If You're Longing for an Ex (or Impossible Person) You Must Heal THIS

if you suffer with romantic Obsession you can't stop longing for someone you're thinking about them all the time your life and your emotions are kind of chained to this fantasy of being with them someday even if you know they're not into you if that's happening for you there's a very good chance that when you were a small child you didn't get your emotional needs met neglect in childhood is a huge risk factor for developing limerence later on now limerence is a romantic Obsession or infatuation with someone who you're not with you're thinking about them is like an addiction and it can kind of take over your life and if you've gotten limerent before you probably have some Shame about the way you felt things that you did or said or maybe you kept it secret from other people but you know what limerence it turns out probably has a big genetic component and it's driven neurologically it's most likely to happen if you were neglected in early childhood and I'm telling you when it strikes limerence is so painful so why does this happen my letter today is from a woman who happens to be a nun and I'll call her Sophia she writes dear fairy since I discovered you I've improved so much I can't tell you how much you're helping me but I have a problem I'm hoping you can help me with I've got my fairy pencil I'm going to circle things I want to come back to but let's read through Sophia's letter one time to see what's going on all right she says I grew up in a poor family when I was 20 days old my mom became very ill and wasn't able to take care of me my father had to take me to a neighbor to be breastfed I'm told my mother sometimes used to hit me when I was a baby I think she had postpartum depression her illness lasted almost two years I'm at least grateful that they told me what happened at school I was bullied and sexually abused by a teacher I had no friends until I was in fifth grade and thank God she's still my friend today I'm a nun and I'm sending you this letter because I'm living through an unbelievable situation and I'm struggling I fell in love with someone 17 years younger than me it's not the first time I fell in love with someone once I fell for someone the same age as me and once with someone older but I take my vocation very seriously and I was responsible so nothing happened the feelings I have now may be love or they may just be limerence this is a man who contacted me a year ago because he needed advice around a problem he was having in his life I talked to him and we had regular conversations and there was no problem I saw him as a young man who needed to talk and that's it and nothing happened in my heart but five months ago my mother died ah and he became very close to me he said that I helped him and now he was helping me thanks to his friendship I didn't go into depression maybe two months ago I became concerned about what I was feeling for him I thought if he's going to tell me that he has a girlfriend I am going to cry a few days later someone told me that he is seeing someone I didn't expect what I felt in that moment I almost cried and then changed the subject quickly so that I could prevent the tears in my deepest heart I said thank God I found out about the girlfriend from someone else which I thought would be less painful than having him tell me personally now maybe two weeks later he called to give me the news I said I'm very happy for you and I was happy but I wanted to end the call very soon because I felt that I was going to cry I was happy because I thought now that I know All That Remains is to overcome this but it was a month ago and it's getting worse like I'm having an obsession with him it's hard for me to believe this is happening I deleted all our conversations but I can't stop thinking about him and waiting for a text from him I can't help writing to him when we started communicating he was really responsive he used to write to me or answer my messages right away and he appreciated that I knew when he saw my messages then he began to leave me in scene and I think that's another way of saying unread and he answered two or three days later after I wrote to him and he always would apologize for leaving me in scene always in a friendly way saying something good about me like I like the way you are you're so intelligent when I read your messages it's like I'm hearing your voice I became very attached to him and I think not in a romantic way I never imagined kissing him or something like that but now I don't trust myself that I can cut this contact several times I promised to myself I wouldn't message him and then a few minutes later I'd be texting him and I began to wait again for his answer it's like a curse I feel like I'm a bottomless sack nothing he could say or do will fill this deep hurtful feeling I'm living through I'm having insomnia and anxiety and sometimes I cry like a child the situation is so difficult for me honestly I didn't expect this to happen to me because I'm a nun and because of the difference in our age I want to know what you think about this and if you can give me any advice please I need your help Sophia Okay Sophia I do think I can help I feel for you oh my goodness how painful this is um what you told me about your childhood it just makes so much sense that limerence would strike you and I also take very seriously your vocation as a nun and I feel protective of you I worry that commenters are going to jump in and say oh you're having feelings about somebody you're getting limerent because you have taken a vow of celibacy but I would just like to point out that lots of people get limerent and they are free to date and sleep with and marry whoever they want to but people get limerent because of a childhood wound and unmet needs at that time but yes you have a challenging vocation you're in a situation that is complicates the whole thing a little extra bit there but because he's so much younger than you and because your relationship began as a spiritual support or mentorship you have ordinary complications here that any kind of relationship of this nature would have so I'm just with you I think you're normal you're what happened to you as a child what's happening now it all makes so much sense I don't think there's anything wrong with you Sophia and uh this is this is one of the things that happens to us so you had said you grew up in a poor family and when you were 20 days old your mom was so sick she couldn't care for you and you had to go to a neighbor to breastfeed so I as I understand it you lived in a in a place rural I know English isn't your first language I did modify a little bit for clarity and but going off to breastfeed at a neighbor um I'm glad somebody could do that and give you that physical contact but there's no no you know that separation from your mother who you were already bonded with at 20 days is so painful and sad and then your mom used to hit you to hit a baby you have to be pretty pretty messed up and your conjecture that she had postpartum depression sounds quite possible especially because it went on for two years and then it's and then she was back to whoever she was before okay but then at school you were bullied you were sexually abused by a teacher you had no friends until fifth grade what's up with that what happened I wonder if that was your your abandonment wound still activated who knows you know we can always look back and try to guess like why am I the way I am what caused this but of course we're each created differently and you are you and very unique and special in just how you are and these aren't necessarily horrible things about you that you would have um that you are slow to make friends that you fall in love even though you've taken a vow that these are you're just human and your your humanity is beautiful and I accept you I'm so sorry you were bullied and abused by a teacher uh that is something so many of us have gone through and it just does something to you that it's very hard to talk about or address or do anything about and then we find out later how it plays out so today you're a nun and I commend you for living a life of service making that level of commitment to serve others to try to be good to try to have a Consciousness that brings love into the world is a very Noble and holy thing and I appreciate you for that and now you're struggling so you fell in love with someone 17 years younger and you didn't say how old you are but I assume he's an adult and you're 17 years older than that whatever that is it's not the first time you've fallen in love before that happens and nothing happened with those people but this time your feelings are so strong so first you had a friendship with you with him he contacted you he needed advice about a problem and you talked and had regular conversations which is totally normal for people to talk to clergy or religious for you know emotional or spiritual support that's common and occasionally people get feelings for each other the responsible thing is what you have done is restraint so you because you're in a position of authority and also because of your vow you you have an obligation to restrain yourself and you have and you're asking for help and I again I commend you well done well done so everything was okay but then five months ago your mother died and then you became close to him so you say thanks to him you haven't had a