Question Pertinent to the 4.5 months out Stage

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Question Pertinent to the 4.5 months out Stage
15
Sun, 02-27-2011 - 9:22pm

Let me preface the question with a tiny backstory.

For the most part, the 4 month out stage....is primarily STEADY and MANAGEABLE...yet I still get the occasional pangs of emotion - whatever they may be...(sadness, longing, curiosity, remorse, the whole shabang)

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-16-2010

Hi Newlife!

Its hard for me to answer here as I was nowhere near this board at 4.5 months out...so I wasn't aware of the kind of process I was going thru like you are at this stage in your recovery.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2010

OMG, Michelle. I am so glad you posted this. I have had similar obsessive thoughts but didn't want to post anything for fear of setting anyone else back. Plus I didn't know how to broach this subject because, for me, it feels like "rule breaking" yet it also feels oddly cathartic. I know our situations are completely different, but maybe it's because xAPs were public figures that we feel this way?? I don't know.

Over the past three weeks, I've been having these obsessive feelings, also. They are also

Oct. 12, 2010 -- began my personal search and rescue mission.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Mon, 02-28-2011 - 12:42pm

ALWAYS!!!

Thanks so much!!! YOu verbalized even more of EXACTLY my thinkings and doings.

I know we share the "public persona" phenomena to our jams...which translates into 2 things:

1) OUR EGOS got quite a pop from the a's

and

2) INFORMATION is READILY available and frequently forthcoming - without my having to even go searching for it.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010
Mon, 02-28-2011 - 12:49pm

Melinda,

Thanks hon, for responding!!!

1) I get that. 2 steps forward 1 back. Just another cycling through junk for a second while Im getting healthy.

2) Distraction. Good. Boredom.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010
Community Leader
Registered: 05-23-2003

Hesitantly poking my nose in here...to say that something in both of your posts kind of jumped out at me.

    

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2010
you know 'Chelle, I've been giving this a lot of thought over the past few weeks and even talked about it with my T - who made the comment that many times after coming out of th ea - we replace compulsive behaviors and habits with obsessive thoughts in a cyclical pattern because we fail to redirect, refocus or realign our thinking.

I think that it's exactly normal where you're at and you've gotten some great advice/thoughts from other posters - but I've been thinking about it a lot today because your questions ring loud for many of us...

I don't think there is value in the obsesssive thinking - I think it's habit - one that must be replaced by another habit (based on the idea that you can't just "quit" a habit but must replace it.)

What can you glean? Hm - well maybe it's a matter of sketching out your patterns - what IS your cycle? My T was a big believer in patterns and made me identify mine a lot in the way I handle things - stress, surprises, sickness, every day stuff - etc. By seeing the patterns it made it easier for me to recognize where I was in the cycle and see where I was headed. To chart patterns, I'd make a note on my calendar each day - mood, anything happening, where thoughts were, etc. It was interesting...

Anyway - you aren't alone in it.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2010

((((Ladies))))

You have all helped me with another break through. Kim, it was your post, contemplating anger as the underlying issue, that made me snap. Yes. I AM ANGRY. But here's the whacky thing. I am not angry at him because we aren't together, or because he promised me things he couldn't deliver, or that he was mean or ugly

Oct. 12, 2010 -- began my personal search and rescue mission.
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-22-2009

Michelle,

I'm sorry it's taken me all day to respond to this. I was actually busy at work for a change.

Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life. ~ Buddha
Community Leader
Registered: 05-23-2003
Always,

As far as your dad goes...I will say that my relationship with my dad seemed to follow a similar trajectory (minus the A). When my sister and I hit our teenage years, my dad suddenly seemed to not want to be around us, had no idea how to relate to us, and ended up withdrawing his love (or so we believed). Years later, my mom told me that he still feels a great deal of guilt and shame for that - that he wanted to stay connected to us...but he just didn't know how. He isn't the most emotional man, and just couldn't quite figure out how to relate to us girls. With my brothers, he became involved in their sports - he coached their teams, acted as umpire at their games, was a huge presence as far as those things went.

And of course, I found out later in life that my brothers felt some of the same ways that my sister and I did - that his love was conditional on them doing well, that there were times they'd have just preferred a simple hug to anything else, etc.

There are five of us...and all of us had something to say about how we felt growing up and how we viewed our dad. And, since some of them were quite similar - I came to understand that really, it wasn't me - or my sister, or any of my brothers -- it was just that my dad wasn't very good at some things, and that was his failing...not mine.

Puberty is such a terrifying time anyways - all those hormones floating around, etc. But, I think that puberty is really when most of us get the first glimpses of the person that we really are - it's when we can first start to sense how we'll look/act/be in the next five to ten years (of course, coinciding nicely with what we're told is "adulthood").

And of course, we feeeeeel things so much more keenly during those years. Everything feels so important, so momentous, so life or death. And, unfortunately - we WILL end up being let down by someone important to us at some point in our lives. Sometimes more than one someone. Some of us end up seeking out people we *know* are inappropriate (for whatever reason) so that we aren't surprised when they do, some of us are more optimistic, and end up blindsided when the vision in our head doesn't match the actual person - some of us screw up the whole "picking people" thing a lot. (I'm a believer in "like attracts like - broken attracts broken".)

But - the beautiful thing about all of us is that we are resilient creatures - and all of us are totally capable of bouncing back when we set our minds (and hearts) to the task.

You're bouncing right now - by opening up and talking about it here, by putting yourself "out there" (here) every day, reaching out for hands to hold...and offering your own in return. :)

Pretty cool thing, that...

Hugs,

Kim

    

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2010

Thanks Iddy!!!

Makes a $hit Ton of sense!

I did get lulled into thinking that the end certainly MUST be near. Maybe its Tweener, Nonchalance?

When I read that both you and Melinda had the angries somewhere after 1yr, I took comfort in knowing where I am in relation and not to worry that ANGER at this point- is still "normal".

Having never been through an a (and ending) before...I keep trying to compare it to how I'd act / be at this point out of a "normal relationship"

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. I started looking inside and went NC October 15, 2010

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