Trying to get out

Sorry you're having such a hard time, Ramona. Maybe looking at his FB page is not very helpful? Do you think you could try to treat it like an OCD thought & just let it go, rather than give into the action? I think sometimes these things are a self-perpetuating cycle: you look, it feels good for a second, then the bad thoughts kick in and you get stuck in them, which just make sure you feel bad again & leads you to look again and on and on it goes.

I would really encourage you to try and engage with your real world right now: as horrible as it feels to tear yourself away from the fantasy, the real world is where the true good, healthy relationships in your life are. The fantasy one just keeps pulling you back with its drama and intensity. We need to remember the good, solid, reliable every day things at times like these and try as hard as we can to stay connected tothem. Even if it's the simplest things - like walking in the park with your baby, feeling the sunlight, listening to the birds. I know it sounds trite, but honestly, it's all that plain old real life stuff that offers the truest and safest form of comfort. The big highs and lows of these roller-coaster relationships - in or outside of our heads - make us forget that.

Thinking of you

Perhaps it would also help to remind yourself that they really aren't the perfect family. Anyone can put on a fake smile for a second to make a photo look good. I know a lot of people who act like everything is great on FB when it's really not.

Thanks to everyone still hanging in there with me on this.

I'm going to say something uncharacteristically positive for a change--I will likely be back to my aching, pining self in the morning, but feel it's important to get this on the record.

For all the years I was seeing T1, I kept telling myself and DEEPLY feeling: "I am so alone. I am all by myself. No one knows I'm here. I'm all by myself. I am all alone."

Over the course of today, I have had FIVE different friends ask me if I have time to get together with them this week--more offers than I actually have time to manage with work and the baby. I'm actually trying to rearrange some things, put off some work projects so I can see more people. I actually had a moment where I got a little frustrated thinking "No, I don't have time for this--I need to work on my writing and yada yada yada." Then I had the thought--wait, maybe I should turn some of them down and ask to see them next week and spread it out because clearly this is all a fluke and no one will EVER want to see me again.

I have FRIENDS--ones who want to see me. They are friends that I can't "do" anything for--I have no connections to give them or money to give them. They are people who would like to share my company.

I spent MANY years in SO much isolation just hanging on for my next session with Eric, because I felt no one else in the world even knew I was alive.

I still miss him. I'm thinking about him and missing him right now. But today, I had community outside of him--outside of this false relationship that was taking ALL of my money and literally making me shop for guns to blow my brains out.

I hope that I can keep this small piece of hope in my heart. I know I will fall down again and hurt so much to be away from him, but in this moment I feel grateful to have people in my life that know I exist and want to share my company.

Life is SO ****ING HARD.

I know that you're right about this. I just hadn't seen a photo of him dated since I last saw him, and there he was, smiling with his family, while I've been aching for him every day, wondering if I ever cross his mind. I think I'll ache for him for a very, very long time.

I look at his beautiful wife and wonder if she has any idea that he can be so untruthful and unkind. Her Facebook feed reads like she her life is so ideal--perfect husband and children and a job she loves, always going out for the night with friends, traveling around the world, volunteering for the poor and needy, protesting at marches against oppression. I wonder if she has seen the ugly side of him that I have.

I was cut off from people for years. My whole life revolved around him, and no one else knew it but me for years, and then him for that last year. Or maybe he knew all the time. That's what the people who say he's a psychopath say--that he knew just what to say to keep me hooked. In any case, I was all alone. It was just me and him. I didn't even have my husband because I resented him so much for not being T1.

It is such a strange thing to happen to someone.

I miss him terribly and know I will for some time. Maybe forever. Part of me wishes I could talk to her about the love we share for him. She would be sickened to hear it I'm sure.

I miss him TERRIBLY. Just terribly.

Just thinking this morning about how I could never be myself around T1. I always felt so JUDGED. He's joined that club of judgmental voices in my head now--my dad, my *****y friend from college, all the asshole bosses or professors I've had--now he's in there too--judging me without compassion, telling me I'm doing it all wrong--my thinking is wrong, my actions are wrong, the way I understand the world is all wrong, I'm ungrateful, I'm selfish, and so on and so on.

At least with T2 I can be myself and not feel judged.

I contacted T3 to see if she had any evening appointments so I wouldn't have to pay for babysitting. She does. Now it's just a matter of deciding between T2 or T3 or going some other way all together.

Feeling very sad and heavy again this morning.

If we're voting, I think T3 sounds good. You could wean off T2 gradually. I think T2 is too close to the situation and you could really use an outside perspective. Plus, T3 is female, right?
You're lucky if she has evening appointments. Not all of them do.
Just my vote.

Yes, I think the transition will have to be gradual. It'll be so hard to lose him right after losing T1.

I have been SO CLOSE to calling T1 the last two days. I don't even know how I HAVEN'T done it. I just keep texting friends and asking them to remind me why it's a terrible idea.

I still feel so hooked and desperate to have this guy who treated me like **** in my life. I feel like I really backslid this week. It's not getting easier at all.

It hurts and aches. Miss him so much.

I am doing so much worse. Feeling so angry and resentful of all who told me leaving was a good idea. Saw T2 last night and feel worse than ever this morning.

I think it is time for me to call T1 again and ask if he'll see me. If he says no, maybe it will spur some of that anger in me that seems to be completely missing. If he says yes then I will know to approach the relationship from a different angle from this point forward--to not ask anything of him or expect anything of him and just take what I can get.

Feel like I'm having a ****ing heart attack.

Sorry you're still having such a hard time.

