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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2018 18:59:40 GMT
So I've found myself for the past 8 months that I've been single overcome with intrusive thoughts about the last guy I dated properly - he has become the phantom ex I never actually had a relationship with. Because I've spent so much accumulative time with the introjected version of him in my own mind, it feels like we only stopped seeing each other last week, so it feels very fresh still. It's pretty amazing how current this still feels after all this time, but it is painful, crazymaking, and quite honestly, something I feel shame about.I feel embarrassed that I am still so intimately attached to this person in my heart and mind despite how stale the situation is between him and me in reality, and this is so non-reflective of the relationship between the real him and me, so I feel like I can't tell anyone how I feel for fear that they would think I am an obsessive weirdo. Because it is obsessive... and weird. In reality, we haven't spoken since February, and my life has changed so much since he was in it that there should feel like this huge gap between us in my mind as there is in reality. Weirdly, I feel that this has mostly happened because we are in N/C, because if he were still in my life, I would have a real life interaction with him that would make me very aware of the distance between us rather than only having a version of him in my mind that I revisit as a kneejerk reaction every day! It also doesn't help that I don't have another love interest, so he truly has become the placeholder for my projected longing. It sucks. He doesn't deserve it, he wouldn't want it, and I want to pull that projection right back off and somehow place it back on myself but this requires so much energy and it's like going against the grain of how my brain funnels my attention. Normally I would have found someone else by now and he would fall to the back of my mind.
It makes me realise it's not even about this guy... it's not about how great he is, and I'm sure he is even if we aren't compatible, but it's just about projection, onto anyone and everyone who fits into that familiar role and that my brain idealises. We both deserve better, and I wish I didn't have this sucky habit. I would be horrified for him to find out I still felt this way.
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Post by ocarina on Nov 3, 2018 19:25:15 GMT
So I've found myself for the past 8 months that I've been single overcome with intrusive thoughts about the last guy I dated properly - he has become the phantom ex I never actually had a relationship with. Because I've spent so much accumulative time with the introjected version of him in my own mind, it feels like we only stopped seeing each other last week, so it feels very fresh still. It's pretty amazing how current this still feels after all this time, but it is painful, crazymaking, and quite honestly, something I feel shame about.I feel embarrassed that I am still so intimately attached to this person in my heart and mind despite how stale the situation is between him and me in reality, and this is so non-reflective of the relationship between the real him and me, so I feel like I can't tell anyone how I feel for fear that they would think I am an obsessive weirdo. Because it is obsessive... and weird. In reality, we haven't spoken since February, and my life has changed so much since he was in it that there should feel like this huge gap between us in my mind as there is in reality. Weirdly, I feel that this has mostly happened because we are in N/C, because if he were still in my life, I would have a real life interaction with him that would make me very aware of the distance between us rather than only having a version of him in my mind that I revisit as a kneejerk reaction every day! It also doesn't help that I don't have another love interest, so he truly has become the placeholder for my projected longing. It sucks. He doesn't deserve it, he wouldn't want it, and I want to pull that projection right back off and somehow place it back on myself but this requires so much energy and it's like going against the grain of how my brain funnels my attention. Normally I would have found someone else by now and he would fall to the back of my mind. It makes me realise it's not even about this guy... it's not about how great he is, and I'm sure he is even if we aren't compatible, but it's just about projection, onto anyone and everyone who fits into that familiar role and that my brain idealises. We both deserve better, and I wish I didn't have this sucky habit. I would be horrified for him to find out I still felt this way. This is certainly a good space to air this kind of thing - which as you say, in the real life, would be horribly embarrassing.
I have experienced something similar which I tried incredibly hard to shake and it just followed me around like a soulfull old hound. Until I stopped and looked it in the eyes and sat with the pain again and again - at this point it genuinely did dissipate and it was a very very valuable lesson learnt.
