Ruminating daily, any strong strategies on stopping this constant behaviour

[blueblue12]

I have been reading posts by Longterm with much interest. The stories are common. In the same way I went through hell and back. And I was destroyed, along with marriage (ten years) and I was blamed for everything, “too controlling, insecure, etc..”

She came back two months after the split and I was suddenly the greatest guy in the universe and her “greatest love.” Like many others here this helped me understand that it was not my fault, before she came back I accepted all the blame and I was destroyed mentally, my self image was at a very low point. Terrible time in my life.

Now like many others here, I am thinking, ruminating about her every passing day! My T who is very good and the one that alerted me to bpd, asks “she did this you, this to you, this you, what is it that you are not getting here?”

I haven’t seeing her since April 2017. I stopped responding to her emails, always asking for this and that since August 2018. I never initiate contact and have been in NC. With nc I feel a sense of power, I am not chasing any longer, I am not interested. And I also fear her immensely, I don’t really want to hear from her, let alone see her. She now lives far, far away so that is a blessing, I no longer have to walk around thinking I will bump into her.

Now the daily ruminations. How do you guys deal with this? Why the daily ruminating? Why is it that I/we cannot leave this behind? It really bothers me, I feel still attached although there is nothing there and certainly nothing good for me even if there was a chance. I was treated so badly then why so stuck? Is it the addictive nature of these relationships? Are some of you guys still at that point? I am not interested in anyone new either, I have no new relationships developing nor do I seek anything new. It’s such a weird feeling. And somehow I cannot get rid of it.

Interested in your experiences...and strategies here.

[Longterm]

Hi Raul

I feel still attached 

Trauma bonding.

That's what I believe ties us to them. The experience when things are good is heavenly, but when we are treated poorly it leaves us confused and reaching for that high again. It's like a severe addiction and we are in withdrawal.

Has the ruminating always been a daily occurrence, can you pin point any periods where it has been less severe?

. I stopped responding to her emails, always asking for this and that since August 2018. I never initiate contact and have been in NC. With nc I feel a sense of power, I am not chasing any longer, I am not interested. And I also fear her immensely, I don’t really want to hear from her, let alone see her. 

So you have been in strict NC for almost 1yr? Fearing her is pretty normal, she has traumatised you, it is perfectly acceptable to feel this way. It is good that she has moved far away, that way you dont have to see her. I'm guessing there are no kids involved?

From my own understanding, this is going to take a very long time to come to terms with. I actually just read that in a lot of cases it's around 18mths NC that the non (you) starts to believe that they can recover, but is often longer. I'm inclined to agree with this in my own experience. I managed 14mths NC and I was beginning to feel more confident, looking forward to the future and began to imagine a life without my ex in it.

Do you have many friends/hobbies? What do you do to take your mind off her?

LT.

[blueblue12]

Thanks for the reply Longterm. Yes trauma bonding, understand that. My T says I was abused. I never thought of it like that, I was too busy trying to fix anything she disliked or criticise about. Plus my T says I was never in control. I was controlled and gaslighted.

Yet I keep ruminating. It is a daily thing, at some point during the day she comes through in my thoughts. It’s like you get to that área where I actually feel sorry for her, but she did treat me terribly at the end, shouldn’t I just be so angry? But I am not. Even at the end when she wanted to recycle the relationship she did say to me “you are just angry,” my response was “not angry, just disappointed.”

I would like the ruminating to end. I am actually very busy, work, friends, projects so in some ways it doesn’t make much sense, but it is my reality. Yes and very lucky to be in a position where there are  no kids involved. How do you cope? Still NC right?

[gizmo7247]

Hi Raul,

I'd say definitely NC, that's a given. I'll share what I do to try and help me cope with ruminating - take it with a grain of salt though, I have a lot of better days and worse days even with what I focus on doing.

Writing. I found that talking to family or friends only caused me more damage and pain. They mean well, but they don't understand. I always left those conversations feeling ashamed or worse because they felt as if I should be "over it." So instead I found writing helps a lot. This message board, journaling, I even started writing a blog. I write about my feelings, but also try to write about memories that keep haunting me. I find it helps to get it out, and actually tell what happened to me. For so long her abuse became my normal (at best) or my fault (at worst), and getting it out and then re-reading it helps me recognize how crazy it all was.

