The rage stage of healing

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

I've been meaning to write an update on here for a while - the healing process for me has taken some interesting twists and turns. It's been 15 months since I broke up with my ex, and about 7 months since I last contacted him to let him know that I wasn't okay with the way I was treated, and that I didn't want any further contact with him. He has been in a relationship for about 10 months, but continues to occassionally orbit me (parking near my house or in places he knows I will walk past etc), but I keep my head low and make it clear I'm not up for any contact. I think one day it will stop, but it still unsettles me and I have to work hard to keep my nervous system in check.

I have been in therapy for more than a year now. The recovery process for me has been brutal at times. While I accept that my ex's problems are his alone, I decided it was time to excavate my entire childhood and do a post mortem my entire life, as well as an inventory of my current friendships. This part has been unexpectedly hard - I didn't expect to see such a huge fault line of neglect, control and Cluster B behaviours rippling through my entire life. It's led to many dark nights of the soul, and a stage of withdrawal, protection and shedding.

I decided to step back from a number of family relationships and friendships that I realised exist only because I have been keeping them alive by over-functioning or allowing someone else's needs to over-ride my own. By stepping back and letting go of the rope, I've been able to observe what these connections are really made of, and it's been really confronting to see that these are not reciprocal or safe relationships for me, and haven't been for a long time. I reckon this has applied for around 60-70% of my family and friendships. I dug my heels in at times because I really didn't want to have to admit that I needed to let a lot of these friendships go and deal with the grief of all of that loss.

During all of this, I went through a stage of rage... which I was not expecting, but it was equal parts cathartic and distressing. My way of safely releasing it was to scream or shout it out while I was driving, with music turned up very very loud... I reckon there will be a few people who will have seen this manic open-mouthed screaming lady driving around for a while and thought WTF??? But it's like i was screaming at every moment of disrespect, control, abuse, neglect, cruelty that I've ever experienced in my life. It lasted a few months but I feel like this was such a powerful release for me - to name the dsyfunction, feel every inch of the anger and injustice of it... and release it.

And so... here I am... on the other side of all of that, with a lot less friends, a lot less contact with my family, a much more boundaried way of interacting with people I don't know well, a lot more free time. But there's peace, hope for the future, and more self trust than there's been for a long while.

Would be very interested to know if any other members went through this process as part of their healing?

[seekingtheway]

I've been meaning to write an update on here for a while - the healing process for me has taken some interesting twists and turns. It's been 15 months since I broke up with my ex, and about 7 months since I last contacted him to let him know that I wasn't okay with the way I was treated, and that I didn't want any further contact with him. He has been in a relationship for about 10 months, but continues to occassionally orbit me (parking near my house or in places he knows I will walk past etc), but I keep my head low and make it clear I'm not up for any contact. I think one day it will stop, but it still unsettles me and I have to work hard to keep my nervous system in check.

I have been in therapy for more than a year now. The recovery process for me has been brutal at times. While I accept that my ex's problems are his alone, I decided it was time to excavate my entire childhood and do a post mortem my entire life, as well as an inventory of my current friendships. This part has been unexpectedly hard - I didn't expect to see such a huge fault line of neglect, control and Cluster B behaviours rippling through my entire life. It's led to many dark nights of the soul, and a stage of withdrawal, protection and shedding.

I decided to step back from a number of family relationships and friendships that I realised exist only because I have been keeping them alive by over-functioning or allowing someone else's needs to over-ride my own. By stepping back and letting go of the rope, I've been able to observe what these connections are really made of, and it's been really confronting to see that these are not reciprocal or safe relationships for me, and haven't been for a long time. I reckon this has applied for around 60-70% of my family and friendships. I dug my heels in at times because I really didn't want to have to admit that I needed to let a lot of these friendships go and deal with the grief of all of that loss.

During all of this, I went through a stage of rage... which I was not expecting, but it was equal parts cathartic and distressing. My way of safely releasing it was to scream or shout it out while I was driving, with music turned up very very loud... I reckon there will be a few people who will have seen this manic open-mouthed screaming lady driving around for a while and thought WTF??? But it's like i was screaming at every moment of disrespect, control, abuse, neglect, cruelty that I've ever experienced in my life. It lasted a few months but I feel like this was such a powerful release for me - to name the dsyfunction, feel every inch of the anger and injustice of it... and release it.

And so... here I am... on the other side of all of that, with a lot less friends, a lot less contact with my family, a much more boundaried way of interacting with people I don't know well, a lot more free time. But there's peace, hope for the future, and more self trust than there's been for a long while.

Would be very interested to know if any other members went through this process as part of their healing?