depression but I'm going to suggest something I'm not a therapist but I think that limerence is like a depression it's a it's a depression that's Twisted a little bit it's kind of rotated around and we have all the same emptiness but we're coping with a terrible pain and loss with a fantasy of love with somebody who can never be like limerence doesn't work on somebody who's actually with us it can't persist because real people who actually can be with us you know they just have all their annoying habits they disappoint us they overwhelm us we get to have the experience of day-to-day life with them and so we can't really have magical thinking so much around them but in a state of of grief and depression not only because it's your mother but because of your mother's wounding of you when you were little what I notice is that that feeling of just being totally loved that you didn't get to have from day 20 until about two years old that feeling of uncertainty that everything being scary and you being alone in the world that that would be the feeling underneath limerence that would drive to manufacture at any cost the feeling of love the idea of love the idea that another person would be this side by side Comfort to you and I get what you mean limerence often doesn't have like a sexual romantic component like it does but but it's it's usually not about that it's um it's some kind of like emotional completion fantasy if I could just be with this person and they would return my feelings I could be fully myself but have it not be you and I know that feels like a terrible sacrifice but this is how you can get back your joy and your integrity and he's still out there in the world you know who knows maybe there's a day sometime down the road when he will be your friend again but it's not very likely right once once limerence has sort of like you know put its claws in a relationship it kind of ruins it and so you can you can you can take your time about this decision if you want to but you're asking me I would just do it quickly just back off of It Don't Tempt yourself don't text him no matter what just stop the texting because that's right now the texting is functioning as a trigger and you are having a neurological reflex that is triggered by contact with him and then waiting for his reply it's a it's a happy feeling isn't it texting somebody you really like and they text you back it's such a happy feeling you just want more and more and more of it I don't blame you it's a nice feeling but you know and I know that the nice feeling is like a tip of an iceberg in the bottom of the iceberg is going to smash the ship it could it could really hurt him and it could really hurt you so this thing about leaving you on scene in scene or on red and how the things are getting farther apart that suggests to me that he senses that stuff is getting a little too close so that's your cue now is the time now is the time to straighten this out I love what you said here you described limerence so well uh it's like a curse yes it is it's like a curse it's like this love for something that you can never have and I feel like I'm a bottomless sack yes nothing he can say or do will fill the Deep hurtful feeling that you're living through and that you know I usually don't psychologize but I do think I do think Sophia that the reason no matter how nice he is or even if in a magical world you could get together and marry this guy and he would love you it still wouldn't fix that feeling of the loss that you had as a baby for which there is no replacement there's no replacement I mean we're resilient beautiful souls and we carry on and we learn to love and be loved and in your role as a nun I imagine you give love and support to so many people you're a friend to all a mother to all a a sister to all and that's so beautiful and so you have love in your life but nothing can replace what you lost when you were a baby so I had a similar thing my mom left when I was little she eventually came back she would come and go a little bit and you know who we can't remember what that was like but it was just like this you know it was just like this I know you know babies I've had babies and they are just inconsolable when they think that you've gone so a mother who is mentally healthy and who who is not in some sort of traumatic situation or with uh postpartum depression is very Vigilant to making sure the baby never fears about that it's hard to avoid though and I could tell you stories about times my kids got scared thinking I wasn't going to come back it was a mistake and I did come back but they thought so and the crying and the redness and the uh the very sad very moving for me and I've had some deep conversations with the kids then when when those incidents happened and now again to just say you know you've got me and you can be you in front of me and whatever the problem is I'm I've got your back I love you I'm with you I believe in you and there's nothing you can do that will change that and of course as young people who basically got their needs met they're like yeah yeah yeah yeah Mom okay shut up but you and I know Sophia how precious it is to have your mother feel that way about you so we didn't get it but we're giving it to others so then you said you're having insomnia and anxiety and sometimes cry like a child that sounds like grief it sounds like grief this situation is so difficult and you didn't expect it because you're a nun and I'm I'm just still going to guess this is displaced grief your mom died just five months ago a lot is coming up and it's displacing onto this guy because it's kind of hard to face about your mom because as she's gone and B she hurt you she used to hit you so it's hard to feel pure gentle grief and let it pass through you but I know you can do that and I believe you have support to do that in the situation that you're in and you certainly have my support and I hope I hope that you will stay connected to our community where we can all support you and love you through this as the grief just washes through you about what happened in the past and what you've lost and then all the good things that you will be doing in your life going forward so you can do this dear fairy I've been working on my cptsd on and off throughout most of my 20s and I'm in therapy now I'm 30. my best friend since high school has been with me through it all despite having seen and been impacted by my ugliest behaviors and he stayed my friend anyway I fell in love with him sometime somewhere during our long friendship we eventually got together briefly and I told him how I felt he didn't feel the same and didn't want to risk our friendship I told him I understood and tried to stop my feelings but I couldn't eventually I asked for space and told him that I needed time away from him so that I could find a real relationship with someone else I'm going to circle that he told me I deserved that our relationship became superficial for several years although we always kept in touch in the meantime I started dating and last summer I married my husband and officially became stepmom to his six-year-old son I think my relationship with my husband is good he makes me laugh we're honest we work on our issues together there's a reason I chose him but it's also routine now it's doing the dishes and arguing about parenting and worrying about money [Music] throw in the pandemic and we're drowning in monotony arguing and anxious and too on top of each other it's been a very hard year and a half yeah you and me very and it certainly doesn't seem like it's going to end soon so enter my best friend says Rachel we started hanging out in person again this spring once we both were vaccinated I opened the door foolishly thinking that now that I was married I didn't need to be cautious anymore and sure enough my old unrequited feelings are flooding back he makes me so happy and I feel so much less lonely now it's such a relief to be myself with him my full self not just a wife and a stepmom I don't have many close friends and I don't want to lose him again but I also know it's not fair to my husband and that this could be dangerous to my marriage plus I went down this road before and he didn't want me why would it be any different now when I'm less available than I was before I guess what I'm asking fairy is how do I do this how do I soothe the obsessive cptsd drive that makes me crave his attention that flirts with the idea that one person could save me could love me unconditionally and still keep both these important relationships in my life I know my feelings are an illusion even if I were to somehow change the timeline and was with my best friend there would still be dishes to do and I love my husband and our life together I don't want to mess that up can you help me and I want to add in that something in her letter that I didn't read at the beginning is that she says she grew up in a very enmeshed and codependent household and was also sexually assaulted multiple times as a teenager just said that very like quickly in the letter and I think that's relevant so she says thank you for all you do all right Rachel I am so glad you wrote and that you asked for advice and I hope it's not too late to reach you um this is such a good question and good for you really positive move so many of us with cptsd when we get into situations that are uncomfortable or shameful or um you know something we can't be honest about we