These obsessional thoughts become neural habits that are hard to break - and trying to force them away doesn't work - letting them be with compassion worked for me - it wasn't comfortable or graceful but it was really quite an amazing journey. Not sure if this will resonate. I had to let go of the analysing why and what and literally process raw feelings in the body. That was what worked and what was the hardest thing to do!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2018 19:41:03 GMT
So I've found myself for the past 8 months that I've been single overcome with intrusive thoughts about the last guy I dated properly - he has become the phantom ex I never actually had a relationship with. Because I've spent so much accumulative time with the introjected version of him in my own mind, it feels like we only stopped seeing each other last week, so it feels very fresh still. It's pretty amazing how current this still feels after all this time, but it is painful, crazymaking, and quite honestly, something I feel shame about.I feel embarrassed that I am still so intimately attached to this person in my heart and mind despite how stale the situation is between him and me in reality, and this is so non-reflective of the relationship between the real him and me, so I feel like I can't tell anyone how I feel for fear that they would think I am an obsessive weirdo. Because it is obsessive... and weird. In reality, we haven't spoken since February, and my life has changed so much since he was in it that there should feel like this huge gap between us in my mind as there is in reality. Weirdly, I feel that this has mostly happened because we are in N/C, because if he were still in my life, I would have a real life interaction with him that would make me very aware of the distance between us rather than only having a version of him in my mind that I revisit as a kneejerk reaction every day! It also doesn't help that I don't have another love interest, so he truly has become the placeholder for my projected longing. It sucks. He doesn't deserve it, he wouldn't want it, and I want to pull that projection right back off and somehow place it back on myself but this requires so much energy and it's like going against the grain of how my brain funnels my attention. Normally I would have found someone else by now and he would fall to the back of my mind. It makes me realise it's not even about this guy... it's not about how great he is, and I'm sure he is even if we aren't compatible, but it's just about projection, onto anyone and everyone who fits into that familiar role and that my brain idealises. We both deserve better, and I wish I didn't have this sucky habit. I would be horrified for him to find out I still felt this way. This is certainly a good space to air this kind of thing - which as you say, in the real life, would be horribly embarrassing.
I have experienced something similar which I tried incredibly hard to shake and it just followed me around like a soulfull old hound. Until I stopped and looked it in the eyes and sat with the pain again and again - at this point it genuinely did dissipate and it was a very very valuable lesson learnt.
These obsessional thoughts become neural habits that are hard to break - and trying to force them away doesn't work - letting them be with compassion worked for me - it wasn't comfortable or graceful but it was really quite an amazing journey. Not sure if this will resonate. I had to let go of the analysing why and what and literally process raw feelings in the body. That was what worked and what was the hardest thing to do!
thank you for your empathy ocarina - it's painfully affirming for someone who knows what this is like to meet me at "god yeah, that's embarrassing in real life"... that's probably the worst aspect about this, it's just embarrassing because it bears no relation to reality, like aside from the timeline being way off, in reality, i dreaded it when he called me, and he made me feel like crap so many times with his devaluing and deprioritising. he was not a good partner for me, and i ended the "situationship", and i initiated n/c and even changed my number so that he couldn't contact me anymore. i mean these raw feelings surely do not belong to this relationship, even if my brain is associating the two... right? it doesn't make very much sense to me. i know that you're right... that i need to get beneath the story and just touch base with the real somatic experience and just be with it, hold it, feel into it and cry it out if need be. i get so wrapped up in the story, and that something outside of myself is the antidote to the pain and ambiguity and ambivalence i experience around this story. |
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Post by alexandra on Nov 3, 2018 19:53:45 GMT
bloom, you're FA, right? It seems to me that you've had some intense new insights about your AP side the last few days. I've already given you some thoughts on how I made progress towards secure, and if not they're in my other posts, so I don't need to reiterate. But what I will continue to reiterate is don't judge yourself too harshly as these insights come. The truths are rough and difficult, but consider why you feel ashamed of how you feel? As the insights continue to come, see if you can keep the narrative positive, in terms of understanding, forgiveness, and compassion for yourself. Insecure attachment takes a long time to develop and was out of your control when it did. Now you're on your way to understanding yourself and starting to heal, and there's no shame in that. I think ocarina, coming from the avoidant side, makes a good point as well. You've got the two sides to tackle together -- healing the anxiety which did take analysis (not to be confused with rumination) and self-esteem building for me at least -- and healing the avoidance, which I've seen described here as involving some amount of sitting within your body, getting accustomed to how your feelings feel, and experiencing them, reconnecting with yourself. So, a thought from me is, if you're getting too hard on yourself in analysis mode, maybe taking a pause to clear your mind, sit with it, and let your feelings wash over you could be helpful? I don't know if that is useful to you, but I recognize the real progress in your recent posts and am hoping my comments can be supportive because I truly believe it's enormous, albeit confusing, when that self-understanding starts to arrive!
