Here’s more proof that total No Contact is the way to recovery. A new study finds that continuing to follow a former romantic partner on Facebook after breaking up makes it harder to move on. Read:
Study: Stalking your ex on Facebook is bad for you, on ZDNet.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Truthspeak
Bluejay, one can never “think too much,” kiddo. Thinking is a powerful activity. Ruminating is what can become dangerous. But, thinking is what helps the psyche to connect all of the dots.
Athena, I’m so sorry that you’re having such a tough time with NC. There will come a point in your recovery when you can finally snap your fingers, shut the door, and turn your back without feeling GUILTY for doing so.
At some point, this is all going to morph into your own recovery – everything that you do is going to be for yourself, and nobody else. You’ll be able to turn your back on the spath and “feel good” about that decision. It just takes time and practice.
Brightest blessings
Ms_Snowhite
Truthspeak, I did the same…
2 years was enough time for me to find all the evidence that I needed, but even if everything was obvious from the beginning I still didn’t wanted to believe that he was a spath…
It’s still hard to believe it…
How can he just don’t care?
How can he have no conscience?
Why everyone seems to like him and believe him after all that he did to me?
Am I the only one who sees him for who he really is?
After all he did, he called himself a rebel and a free spirit, he felt proud of treating me that way, like he had won a war or something…
All that makes me feel so much confused, like if I did something wrong and I deserved to be treated that way…
What makes me so confused is that he has people who believe him… After I left, he had even become friends with his exes which he had called crazy to me and that he wished them dead…
Now I am the bad one here. It makes me feel so confused, like if I am the one who is wrong… Like if I am not the one who got broken, emotionally and financially, the one that had been played and betrayed, like if I was the one who played with his feelings…
I feel so stupid, that I trusted him all my fears and insecurities…
I guess it is my own low self confidence that makes me feel that way… If I believed in my self more I wouldn’t have those thoughts and I wouldn’t need him to make me feel worthy…
After I left, for to save my life, he didn’t felt a thing… The very same day he went to meet new women, even if before a couple of days he was telling me that I was his soulmate and that he loved only me…
So, now he is somewhere out there, having fun, while I still try to gather my pieces and get back on my feet…
That’s what hurts the most and I don’t know if I would be able to get over it… After all he did to me he laughs and seems more happy than before…
It makes me wonder… How can he be so happy after all he did? How can someone be so heartless and cruel and then live his life like if nothing had happened…
I know that he has no conscience, but will he ever pay about what he did to me?
Would anyone treat him the same way in the future or he would just continue going from one woman to another having fun…
Sometimes I feel that I hate all the world because of him, that I would never be able to trust anyone again…
After the spath my life turned into a living hell and I thought that I would die… Now, I have to move into a new house and I’m hoping to make a new start there, away from the spath…
The next step is to find a counselor therapist.
I don’t have him in my life anymore but he still takes place the biggest place in my mind every day…
Does it ever gets better? I mean, would there be one day that I won’t think about the spath and what he did to me anymore?
Truthspeak, everything that you say makes sense and it is clear because you speak the truth. Your truth.
Before I get here I had no one to understand how it feels being betrayed, humiliated, broken, by someone who had promised you that he would love you forever and would never break your heart…
bluejay
Truthspeak,
I deleted some of my posts (directed to Louise) because I don’t want to impress my beliefs on anyone, directing anyone how to think about their situation. Growing up a Christian, I try and understand things from a Christian perspective, knowing that there is good and evil in the world.
Spaths clearly demonstrate evil. Thank you for your words – my thinking helps me to “connect all of the dots,” considering things from different angles, the physical, spiritual, etc., trying to tie everything together so it makes sense (to me and hopefully others) . I really don’t want to offend anyone with what I say,.
callmeathena
Truthspeak
I have read many of your recent posts and find wisdom in what you say.
Sometime recently somebody posted on here that we go back and look at the spath like we look at a traffic accident. That is so true for me. I just can’t believe it, that this guy who looks normal just ISN’T.
So I go back and look out of shock/curiosity. It’s gruesome.