just hide more and you didn't you're here so thank you for that also when you share this problem with everybody who's watching this video we all get to learn from your experience so you've done a very good thing here you had a rough upbringing and I want to congratulate you that you managed to find a marriage with a good person to become a stepmom with them and to get to the phase of marriage that literally every couple gets to which is when you've been together for a little while yes it's a lot of doing dishes it's a lot of working out your issues especially if you had trauma when growing up in the way that you attached to your parents and what you're describing is yeah that's going to make it complicated what I noticed when I got married is that I had gone into it thinking I was being realistic you know my marriage is my second marriage and so I knew that marriage wasn't going to like fix me it wasn't going to make all the trauma go away but actually being in a good marriage where I was loved and was somebody who was steady for me really gave an opportunity for some old stuff to come out about the way that I feel so let down by what happened in the past and like there was this like huge buildup of stuff that I had never really had anybody care about that I had gone to through and I came into the marriage like we've been together five years when we got married but at the beginning there was a whole bunch of emotional stuff from me where I was like okay now I'm expecting a whole bunch of stuff to be carried by you and another person can't really do that so I'm just gonna say like it is so understandable for you to be going through some issues right now a year and a half into a marriage and especially because you're going right in as a step parent and that has its own issues I'm really happy for you though like making that kind of commitment can be so life-affirming and so it can help you grow so much so you very rightly pointed out like you know that a lot of this like if you were to be with this best friend romantically even if that could work out it still would come back to dishes and issues and all that unfinished business from your childhood that hasn't been healed yet no matter who you're with it's going to sort of like Get directed at them and that's going to have to be worked out and that's understandable and it's okay and you have a chance right now to work out your stuff with somebody who's actually does want to be with you um one thing I circled is you said that eventually when your friend made it clear that he wasn't interested in this being romantic you asked for space and told them you needed time away so you could find a real relationship with someone else and he agreed that you deserve that good for him good for you and I think what's happening now is you're wobbling and I can imagine how when you said this and made this boundary part of you didn't think that really that was where things are going I could be projecting but sometimes when we feel like there's a great love with somebody we want to kind of up the ante with them and be like you know I'm going to be with somebody else and and hope that maybe that will kind of push them over the edge and want to be with us but here's the weird thing I've learned about limerent relationships so let me tell you about limerence a little bit here limerence is a word that was made up not that long ago to talk about this kind of love that's not really love and what it's characterized by is a total idealization of another person a total preoccupation with them where you're thinking about them like all the time where you be find yourself this is a really key thing you find yourself searching for clues that they feel the same way and part of limerence is that you're not together like I think occasionally people have limerence and they do get together with that person and they have the chance for the relationship to morph into the kind that you have now with your husband that's ordinary that's like real love Real Love is the kind that Does Dishes together it's the kind that can love each other and stay with each other through those times when your stuff is coming up and you're being unreasonable and you come through and you heal together that's real love and that is really what I would hope for everybody is that they find that because for reasons we don't totally understand you know part of this it could be a brain thing it could be partly the influence of like TV and movies but a lot of us are powered by this belief that there's like a true love out there and if they would just realize it like everything would be so great and with that trauma in our background we have the capacity to think that about people who have said flat out yeah I don't feel that way about you and it's so easy to say to you when it's you you know when it was happening to me it's like I couldn't you know it just it muddies the water so much when it's you because something in your brain is just so sure like if they would just see it it would be great and looking back on that now with a little healing under my belt and being free from that limerence I would say that what I can see now is while there are kinds of love or friendship in there it's a it's a projection and it is not something that would work out anyway like if if you have the luxury of knowing this person who you feel this way about 20 years from now you may find it's like oh my gosh you know there isn't that compatibility right there because if there was they would want to be with you too like that's what compatibility is it's a mutual feeling so it's not there it's not there and I would imagine because of stuff you went through as a kid there's some part of your brain that just knows how to do this that knows how to like fill in the Gap so somebody's like you like them they're so interesting it brings you into Technicolor as yourself to be around them you really feel like you it feels really good right and they're saying but I'm not into you but you're like oh that's okay I can kind of move that thought over there and I can just look at this good feeling I have and I'll be honest with you for me a lot of what healed it was when I developed a spiritual life and I think that was a lot of what I was looking for like even as a small kid I had had spiritual experiences of being just totally seen and real and appreciative of all the Nuance of life and I could see that and having somebody to share that with is such a delight and it comes through different people at different times and it's not always it's not always in every sense and every facet of it going to be the person you you're married to and for anybody who's single out there I have a feeling that you generally know how to find pick friends like the ones who you go look at art with and the ones you like to take walks with and the ones you go to when you're sad and it's so natural for us to want to to want that all to be in one person and really basically only through fantasy and limerence could we even imagine that one person would be all of that it just isn't never like that it's so disappointing right um it might be something that we felt as as babies when we were with our moms before we even knew what all of the problems were going to be and it was just this sense of completeness and Oneness so that Union that you can feel with the aid of your imagination is so lovely but it's almost impossible to get on Earth and so we struggle and we suffer and so yes here you are the first year and a half of marriage I think if we could take a poll of every married person in this audience they would go oh yeah the first year and a half is hard the first two years sometimes more are hard it's a huge adjustment even if you were living together before even if you had been together a long time it's a hard adjustment to make that commitment to go ahead and release that fantasy that this person is ever going to be anything else rather than what they have always been for you that they're not going to magically turn into somebody with this capacity to heal you in some new way now that said I will say that I found marriage in its way to be very healing it was fundamentally just like primally healing about a certain thing about not being alone so it's very powerful in that sense you know but my husband is is is not the perfect fulfillment of all the ways that my needs went unmet you know he's just a person and he's great because he's stays with me and he shares his life with me and he shares my commitments with me and and and contributes uh his energy and love and money and everything to our Enterprise of having a home and and and kids there that are step kids for him and that's love and he's with me on my birthday and he cares about like what I want and where I want to live and what what I like to eat he cares about these things and he just keeps being there day after day that's love that's love but there have been times in my life when I would have devalued that and continued to look for that limerence that that feeling like oh you know we're like Souls meant to be together that's a you know that's a for a person with cptsd I'm just going to say that's a big red flag some people believe in twin souls or or um or soul mates and that can be a very dangerous thing for people who have wounds in the area of attachment and I'm just going to put it out there I don't want to disturb anybody's experience of life but if you have if