Daily routine - I focus on the consistency, not any specific end point. I picked this up from a podcast, that focusing on a goal or endpoint sets us up for failure. Instead just focus on doing it every day. So my daily "self-care" components are:

Morning: Wake up early, don't turn on TV or check my phone (including social) - turn on soothing music from the app Calm. Then I do daily self-journaling, and meditate. I really try to make the morning my quiet, calming, centering time. I also make myself a simple daily promise every day.

I've found meditation to REALLY help me focus on the present, and has helped me catch my thoughts when they start ruminating and gently pushing them back to the present.

After work: gym, almost every day. I find it really helpful. It helps me get out energy, tires me out (so I don't have so much energy to think per se), and it helps me feel better about myself. Decimated self-esteem has continued to be a huge issue for me since the breakup.

Social media - I'll go days sometimes just staying off it. I long ago blocked her on everything, but just the whole "looking at social and comparing my life to everyone else's best points in life" I found to be detrimental.

Dating - I know what you mean. I actually went on a bunch of dates in the months after the breakup. But one of two things happened: either I wasn't emotionally available to connect, or the few times there was the hint of connection I actually got scared, and would start wondering if this person was opening up to quickly to me (as in they might be another BPD) and I'd withdraw.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that I have a lot of work I need to do on myself, otherwise I'm just going to attract the same thing and end up in another BPD or BPD-like relationship.

I'm 39 - so it's hard because there's an inner voice screaming at me that I'm getting too old to find another relationship, and that I'm "running out of time." It sounds stupid, but I then picked up books like "The Unexpected Joy of Being Single." The point was to try and refocus my mind, and combat that inner critic - it has helped some.

Lastly - the post about the Arrow and the Wound by 2010 here, that is truly my anchor. Whenever I find myself ruminating, wondering about her or trying to understand what happened - I ALWAYS go back to that arrow and wound analogy, and remind myself that I need to focus on my wounds, not the arrow, in order to heal.

I'm only 7 months out from the final break. The first 3 months were really rough, I don't even like to think about them. I went full NC 4 months out from the break, and the next month and a half started implementing some of the above, and did start to feel better. Then I got a call from a lawyer she hired, with a bunch of crazy outlandish allegations she was making against me. Luckily I think her own lawyer knew she had "issues", nevertheless, it set me back and probably did what she intended to do - drew my attention (albeit negative) back to her. That was maybe a month ago, so I've reimplemented all of the above and am back (somewhat) on track.

Now I live in fear of whatever she's concocting next - but I can't control it, so I try to just focus on myself and healing.

Like I said - those are the things I do to help. The ruminating still comes, but there are good and bad days.

I'm in weekly therapy too. I think long term it will help, but to be honest - sometimes the therapy days are the worst because of the things my T and I talk about. It brings up a lot, but I know it's supposed to.

[blueblue12]

Thanks Gizmo, great insights in your post. I will look into the detail and start to develop some strategies for myself. I know what you mean about family and people around that don’t get it. I have only found a few friends that really understand what I went through, mainly because they had similar experiences. Other people just look at you with a funny look. My ex did her best to always come across well in public. That is her way.

I also understand the social media take, I am not into it and have also blocked her long ago and don’t go looking to see what she may post. Not interested. I also know full well how she would come across, everything is amazing sort of vibe, not real, but that is social media. I am just not into it and have not delved into looking at anything she does. I won’t go there.

I just want to be left alone. I have no desire to follow anything she may be doing. Having said that I must say I wish her well, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. But it’s long gone now and I am not in the picture any longer.

My T says I need to work on what makes me happy, my life, I need to find myself. I understand that. I spent too much time making her happy and forgot about my own happiness. I need to find myself again and develop my things. I am working on that. M T finds it incredible that with all the turmoil I went through I just accepted things and went along. I must say I resign myself, I suspect mainly because my self-esteem was so low that I felt somehow that I deserved whatever was coming to me, after all she convinced me that I was a bad guy, a monster.

I also like you live in fear, I just don’t want to be contacted at all. My T says I will have to face this as the mature being, but it still worries me, she had so much control over my life for me over a decade.  

