Prescription sedatives and alcohol ( not together, otherwise it becomes a Heath Ledger special ). Seriously lol
If I can't rationally talk myself out of thinking bad things that are upsetting me , I m going to do something about it so I can function.
I have kids to raise, i can't afford to be absent.
And this goes not just for relationship/ infidelity crap but for everything else that is traumatic.
I m recovering from a horrible accident right now and have devastating complications . I went to see somebody. I set a time limit that in 2 months I will stop taking medications and get on with my life .
I m sorry this is so hard for you. Xoxoxo

I literally walked them away~! I started walking when I found out about he cheating and I have not stopped! It gave me time to think, cry be angry, and be alone with my thoughts. It has been a huge benefit to my health as well :) The other thing that has helped is time and acceptance of the unacceptable. Some things are just beyond our control. And life is unfair sometimes. We play by the rules, and the game is changed by someone else's selfish decisions. F@@@ the cheaters!!! concentrate on you and your inner fabulous!!

My priest calls it, "guarding my thoughts." I use a rubber band which I always wear on my wrist. I snap it hard enough to sting and say "STOP". If I'm not alone, I just say it in my head. It works amazingly well.

I was working one day and thinking thoughts that I should have been guarding against. I was somehow not wearing a rubber band that day. I looked down and there was a rubber band, brand new and the perfect size for my wrist, right in front of me. I put it on and stopped the thoughts and went on my way.

Reality helps me. Reality tells me that her moral compass is fucked, her conscious is wrecked and if its not its sad that it should be and I'm better off.

Revenge is truly living well.

A,

During my time.

Obsession became anger.

Anger turned to rage.

Rage felt good (yes it can).

Rage became addiction it fed myself daily.

Yes, revenge was the cure to replace the images with new more stronger ones. That was my effective treatment for withdrawal.

Support your way.

My therapist also taught me the rubberband technique. It has helped me tremendously. Don't get me wrong, there are times when nothing helps me, but then I know it will soon pass and keep moving forward.

My therapist had an opposite way of having me deal with it. He said " If I told you to stop thinking about a pink elephant what would you do?" I started thinking about the pink elephant. Sometimes your brain does the exact opposite of what you want it to do.

He told me to instead of trying hard not to think about to say " thank you for bringing that to my attention." Then to remind myself that this is not something that is happening now but something that happened in the past. There is nothing I can do about past events but I can control how I deal with them. Believe it or not, it worked. It felt a little weird thanking my subconscious for bringing these thought to my attention but he said if I acknowledged them rather than pretend they weren't there I was taking their power away.

I hope some of these ideas work for you. Sending support

cheaterssuck, your reply made me think of an interesting analogy. We have a little dog, a Lhasa. He used to go crazy barking whenever someone knocked on the door. The more we tried to shush him, the louder he barked. He considered it his job to let us know there was a potential danger. And when he thought we weren't taking him seriously, he sounded the alarm louder.

When we started thanking him for alerting us and acknowleding that he'd done a good job (no matter what the source of the noise actually was), he'd settle down right away.

Maybe our subconscious is just doing it's job, warning us of potential dangers -- even if they're not real. And we just need to acknowledge that.

Interesting.

michelle... I like that way of thinking. Allora... when you figure out what to do, post it for those of us reading and wondering the same things!! Do you really want to stop the thoughts? That is what I wonder... if you stop thinking about it, you might let down your guard, then it might happen again. Vicious circle this all is!!! CHEATERS DO SUCK!!!

"Maybe our subconscious is just doing it's job, warning us of potential dangers -- even if they're not real. And we just need to acknowledge that. "

Yes. Exactly that.

AND:

"Do you really want to stop the thoughts?"

This is something I ponder, too. Not so much, "If I stop the thoughts, I'll let my guard down," because my thoughts aren't about the A so much as the OW and how wonderful her life has turned out.

No, I think for me it's a matter of - if I allow myself to stop thinking about her, then I am letting her off the hook for what she did. My husband has compensated for what he did - but OW never did and probably never will. I almost feel that if I stop hating her, them I'm betraying MYSELF for not punishing her...

... even though my thoughts are only punishing me.

Grr.

I wish she would have apologized. I wish she would have just said, "You know, I thought I was in love with him, so I went after him. I messed up. I'm sorry."

It wouldn't fix anything, but I think it'd make me feel better. I feel pretty sure it'd stop the obsessive thoughts. I wouldn't feel the need to "punish" her if I thought she'd learned her lesson.

So ... I guess I just need to get it through my thick skull that it's not my job to punish anyone. And that life isn't fair, but all we can do is keep going on.

Anyhoo... thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely be getting back to my "mindfulness" and see how that does for me. Staying in the moment definitely keeps me calmer and keeps my thoughts more focused.

Well, I tried acknowledging my subconscious today. I used the phrase above "thank you for bringing that to my attention". I think it sort of worked, actually. I like it.

It made me think about the need to have more respect for all aspects of my experience and myself. (Sorry if that sounds too much like a therapist, I am still in IC and MC every week). But, instead of being angryy and frustrated with myself that I'm not further along, I want to try to be more respectful and understanding of where I am. I'm doing this at my pace, and I'm doing the best I can.

In short, a good reminder to be kind to myself. I would be so much more patient with anyone else! I need to extend myself the same courtesy.

Thanks for this thread. I'm sorry if I took it on a tangent, but it's really been helpful for me.

Cymalta, Wellbutrin, meditation, counseling, exercise, reading, staying busy at work.

For me, exercise helps a lot. And the anger fuels me to higher levels than I can reach when i am more placid. Afterward, I feel more lelaxed too--from the endorphines i suppose.

In the early months after d day, I couldnt stop the thoughts. I once read that our minds play it over and over again in an effort to saturate our brains with it gradually become less and less shocking.

After a while, I turned to telling myself NO, when she would pop into my head. I found something else to focus on, and moved past it. It will be 3 years in Feb, and I dont think about her nearly as much as I used to. I used to think that if she had only responded to my voice mail or texts, I may have been able to move on sooner. Not that she could have said anything that would have justified her behavior, but the fact that she had the guts to face it an apologize could have gone a long way, or so I thought.

Knowing that we are unlikely to ever bump into each other anywhere helps keep her out of my head. I believe that if I was given the opportunity to speak to her face to face, I would still give her a piece of my mind and tell her exactly what I thought of her. Not going to let it control me,but maybe some day....