How do you get an end loose?

So I'm off work on medical disability, but I'll have to go back within the next couple of weeks or I'll starve, even though I don't feel anywhere near ready to go back. I'm in the intensive outpatient program three days a week at the hospital, but can't see my own T during this time.

My problem is I can't seem to work on any one thing. My #1 issue is the anger and hurt from the last few years of a bitter and untrusting marriage, which pushed me toward having an affair. I still have very unresolved feelings for my lover with the conflict between the love and affection I felt for her vs. the hurt from the way she left me. Thinking of her reminds me of our days together when we were still volunteer firefighters, especially one very messy auto accident that was very traumatic for me while she was my rock, right there with me keeping me calm and steady and talking me through it. The memory of the traumatic head injuries to my patient, a girl who later died despite everything we could do, rolls me straight into PTSD flashbacks of numerous other fatalities during my career, especially my last fatal auto accident before I retired. It was a double fatality, and I was the one who found the second victim thrown from the car into a patch of woods with one side of his head missing (sorry).

These are all things I need to deal with, and deal with soon, because I'm going to have to leave the hospital program and go back to work whether I'm ready or not. The problem is that this stuff is all tied together in one big knot, everything connected to everything else. I keep picking at it and picking at it and working around the edges, but I can't get an end loose to really work on anywhere.

Has anyone else had to deal with a tangled up mess like this? How were you able to work on it? Were you able to get the issues separated to work on, or did you have to try to just deal with the whole mess at once? Any help would be appreciated.

Wow...you have lots going on....In my messy life, I have realized that Bi-Polar has led me to do some things that Im not proud of-I dont blame my disorder totally, but at the time of my marriage mess, I was undiagnosed, and I think that was what led partially to the breakdown of my marriage, and not feeling like I was getting enough attention...My untreated Bi-Polar is a clingy clingy version of myself that needs love and adoring and sweet nothings 24 hrs a day in order to feel adequate. I wasnt getting that, so hence, the affair.....
Needless to say we divorced (there were other problems in marriage as well) and once I got diagnosed and treatment for BP, my ex and I became extremely close and actually did better as friends than as married. The PTSD (which I havent been diagnosed with, but it was very traumatic and has left some effects) came after he passed away in Nov.2011. Our son (9 years old) was home with him at the time and he died suddenly of a massive heart attack. I rushed to pick our son up from the police station and sped to the hospital. They let me in the trauma room while they were working on him, and I was with him when they finally called the time. Not only I have all of that in my head at night now, but I also have the guilt of what my son went through that night to witness his father that way, and then again at the hospital....and a bunch of other feelings and things as the days went on.....
Sorry for the long novel, but I am telling you this because while it has been a tangled mess, the only way that I can suggest (and that has helped me) is to break off a little bit at a time and work through it.....you cant eat an elephant in one sitting-its piece by piece...and that is how I have grown to look at this. I went and talked to a minister about our failed marriage and the guilt I had from that-it really really helped. And I have a very small network of people I can talk to about the day to day struggles I have with missing him and being a single parent and trying to raise an awesome kid......and of course I have a PDoc to toss me a pill or two lol.....I hope this helped and feel free to PM anytime....I dont know if I will heal.....I know that its been 5 months since all of this and I am starting to have a good day or two where its not constantly on my mind all day long. Blessings to you!

I agree with you especially on the marriage side. My BP didn't cause my problems, but being on a manic episode I had no clue I was on (even though my wife tried to warn me) sure didn't help anything. Marriage was in bad shape, I wanted to feel loved and appreciated and understood and desired again, so I looked up an old lover and we picked up where we had left off 13 years before. Did enormous damage to what was left of the marriage, may or may not be beyond repair. We're trying to work on rebuilding, but it's a very slow and touchy process with a lot of setbacks.

Might have made a little "progress", if you want to call it that, on the issue of missing my lover last night. I took my wife out on a "date" and we did a lot of talking. Turned up she was actually the one that called my lover's long time boyfriend and forced the final breakup. (see my yours/mine/ours thread under Relationships and Communication). Found out she wasn't just lying to the old boyfriend, for at least part of the time she was lying to me too. I still believe that she honestly did love me, if for no other reason than as an escape from an abusive boyfriend, but she just didn't have the character or backbone to stand up for us when things got tough. I was was saddened and disappointed by some of the things I learned about her, and it's making me miss her a little less. (Good news: I expected to have a really bad crash once I got home and had time to think about this, but it didn't happen. I was very sad, but that's not the same thing. Yeah!)

Really don't know what to do about the PTSD, because I'm not used to dealing with it. I was a big tough veteran firefighter, been there, seen everything twice, and just locked it down and went on with my life. PTSD was one of my later diagnoses, and it usually doesn't cause me much trouble. It usually just hovers in the background while my BP and anxiety cause all the problems, but all of a sudden it's pushed its way in with the biggies and started causing flashbacks and all kinds of other annoying crap. I'll have to get help with this one, I really don't any good ideas how to handle it.

Ok, so I broke down and cried for a while after I got home. Still beats the hell out of a real self injury/suicidal crash. Made it through on my own, no need to call for help, no need to force myself to honor my safety contract. Wasn't fun, but I'll take it.