you had a traumatic childhood especially if you were neglected and abandoned by a parent and you keep finding yourself like person after person thinking it's some kind of soulmate there is something very bad there it's not good and it's very disruptive to the development of a real of a real relationship where you see somebody and can be present because as much as you might see yourself as the person who's trying to hold on to and create this like incredible relationship actually when you're holding on to a fantasy of a person you're rejecting the real person that's actually a rejection and this is the strange thing when you have attachment problems when you were wounded in that way as a kid is that the stronger you feel sometimes the less present you are and you know who somebody's going to fall in love with is you present it's your real self people might fall into limerence with you especially if you're younger you're 30 you're at an age where that you know could easily happen and when you know because you don't feel the same way how unrealistic it is how they're putting you up on a pedestal you know like it's like hey you know wake up you're not even here that's not what's going on between us right here and then um the big thing about limerence is looking for signs like always searching and I I I've been in I've been on both sides of that before and when it's being done to me when somebody's looking for signs and thinks they saw signs for me that I was into them and they were imagining it it's it's really uncomfortable honestly and made me want to run away it's kind of weird but I've done it to other people you know where there's like a little bit of communication and I'm searching and I'm like but I think this is code for something and I think they mentioned this because what they really mean is that and I'm supposed to interpret this as the opposite if you're doing that this is not a real relationship it's not real love when someone genuinely loves you they don't leave you in doubt about that they want you to know they want you to know that they love you and that they're there and they want to create this environment that you want to stay in and that wouldn't scare you off so that's a little bit about limerence and Rachel you know you may not have every aspect of what I talked about but what you've got here is an idealized relationship with somebody who has said flat out they don't feel that way about you and you asked me what to do you have acknowledged this is dangerous for your marriage I know you see everything here but I have news you're probably not going to want to hear the thing that you do about this is you end the relationship with the friend that's that's what you do I don't see based on my experience I don't see any way that you can have a friend with somebody who you're also in love with and have a successful marriage that's fair to the person to whom you took Mutual vows of fidelity all right that is really important when you make a promise to somebody it doesn't mean that you're always going to have it easy to keep that promise sometimes it will seem like something outside yourself would be so much better but the good news here is it's obvious that this is not better and I'm sad with you just because you feel not alone with this friend and you have fun and I'm sad that you don't have that yet with somebody else but you will you will have friends who are appropriate for a married woman who are fun for you and who see you and you're going to have to put yourself out there I'm not going to assign bad motives to you here but when you have a friendship with somebody you're in love with and you're married one way of looking at that is you are in a deep state of avoidance and I don't blame you at all if you're the fan the family you grew up in was a mesh and codependent like maybe what you lack here is a sense of boundaries that you can actually be committed and close to somebody without losing yourself without getting into an enmeshed and codependent relationship the fact that you were sexually assaulted when you were young multiple times sounds like I'm just gonna guess like whatever unhealthy Dynamic was going on with the grown-ups they couldn't protect you from that now no parents are perfect but if it happened multiple times there was some kind of like not seeing not hearing not talking you know veiled everything and that sounds terrible and if you grew up that way you have ahead of you a phase of your development where you heal that where you teach yourself a trusted marriage a marriage where everybody's safe is such a good place where people can learn things like that how do I learn to give my commitment and be present to somebody without losing myself the the sort of quickie way to do that is like oh I'll just sort of have this friend on the side who really like they really get me I really love them when you can't show up and be present for your marriage like that even if they never realize what that energy is you know it people's hearts whether they are conscious of what they're getting from another person or not they feel it and when somebody's not giving you the real love and they're giving it to somebody else instead it's like you're robbing them so when you made a decision to get married and be be the wife and stepmom in this family right you made a promise that this good sparkly fun talented part of you would be shared with them let's say every night at the dinner table like you're not always going to be like this ball of fire for them but this special part of you is something that you committed to share with them and they with you well the child doesn't make any commitment they're just wonderful anyway but your husband and you you know have promised to give each other the best of yourself in that way and it doesn't mean you don't have friendships outside of it and Pursuits and I want you to have that but with appropriate people for your marriage having a stable marriage is so healing for somebody with cptsd and from everything you're telling me he's a perfectly good person and he totally deserves for you to not be giving away that that like romantic energy to some secret relationship that is so unfair to him your friend doesn't feel this way about you so even if in some magical world where your husband could tolerate this and it would be no big deal or it was an open relationship or something your friend is not into you and so you would always have this longing the only way that you're able to keep this romantic idealization of him is because it never comes together because it's always this separate thing it's always this sort of pining away for something that you can't have I'm gonna bet a thousand dollars you had a parent like that where you know you had to long for them and so there's some part of you that really knows how to love deeply when you can't have something but it's not love it's not love it's actually it's a it's it's a sort of a fever dream that comes out of pain it comes out of pain and deprivation and um a loss so you're not going to believe that until you actually take the action of ending that relationship and I'll tell you when I ended all relationships like that it was so awful I cried I thought I can't possibly do this but I wanted to be emotionally available I had just met the man who's now my husband and I knew I needed to get my you know what together I needed to get it together and stop having all these like you know little half relationships out there and on the advice of a mentor I ended all those relationships I cried when I was doing it and then within 45 minutes I started to feel so powerful I felt like ah here I am here I am and it worked it worked and uh my husband's like you know he's like together he would never have wanted to be with somebody who had a bunch of friends on the side who was you know kind of like not trustworthy he would never have done that if I could have pulled the wool over my eyes he would have figured it out real quick that I just wasn't all there so I showed up I got on my toes and that's a sign when you get on your toes for somebody and do your best that's a sign that they're good for you they call you out to be your best and if if you and your husband have that that's a really good sign but the fact is you've made this commitment to each other and a child is counting on you in that stability at home so I encourage you strongly make the most of this marriage you've got with this guide that you love and you has is there for you and loves you and let your fantasy go let it go and just see what happens my first marriage was 32 years ago with my best friend ever or at least I thought so Mike and I were so connected in so many ways I didn't expect that I was in love with him until I was it took one and a half years for us to recognize that become a couple and get married it was great but then it wasn't he was doing drugs and I had to make him leave Lisa says I was devastated and it seemed he was too he was sobbing his brains out yet didn't want to go to rehab he didn't want to do the work to keep us together I came from a nightmare home with screaming verbal abuse physical abuse mostly my mom and brother got the physical abuse what I did was hard-hearted as everyone seemed to observe Mike was the best thing that ever happened to me I was so crushed confused and broken but I recall saying to myself I can't be like my mom and stay in an unhappy situation so I did