I also think I should move. I'm sick of being paranoid in public.

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

I also think I should move. I'm sick of being paranoid in public. I think even the act of being paranoid has a triggering effect. Paranoid about smear attempts and not knowing who is who. Paranoid about having to deal with somebody like this living in my small area. I need to move. I think if I did my biggest problem would be dealing with being mad that I had to move but I feel like my mental health would bounce back like donkey Kong    

[Stillstruggling]

I also think I should move. I'm sick of being paranoid in public. I think even the act of being paranoid has a triggering effect. Paranoid about smear attempts and not knowing who is who. Paranoid about having to deal with somebody like this living in my small area. I need to move. I think if I did my biggest problem would be dealing with being mad that I had to move but I feel like my mental health would bounce back like donkey Kong    

[Skip]

I have ocd and I could potentially see that I might have ADHD. I wonder sometimes if that has anything to do with it or if it's just regular trauma.

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry. Relationship-related obsessions are not unusual, right?  

Do you think the relationship distress is being amplified by your inherent ocd anxieties? I know zero about your relationship experience, so this is a question (not an answer).  

What is driving the desire to move? Does it matter to you?

[Stillstruggling]

My ocd isn't a way of being it's just a specific compulsion and these days is very much under control.

He lives here in a small area and it's scary and horrible. I just want to move away from where he has access to me. Also I am always tense and I believe that can set off a trigger response. He can also hurt me with smear campaigns but if I move he can't. I just don't want to have any reminders and I want to concentrate on myself

[Skip]

Those are good general observations.

Things like gaslighting and blame shifting etc. are in concentrated form in people with cluster b disorders. So in experiencing trauma you might not have a fear for your life situation but you do have the other factors and elements that are often present in the conditions in which trauma often developes.

Is this what effected you?

In my case it was more of a betrayal. I was her soulmate - and then she would feel a need to hurt me to release bad feeling that she had and she would blow up the best things we had. Then she would go back to being devoted soulmate.

I had/have insecure attachment. So the pull way an antidote for insecure attachment and I embraced it with a death grip, and the push was hurtful and magnified several times over by the insecure attachment . I had no knowledge of insecure attachment and certainly no reason to think I had any issues so I just didn't make the obvious adjustments and find the perspective I needed.  When I look back - it was there ever since childhood and I was just excellent at adjusting my lifestyle so that I never was in an overly vulnerable place... .of course, once I opened myself to the depth of what she was offering emotionally (the positive part of that), I also opened myself to the depth of vulnerability that I possessed.

I was doing the best I could with what I knew. I think she was too.

Now I know my exposure - my problematic tendency. I think like alcoholism, we never shed it, we just learn to understand it and work better with it. I have learned to be very open and not damaged by the fragility of relationships.

And you?

[Cromwell]

Hi StillStruggling

Would it take much effort to move?

Reason I ask because I considered the same in the early stages of just broken up, for much the same reasons, and I did, it made a big difference to these feelings you describe that I can relate to feeling at the time.

[Stillstruggling]

Would it take much effort to move?

Yeah because I really do try to stay optimistic that I'm going to improve... and then I leave the house. Living nearby really does require a very advanced level of recovery.

Moving would be hard and heartbreaking. I'm reluctant to move because I love it here but I feel like a lot of what I've been experiencing this past year is part of my fight to stay here and my reluctance to move.

Also he's not from here. I helped him move here. So it seems double unfair.

So you did move then? And it helped?

[Stillstruggling]

Those are good general observations.

Is this what effected you?

I think he presented himself to be so different than who he is that I was lucky because I truely was not impressed with who he is.I think I tend to like people because they are mature and other traits that are kind of the oppisite of what he was.

It took awhile to blend the cognitive dissonance of who he pretended to be vs who he was. But this far down the road I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on it.

I think it's more like he wanted to cause me harm because I was causing him harm and  I just let this malevolent presence sit in my life.   

And I think if he knew how badly I was hurting he would only say just like how you hurt me type of thing. I think he would be glad and feel it just.

But I feel very fortunate that I don't have mixed feelings for this person.i know people often do. He just truely does not impress me and that was actually a huge help. I think I'm lucky that I like people because of their good traits and am impressed by people because of it.

So I'm just trying to process at this point. I see his face smiling at me for example when I was finally reverting back into trauma for example.

[once removed]

when I was finally reverting back into trauma for example.

i think we can certainly carry trauma and it can pop up in ways in all aspects of our lives.

i had a pretty bad experience in 8th grade when i moved schools, didnt really have any friends (well, my friend who was there kinda turned on me) so i felt really isolated, and was bullied and picked on constantly. i remember not having anyone to sit with at lunch, so for a while, i would pace from my locker to the vending machines for the lunch period, then i realized i could go to the library, and i started hanging out there, or my parents who were pretty aware of what was going on would try to pick me up for lunch. i wrote and drew, read and daydreamed a lot, stayed in my head.

high school was a lot different, but i think i carried a whole lot of that experience with me, especially in my relationships. that little guy that had been isolated and alone desperately wanted somebody to love him for the reasons he wanted to be loved. he wanted to help others who had been where he was. and he picked up some coping mechanisms that might have helped get him through at the time, but would be increasingly problematic later on.

and yes, i saw a lot of patterns and connections in the romantic partners i chose, even my friendships.

a change in environment (moving) can help in some ways, for sure, but that trauma can still find us, in our heads, in our relationships, in a lot of aspects of our daily life.

[Cromwell]

Yeah because I really do try to stay optimistic that I'm going to improve... and then I leave the house. Living nearby really does require a very advanced level of recovery.

Moving would be hard and heartbreaking. I'm reluctant to move because I love it here but I feel like a lot of what I've been experiencing this past year is part of my fight to stay here and my reluctance to move.

Also he's not from here. I helped him move here. So it seems double unfair.

So you did move then? And it helped?

it helped massively. I paradoxically moved closer to her, but it led to being closer to my family who could then be more supportive. In the mid to long term, I made new friends in a new community, dont have the memories or triggers that I had from when we lived together and whilst she did track me down, she only ever harassed twice, once on her birthday making a drunken drama that I never reacted to the bait.

I think the act of ghosting her and moving away, it was eventually enough of a unspoken message that there is no point trying.

Psychologists have theorised that moving home is up there as one of the most stressful life events, I enjoyed it, it was a good distraction and I felt empowered that I was being pragmatic. it coincidentally led to better career opportunity too. If it wasnt for family I would have put a few thousand miles between us and I think that would have helped even more.