Eating disorder and more - need a shoulder ......

Thanks @Appleblossom 🙏 💕

Everyone could do with some Floof to snuggle into @Appleblossom. You've had so much trauma in your life, and its understandable that it can take that long to bring your arousal down. I guess that's evidence that our bodies and nervous systems are mis-firing and that there is something physically different about us. The symptoms of cPTSD that drive me mental and zap all the my reserves are the nails down the chalkboard and hyper-arousal that I get from too much stimulus. Even a ride on public transport can do this on a really bad day. I found a research article that I want to show my psychiatrist. I haven't read it myself, but these are the symptoms that bring me to my knees. It was called something like "PTSD and neutral stimuli and brain blah blah blah". So basically why are people with PTSD so hyper sensitive to noise, bright lights, crowds, 2 people talking at once is something my brain can't handle, or if someone has a TV on and also the stereo my head goes whacky.....I am ranting now @Appleblossom but just thought I would mention some things that I find, that maybe you can relate to. My 2nd admission in the hospital was very reassuring that what I experience is very typical of PTSD.....when it is in a flare the only place I want to be is at home.....or in my neighbourhood around the local parks etc.It takes so much stamina to live with a MH condition and all the childhood stuff makes it so much harder to find the strength to keep going, but I guess we just have to listen to our bodies.

It's almost March @Faith-and-Hope and I can feel it in me waters that you have turned a corner with the separation. The planets are aligning and the stars are on your side. I am sure that lots of hurtful things have come to a head and there is most definitely no easy way around that. Divorce can take longer than you anticipate and skeletons can come out of the closet or at least, you see you ex-husband in a totally different light or secrets & lies are revealed. But something that really struck me from the get go was the conviction in the separation. There was no fluffing around, your behaviour and actions matched your words and it felt very authentic and genuine. I guess you knew in your heart it had passed the point of no return, and where you were once compatible, it is very obvious that you are no longer compatible. I hope that you are enjoying your course and that you are getting at least 3 or 4 hours sleep a night. If you see a mozi around your way the size of a golfball, he was carpet bombing me last night and robbed me of my Z's. He has most of my blood inside. I took cover under the sheets but the sneaky little sucker some how managed to slip under the gap. So I had a pot of tea at 5am with the birds.

Corny

The betrayal of having someone else indecently present within our family without my knowledge, or the knowledge of the other kids, and the fact that they were indecently embedded there (no pun intended) with my disabled child, indecently invalidating her like that, really did it for me @Corny ..... I was prepared to accept that he was unwell, up until then, but how morally unwell is the woman involved that she can indecently sneak around like that, with someone with a profound disability, and think it is at any level okay ..... and the fact that Wonky Husband was the indecent instigator and enabler of such a crappy thing to do, is just the icing on the cake for me ...... sooooo over it, in that instant I think. Nothing left to try to save .....

But then, according to the person we thought he was for many many years, having accepted that he had lost the plot and been so indecent in his affair-life, I expected that he would do the right thing once it has all come to light, and share out our marital assets and finances, because it's the only decent thing to do, and decently share interaction with the kids, and decently attend ongoing special occasions in the same venue like grown-ups do .....

Do you sense that I am on a theme here ??!

He is totally gone as the person I once lived and respected and now represents something that has no place in my life at all ..... but unfortunately the indecency continues at great emotional and financial cost to everyone.

I am resigned to lies and skeletons, and deceptions and more ugly surprises, with a few more lies and skeletons thrown in for good measure, to fall out of every closet I open, going forward for at least a couple of years ..... so perhaps what you are hearing between the lines is radical acceptance and resignation.

In any case, I am going to do my best to keep the tragic melodrama off the centre stage of my life, and that means swinging the spotlight around and placing it firmly on my kids, my studies, and our future with as little of him and "her" in it as possible .....

If I find the blood-donor mozi you speak of, I will try to give it it's just deserts as well ..... with maybe a little bit of misdirected grrrrr ......

Hugs for you @Corny ..... I love the way you write 😏.

@Faith-and-Hope others articulate so well things that that a few of us are likely feeling but dare not say ... sending gentle thoughts your way.

I second what Darcy has said @Faith-and-Hope

Thinking of you.

🙏💕 @Former-Member @Determined

Everyone reacts differently to these sorts of situations @Faith-and-Hope but from the get go you have been very clear and determined, despite the emotional and financial costs that you speak of. Those 2 alone keep many people in unhappy marriages, but as my friend says to me, "Corny, money doesn't bring out another side in people, it brings out the real side!" Which in my experience, is so so so true.

