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.
In the past few weeks, after a break-up not of my doing....I've noticed some distinct chages in my physical well being. I'm often on edge, have several anxiety based symptoms like excess gas, that "knots in my stomach" feeling, nervousness....I have trouble sleeping. My whole sleep schedule is a mess. Is this common. How do others cope? I'm not a big med person. I know this is tied to the misery of the break-up. Any suggestions?
I can telll you that I was a WRECK after my break-up specifically after the the D&D (devalue and discard). I told him to leave my house after I caught him emailing other women, but I never thought I would never hear from him again. I thought he would at least contact me for his things if nothing else. Nope. NOTHING. Not one word.
I was so sickly addicted to this disturbed man, that after a couple of weeks, I had to go to my doctor for sleeping pills because I was bascially not functioning at work. So yes, I was unable to sleep, if I did fall asleep at 1 or 2am, I was up at 4 or 5.
I am not normally a meds person either, it was the first time in my life that I a prespcription pill to sleep. I tried excedrin pm before the prescription but it did nothing. I also had stomach issues and ended up having 3 diverticulits attacks in a 6 week period and needing major surgery. I have no doubts that those attacks had to do with my emotional condition. I had diverticultis for 10 years and normally had 1 attack a year but it was the first time EVER I had repeated attacks.
It is my opionin, that when we have these type of severe reaction to a break up that: a) we were in a abusive relationship and b) we are severely addicted to this human beings.
The symptoms you are describing are withdrawl symptoms and possibly PTSD.
I had to have several treatments for PTSD months after the break up.
Thank goodness I have SO MUCH 3D support in my life because I did not even know about this webiste. I think I really wore my 3 BFFs out with my constant weepy phone calls.
Aside from my fantastic therapist and the tons of support I have found on this board. The following list of books have been life saving for me:
How to Spot a Dangerous Man Sandra L Brown
Women Who Love Psychopaths Sandra L Brown
Escape from Intimacy Anne Wilson Schaef
Facing Love Addiction Pia Mellody
How to Break Your addiction to a person Harold Halpern
Women Who Love Too Much Robin Norwood
Letters from Women Who Love too Much Robin Norwood
The Emotional Rape Syndrome Micheal Fox
I know that you are waitng for WWL2M. If you can get a hold of How to Break your Addicition to a Person, that will probably explain your symptoms best.
How to Break your Addiction to a Person. On page 143 he writes:
1. To the extent that limerence makes you idealize the other person and blinds you to his faults, it can make you feel unworthy relative to him and you may be tempted, therefore, to settle for crumbs and great unhappiness within the relationship.
2. Your fear of chasing away this marvelous person may lead you to avoid the kind of confronting and engaging that is usually necessary to the development of a mutual and truly satisfying relationship.
In his chapter entitled Return of a memory and referring to an adult (with abandonment hunger through childhood neglect as mentioned by above) love relationship that is wrong for us but that we cannot end, even though it is not good for us, he says
In order to understand your Attachment Hunger it is essential that you realize that if is not a new experience . It is not occurring for the first time in the current relationship. It is the return of a memory. It is an emotional reminiscence of a much earlier time. Although the actual details of the memory may be largely forgotten the FEELINGS are as alive and intense now as, when they are triggered into your awareness by the loss or anticipated loss of an important connection, as they were when you originally felt them. And you originally felt them in the first few months and years of your life. What this means is that when you are ruled by Attachment Hunger, your state of mind is, in many ways, a re-experiencing of your state you were in as an infant or toddler. The qualities of this experience are those of a needy vulnerable being with limited perspective, underdeveloped judgment, little capacity for rational thought, and no will power. And you need not have had a particularly traumatic or deprived childhood to have known these feelings of primitive dependency. They are part of everyones legacy. They are deposits in everyones memory banks. So when these Attachment Hunger states take over, your thinking and judgment are distorted and ruled by the intense emotions of a time when you were helpless.
Does this relationship validate you? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel like a better person?
My big stress is fear of the future. I feel like my life is turning upside down and I'm living a nightmare. I have knots in my stomach and feel extremely disoriented.
I am going to try melatonin too which is apparently natural. I need to sleep to keep myself together in order to make the decisions ahead of me. I don't think there is any harm provided it isn't long-term.
Nighty-night! :)
A couple things have helped me - exercise has always been helpful, of course. Journaling seems to help a lot, also - I think just making sure I get things out.