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Post by standintheheart on Nov 3, 2018 20:35:30 GMT
Oh hello, it looks like we're in the same boat. Grab a paddle. I'm glad you're here. Look, a turtle!
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Post by 8675309 on Nov 3, 2018 21:24:56 GMT
Out of the box but, think about burning a release candle or a cut cord candle. Write what you want to release and set its intention. Then let the candle do the work. Im waiting for mine to show up to help me release him. Im so sick of the thoughts... Im still trapped in his energy... Im in this boat, mine Is still fresh but I want out so Im calling in the universe to help me. Ive burned money candles, cleansing candles and protection candles(Had someone harassing me a bit). They have worked Every Single Time. I order them from a tarot reader I watch, she makes them herself with her good juju. leonelunatarot.com/
I had a guy I used to date/stayed friendly with kill himself in high school in front of my friends and I at a party. Its something that lives with you.
To add, I swear I actually feel him on his bad days. All is well then I wake up out of the blue in the morning in a bit of a sad state or all is well at this sad state hits me in the middle of the day. It usually passes after a few hours or so but sometimes it lingers for the day. Literally comes out of nowhere. While Im a bit sad right now just trying to move on, this sad state in not my norm when it hits out of the blue like this.
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Post by leavethelighton on Nov 3, 2018 23:14:23 GMT
Like Alexandra said, be kind to yourself. The whole point of these boards is that it's a process-- if one could just turn those feelings on and off like a lightswitch (if that were possible) or just shake them off at recognition that they were disproportionate to the situation, then these boards wouldn't need to exist. Maybe it would help to remind yourself that these feelings serve a need your psyche has, and that's okay, and that you don't have to disparage yourself or feel embarrassed while you're working to find other ways to serve that need, to heal, etc. You're doing great! We've all been there, and probably lots of people for longer than 8 months (I've been there a lot longer than 8 months before-- it's a journey!) Tomorrow is a new day.
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Post by leavethelighton on Nov 3, 2018 23:16:42 GMT
. . . I read somewhere that the hardest thing you will do in life is grieve the loss of someone who is still alive. And I believe that. My ex-DA isn’t dead but he is gone from my life. And I’m sad. And that’s ok.
Truth!
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Post by leavethelighton on Nov 3, 2018 23:18:07 GMT
Out of the box but, think about burning a release candle or a cut cord candle. Write what you want to release and set its intention. Then let the candle do the work. Im waiting for mine to show up to help me release him. Im so sick of the thoughts... Im still trapped in his energy... Im in this boat, mine Is still fresh but I want out so Im calling in the universe to help me. Ive burned money candles, cleansing candles and protection candles(Had someone harassing me a bit). They have worked Every Single Time. I order them from a tarot reader I watch, she makes them herself with her good juju. leonelunatarot.com/
I had a guy I used to date/stayed friendly with kill himself in high school in front of my friends and I at a party. Its something that lives with you.
To add, I swear I actually feel him on his bad days. All is well then I wake up out of the blue in the morning in a bit of a sad state or all is well at this sad state hits me in the middle of the day. It usually passes after a few hours or so but sometimes it lingers for the day. Literally comes out of nowhere. While Im a bit sad right now just trying to move on, this sad state in not my norm when it hits out of the blue like this.