what I had to do and we split got my pencil here and I'm circling things I want to come back to when I go through this letter again but let's just read through now I remained in touch with Mike's parents especially his mom after our divorce he was married two other times and divorced two more times his mom used to fill me in here and there but he was not our main topic we were actual friends with other stuff to discuss I never saw Mike after the divorce because he moved to another city and that was that as soon as the internet became a thing I searched for him on a regular basis even though I was with a new boyfriend to whom I eventually got married it took me five and a half years to agree to marry him and when I did it was because I needed his health insurance so I could return to school my new husband and I did have fun through traveling having lots of friends and a lot of socializing still I searched and thought about Mike on a regular basis I don't feel this was normal but I could not stop myself she says after about 25 years Mike's dad died I asked his mom to please ask him if it was okay if I attended services she said no need to ask but I didn't want to feel intrusive the day came and at the service Mike and I saw each other we hugged and cried for what seemed like an hour it was very emotional his latest girlfriend was there and we were introduced it was all laughs and a great to see you kind of vibe he asked if we could be in touch on social media and I agreed we never talked after that but would occasionally like each other's pet photos and little things like that very generic but I was secretly thrilled to know this guy again my first and biggest love the funniest smartest person I've ever known was back even if it was just via social media so two years later Mike's mom died and he messaged me directly and from that point we became reconnected talking and laughing and he apologized profusely about drugs and ruining our marriage he even had a tattoo of us on his arm I was a bit freaked out by that but loved it of course all of this communication led to meetups and I'm skipping ahead a bit she says or this will go on forever the meetups led to a first kiss and then an affair he was now engaged to the girl I had met and I was still married we both seem to love every moment then he decided to get an advanced degree for a new career and it all slowed down but we still communicated almost daily just nothing about hooking up it was mutual and equal then it wasn't I could feel the pulling back on his end but we continued on discussing school jobs Sports and always music which was our biggest Bond it's now been two years since we've seen each other I go to therapy and he goes to class it's been almost three years that he's been engaged she is loaded and his keeper if you will even after many times of him saying it'll never end until one of us is dead he's slipping away I know it and he knows it the problem is that I cannot stop thinking or obsessing over him I know it's affecting everything in my life although my husband doesn't know I'm sure he can tell part of me is gone I watch every video out there go to therapy speak to certain friends that know the truth Nothing Stops me from thinking about him I'm obsessed and I do not want to be I will always love him because I loved him but I'm never going to have him am I so bored in my marriage or am I traumatized once again by this ex-husband and due to my crappy childhood I have always missed Mike and our fling just makes me miss him all over again it's ridiculous and I feel ridiculous I do not regret our time together but I need to make my brain stop because he's stopping and I'm now trying to stop reaching out I even sit on my hands so I do not message him he calls occasionally and we still text but I need to stop waiting and living just to hear from him and I can't my therapist said it's because of my miserable childhood and not getting my needs met then she says this is a trauma Bond she's right you're right but how do I make it stop he can reach out that's fine but I need to stop living for it he doesn't want me back in the beginning I was the one in control and he wanted to know where I was and why he hadn't heard from me every five seconds but that quickly turned and now alas here I am lonely and longing for any bit of attention from him please help if you can from Lisa oh Lisa I'm so sorry this is one of the most painful things in life and right now the options that you're facing are all painful but I'm going to help you find the right way through okay I circled a bunch of things on your letter here that I wanted to come back to all right so I I believe you're in your 50s now so your first marriage was 32 years ago and Mike had been your best friend ever and then you fell in love and you were married and it was really great at first but then it wasn't and the only thing you say about what was great then was it was great but then it wasn't that's a really short statement okay and the reason was because he was doing drugs and you didn't really say whether he had been using drugs the whole time and you just realized it or he got into drugs or what happened there but I know firsthand how devastating it is to love somebody who turns out to be using drugs and that it is an impossible situation and he didn't want to go to rehab and he didn't want to do the work to keep you together okay so clue number one about Mike is not just that he was an addict and ruined your marriage but he he didn't want to do the work to keep you together all right and this shows up again later so here we go all right and then you explain and my heart goes out to you you come from a nightmare home with screaming verbal abuse physical abuse and mostly your mom and brother got the abuse that was how it was in my family too what I did you say was hard-hearted as everyone seemed to observe hold on a second there I actually think leaving somebody who's addicted to drugs and not willing to stop is not hard-hearted it's common sense it's common sense you don't give a lot of details about this but when I hear the whole story here of what happened and um I I'm just going to take your word for it he was an addict and there is no happy relationship to be had with somebody who cannot stop using and some people who are using can stop and they can heal and it takes time but he wasn't doing that so I really think you did the right thing by getting out then all right but I can also see what it says to me that you feel like you were too harsh and um I think that what got stuck in your mind is that you did it prematurely that you know maybe you shouldn't have that it was this great love it ended up being so hard to find anything and I believe that you guys loved each other I get it so then you say Mike was the best thing that ever happened to you okay well okay I'm just gonna say accept that he turned out to be an addict and wasn't willing to do the work to be with you and so you know I know that later you married somebody who does do the work to be with you so I'm just going to sort of challenge that idea that this this like wild child guy that you were with the best thing that ever happened to you what I what I'm hearing and I totally understand is that this relationship awakened a part of you that you don't ordinarily have access to and that's a beautiful thing and yet I I suspect in people like you and like me what that is is it's a it's a trauma memory and it's a it's a it's the satisfaction of a trauma wound with a fantasy and as people with childhood PTSD we sometimes have a really hard time telling the difference between what is a great love and incredible compatibility and what is something that has all the painful knife wounds of what happened to us as kids when it was terrible and people could not do the work to honor us and treat us caringly lovingly in the way that we deserved all right you got that as a kid you got that in your marriage so I really questioned that it was the best thing that ever happened to you I at least know that something much better can happen for you okay and you say I was so crushed confused and broken but I recall saying to myself I can't be like my mom and stay in an unhappy situation so I did what I had to do and we split now I don't know if you noticed that but you've done exactly what your mom has done you are staying in an unhappy situation in this limbo and we're going to talk about what about your marriage in a minute but I don't mean just instantly that that's the bad thing your limbo is a living hell you're suffering and suffering every day and you have been for a long time okay so um you know I'm the tough love fairy and I think on some level you kind of knew what I was going to say when you wrote but if you don't know I'm going to tell it to you with great love and great understanding and relatedness because I've been through this too so then you say I remained in touch with Mike's parents and since you had been married to Mike that's not crazy especially his mom and then he got married twice and divorced twice so he had had three marriages by the time you ran into him he's got a fiance for a fourth marriage and you know hey people with cptsd that's often what it looks like so no judgment but just saying he does have in the way that he has relationships he has this pattern of you know going in and going out going in and going out it's not working out and that would be also extremely