Halt Obsessive Thinking

[Mother Moth]

Hi all,

I am right at 2 months post break up with my boyfriend of 8 years. I made an earlier post regarding PTSD symptoms and got a lot of good feed-back. Thank you all. I have had no contact with him except one letter that he mailed me. I am struggling with constant thoughts about all the lies, manipulation, discrepancies in words vs. actions. When the thoughts start spinning I try to suddenly change whatever I'm doing, even if it's to stand up suddenly and raise my arms up in the air. These relationships are truly like breaking a drug addiction, I believe. I have no experience with that, but can only imagine this is what it feels like.

I want to scream at him. I want to punch him in the face and push him off a cliff. I want him to feel as small as I allowed him to make me feel.
I have to move forward. But I swear to GOD it feels like I'm herding cats, up a mountain, in a hurricane, during the apocalypse.
It. Is. Hard.

Tell me what you do to battle obsessive thinking. Because talking to him is NOT an option. I refuse to go backwards.

[jambley]

Hi, I struggle with this too especially recently. Being busy helps and as others have said on here, do something for yourself and try self care. It's really tough.

[roberto516]

This might not work for you. But it has worked for me. Feel the feelings, not the thoughts around the feelings. For example, instead of "I hate her (gonna use me as an example) because she used me and she took all the love I had only to hurt me and abandon me in my time of need and never cared, etc. etc." I now try to say "I feel angry. Why? Because I feel hurt. I feel disrespected and I'm angry that I was in this situation. Is it okay to be angry? Yes. Yes it is." And then I use a visualization exercise to let go of the emotion. I picture the word "anger" in my head. I breathe in and see it going to my stomach. When I exhale I see myself spewing the anger out. I'd type more but I have to go now. Hope some of this helps.

[once removed]

ive always been a fan of writing it out - (putting words on paper can have a powerful effect) helps me process and forces me to be constructive while i do, and eventually i exhaust myself.

we have a workshop on dealing with ruminations here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=103396.0

we also have a workshop on "not letting others rent space in your head" here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=74749.0

lots of tricks of the trade. changing what youre doing, standing up and raising your arms in the air is just fine

[Harley Quinn]

Hi Mother Moth,

A bit spooky that OR replied with a link I was about to send you as I've literally just been reading the Renting Space In Your Head workshop!

One thing that has worked for me personally is adopting a mindfulness stance on the thoughts.  An exercise you can do is to sit comfortably, close your eyes and imagine you are looking up at the sky.  As the thoughts arrive, imagine they are like the clouds rolling by.  You could hook them and jump on to any cloud you choose, or instead you could simply acknowledge them and allow them to blow right through without climbing on.  Something that always got drummed into us on my first mindfulness course was that thoughts are not facts.  If we remember that, it takes some of the power from them.  Try to consider that your thoughts about your ex have no more importance than the thought about what to eat for breakfast.  Funnily enough, your action of standing and lifting your arms in the air is a mindfulness practice in itself - the mindfulness of movement.  Whatever it is that you do, bring yourself fully into it.  Be truly 'in the moment' and notice things about it with curiosity.  What do your arms feel like as they lift up?  Do you notice the temperature on your skin?  Are there any areas of discomfort or any comfortable sensations?  Can you feel your clothing against your arm?  Doing these things brings us out of the past, out of the future and totally into the now.  Hope some of this helps.

Love and light x

[Lucky Jim]

Hey MM, Another technique is to say "Cancel" or ":)elete" (out loud if necessary) and then consciously shift your thoughts to something positive in your life.  You might have to do this a few times until your mind gets the idea.  I know this sounds sort of contrived but there is actually medical research behind it and I've had success using this approach. 

LJ

[happendtome]

People are different, what suits for one doesnt suit for other and that makes suggesting harder.

For me, it was total LC/NC. If she contacted me then i only gave yes or no kind of answers and if the topic was about personal life then i simply ignored her. It was really hard, but it has been effective method. At the moment i dont feel any urge to contact her and she doesnt contact me either, because she saw that she cant get into my soul anymore. Of course i still think about her, but not so much really, as i have started to notice other women again. And if i think about sex, then i hardly think her at all now.

[Mother Moth]

Thank you all for your time and answers. Just knowing I'm not alone is a huge help to getting my mind straightened out.

[lovenature]

I found that the best thing for me was not to fight the obsessive thinking but to allow my thoughts and feelings, be present with them and then let them go. I believe we must make sense of what we went through, once we have done that then we can move on with the knowledge of how to live a better way of life.
The more we process things the less we need to process them.

Keep reading and learning, the more you know and the longer you stay NC the clearer things become.