I've done this candle thing. I won't say it completely worked every time, but it felt like it made a small difference in its own way. Sometimes there's a new agey type of store in town that sells them, so you might not have to buy one on the internet. (Though really, I would think you could also just get any candle that would be meaningful to you).
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Post by 8675309 on Nov 4, 2018 0:13:54 GMT
Out of the box but, think about burning a release candle or a cut cord candle. Write what you want to release and set its intention. Then let the candle do the work. Im waiting for mine to show up to help me release him. Im so sick of the thoughts... Im still trapped in his energy... Im in this boat, mine Is still fresh but I want out so Im calling in the universe to help me. Ive burned money candles, cleansing candles and protection candles(Had someone harassing me a bit). They have worked Every Single Time. I order them from a tarot reader I watch, she makes them herself with her good juju. leonelunatarot.com/
I had a guy I used to date/stayed friendly with kill himself in high school in front of my friends and I at a party. Its something that lives with you.
To add, I swear I actually feel him on his bad days. All is well then I wake up out of the blue in the morning in a bit of a sad state or all is well at this sad state hits me in the middle of the day. It usually passes after a few hours or so but sometimes it lingers for the day. Literally comes out of nowhere. While Im a bit sad right now just trying to move on, this sad state in not my norm when it hits out of the blue like this.
I've done this candle thing. I won't say it completely worked every time, but it felt like it made a small difference in its own way. Sometimes there's a new agey type of store in town that sells them, so you might not have to buy one on the internet. (Though really, I would think you could also just get any candle that would be meaningful to you).
They have worked well for me. 
I can buy them local but I dont know who makes them, I dont want factory produced candles, the shops just order them from someplace random. Leona makes hers with herbs, oils, crystals, etc. Also sends a smudge blend to burn to clearing negative energy before lighting. She pours her good energy into them right in her kitchen. I also resonate with her on multiple levels with her messages, work ethic and we are loners that work in solitude too. Maybe that is why the candles work so well for me from her.
I have burned plain ole candles but they were not as effective.
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Post by boomerang on Nov 4, 2018 13:07:39 GMT
So I've found myself for the past 8 months that I've been single overcome with intrusive thoughts about the last guy I dated properly - he has become the phantom ex I never actually had a relationship with. Because I've spent so much accumulative time with the introjected version of him in my own mind, it feels like we only stopped seeing each other last week, so it feels very fresh still. It's pretty amazing how current this still feels after all this time, but it is painful, crazymaking, and quite honestly, something I feel shame about.I feel embarrassed that I am still so intimately attached to this person in my heart and mind despite how stale the situation is between him and me in reality, and this is so non-reflective of the relationship between the real him and me, so I feel like I can't tell anyone how I feel for fear that they would think I am an obsessive weirdo. Because it is obsessive... and weird. In reality, we haven't spoken since February, and my life has changed so much since he was in it that there should feel like this huge gap between us in my mind as there is in reality. Weirdly, I feel that this has mostly happened because we are in N/C, because if he were still in my life, I would have a real life interaction with him that would make me very aware of the distance between us rather than only having a version of him in my mind that I revisit as a kneejerk reaction every day! It also doesn't help that I don't have another love interest, so he truly has become the placeholder for my projected longing. It sucks. He doesn't deserve it, he wouldn't want it, and I want to pull that projection right back off and somehow place it back on myself but this requires so much energy and it's like going against the grain of how my brain funnels my attention. Normally I would have found someone else by now and he would fall to the back of my mind. It makes me realise it's not even about this guy... it's not about how great he is, and I'm sure he is even if we aren't compatible, but it's just about projection, onto anyone and everyone who fits into that familiar role and that my brain idealises. We both deserve better, and I wish I didn't have this sucky habit. I would be horrified for him to find out I still felt this way. I am in the same situation as you. It also makes me feel ashamed/pathetic, still thinking about someone who just wants to move on.
in my case, it was a nearly two-year, off-and-on, push/pull relationship that could not survive our attachment dynamic and how that played out, in particular, in our mutual inability to have productive communication. He finally ended it definitively 3 months ago. This was a rough breakup, and I truly did not want to see him after that. Somehow, I did not run into him for the next two months, even though we work in the same building. I sat with the hurt and it helped me build a wall and begin to detach, not perfectly, but was making progress.