It also displays how different you are as people, if you were similar, you would choose to stay together. Birds of a feather flock together. In some instances, couples with similar personality traits find it comforting to be together and to feel shielded from the judgment of those traits, which other people may find very unattractive and undesirable. It takes the spot light off their own behaviours, attitudes and faults - it is comforting. Through my teenage and young adult years I was often perplexed with some friends choice in partners, I could not figure it out, but after observing couples and relationships in family and friends, something I have learnt is that if you are left scratching your head asking yourself, "what on earth does she see in him, or, what on earth does he see in her", and outwardly in public appearances they come across as kind of an odd or incompatible match ....the truth is, when you break it down, they are often exactly the same, in very specific, core, fundamental personality ways that keep them running back to each other or unable to separate. An example is if I met someone that said something like, "I love mean girls. I can't help myself" (which is an internal red flag I have set for myself to stay away), and in my head and first impressions that person is high on the empathy scale, its not until maybe months or years later that it dawns on me, that they actually are not, and that they hide a lot of sides to them!

I can understand the feelings of gross out and yuck! in how your husband is treating your disabled daughter, as you've said previously he is making a mockery of her and taking advantage of her disability for his own personal gain.

You do have a realistic idea of how long it will take it settle and move on. I haven't been married or divorced but my fathers estate was a nightmare to administer, I think that it took between 3-5 years and was very stressful while caring for a mother who was very unwell and dealing with his mess and debts and his poor financial choices.

Enjoy your morning coffee @Faith-and-Hope. A very still and quite a muggy night here in Sydney, not a breath of breeze, but the sun is up now and so am I! Hope the kitten is settling in!

Kitten and baby dragons are settling with each other very nicely @Corny .... 😏. She is eating much more now, so I am taking that as a good sign.

One of the most classic signs of NPD is an initial presentation of a very high level of empathy @Corny . That was what I experienced ..... and the lack of empathy part came from other people he had progressively triangulated into our marriage as he became rapidly work-absent. When I had trouble with those people, he was all empathy and a listening ear (read: providing relief = narc supply) when he wasn't "too busy" to listen, or made it clear in subtle ways that he was listening to and had empathy for the others (read: invalidation = narc supply).

All very clear to read in hindsight I am afraid ..... once you know what the patterns are, and how you have been kept in a state of projection and confusion ..... so what I am focusing on now is that I am in the process of extracting myself and my baby dragons by degrees.

There are lots of common threads in NPD @Faith-and-Hope. Its taken me many many years to get a clear picture in my head of the sorts of things to look for when meeting people. To be honest Faith, I am still a work in progress and it is something despite after 11 years of constant therapy I am still increasing my skill set in! So don't beat yourself up, or feel gullible and silly. When you are wired a certain way, it never crosses your mind that others don' think the same way as you . My clinical psych helps me and I am seeing her this week, and I am blessed to have a very protective psychiatrist. No one has been protective of me in my life, so it feels very foreign to me to have this strong support. The community mental health team has been great for my recovery as well, I must be making progress in boundaries, and the sorts of people I allow in or give my energy too because my peer support worker said to me the other day, "you have such a fighting spirit, I love that about you". I think that I have a very strong and forceful YUCK reflex. Its taken years of therapy to release its muscle under all the layers of trauma, but the YUCK stay away from me relfex is finlaly in working order! Thank god, it is about time!

Hindsight can make you feel a bit humiliated at times, but when you fall in love, you fall in love and it does blind you.

You're such a great Mum @Faith-and-Hope and I hope that this process is as short as possible.

I understand what you mean about narc-supply. In my personal history when my father lost that, he would make all sorts of threats. He was more of a Rowan Baxter like character where he felt like he was dying if the relationship was severed, it was humanly impossible for him to be alone, like, literally impossible, without someone to project all his drama and moodiness and abuse onto he felt like he would die somehow. The control was pathological.

If I was in your position, in terms of the other women, I would be thinking to myself, "she can have him!". Sometimes a person does you a favour in breaking your heart. It doesn't feel like it at the time, but as time passes that can become more obvious.

I hope that you enjoy your day, I better get going

Corny.

❤️ "She" is doing us a favour @Corny .... I can recognise that ..... but it's watching my kids' hearts break too that is so devastating.

This too shall pass, and we will be all the stronger for it .....

More hugs incoming for you ...., and I love hearing about your progress Hon ...., just you keep swimming ❣️💦