Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
On an ordinary day, there are no lack of triggers of the guy. He lives a block away, his kid goes to school with all the kids on my block, and he's there in my head like a blinking neon sign every waking moment with or without the triggers. But for some reason, going away on trips makes the pervasive nagging voice into a desperate screeching longing for him. I rationally know this is not about him. It's about the longing a had to share something real with him even when we were together. (I'm heading to a wedding). And even more rationally I know this longing was there even before him. But today none of the rational knowing is helping. I just want him. I want to share my life with him. I'm desperate to text him and connect even though I know loving myself and no contact with someone so vacant and horrible to me is the only path to health. Today I am white knuckling to fight the longing instead of feeling the love for myself first. I'm giving my weakness to you guys for help getting through this and not destroying all my hard work on building myself back up.
I can really relate to trigger moments. Big ones for me are family gatherings where every one is coupled up except me. Questions like when are you getting married, and your son needs a father would send me straight into the pits of hell. Being alone is a trigger for me as well. The house is quiet and immediately my mind starts to fantasize about him or even a new him. White knuckle moments are the worse. It seems like your mind is buzzing and your skin is tingling. I hate those moments. Honestly, for a while I avoided things that trigger me. I stopped accepting every invitation to family cook outs. Being one on one with others felt better to me than a big crowd so I allowed myself that. Also if speaking to a particular person would trigger me I would just avoid them for a while as well. Is the trip the trigger or the wedding.
You cant avoid the pain. Move into it like Doreann says but also put some things in place to help ease you. Allowing things to come forth is not about being consumed by them. Once the awareness is there you have to find a ways to release it. Change the thoughts and the emotions will follow. Seeing couples together used to be a really big trigger for me. But now what I do is pay really close attention- I am looking for signs of loving too much from him or her. Most times the signs are there. It helps to remove the illusion that everyone gets it and I don't. You are not alone.
I also wanted to tell you one other thing that worked for me. Going upstairs was a big trigger for me. The reason being was that when he stayed over I would walk upstair and I could see him in the room from the staircase. So after we broke up just walking up the stairs would make me want to see him, call him. So what I started doing every time I walked up stairs was to say "no, I do not want him." Because despite the trigger, despite what I felt, I really didn't want him back. It helped and now when I walk up the stairs I don't even think about him. Now, I did this for weeks and many times a day but eventually my mind got the point.
Soooo, how do I avoid the triggers? Some days I don't, I let them come, I cry, I melt down, I have a pity party and get it all out (until the next time)I know it's just a day and with time, I have come to know and realize that I don't always feel like that and it's a great comfort knowing I will be ok. When I'm actively trying to stay upbeat and positive, I stop thinking about him when those pesky thoughts come, I replace them with the bad things he did to me or I immediately look around and start saying out loud every color that I can see or I stop, close my eyes and just listen, I name off 3 things I can hear. These simple tricks refocuses your brain, it really helps me. hang in there and really do no contact, most of us here knows what happens when we break no contact, it sets us back and we get hurt and disappointed all over again. I set monthly goals that I will not contact him until a certain date, ie: July 1st, that alone has stopped me from making contact and usually when the date rolls around, I'm in a good place and don't feel the need to contact him. Oh, it's time for another date, now I am resetting my goal to Aug. 1st.
Stay strong, you'll make it!!