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BackfromtheStorm thank you for saying this so honestly

But I don’t recommend that special kind of hell to my worst enemy really. I am lucky I made it out alive and that’s not a metaphor.

I am really sorry you were stuck in that depth of trauma for so long and 18 years is such a long time to be carrying something that heavy. I understand what you mean about eventually reaching a point where the nervous system almost finds its own way through but I also hear what you are saying about not wanting anyone else to have to learn that way.
For me some of this goes back 28 years, but I only found out 9 months ago with bigger truths landing around 3 months ago - so in some ways it is old and new at the same time. I think that is why I am trying to reach integration without letting this take years and years of my life as some of it is starting to happen naturally - but I also think support, writing or even spaces like this can help stop the pain becoming the whole landscape.

Therapy is more efficient and since it is something that can be learned, I’d say as effective.

Learning how to feel things without being swallowed by them and how to come back to yourself when the chaos hits, feels like such an important part of healing. I really appreciate you sharing from the other side of it as it helps to hear that the heaviness can lift even if the route there is not easy.

It’s self inflicted.

I would never speak of, elaborate my feelings or pain. I would just push it down, dissociate, try to function.

It was all to protect a person who was never worthy of being protected from the consequences of her disgusting choices.
Her.

Kind of funny how a guy like me would white knight a cheater.
I was always with an abundance of girls and zero mercy for dishonesty from anyone.

Guess she clicked something in me I wasn’t aware of.

Yes, you speaking up is extremely therapeutic.
Is not really the point of hearing from others that what heals you. Even if some tips help nobody can mend your wounds.

You heal yourself.

The most important thing is that your emotions are expressed and heard.

You have been heard.
Don’t ever stop, you are worthy of peace and happiness

This is as good at place as any to talk about, not just gaslighting, but actual aiming at destabilizing a marriage to the point that one of the spouses begins to question their own reality. There is a woman and her friend in prison right now for emotionally and physically abusing two young children. The mother, Ruby Franke, allowed a very unstable therapist into her family and the damage those two women did is just unbelievable. Kevin Frankie, the husband, did not know anything that was going on because those two women connived to make him question his own reality and kicked him out of his own house. He did not see his children for a year. When he was interviewed at the police station, it was like listening to a zombie. It is tragic when you love and trust someone to the point that they can literally alter your perception of reality and that’s what happened to this man. There’s a lot of chatter online about him being at fault. His wife is so narcissistic that he had no chance against her because he trusted her. All of their children have been damaged in some way by this woman and once she brought in Elin Hildebrandt, they began to pay a terrible price. The only reason I bring this family up is because when you find out your perception is not real, it’s somebody’s made up reality, it just knocks the socks out from under you. One thing I cannot abide is a con artist. And I do believe some of the WS discussed on here are con artists. They are masters at pulling the wool over the eyes of the people that love and trust them the most. Trying to unravel all of that and makes sense of it is nearly impossible because it’s gone on for years. I think you just need to accept that what you perceived as reality was something someone made up. Proceed from that.

BackfromtheStorm thank you for this and I do understand what you mean

It was all to protect a person who was never worthy of being protected from the consequences of her disgusting choices.

I think there is a stage where you realise how much of your own pain silence or self-doubt was tied to protecting the person who caused the harm. Not consciously but emotionally because fully letting the truth land changes the whole picture.

The most important thing is that your emotions are expressed and heard.

this is why writing it out has helped me so much as it is not that anyone else can fix it but being able to name it/say it have it witnessed and not have to carry it silently does something important so I am trying not to push it down or lose years to it - I am trying to let the truth come out of me instead of staying stuck inside me...thank you for reminding me that being heard matters.

Cooley2here

when you find out your perception is not real, it’s somebody’s made up reality, it just knocks the socks out from under you.

this is exactly the part I find so destabilising as it is not only discovering what happened it is realising that parts of the reality you were living in were being managed, hidden or shaped by someone else.
I think that is why later knowing feels so different from suspecting as suspicion is painful, but when the truth comes out later it can make you look back at whole periods of your life and question what was real what was hidden and what decisions you might have made differently if you had known.

Trying to unravel all of that and makes sense of it is nearly impossible because it’s gone on for years.

I think that is the part I am trying to accept now and may not be able to make complete sense of everything,
but I can stop doubting that my reality was altered by someone else’s choices and start proceeding from the truth I have now...