My T has been amazing, I am so lucky to have found someone that actually understand the developments. Like he says “you did your best, under a very troublesome situation, now you need to work on yourself, you need the also work out why did you attract this situation and why did you put up with it.” I guess I was convinced by my ex that I was the bad guy.

Thanks again Gizmo, great insights. And you are very young lots of good things coming your way. Take care.

[Longterm]

Hi Raul.

Yes, you have been abused.

It is extremelly tough and hard to deal with. I have only been NC around 2-3 weeks now so this is all very raw for me at present. I feel extremely stupid for breaking it and I would suggest you stay in NC. I asked if there were any periods where you have actually felt better because it's important to look at what you have done in these periods because whatever you have done has worked to some degree if you have achieved better periods.

I have had much better periods. I got myself out there and made new friends, I made more time for hobbies and I started to enjoy being single, I looked at the benefits of being able to wake when I wanted to, to organise things I  wanted to do. I didnt have to ask permission from anybody or worry about the consequences, it was awesome and I long for those days again. I educated myself on this terrible disorder and I had a plan moving forward. My weakness was my empathy and I came back to these boards in a panicked state because I knew my ex was trying to come back. She beat me down so badly (with words) that I was literally suicidal at one point, I felt powerless to defend myself from her advances. I had not seen her for 14mths. The point I'm trying to make is that things were going so much better for ME when I was thinking about ME and what I wanted.

Gizmo made a very good post here. Can you see that she has a self care plan? Think about what you do daily Raul if there anything you could be doing differently to bring the focus onto yourself?

Gizmo that was an awesome post and I applaud your efforts, you should be very proud of yourself.

LT.

[Harri]

Hi Raul!  You are getting some great replies here 

Take a look at our workshop on  5.07 | Dealing with ruminations

See if it helps.  I find that understanding what my brain is trying to do helps me to then use some of the strategies to reduce the endless thoughts.

[once removed]

I feel still attached although there is nothing there and certainly nothing good for me even if there was a chance.

you will find that NC is not the same thing as detaching/detachment. at best, it is a tool that can give us some space to do so.

she did treat me terribly at the end, shouldn’t I just be so angry?

grief doesnt work this way. we can love, miss, mourn and grieve a person that also hurt us. we can also be angry, and everything in between.

if you were "just" angry, it would essentially be the same thing as trying to paint her black.

the vulnerability of acknowledging our grief and our hurt, and all of our feelings, is ultimately the way through it.

Why is it that I/we cannot leave this behind?

because there are wounds that you have not detached from. they existed before her and the relationship - the relationship and its ending opened them up, brought them to the surface, and forced your attention. this is where the real work of detaching comes in.

it wont come just from an absence of her. the truth is, if you just sit and do nothing, eventually time will dull the pain. but it wont heal the wounds.

I would like the ruminating to end.

the workshop that we have, and the strategies recommended (maintaining routine was crucial for me) are all great.

to some extent, i think its a good idea to use the ruminating constructively. your mind is trying to piece things together in a way that makes sense, in a way that you can process. fighting it is kind of like the game where someone says "dont think of a pink elephant", and you cant not think of a pink elephant.

putting them in writing helped me a lot. exploring them on the board and getting feedback from others helped too. directing them into a constructive place can reduce them.

they can also be excessive and even debilitating, so its a good idea to have strategies that can limit, if not reduce them.

[gizmo7247]

My T says I need to work on what makes me happy, my life, I need to find myself. I understand that. I spent too much time making her happy and forgot about my own happiness. I need to find myself again and develop my things. I am working on that. M T finds it incredible that with all the turmoil I went through I just accepted things and went along. I must say I resign myself, I suspect mainly because my self-esteem was so low that I felt somehow that I deserved whatever was coming to me, after all she convinced me that I was a bad guy, a monster.

The working on what makes me happy part has, and continues to be, a challenge for me. She had integrated so deeply into my life, and mirrored so many of my likes, that afterward doing those things just reminded me of her. A perfect example: I'm a comic geek, and love the Marvel movies. We would ALWAYS go see movies together, and saw all the Marvel movies when they came out.

I haven't been back to the movies since January (our final break). We'd seen the first half of the Avengers movie together, and when the second part came out this year - even seeing trailers for it on TV gave me anxiety and made me sad. I wondered if she was going to see it with another guy. So obviously I didn't go see it, still haven't.