consistent with somebody who was an addict and very charismatic all right some people are addicts and nobody would marry them because uh the drugs just blatantly make them awful to be around but he's a charismatic addict that's how I would describe it from the little you're saying so his mom would fill you in here and there but it wasn't your main topic you had an authentic relationship with her and you know after the way you grew up I totally understand holding on to the family that you once had when you were with Mike all right so you never saw him after the divorce because he moved to another city and that was that and good good there were 25 whole years between getting divorced and bumping into him again and that's good boundaries um but as soon as the internet became a thing oh wasn't that a crazy couple of years for those of us who get limerent right as soon as the internet became a thing I searched for him on a regular basis even though I was with a new boyfriend to whom I eventually got married and so you search for him even though you were with a new boyfriend it took 5.5 and a half years to agree to marry this guy and when you did it was because you needed his health insurance so that you could return to school okay so I think what you're trying to tell me is but I never really love this guy but what you're accidentally telling me is something quite terrible all right you're exploiting somebody but here's the thing if you're gonna be happy Lisa you cannot live in such a way that deeply deceives and hurts and uses other people it just won't fly it doesn't work that way you can call it karma or you can call it inner peace but you cannot have peace and you will not find love you now I'm not rendering judgment on this marriage we're going to talk about that in a minute but the fact that you're trying to tell me oh I just went into it for health insurance that's that's just so morally wrong and so going into it just for health insurance is sort of saying I'm going to do something that looks like this conventional thing that people do called marriage but I'm not really doing it it's a material reason for so that I can go to school and if you grew up with trauma I bet you your youth was extremely complicated you didn't get that education really or you couldn't be present for it or you couldn't stay regulated enough to keep up with studies and move your career forward and also the whole thing about money like so many of us get financially hurt because of our trauma and because the families that we came from are so troubled like there's there is no money and that's I mean that's how I I grew up I got a little bit of money when my dad died when I was a teenager it was it helped a little bit but you know I was on financial aid for a little bit I got Social Security benefits because my dad had died while I was a minor you know I scraped together and it took me a long time to finish college because I had to work and you know I know what it is to have to like scratch your way through survival and how relationships play a role in that and and so I I'm not standing here above you you know I had relationships that I just needed so I had somewhere to live I can see now how much what a soul-sucking thing that was for all concerns that I hurt other people that I couldn't be happy that I was never free that when I did meet really great men I had weird stuff complications going on in my life that made me not seem like an ideal match to them and they weren't really interested so okay so then you say your new husband and you did have fun through traveling you had lots of friends you socialize a lot and you still searched and thought about Mike on a regular basis and you didn't feel this was normal but you couldn't stop yourself so uh-huh yeah that's you know that's when you have limerent Tendencies that's what you're gonna do somebody comes along and the idea that you know you had this miserable existence before that was so terrible that you had to rip yourself out of a marriage to get out of it but now it's going to be better and that idea comes in and that is what we do that's how trauma distorts our thinking and when it gets control over our lives it takes us right off the tracks so I'm here I'm your tough love fairy I'm just calling it for what it is you got limerent you know that's a like an infatuation and Obsession on somebody you don't you're not actually with like if you were actually with him the same old problems would manifest and you it's interesting in your whole letter you never say whether he stopped using drugs maybe he did and maybe he didn't but if that's not like a hugely significant fact about him whether he's using or not he's still in that addictive behavior that's I mean that's yes that he's having an affair he he gets into an affair right after he gets engaged like who does that right who does that as somebody who has just as much fear and avoidance as you have some people do avoidance by you know they just don't get into relationships but some of us have this subtler way where we want the simulation of a relationship or a marriage but we don't give ourselves to it and limerence really comes in as a way to sort of like take this huge piece of our heart and our love and our our like the thing that we have to give to another person if it were to be for real we we're like here I'm gonna I'm gonna direct that over here and then with this person I'm going to have this limited thing and some people will criticize it and say oh it's a strategy so that you don't get hurt I don't think it's conscious it's not my experience that it's anything conscious it's uh you know it's just like I can't help feeling like I need to eat food every day I can't help feeling like I need to breathe every day and there's a lot of behaviors that we can't help they come so naturally to us because they're just wired in there but while we do have to breathe and eat every day we actually can change these behaviors we can work on that brain level we can work on the cultural level the social level we can heal these cptsd symptoms so take heart all right there is a way out of this there's a way out of this hell and into peace and happiness for you and something that feels good and just like organically good for your life all right it's here for you and so I'm going to go through the letter and find it okay I mean I know where I'm going with this okay so then Mike's dad died and um he contacted you directly or no the mom contacted you and you came and you saw him and you got into the affair so yes we started talking about the affair you were thrilled to know him so what's interesting is when you first saw him he was with a girlfriend and everything was like Hey great to see you we're friends we're introduced so right away everybody goes into a fake persona or at least you do I can't really speak for the other two uh surely this girlfriend has been jealous and upset about you I mean unless she's completely high all the time and doesn't feel anything she's noticing there's something going on right so you see him and you're thrilled but everybody pretends oh yes we're just friends you know we used to be married hi how's it going and then he says can we stay in touch and yeah you know that's not like crazy to stay in touch after 25 years it seems like everybody can be friends but the energy the electric energy that you were feeling probably he was too and especially because he's an addict or that's my experience that these things like sometimes we're just tripping in our own mind but sometimes both people feel them and the fact that he entered into an affair with you means he was feeling it so I don't doubt there was a real love between you and a real connection and that even 25 years like you could feel it right away but oh why is life like this sometimes the great love you feel is not compatible with daily life and there it is you know it's just it's this great you know thing that brings you out of yourself and helps you experience the Eternal and feel connected with it and no Union with another person except life with that person sucks it just it can't be done they won't do it they can't do it they have an addiction they're with somebody else and you know he was only engaged and I know you thought about this Lisa you didn't write about it but he was only engaged he could have broken that engagement and he chose not to um so that was your clue and it sounds like you were like well my my marriage you know I I never was really feeling it and I feel this and maybe I can have both things all right you're certainly not the first person to give that a try and but just like everybody who's given it a try you've got into a place of great pain and um so another thing I wanted to say that was significant you know I noticed that you had a like a lack of empathy for your husband I notice you have a lack of empathy for Mike's now fiance that you have a lack of empathy for her I just didn't hear you say anything acknowledging what she was going through and so you know you may have seen my video about how complex PTSD can give us narcissistic traits and that's what happens the need for love is so voracious and so consuming that it drowns out empathy for other people ordinary empathy and I think intellectually you must realize that this woman is something terrible has been done to her by you and by Mike and it's still being done by you guys because he's still in touch with you and you're