Some back story:
MrKate has four personalities - it's called DID (dissociative identity disorder), along with C-PTSD, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies once upon a time.
Me: Most of the above, but never actually suicidal at all, and I don't have more than one personality.
His A was due to clicking with an abuser similar to his childhood abuser and recreating that abuse. (Honestly, this is pretty typical in so many cases.)
Ok, so he commits to suicide, then another person takes over, and he has an affair. Kind of knows me, kind of doesn't.
Until about a year after dday I have NO clue this is his reality.
Ok, so he had sex abuse in his past. Me too - but in different ways, so for years, when he would not want sex, i would feel rejected. Did we EVER talk about any of this? No. Never. We both just slowly died inside, basically.
After the A, and we talk about EVERYTHING now. It's actually quite amazing, and he healed a LOT, but his journey will be a long one.
After the A I healed a lot, but healing from a trauma and healing from my own history are two different - yet highly intertwined - things. I feel MOSTLY healed from the A, but my 5 yr antiversay is around the corner, and damn it, our bodies absolutely feel it, even if our minds and hearts feel happy with life.
Lots of life changes these past five years, moving, new baby, new careers, learning about ourselves and our mental health struggles/needs/superpowers, and just when i felt pretty darn aweseome, I started my own business and ptsd reared its head at the same time this person reentered my life.
Timing is everything isn't it?
So - my post is to give accountability to myself. If I am open here on this site, where the 2x4s are wielded freely, then perhaps I can keep my emotions in check. If I call my friends and therapists and say hey, I am about to go down a dark path, help me to not because I REALLY, REALLY want to go this way, then I can get good healthy feedback.
If I reach out to MrKate - honestly, the first one I should turn to, but never is the first one in these cases - then there is no secrecy, there is no private just for me ego kibbles - and there is growth between us.
So to longwindedly answer your question, I think the key is simply mindful awareness, open communication, and the bravery to share your weaknesses.
For me, ego kibbles are like water and air. I don't want them to be, and I've definitely made strides here - but they still are.
So, I just have a lot more work to do on myself.
And I think the sucky part of being a BS and now a WS or MH, is that I CONSCIOUSLY know what I am doing and risking. And that is a really, really crappy reality. AND, his A was due to mental breakdown, and mine was for lust because of my deficiencies -so i feel worse.
To know the pain it could cause, and yet to feel entitled to it anyway?
That kind of sucks to admit publicly. And I kind of am still in that thought place - don't I deserve x,y,z? After all i've done, don't i deserve a.b.c?
When really it is, after all i have worked on, i missed something inside that needs fixing.
The easy thing is to take the ego kibbles because for what the reason is inside you, they are filling the hole we need to fill ourselves.
But filling the hole ourselves is both painful, hard, and a lot of work.
So the easy way out is an affair (in some cases), alcohol, or some form of escapism so that I don't have to face myself in the mirror fully.
And it's not that i don't love Mrkate - i very much do - it's about fearing what i will find inside that drives that desire to follow the fantasy.
Thankfully, I have made some mistakes in the past and learned from them. Thankfully I keep making mistakes and am starting to be more proactive about asking for help. Thankfully I have built up a support group.
I still very very much want to go down this fun path. I wish I didn't. I really, truly wish i didn't.
I'm not going to - i hope! - but because i don't trust myself, i decided to bring my thoughts out into the open. Will this be enough to help me?
I don't know. If AP were nearby would i be strong? I don't want to say what i think, but it's obvious.
I'm not strong enough yet, but i really, really hope to get there.
Does that make any sense?
Also - these analogies are such cross over all of life, right? work and parenting and marriage (i mean the real stuff, not this stupid fluff that will be the very undoing of all the hard work these past many years)...
anyway, still trying here, but still very scared of myself. And that sucks.
so - are you safe? We are only as safe as we make ourselves. Self care, self awareness and strong boundaries are a lifetime of maintenance. So in that regard I will ask you, are you safe?
Life crashes, you are overwhelmed, grieveing, feeling intense emotions you can't seem to handle - and opportunity arrives at the same time. Now what? are you self aware? are your boundaries still good? do you have a good support group to bounce these feelings off of?
No one is ever permanently safe. No one is ever free from temptation. But we all CAN actively work towards maintaining our safe status. Without conscious effort, i feel humans are just human. We make mistakes, especially under extraordinary circumstances.
reminder - i don't feel safe. and that, to me, is the scariest of it all.