And I think we all go back because we’re trauma bonded. There is a smidge of hope that we have that things have changed. Of course, they do not. But I do actually feel the chemical/biological pull in my system, the anxiety and the stress when I peek at my spath. I think that adrenalin rush that I feel in my body, that fear that I feel – I have an addiction of sorts to that.
Athena
Louise
Snowhite:
To answer your question, YES, it does get better. Believe it or not! Two years ago and even a year ago, I literally thought I was not going to make it through the day. I thought about suicide many times and just hurt so bad it was unbearable. But now I am much better. Yes, I still think about him, but it’s different now. Time helps and the realization that it was what it was. You just finally get to that point. Some days I thought my head would pop off from all the ruminating and I guess I finally got to the point where the ruminating was causing more pain than the actual pain was causing!…if that makes any sense. It hurts like hell, but you will get there. I promise.
Louise
skylar:
Hmmmm, I don’t know about the scared thing, the fear thing…really?? I don’t feel scared at all. I KNOW he’s not coming back. But you are saying it’s subconsciously?? I need more detail, please because I am not feeling this or seeing this at all 🙂
Ms_Snowhite
Athena,
I just read your description about going back and looking at the sociopath. It’s the exact same feeling. The shock, the stress… Every time I checked his profile in the past, looking at his pics, I felt my stomach upside down, thinking that I will throw up…
It’s like I was addicted to the pain and I wanted to know of how much more pain I could afford…
I did a mistake watching again his profile today after 2 months, but I’m not doing it again. I felt strong when I didn’t and I will continue that way.
Louise,
thank you, I was there too, thinking about suicide, feeling that I couldn’t afford the pain and die… I am not there now, I still feel pain but it is different… It’s the pain of realizing that I was fooled and that he never loved me, it’s now that I’m facing the truth and I see the facts without all the glitter and the excuses he made… I couldn’t see all that while I was in the relationship…
It hurts knowing that he is with other women, but not because I want to be with him. I don’t love him anymore. I loved him because of someone that I thought he was and he is not that person. It just hurts realizing that I was nothing to him while he was everything to me…
It’s a shock realizing that and it hurts a lot…
Louise
Snowhite:
Exactly! That is the exact feeling I have now…the hurt that I was nothing to him and he was everything to me…wow, the SAME feeling.
Just be assured that it does get better.
Ms_Snowhite
Louise,
I hope that it gets better for you soon… I hope that for me too. I guess it’s the normal process to our healing… I don’t know, I haven’t felt like that ever before… It seems to be the worst feeling in the world.
skylar
Louise,
if the source of your “love” was a trauma bond, then that is also the source of why you are obsessed with looking at him. And though it doesn’t feel like fear, that is all that a trauma bond is. We turn our feelings of fear 180 degrees and interpret it as love. This makes us feel safe and in control. Essentially we are trying to control the monstrous spath by appeasing him with our love. When he is no longer appeased, we feel like we lost control and we aren’t safe anymore.
Imagine being one of King Henry VIII’s wives. The moment he doesn’t like you anymore, you know you may be executed, but I’m sure it didn’t start out that way. He seemed so nice at first, you thought he really liked you. He married you and made you queen right?
Throughout history, there have been powerful tyrrants like HenryVIII, who had harems of wives. I imagine that the ones who pleased them the most, survived and had children. While the ones who didn’t, were likely discarded or killed. This may be how the trauma bond became such a dominant factor in human beings.
But anyway, with these tyrrants, even when you are not the focus of attention, it behooves you to keep an eye on what they are doing so that you are prepared for the winds of change.
I know you don’t think that your exspath will kill you, like I do with mine. But the fear was there all the same and it wasn’t on an intellectual level. You were not aware of the fear, so you still don’t feel it. You are only now intellectually aware that you had fear at the time.
You said, ” as far as wanting to be with them, talk to them, touch them”and when there is nothing else, watch them (from afar)”OMG YES! I felt like if I didn’t do all those things I was going to die”literally die.”
That sounds like anxiety and fear. Probably how Henry VIII’s wives felt.