still you know wanting him and hoping he'll leave and and what about her so again you know I I I've been in your shoes but it's see when you're in the middle of limerence it is it's another sort of weird kind of brain state where you you cannot you can't perceive the full spectrum of reality and I'm just here outside your limerence just going oh yeah this is terrible you're a good person but you're doing a bad person thing that's really inconsiderate towards two people who are being robbed of something that they've been promised and that they showed up for in good faith right and that is just morally devastating and there's I there's just no way to really live your life that way and be happy so I want you to take hope it's like there it is and you it's funny like you've been in therapy all this all these years and your your therapist is talking to you about it your friends are talking to you about it and you know you say you're watching videos but none of those things are doing anything about it and I don't know if people are calling you out on the fact that you're not taking action on this what I hear you doing is you're waiting for him to decide if he's gonna like you know call you or give you a little bit of that you know intense love that you are craving now it is like an addiction isn't it it is and it's it's the stuff that what it does to your life is just like what drugs do to a person's life so I just keep going back like you could not stay in an unhappy situation so you did what you had to do and you split and um and that's where you are right now that's where we're going so first we're going to deal with the matter of Mike okay it's been two years since you've seen each other you're going to therapy he goes to class um he's still engaged he still hasn't gotten married and I'm not surprised and um oh I feel for that girlfriend that fiance that he's having an affair on the whole time you're very logical you're very reasonable you're I can tell you're a good person but this one little bitter line comes out about about Mike's fiancee she's loaded meaning she has a lot of money and she's his keeper if you will so that sounds like um some envy that she has money and you don't and that's why he's with her uh and you might be right you might be right if it's any satisfaction I it's I don't think it's going to work out between them given the way that he's treated her and it sounds also exploitative so he you you project that he's with somebody because he just wants the money but just calling you out here does that mimic does that Echo a little bit how you're with somebody also because you want the Financial Security so we've got two people here who had a great love but they were not spiritually ready for it and when I use the word ready I'm not trying to give you hope because I think that this situation has been burned out too hard to call it back a really good relationship can only take so much and it will take it has certain like rubber band qualities a really good durable relationship like real love it has rubber band qualities and that you know there can be hurts and it can come back it comes back to its shape but the the stuff that you two have been through is so great and because years went on with this like lying and hurting other people my take on it is this is too damaged it's there it's not only because he won't come back to you it's because the good thing has been tainted by the toxic stuff and it's so sad but that can really happen and that's why love is so precious that's why caring for other people is something we strive so hard to learn how to do as people with cptsd because our our traumatized Behavior does spoil good and precious love and that happens but it doesn't have to anymore you can make today the day that you don't do that anymore today can be the day that you clear it up so you say you can't stop thinking or obsessing about them it's affecting everything your husband doesn't know I keep saying we're going to come back to your husband he's very important in this um he can tell a part of you is gone and um yeah I I called this out before you watch every video you go to therapy you speak to certain friends that know the truth so I guess you had the idea that if you just kept talking about your feelings about him that it would change I used to think that too when I was in a situation that was a little like this and I thought if I talked and talked and talked um I would pop out of it but that's not what happened you know what happened it got worse and worse and worse and it it took on properties that were nothing like love it was more like depression self-attack not wanting to live it was terrible and so you know what the day that changed it for me was is my friend who showed me the daily practice that I teach everybody every I mention it in every video it's always down in the description section if you want to try it but this is a technique what I really needed was not to be obsessed on something that wasn't there what I really needed was a way to find comfort and meaning and rest and Clarity that's what I really needed and by a stroke of amazing Good Fortune I met somebody who showed me these techniques where I could just get these horrible thoughts and feelings out of my head onto paper and then rest my mind and it's two specific techniques it's easy it's free you can learn it too but that's what happened and my friend taught me this and then I said I'm still really troubled about this relationship you know so obsessed and can't let go she was just like oh having any kind of contact that has romantic intent with a married person is wrong and if you want to get happy now cut it off that simple okay and I literally nobody had ever told me that who I'd gone to for help now everyone knows that but I was being very selective I think about where I would go and so I was going to this therapist and we were drawing pictures about it and talking about dreams and you know why was I sad and what was the last interaction like and you know this is a long time ago but she she had never said and I guess I had really carefully picked friends who wouldn't challenge me who would just say cut it off and that when she said it to me it first it struck me like somebody just took a sword and stuck it through my heart and then I just realized of course that's it and I did it I cried for about 45 minutes and then I felt so good good I felt free of course that's what it is you cut off contact with these people so you'll hear me say this we've been talking about limerence and other videos and you know people who get stuck in their whole you know your whole life it's like pouring cement on the engine of your life to get stuck in something like this it's it's so just life destroying and there's a solution and the first thing you do is you stop pouring cement on it you stop having contact so sometimes you need a friend like me to just get in there and say let's look at it were you happy no when you were with him you were miserable you know was he available to you no the one of the Hallmark signs of a relationship that's good and right for you is that that person can be with you and will be with you and if they cannot or will not be with you they are not the love of your life they are not they might be an ex-love but they are not for you and there it is and I say that like in my really Stern teacher voice because it just needs to get through it needs to get through the fantasy of like because when you are a kid and you're dealing with the abuse and the horrible stuff that you went through it's so easy to think right it's like yeah you know Dad's hitting mom and my brother all the time but but actually everything's okay and then you go to school and everybody's like well how are you Lisa and you're like I'm fine right you get so good at that I call it crap fit you probably know that if you watch my videos you fit yourself to crap and you've been doing that all along you've been fitting yourself to crap and you've been trying to survive you've been using crap fit to get by in the world and so one little thing I want to put out there for you is if Financial insecurity is a thing for you whatever you do about your marriage I really encourage you to get out there and get a way to make money and to have health insurance so you never again have to set up some fake relationship that you're miserable in so that you can have health insurance I know how hard it is it's crazy expensive but it would be better to go on public assistance and get that kind of insurance which is not ideal I know and a lot of Hassle and paperwork it's not ideal but it's still you still get to be a free person and not exploiting anybody else for your security not deceiving anybody else oh yeah your therapist says this is because of your childhood it's like yeah but I just wanna yeah obviously your childhood everything that's happening here is is what we do it's what happens to people with cptsd so I agree that it's because of that but I don't know what came after that you say you don't know how to Make It Stop So since your therapist didn't tell you here's what you do you're not going to see Mike again all right if you want to use what my technique here don't see him again you send him a text if that's the safe way that you can communicate without harming any ever again his fiancee now whether they work it out or not that's no longer your concern but you're not going to get in there