My T says I'm going to have to create new memories to replace the old ones - and I know she's right. But I'm just not ready. So instead, I started picking up old hobbies I liked long before her - photography being one. That's been a daily promise I've made to myself several days: take an hour and go out into the city and take photos. It's helped a lot. And by making it my daily promise, I commit to it, and I do it.

My T has been amazing, I am so lucky to have found someone that actually understand the developments. Like he says “you did your best, under a very troublesome situation, now you need to work on yourself, you need the also work out why did you attract this situation and why did you put up with it.” I guess I was convinced by my ex that I was the bad guy.

This is what my former T said to me almost verbatim. He's the one who had met her several times, and the one who told me she was a Borderline. He made an analogy, basically that she was a sinking ship - and most people would have jumped off long before I did. I, instead, held on for dear life and was going to go down with the ship. He said I needed to face and understand why, that it has to do with self-esteem issues...and once I work through them, I will be so much happier in the long run.

So here I am, in a new city with a new T, trying to work through them.

As to the consistency and routine - I find it really does help. Life has gotten busy a few times, and I've missed a couple days - and when I do I find myself falling backwards a bit. It's okay though, and I don't criticize myself for missing those days. I just focus on getting back on to the routine. It really does help.

Good luck on finding a routine, I think it will really help. And don't be hard on yourself, I still find myself ruminating too - I just try to refocus back on to the routine.

[gizmo7247]

Gizmo made a very good post here. Can you see that she has a self care plan? Think about what you do daily Raul if there anything you could be doing differently to bring the focus onto yourself?

Gizmo that was an awesome post and I applaud your efforts, you should be very proud of yourself.

LT.

Thanks LT. I truly did find that the routine and consistency helped me be more active in getting unstuck from the ruminating. It took me awhile though to get to the point where I was just over feeling helpless, per se, and needed to take an active role in my healing.

Oh, and pssst...I'm a "he," not a "she."   

[Ecan]

Thanks Rual for this subject I am 3 months out and I feel like it was just yesterday sometimes. I can relate to you guys.

I am grateful for yalls responses it comforts me to know I'm not alone tonite with this. I agree this is going to be a long journey and for the first time Im in no hurry to couple up with anyone. I am 48 and she was to be the one. I do feel that I wasted 14 years with someone who really didn't seem to want to fully to comit. I am ashamed to say that she was married and that is one thing I promised myself that I would never do. We were friends for 12 years then I set aside my morals and everything changed she changed. I have to forgive myself for braking my moral code. She did go back to the husband. So much shame and confusion. I'm hoping by the time I'm 50 I can be healthy enough to get back to dating.

The ruminating gets on my nerves she broke up with me so she has no right to be in my head. Unfortunately the harder I fight it the more I do it.
Someone on this site suggested to set aside an hour a day to allow myself to freely ruminate and during the day when a thought hits write it down and let it go to review during the hour you have set aside. I have not tried it yet.

I think I have allowed myself to be recycled to many times each time I lost a piece of my soul to where I have none, so right now I'm concentrating on getting through the day not feeling sorry for myself.. She really gutted me with her good by get out of my life I'm putting you into the black hole of no return note. She said not to violate her so I didn't even get to say anything about the bull she was dishing out.
Sorry for the rambling I guess I just needed to get some of this out.
Raul take care and I hope the ruminating starts to dissipate.

[Longterm]

Hi Ecan.

Why not start a thread and we can talk it out? Sounds like it could be good for you.

LT.

[blueblue12]

Thanks Harri, I will check that dealing with ruminations workshop now!

Once Removed I understand that I have to look at my care taker tendencies, I have been working through those issues with my T. Getting there slowly. In terms of anger, I didn’t mean looking at painting her black, I am more concerned about my placid manner which is something my T often discusses with me. When she started to destroy everything, treat me horribly, I just took it all, I didn’t argue, I didn’t stand for myself, I accepted her behaviour, her hurtful words and took all the blame. She convinced me we were breaking up because there was something wrong with me. I was the problem. I believed it. She even made me write her an apology letter, which I did! I was so down by the new atmosphere she created in our house. She used to give me the silent treatment all day long. Somehow I was convinced that I deserved it all, I was the bad guy. My T says in those circumstances the mature being inside has to come out and call it as it is, eg. “I am sorry but I don’t accept to be treated this way.” I never did that, I should have. Instead I just walked on eggshells all day long.

