SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

just to avoid the trauma dreams,

Yes. I couldn't stomach sleeping in the bed we had shared. The memory of him trying to rape me was to much.

Of course I still get horrible dreams from time to time. It's better, it was every night, now it's every now and then.

I have to hand it to you: how amazing you solved your sleep discomfort, enhanced family togetherness and furthered your trauma healing, with ONE simple change!!? Whoo...aren't campers a blessing?

I never thought if it as a healing thing but you're correct.

I really wish I had put my foot down with wh and not let him put the camper way at the back. It would have been more useful closer to the house. Once I get the tractor tire replaced I guess I could move it. Probably best to wait until summer.

I got an email from my lawyer today. Good news,very good and yet I instantly broke down crying. I think it was all the built up anxiety that finally just released.

And it was the best birthday gift I could receive today.

Happy birthday! Do something special for yourself; bake a cake, take a luxurious bath, take a long walk. Do what brings you joy.

Hooray for good news!

Happy birthday to you! I’m glad you got some good news today!

What great timing was some good news: on your Birthday! HooRAY!! Happy Birthday Momma Dragn!!

Do something special for yourself; bake a cake, take a luxurious bath, take a long walk. Do what brings you joy.

Does rearranging the living room to set up the Christmas tree count as doing something special? Lol

I've had the tree out in the middle of the room for a week just waiting to move the movies. Not that the tree was ever put away really. Just put in a corner we don't use since last Christmas.

Now it's up and decorated. The twins got home from school and put up all the ornaments. Thry enjoyed that. Ds was home, he's still so sick. He helped move a few movies before going back to bed.

We have Christmas crafts planned which will also go on the tree.

I thought about baking a cake today but since I had cake at my families on the weekend and I'm enjoying this weight loss I thought I'd skip a second one 😅

My brother got me moose slippers and socks. I love moose. When he took the kids camping and then took dd out for the day they came back with moose stuff for me.

Thr lawyers email was just total icing on the cake for me today.

Happy birthday! 🫎 moose on the loose!

Happy Birthday. Let's hope the positive changes keep coming. You certainly deserve them.

Happy Birthday Dragn!!

And I am glad that you got good news from your lawyer.

And it's okay to grieve your marriage, your divorce, and the trauma that you have endured. You had hopes and dreams of a wonderful life with this person... it's okay to grieve that it won't happen.

You got this!! You are doing great!!

Thank you barcher!

I think I had come to terms with the loss of my marriage a long time ago. He was so awful for so long there's no way we could ever recover from that.

I think I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. That a judge sided with me. That I'm not crazy. That what's happened HAS happened.

It's just a weird feeling to feel validated.

What a fabulous gift - on your birthday no less!

Enjoy!

One of the things I have learned (and gotten much better at doing!) through this experience is to distinguish the difference between emotions (feeling) and logic (thought)…and to allow each to have their own space. Prior to this, I had never realized how much they were at an internal war…while also not recognizing that they both could co-exist. I had frequently used one against the other (ie, I could be feeling really sad about the end of my marriage…but then I’d pull out the long mental list of every crappy thing he had done to counter that feeling, to try to tell myself I shouldn’t be feeling what I was feeling.)

What I’ve realized is that acknowledging both my feelings and thoughts - allowing them each to have their own place at the table - has caused them to be much more manageable and polite. They no longer feel ignored and dismissed so they no longer eventually resort to screaming. (Obviously feelings tend to resort to that more…because they are much more easily dismissed by logic, struggle more to just be allowed).

I’ve been amazed by how much more internal peace I have. I’ve also been amazed at how much quicker and easier they all move through me now. They flow in and out - well, like ocean tides. There’s no need to try to stop (control) them…and there’s no fear that they will come again (because I know they will). But without the resistance I think I now ride those waves rather than being swamped by them. It’s completely changed my life.

Meditation and body work helped me tremendously with this. It sounds like something you need to attend a workshop for or buy an audio book…but it’s really more just quieting your environment, growing still, and taking an inquisitive (not judgmental) observer role. Become the watcher in all aspects of your life - externally and internally. Look to identify all the different characters of your own play - the narrator, the judge, the villain, the victim, critical parent, injured child - they’re all there. Watch how they interact and even compete with each other. It’s fascinating really.

And this may sound absolutely bonkers and I have no idea if others experience this but I started to realize that I had two very distinct perspectives through which I experienced most of my thoughts. Basically, as I was having a thought, seeing something play out in my mind - was I seeing it, experiencing it, through my own eyes…or was *I* watching myself having the experience. I don’t know how to really explain this other than I began to see it almost like having an internal switch where I could flip perspectives. This really helped me to be able to detach into observer role - if simply because it demonstrated that there were already two parts to me that were co-existing in this space. It helped me to find the watcher in me. And the watcher is MUCH better at creating that peace between the thoughts and feelings.