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General Previous Sufferer has surfaced in my home town

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Illiand

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I was in a distanced relationship with a sufferer that ended badly, as they do, a year and a half ago. There’s a ferry between us and some distance. I have a strict no contact and a policy that I don’t want to hear about anything that she’s doing from mutual friends. Tonight I was visiting a friend and she mentioned that she’s sees my ex all the time, which threw me off. After leaving my friends place I’m pretty sure I drove past my ex. I’ve come to find out that she’s been coming to my hometown, possibly dating someone from here for months now. On one hand I ask for no updates, on the other I feel it would have been appropriate to at least give me a heads up by one of my friends. This is a person I had to go to therapy because of the adverse effects of being a supporter and the online harassment that happens by her friends. I was really not expecting this and Im surprised how much of a loop this has throw me for. I don’t feel safe in places that I could potentially run into her and now there she is again… I don’t know what to do. If I can even do anything at all…
 
If you haven’t run into her for the months that she’s been coming to your town you probably aren’t frequenting the same places. Even so… don’t give her the power to make you hole up in your own town. Don’t give her the power to affect your daily life or mental health any more. You escaped. She is somebody else’s problem now.
 
personally, i can't handle ex-dramas and even (especially?) when i know both exes intimately, i make it a policy to never mention one ex to another. not my circus. not my monkey.

the ex-dramas are not my favorite 21st century cliché, whatever the individual yaddah blahs.
 
If you haven’t run into her for the months that she’s been coming to your town you probably aren’t frequenting the same places. Even so… don’t give her the power to make you hole up in your own town. Don’t give her the power to affect your daily life or mental health any more. You escaped. She is somebody else’s problem now.
Thanks for the grounding. I’ve had time to process it and have specifically not turned to friends that invalidated and dismissed my experience in the past. I figure it’s just shuffling chairs since she had concerns about the distance and the potential of either of us moving. It just reinforces that none of this was my fault. She was triggered by my innocuous action then became symptomatic. Push pull BDP traits that accompanied symtopatic PTSD suffers caused second doubts and ended up with me developing secondary trauma, great parting gift. The reaction I had to it was in my body more so than my head, it’s just that secondary trauma flaring up. I should just jump back into ACT and surround myself with people who recognize what I went through is real.
 
. I should just jump back into ACT and surround myself with people who recognize what I went through is real.
Yep.

And? You haven’t had to deal with her. Which is also real. All the catastrophizing and hyper aware that she MAY be here? Is the same as it’s always been.

This is your home. And she’s not welcome. The same as before the idea popped into your mind that she may be here.

^^^ THIS ^^^ Is biased by the fact that I’ve lived in places with fewer than 200 people, so you have to learn to deal with the fact that your exes? WILL be a part of your life. As well as? Places with over 300 million people. Where you never have to deal with them, again.

It takes more cohones to block off “mine” IE “not yours” when you live with 200 people than 200,000,000. Or 2,ooo,ooo,ooo. Most people? Have that. They simply do not have to exercise it.

Your ex is still seeing people in your neighborhood. That both of you known.

Shrug.

Are you going to f*ck her, or kill her, the first time you see her? Or be unhappy? Or be conflicted? All are normal. The only really f*cked up thing IME is the imagining of those, regardless of what’s real.
 
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