Gizmo I get the mirroring aspects and your experiences. I must say I have similar experiences, be it in the arts, music, food. Lots of areas I shared and she took on now are implanted in my sad recollections of times gone by. But i have moved on extensively, I was a mess when she first left me. I can function on a daily basis, it is just that I do think about her a lot more then I would like to. Do you feel that the city move has helped you break free a little?

Sorry to hear your story Ecan. I have tried the ruminating extensively for a time then moving on, it works for me sometimes. It’s like you are there and so you stay and end up going through an array of shared areas, reminiscing, then you exhaust yourself and move on. Often when I have tried that strategy I find that eventually you can finally disassociate and concéntrate fully on something else. I must say I also feel disappointed at times, in that I spent so many years on a relationship, that unbeknown to me at the time, had a ‘used by date’ already set. It was always going to be “bulldozed and completely destroyed at some point in time” as my T says. Hey Ecan no rambling from your side in evidence here, feel free to write whatever you feel. Take care.


 

[Wicker Man]

My T... ...asks “she did this you, this to you, this you, what is it you are not getting here?” ... ...She came back two months after the split and I was suddenly the greatest guy in the universe and her “greatest love.”

My relationship was not long enough for me to have been deeply effected by trauma bonding instead what kept me stuck was her utter certainty of our love one moment and then destructive and impulsive defense mechanisms the next.  I had never known cognitive dissonance on this level -I had never loved someone I could not trust, someone who told lies pathologically.  She ultimately lied to protect us -from her.  Twisted compassion and double binds.

I am thinking, ruminating about her every passing day!

What helped me through was learning a lasting healthy love is all but impossible with someone suffering from untreated BPD.    I tried, and not with all the King's horses and all the King's men could I make her feel safe.  It is humbling to throw one's entire being at a problem and have the problem only seem to get worse.  I was fighting a battle which could not be won.  Like Sisyphus, except she was pushing on the other side of the rock.

 I have read arguments for re-classifying BPD as an axis 1 malady. 

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b0d5/69e0dbfa5e63dc609af47ecd952ec5d8ff5c.pdf

I have read about the similarities between the Factor 2 behaviors of psychopaths and people suffering from untreated BPD

https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/cmrcr/clinical-medical-reviews-and-case-reports-cmrcr-5-227.php?jid=cmrcr

BPD is a very serious mental illness and we cannot love it, nor any other personality disorder, out of someone.   Only if they decide to seek therapy for their own wellbeing is there any chance at them having a healthy intimate relationship.  This is an enormous amount of work and I, sadly, believe in my heart my ex is not up to the task at this point in her life.

Why the daily ruminating?

In my case my rumination took the form of re-running conversations through over and over looking for what I might have missed.  I found the more I thought about it the darker our relationship really was.   I had fallen in love with an idea -she did inspire fantasy.  The lovely parts of her were simply incredible, but she was unfortunately prone to cognitive distortion, partial amnesia, and mind snapping impulsive behaviors.  She literally could not remember our love for each other when I was away from more than a couple days. 

The disparity between what she said and what she did kept me stuck for a long long time. 

Is it the addictive nature of these relationships?

I found the variable reward schedule of reinforcement in our relationship truly addictive.  I was, in my opinion, consistent in my love for her and she was all over the map.  I would call and sometimes it was lovely and sometimes it was the beginning of days of rage.  So like any dutifully trained rat in a Skinner box I kept hitting the level hoping for a treat... and about half the time I got an electric shock instead.

...and strategies...

My strategy, in so far as it was...  Therapy helped quite a lot.  Journalling.  ...and for better or worse I read everything I could about personality disorders. 

When intrusive thoughts come I try to identify what the trigger might have been and why I find this though pattern 'rewarding'.  I do my best to always link a positive thought about the relationship to the mayhem she created. 

[Lucky Jim]

Hey Raul,

Like you, I spent countless hours ruminating about my BPDxW and the breakdown of our marriage.  Looking back, I don't find that it was particularly healthy or productive to fixate on someone as mercurial as my Ex.  At the end of the day, I concluded that I would never get to the bottom of a disorder, BPD, that causes so much irrational and unreasonable behavior.   I finally saw my former marriage as a Black Hole from which I had to emerge, if I was going to move on with my life.  Now I look back on those dark years as a catalyst for new growth.  Hey, we're all human, so give yourself a break.