However, the last month or so we have been running into each other constantly. I am AP and he's DA/FA, and sometimes he projects vulnerability and anxiety and an emotional desire to connect; most of the time he is cordially polite, as if we had only ever been acquaintances.
All this interaction sure has got him back in my head, particularly as it feels familiar--even though I know we will not restart this time. It was much easier for me when I did not see him. I cannot help being aware of the emotional tenor of how he is engaging with me in each instance, and this indeed makes it all feel fresh. Even though we no longer engage at all except when I run into him. Even though the anxiety I had for so long is completely gone.
And, like you, I have no substitute to bump him from the screen, so to speak. So, no easy out, unfortunately. Like you, I have to find my own way to get out of this head. I am also not quite sure how to go about it.
And there are some big elephants in the room, including that, surprise, surprise, I still have feelings for him, as well as still being powerfully attracted physically to him. These are brought to the fore when I see him. Can't in fairness to him or to me express or act on either. What to do with this, when I keep seeing him?
Everyone has their way of disconnecting. For me, never seeing him is the key. For you, maybe, as you said, you need to see him to feel the separation in your full self. We are both stuck for the moment, it seems, with on-goingness and unable to be in the circumstances that we intuitively feel we need to move our hearts and brains to the past to fully disengage. I empathize.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2018 18:02:04 GMT
I want to reply to everyone thoroughly, and I can't do that justice tonight with the mood I have been in...
but I did want to say that although I haven't tried a cord cutting candle yet, I did try a cord cutting visualisation last night and it really does seem to have placed this person kind of out of my awareness and lessened the feeling of attachment! I am dumbfounded by it
Thank you everyone who wrote and advised I try this, it wouldn't normally be my sort of thing
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Post by tnr9 on Nov 5, 2018 1:26:26 GMT
I did some visualization exercises and discovered that B is a cherished Velveteen rabbit to my little girl...which explains why it has been so challenging to let him go. So, what I have tried to do is to visualize B as a separate individual from her rabbit. I have him stand in front of my little girl and smile at her while she shows him her rabbit and then i have him hold the rabbit...it does seem to be working to allow space where before it felt impossible to let him go....still working on it. Just saying that there may be something deeper going on and the projection is just a result of that.
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Post by faithopelove on Nov 5, 2018 23:48:22 GMT
I did some visualization exercises and discovered that B is a cherished Velveteen rabbit to my little girl...which explains why it has been so challenging to let him go. So, what I have tried to do is to visualize B as a separate individual from her rabbit. I have him stand in front of my little girl and smile at her while she shows him her rabbit and then i have him hold the rabbit...it does seem to be working to allow space where before it felt impossible to let him go....still working on it. Just saying that there may be something deeper going on and the projection is just a result of that. I love that visualization 💗 I think that could be helpful to any AP who has anxious feelings of separation and abandonment from their partner. The feeling of abandonment is what triggers my anxiety- it’s like I’m that baby who hasn’t figured out object permanence. When you cover that stuffed toy with a blanket- it’s still there. “Peek a boo” shouldn’t be a surprise yet it seems with AP’s we don’t think the person is returning- we don’t believe in their permanence beneath the covering of a blanket...or in our adult context in their absence while they’re at work or delayed in returning a text. My security is fostered by the confidence that silence and space is ok. It’s not forever and it’s not life threatening- the disconnect will be restored after a temporary interruption. I can feel I’m growing in my security when I can accept time and space graciously and remain content and at peace....as I’m feeling good tonight despite my ex DA pulling back since our meet up Wednesday. You know what? I’m happy anyway and that’s progress...we’ll reconnect again or not. Either way, I’m ok and reminding myself of my worth and value- and how I’m filled with an abundance of love on my very own. Thx for sharing and I’m glad your visualization is helping with B!! 🌻🌸🙂 |
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