Maybe you do need to go back to try and get some more clarity around this and closure for yourself. I did, for a whole year, after it became evident what was really going on. I won't get into the impacts of that( because I really don't think you want to hear them.

So I will focus on what I relate to in your drive to reconnect with him.

Everybody told me not to, but I felt I had already had to tear myself away from so many 'dangerous' people in my life already, I couldn't do it again. I was fully prepared to take the risk, because stopping the immediate pain of leaving was so much stronger a drive than preventing whatever future pain there might be.

I understand where you are at. I would just caution you to think about some things:

The possible damage not only to you, but the people you care about. There are no words for the guilt and regret I feel for those lost years in my children's lives, and the permanent and seemingly unfixable damage I caused to my marriage.

Yes, it is your former Ts fault this has happened, but it is now your responsibility to deal with the consequences. Including limiting the impact on the people you have a responsibility towards. Isn't that what we all wish so much our parents had done for us?

You should be aware that you will very likely have to leave sometime. This can't go on forever, at least, not under the guise of therapy. And he has given you no reason to expect he will leave his family for you.

In the first instance, you need to be ready for him to say he won't see you (though he sounds like he lacks so much insight, he may not even understand the risks to the both of you - not that his risks are your problem.) How would
you deal with that?

And if he does agree to see you - who will it be for? Once these explosions happen in therapy, it seems that the only concern for the therapist is self protection and controlling you and the narrative to stop you taking any further action. For those of us who have had our vulnerability used against us and who have been gaslighted into abandoning our own sense of reality by past caregivers, this repetition of past patterns can have devastating and long standing impacts.

I will stop now, before I go on in that vein.

Whatever you do, keep writing here: whether you like the perspectives you get here or not, it is very important to maintain threads of connection to the world outside of that small room and not become consumed by it and totally removed from real-life.

I hope whatever choice you make, you make it thoughtfully and with an eye to the implications for your future self.

Very well said Slow and Gentle.

Ramona, Regardless of what you choose to do, I am still here and listening. Do keep posting - do stay connected to more than just that room.

Thank you for this.

Ramona,
It wasn't a therapist, but I spent three years of pining after someone I could not have. I would give anything to have that time back with my kids. My marriage seemed to have survived fine, but I was distracted and didn't give the kids what I feel they needed.

My kids seem okay and typical now, but every time they have a problem I feel guilty.

I was out of one of my anxiety medications for the last couple of days. I didn't realize I was so hooked on it. I took a dose a couple hours ago and feel better, but things are always worst in the morning. Like the morning hours I just truly want to die without him. Hopefully it won't be as bad in the morning now that I've taken benzo. It seems I have to be addicted to something--Eric, klonopin, whatever. Hopefully things will be less awful tomorrow.

T3 said she can see me next week, but suggested an hour and a half session for the intake and it is SO much money. Part of me fears I'm about to be taken advantage of again. I don't feel like I can trust anyone. Like all therapist just want my money and will do anything to manipulate it out of me.

I sent T2 a message this morning that I'm feeling terrible and was back in the panic hole and having suicidal thoughts and he didn't write back. He is overwhelmed with other responsibilities and a sick child. I really love talking to him every week but I need some VERY stable help so I think I have to switch to someone else. I don't know if T3 is right.

I am so tired.

But did you have a choice in the pining? I feel like if I had a choice I would definitely choose not to feel this way, but I'm not able to control how I feel, and how I feel is awful about not being giving over money and adoration to this person whom I was just a pawn to. My brain is not right. I am trying to make it right, but I feel so lost.

I just want to share a space with him for a couple hours a week because of how I felt when I was around him--so electric, and most of the time it was electric with terror but a few of the times it was alive with the most intense pleasure. I don't know how to choose to not be wrecked by the whole thing.

Hang in there ramona. We are here and reading and supporting you through all of these emotions... Even the anger at us and resentment. Keep writing

I am feeling better today now that I'm on the Klonopin again--not nearly so desperate. I guess I'm addicted to that now, but better that than T1, right?

I know I am all over the place, but I've been thinking, I'm TIRED of spending SO MUCH MONEY on all of these out of network therapists and then the thing that helps me is taking a half a klonopin that costs 25 cents. I think I want to ditch T2 AND T3 and look for someone in-network. I don't have the money to spend on this insane amount of therapy.

I really love T2 (not in a romantic way but think he is so great) but I don't have the money to pay for what he charges, and T3 is even more expensive.

I think it's time for me to stop throwing all my money away on people that can't really help me. I'd rather just be kinda hooked on pills and be in less debt.

My therapist was in-network and it worked really well for me (and only cost me a co-pay each visit). Honestly, therapy would not have happened for me without using an in-network therapist and pdoc. Just not something I could afford. You might be surprised and find someone really workable AND affordable.

Careful with the klonopin. Be sure you only use it as prescribed (and perhaps push yourself to use it less than prescribed when possible). Don't add to your issues.

Doing therapy affordably was one of my first steps towards "recovery". It means youre being a little more reality based? Youre acting from your true self and not a false self. That becomes (true-)self-reinforcing.

But I wanted to kill myself for two days and call the man who abused me for three years.

Are you referring to the klonopin? I'm not saying don't use it. I'm saying don't abuse it.

I don't think "try to take less than prescribed" is great advice for me right now. I almost called T1 because I took less than prescribed. Like I came THIS close.

But that wasn't just less than prescribed; that was a matter of you being completely out for a few days, so you were probably additionally dealing with withdrawal. Just don't go in the opposite direction and take more than prescribed.

Drinking and trolling the wife's Facebook photos again. He is not even attractive. He is SO not my type. He is NOT for me. What has happened to me. He's GROSS. I am so lost.

Sent you a PM