I suggest you return the focus to you.  What would you like to see happen?  What are your gut feelings?  What is the best path for you?  You get the idea.

LuckyJim

[blueblue12]

Hello Wicker Man, thank you for your input. As you know I had a similar experience, specially at the end, it was hard to comprehend the sudden change from the loving person to the other which hated me and gave me silent treatment for a whole last year. It was confusing and sad to witness the change.

My ex did her best to put the blame on me, so nothing wrong with her, later on when she wanted to recycle she did asked whether my T could recommend someone as she was unhappy with her current counsellor. My T did, he recommended a colleague that dealt with dbt. When I told her she asked “what’s dbt?” Then she came back a day later and said “my current counsellor says I don’t have a personality disorder, so I don’t need dbt sessions.” There you go. I left it at that, nothing I can do.

Like you observe ruminating can take you places where you actually come to realise that the situation wasn’t ideal. My T recently said that “you have to be careful in looking at the past through coloured glasses” a lot of is “an illusion.” Lots of issues that developed and ruin the relationship came from “way before I was in the picture” he says, I was caught in a situation that “I could never fix” he often tells me. I get that. At the time I was extremely fixated in my ex, did everything I could to make her life happy, I was addicted, at the end to no avail.

Hey Lucky Jim, good to hear from you! Hope you are doing well and thanks for the advice, always appreciate your input. And yes focusing on me, working on my life, things are improving but I do admit she is still in my thoughts, even for a few minutes on a daily basis. How to get rid of that? Will it ever happen? Hope so!

[Wicker Man]

I do admit she is still in my thoughts, even for a few minutes on a daily basis. How to get rid of that? Will it ever happen? Hope so!

For me it has taken a lot of time, but I think about her far far less that I had.  One of the last triggers is actually quite silly.  I taught Dream Come True about taking calcium (she weighs 44kg and has the nutritional sense of a 5 year old) for her bone health.  Every morning when I get my vitamins I flash back to laying one out for her.  Since most of the other triggers have been disconnected and defused I am guessing this one will, over time, subside as well.

Now when I think of her it really doesn't hurt.  I miss her, but that thought is always followed by what would have likely happened had we continued. 

“what’s dbt?”

The egosyntonic nature of some personality disorders is fascinating.  So... by implication she thinks everyone feels empty, fears abandonment and has what ever other symptoms of BPD she presents?  You did a really good thing in suggesting DBT -who knows maybe you planted a seed for her to someday find some relief. 

None of this does us any good though.  In being away from these relationships we have ensured our own safety and wellbeing -but at what cost?  I spoke to Dream Come True time and again about mutually assured destruction and how living under the specter of nuclear annihilation was 'no fun'.  However, I found myself forced into DEFCON 1 and had to do my part in the annihilation of our relationship as an answer to her initial 'first strike'.  I had really no other rational choice, but it was without any joy that I did so. 

Did she 'earn' losing me? By leaps and bounds yes -but there is no joy in this 'retribution'.  If she had been a narcissist and had wished to intentionally do me harm, then perhaps I would have felt more at ease with the pain our separation has caused both of us.  Instead she continues to be tortured by the very disorder which made our separation inevitable. 

[MeandThee29]

Looking back, I don't find that it was particularly healthy or productive to fixate on someone as mercurial as my Ex.  At the end of the day, I concluded that I would never get to the bottom of a disorder, BPD, that causes so much irrational and unreasonable behavior.   I finally saw my former marriage as a Black Hole from which I had to emerge, if I was going to move on with my life. 

This was a big step in the right direction for me. Accept it for what it was and let it be. I ruminated and had hope of reconciliation much, much longer than I should have. Now I have more boundaries and believe the people who warned me that he had drawn a line that could not be crossed.

Not long ago, a friend who knows just the bare details suggested that I one day write a book. I cannot image why I personally would want to do that as the story goes deeper and uglier as you dig into it. I still know people who don't believe me including his relatives. I can imagine that it would utterly drive me into the pit. But people outside of our world don't get it.