to apologize you're not going to try to explain anything and you're not going to try to get closure closure is a fake word it means opening really when you when you're addicted to somebody so you go in there so you send a text and say I've thought about it and I've realized that for my own mental health I need to not have contact with you this is goodbye and I wish you the best that's all you have to say you don't even have to say I wish you the best but go ahead you know just send that Goodwill and then what you do is you block you block texts calls social media if you ha and you can social media lets you block people the person on YouTube I know all about it when people get yucky I can block them so you can block people and if you have to change your number change your number you know since he shows signs of being somebody who's in active addiction either with substances and or in in relationships um getting cut off by you could trigger a fake you know that this like reaction of like oh give me give me give me and he might try to make contact with you so for you to be strong for that I'm just telling you he may do that again but it's going to be the same fake kind of interest in you that doesn't involve saying I've realized I love you I totally stopped using drugs I got my life together and I only want to be with you right now if you're willing to leave your marriage like if he he didn't say that and if if he anything he says now to try to keep the little dopamine thread going with you because that's what it is right life feels empty and and you can always like send a little text and get that little and he's getting the same thing from it and he makes contact when he needs a little lift when he's feeling empty all right if when a person loves you they don't put you through this this is such a hard video isn't it Lisa and um but I I just want to be straight with you it's not love when somebody does this to you keeps you on a string and does not show up to be in your life and and give you love so you can have love you can have it and this brings us to the question of your husband so you're in a marriage that what you're saying is not really a real marriage that you got into it for financial reasons and that you have friends together and you've had travel and it's fun but you're not really feeling it it may be that you got married under false pretenses and the right thing to do for his sake and we really have to consider what's best for him because getting married is making a promise to somebody and sometimes we have to break that promise but this this requires careful thought whether you think that if you could detox from this addictive relationship you've been in if you if you would like to give that some time to see if your feelings can blossom for your husband I would totally back you on that but it has to be a really clean thing um and and whether you do that or whether you immediately exit the marriage I'm really encouraging you to have to possibly change your therapist I think you I think therapy is a great idea but if you haven't been if you had therapy for two years and you don't know how to make these things stop which is just a tactical set of actions if you don't know I think you may want to get a therapist who's a little more experienced with love addiction and who can help you draw your boundaries and hold them and talk more about the boundaries and not the feelings that make you want to cross the boundaries the feelings are going to be there it'd be like if somebody were addicted to drugs and just wanted to go talk about the drugs all the time and how it felt to be high and how much you miss them rather than okay what are you going to do to stay clean today right what are you going to do to stay away from the people who you know are going to be tempting to you let's make a plan so those are the people you need um friends too so friends who really support that one thing you can do I have a dating course and uh this you know I feel like this is not the time for you to go dating but what I want to call your attention to is that I start everybody out with writing down what they really want what do they really want and so you can start now writing that down and as you detox and as your mind clears you can keep updating that and to get clearer what you really want but under no circumstances I just know you don't you don't want some guy who's like engaged to somebody else like why would you want that right that's not what you want so you can begin to just lay out there there is something you want and that can kind of help you endure the withdrawal that's going to come it is withdrawal as you let go as you let go for good and make no more contact with this guy who's been life sucking for you you were doing okay and then this came and so now there's still time for your life to be happy there's time for you to have a wonderful relationship so your husband is stuck by you somehow he doesn't know that's a little odd because it seems like it might you know anybody sensitive might know but maybe you've been very good at hiding it but I think that a therapist and friends could help support you over time to make a decision um within 90 days if you're going to try to make it work with your husband or not and he certainly deserves a chance as a person but if if you're not feeling it then the most loving and honorable thing to do is to end it is to end that relationship and I thought a lot about this question of whether you tell them what's been going on that's a hard one a lot of people are just like an automatic yes tell always you you know honesty you can't have a good relationship without honesty and so that's that's one that needs to be worked out with you and people you trust who know the details of the situation with you and your husband but I will just say that if you do decide to be honest it needs to be entirely limited to what needs to be said for him to understand the situation that you have not been fully in the marriage and either yes you want to work it out with him or know you are ending the marriage that it needs to be clear and not drag him into a chaotic confusing you know heart-wrenching thing so for that that's why I say I really encourage you to do this with a strong therapist or perhaps consider going to a 12-step program for love addiction and getting the best sponsor in the room you know go to NF meetings notice the woman who's really Kick-Ass and ask her to sponsor you and to help you do this cleanly the thing about cptsd and especially limerent thinking is we we can't think clearly for ourselves we have to bring other people into the decision process you can too okay you can do that the other thing I'm going to recommend whatever you decide to do or how to handle this is try out my daily practice you need a place to to self-comfort there needs to be a way to do that without resorting to texting him thinking about him talking about him and did I mention that don't just not have contact with him don't think about him don't talk about him and I know some thoughts are involuntary they'll come up in dreams but you can do this if you cut you have to like start training yourself if you catch yourself thinking about him have a go-to happy thought that you have instead all right and if you catch yourself talking about them just pull back and with your friends just say I'm trying not to talk about them I think this is an extremely underrated technique for getting somebody out of your mind don't think about them don't talk about them and so sometimes our friends and even therapists can enable us in continuing to stay obsessed by letting us talk about it and as if that's going to lead to some breakthrough if it hasn't led to a breakthrough by now I mean talking about it is necessary up to a point but if you haven't had a breakthrough yet I don't think it's going there I don't think that's going there what I see here is you need peace you need a nice clean slate sort of like somebody who walks into a river river and bathes themselves and comes out on the other side and wraps themselves in a white robe and just being safe and putting down and cleansing away all the stuff you've been doing to try to find love that's hurting you and hurting other people and you'll find that when you're making a good and Noble Endeavor like this the right people to help you will show up and sometimes you'll just find that the wind is under your wings you get help you get help to get through the hard nights there's going to be a lot of Tears a lot of feelings because that's what addictions do is they're helping us handle and suppress this well of pain we've got and the interesting thing about pain is is just sadness it's grief it's some anger and if especially if you have a comforting technique like the daily practice that I teach it can just kind of come up and you cry and you feel mad and it just like rolls through you and it's a it's just a wave that passes and then you have a quiet period where you can do the laundry get a job you know do the dishes call your friend get your nails done you know whatever it is that's just daily life for you right so that's how it's done you asked how do I make it stop and that is how foreign [Music]

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 121,674

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Id: 8TFMGRZAqLc

Length: 78min 7sec (4687 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 04 2022