cannot pretend it never happened.

[anothercasualty]

I live through writing, and my love life shows it. I write obsessively about every romance and every romantic failure, many dozens of pages for months. My reaction to my BPD ex was the strongest: hundreds of pages over seven months. Friends have suggested that I should handle romantic losses through distraction, but distraction is pointless when intrusive thoughts are so common. I need to make sense of what happened to me. I need to find order and meaning and value in it. I cannot pretend it never happened.

I can relate to looking for order, meaning, and value. The order part is tough to come by when someone's actions are not "congruent". Say one thing and do another just throws my poor brain off!

Sometimes the order part needs to be left out and just find the meaning and value instead.

[once removed]

ruminating sometimes gets a bad rap.

i wrote everything, every spare thought, every absurd "connection". a whole (very messy) time table. i also practiced venting through creative writing.

no regrets. i came to the understanding i feel i needed to get to. the ruminating stopped. it is emotionally draining, but in some ways i think thats the point.

[spottedabel]

Think about what has troubled or overjoyed you in the past, play out potential talks or arguments in your head, talk about it with your friends, your family, your pets, a stranger, write it all down-- do everything or just one of these things but try not to block your feelings or memories out. I've tried before and it didn't work as intended.

As you might still know I'm in a similar predicament to yours and I, too, have chosen writing to sort out my thoughts. I did so on a more creative route (I do still wish to become an author in the future, after all) but even that helps. It puts things into perspective, makes me relate to them differently.

My ex won't accept NC as a possible route to go through this and has often made false hope flare up at the bottom of my guts by getting friendly between the long periods of not writing me at all: coming back to read about what she's done and what she WILL do again helps me create the distance that I need to understand that our relationship, regardless of how beautiful it has been at times, will never come back again.

You can still share what you're writing if you stumble upon things you'd like to have discussed with others: some things aren't easily explained, after all, and it's better than overthinking.

I hope it'll be a good way for you to cope - as it was for us. Don't be discouraged should it end up not being one regardless; we'll definitely find another way through these unpleasant times in that case.

[valet]

I've never written much directly about my ex, per se, but all of my writing takes cues from where I am in life. We are a product of our environment, regardless of our level of self-awareness. If anything, writing this kind of stuff down will be beneficial just to have on record for examination both now and in the future.

It's an inherently emotional exercise to bare it all and expose ourselves, even if we're only exposing ourselves to, well... .ourselves. When you're doing it in a state of honest vulnerability I think that you can learn a lot about who you are.

So, I don't see anything wrong with it at all. Let the thoughts pour out and figure out what they mean to you after you've had some time to think about them.

Before I was trying to block out thoughts of her altogether, but since that isn't working I thought about doing the exact opposite; just embracing the thoughts as they come and just writing it all out, everything that's happened (not on here, don't worry... .).

Has anyone found this to be beneficial? Seems like it could be therapeutic but also very emotionally draining.

I've been guilty of trying to castrate certain thoughts from my mind. It never worked. They had to live somewhere until I let them out and acknowledged that I was capable of having them. Like anyone else, I am imperfect, and so are my thoughts—but I don't have to act on them.

Therapy, by nature, is emotionally draining, because it's purpose is to address things that we have let stay buried for too long. Picture it like a time capsule that you've buried deep in the ground. It's gonna take a long, hard day of shoveling dirt to get to that thing, but once you have it you can see where and who you were and make changes for the better if you deem them necessary.

[beggarsblanket]

I can relate to looking for order, meaning, and value. The order part is tough to come by when someone's actions are not "congruent". Say one thing and do another just throws my poor brain off!

Sometimes the order part needs to be left out and just find the meaning and value instead.

I find order by reading the clinical literature on BPD and bringing what I learn there into my writing. The more I learn, the more I see that there is a logic at work in her mind, however distorted. I need to forgive her to move on, but to forgive her I need to understand why she did what she did.

[JJacks0]

Thanks so much guys. All of your replies were very insightful and helpful.

I think I will start writing tomorrow (later today, technically). I've been in such a funk lately I just slept most of today. Tomorrow I'll go to a coffee shop and do some writing there. It helps to be out of the house. I have some tentative plans later in the evening, so that will hopefully serve as a distraction afterwards too, to keep me from dwelling.

I think that trying to put some order to the chaos will be helpful - not that it will make any more sense to me necessarily, but my mind just keeps running in circles trying to piece together what happened when, etc. There's just so much to think about. I'm sure that "normal" break ups have similarities, but taking into account all the extra elements that there are in BPD relationships, it's just overwhelming. I know that my friends and family that I've talked with about this are sick and tired of hearing about it. They don't understand why I can't just move on and let it go. 

So if nothing else, hopefully this will help me process and recount the situation. And in a way, sometimes I think that I ruminate over what has happened so much to justify the way it's ended up, or to validate my choices that I often question and regret. Maybe this way, if I have it all written down, as orderly as possible, the dwelling will cease a bit. Maybe that's wishful thinking. But I really have been obsessing to a ridiculous degree the past couple days, so it's worth a shot.

[lovenature]

Hey JJ

I have found when I was doing the best in my recovery I was allowing my thoughts and feelings to come and go, instead of getting upset that I wasn't "over" my relationship as soon as I wanted, I realized that I was immersed in a relationship with a person who has a serious mental illness and it only stands to reason that it will take what ever time necessary for me to heal from it.
The more something affects us, the more we are going to think about it and the stronger our feelings are going to be-only human nature.

I believe we have to just accept whatever comes our way as best as we can; learning from our journey in life is how we gain invaluable wisdom.

[stimpy]

Seems like it could be therapeutic but also very emotionally draining.
Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations.

Hi JJ,

yes this captures it, writing down your thought and emotions can be very emotionally draining, but that is why I found it such a good thing to do. For me, I wrote pages and pages and pages all reflecting my thoughts and emotions and feelings at the time of the initial discard.

It was one of the ways of expressing myself and yes, it was emotionally draining, but that was exactly what I wanted, to drain the emotions from my head, onto the paper, and for me it was very therapeutic. To an extent, when I post on here, I think I am continuing that process, but in a different way and I'm well past the discard phase now and I'm into the detachment phase.