Hi Optimist Chick and Troubled,

I felt a huge pull to reply to you individually as I can relate with you both,

Optimist Chick,

I definitely agree that everyone heals different and has different ways of dealing with things. It does after all make us all unique and pretty damn awesome if you ask me. I saw a counsellor a year ago due to also bottling things up which in turn affected was affecting my happiness. She asked me about my family history, pointed me in the direction of books I may find helpful (which for me at the time just weren’t) and a handful of other tips and techniques that I just couldn’t grasp. I decided to end the sessions as I wasn’t benefiting at all and decided I would take my own path to healing my own way. I’m still on this journey and will just put this out there that what I’ve benefited the most in healing (and still do) is journaling. Its not necessarily writing a list but just writing down your day, how you’re feeling and anything you’re stressed about. I have always kept things in and I found recently that when I journal I’m able to go back a few weeks at a time and really see and reflect on why I was feeling stressed and what was really going on with me then. I recently looked back at one of my journals from a year ago and it just felt so bizarre, it didn’t feel like that was even me that had written some of the things in there. My point being that journaling may be a nice little safe place for you to get down everything and look back and reflect on it. I personally have found doing this has grounded me a lot and made me understand myself so much more as looking back I can see things a clearly. Give it a go if you wish, even for just a month. A personal favourite is writing in my journal by a lake along one of my favourite coastal paths. I hope in some way you find this helpful.

With warmth

Troubled,

My heart goes out to you more ways than I’m able to type in these words and I’m sorry you’re going through such a difficult time. I hope sharing my story with you may help in some way. I to had an ex who was what I would come in and out of my life. After we broke up we were still sleeping together, he would call when drunk, text when drunk and when he left to go travelling around Australia asked me to move there with him so we could start a fresh (which I did and do not regret as I met some pretty amazing people through a tough experience). This was all on going for 5 years, and around three years ago he started seeing someone else. Whilst with someone else he would still text me, try and call me (thankfully I turn my phone off at night) and mess with my head but I decided when I started to see someone else two years ago, I would block him and all of his nonsense out of my life. I blocked him on Facebook and also changed my number. During this time while I was with someone else he sought new ways to get in touch, emailing me to which I would constantly ignore. I never replied until six months ago after the guy I was with and I broke up and I needed to rid myself of all the toxicity in my life. I very nicely told him I would like him to leave me alone and that I needed to move on with my life and him contacting me wasn’t helping. He replied which irritated me as he was not respecting my needs or me so I blocked his email and I haven’t looked back since. My point of all of this is when you take some control over your happiness and your life you start to feel a lot better in yourself. If you feel as though you were happier when you were not in the relationship with him I would definitely go and talk to someone about this, as well as really taking some time out and figuring out whether you can forgive him. If you’re able to work through this with a counsellor and with him involved in the counselling then even better. Though its never easy, once you start to figure out what it is YOU want and need in this life, you really start to move forward within yourself and your happiness can benefit so much from this. Talk with someone, journal your feelings when you’re upset or angry, reflect through walking and spending time in nature and just spend as much time on yourself figuring this all out as you need. I would definitely let your husband know also what it is you’re doing and going through and ask him to respect it. We all deserve to be happy after all. I hope this helps you in some way.

With warmth and hugs to you both,

Tiny Butterfly