Hi all

I read about the vulnerable child mode and a bit of the angry child mode. I think it explained the way I was brought up, and it seems that I developed some of those child modes because of my upbringing. They are pretty spot on. I had this weird sense of relief knowing that ‘oh, that’s where it came from’ when i read the first two chapters.

The questions/ worksheets do require a lot of introspection. i need to use my hands to write them down, I often type too quickly that my thoughts just skim through things. With hand writing(although my handwrite is so bad that it is almost illegible), Ido think it allows me to have more time to digest them.

i can try to identify what triggered them, what i normally behave and if those behaviors matches what I want/ need.

Too bad I didn’t know about this earlier, or else things might be a bit different. Nonetheless, if it’s not because of the hit this time, I probably am still unaware of what I have been suffering from.

At this point, I am not very hopeful of our relationship, I cried yesterday because I missed her a lot, and I partly I think i was greiving the relationship, or at least the relationship that I thought I had.

I will keep on reading and keep on updating.

Best wishes to you all

Hello all

Thanks for the recommendations, it’s lovely to read that my question has resulted in some insights to you also.

I travelled for the whole day yesterday and today, finally back to the hotel for some rest.

All of the quotes sound relevant now my problem is which book to start first.

During my flight yesterday i was thinking how to practice what I have learned.

I scribbled with the following questions/ flow on what to do, when emotions arise; or simply, what I need to practice remember each day. Feel free to take a look and give me your comments.

Anita, thanks for sharing your story also, it must have been hard for you also. It is indeed hard for me  to take but I am trying  my best to digest the new information. I don’t want to make the people who genuinely care about me upset for no reason / reasons because of my history or lack of management of my own emotions. This is the why I try to read and re-read what you wrote.

I plan to read this to myself may be everyday/ whenever needed

My scribble below:

practise emotion regulation

my emotion is my responsibility
– [ ] investigate if the feeling matches with the reality
– [ ] is the fear legit?
– [ ] is the fear turned anger legit
– [ ] is the leashing out legit
– [ ] is the hurt legit
if not legit, practise
– meditation(letting go/ emotion regulation)
– exercise
– distract yourself
– breath deeply
– stop and be quiet. think of priorty: you want to win this? or win your life back?
– release emotions appropriately if needed. do no engage in the negative blaming cycle.

even if they are legit, can you stop clinging onto them? and use compassion and forgiveness, practise
– meditation(loving kindness/ frustration)
– exercise
– distract yourself
– breath deeply
– stop and be quiet. think of priorty: you want to win this? or win your life back?
– release emotions appropriately if needed. do no engage in the negative blaming cycle.

emotions flow and use your body to redirect and channel them

practise trust
– [ ] trust her with what she says

– [ ]Do not mistrust when there is no evidence(Reference to ‘practice emotion regulation)
– [ ] trust that she meant good
– [ ] trust yourself, people around you love you and they do not betray or hurt you randomly

heal your inner child
– [ ] the fearful and hurt child may sometime go wild, gives her lots of love and reassurance: humans are not necessarily a source of danger
– [ ] be kind, and loving to her
– [ ] practice meditation

set boundaries
– [ ] make sure people do not handle your emotions
– [ ] make sure to secure your own boundaries, and do not get affected by your emotions when they want to overwhelm you
– [ ] say no to malfunction( eg not true yto reality) emotions, let them go, do not cling

Hello Helcat and Anita,

Thanks. I am looking at the signs of emotional abuse. Some of which  may have happened before. but there are quite a number of sign, they do seem complicated. There are some which some seem to be things that happen when couples are in argument? ( or may be we have normalized it? i don’t know). It’s complicated to dissect, especially I am in the middle of it.

She did get in touch with her other ex-es, I don’t have problem with that. It was only the first year with her immediate ex. They have been on and off for a couple of times, and from what I knew whenever her ex reached out to her, she would get back together . Them being in contact made me really uncomfortable given the history. Especially we got together around 2 months after they broke up. It can be my insecurity, I was afraid I was  just a rebound for her.

You made good reminder that I should be handling my own emotions and issues.

I think, it’s good that you pointed that out, that my anger may lead to blaming her or other things. I stopped and pondered this for a while, it was not a perspective that I was aware, that I might have abused her. Abusive or not, I think this pattern worth looking into.

Hi Anita and Helcat,

Thanks.

I think you two and the community have been very supportive to me. Thank you Anita for being mindful when you tell me your thoughts. I don’t feel offended or take it negatively. I read it when i first woke up and i re-read it again when I was in transit. I think you have a point, that my emotions just go up and down or go in no directions WITHOUT any concrete/ specific outside of my mind’s trigger, that include anger, which also means I have some emotions inside of me which is triggered by this incidence, or may be throughout my relationship with her (and other people).

I do feel this was a lot more severe when I first share in this forum. I do give credits to my current on a break partner, I think she did try to make me feel a lot more secure. Once I am secured, I don’t have the fear/ anger responds, other than at times I overreact when things go unexpected.

I don’t think(just for my perspective) that the current relationship is abusive. My previous one might be indeed, the indicators were more obvious, i was more explosive like my dad. I don’t know how to evaluate the current relationship, I feel my judgement may be clouded by the fact that I am in it. There were argument or misunderstanding in between, but definitely no verbal abuse(bxtch etc), no physical abuse. Emotionally I also don’t think so, I don’t think I threaten her/ gaslight her in any sense, nor did she. But I know I have a very serious look when I get irritated or angry, she might be sensitive to other upset/ and this has stressed her out, even sometime I didn’t say a word. There were times when she didn’t know want to talk but I did want to talk about my emotions, and she felt stressed to listen or confront them. I think that’s the  most of it.

These few weeks been challenging for me, and so a lot innermost, or even primitive coping strategies are out. These involve going from fear to anger, or go into the misery and sad place to mourn things. basically just jumping from one place to another.

For the letter, I was deleting some old photos and I saw some of hers. I did miss her a lot when going through these and so it prompted me to write something to her. After I did I wanted to send to her, but I was thinking about the break that we have so I hesitated and didn’t do so.

I shared the letter with one of my closest friends, I was afraid this was too much to her . So I found someone to help me evaluate it. My friend thought it was simply some insights that I had during the break that I would like her to know, with no invitation to reply, plus she agreed that I could reach out if i needed to. But I re-think and I am afraid this would inevitably create an expectation / stress for her to reply. Also she may not want to know this now. So I didn’t send

i might just print it out for her to read on the day when we discuss about the relationship again, I feel this my message can be better conveyed if so.

Dear Anita and Helcat,

Thanks. What do you suggest me to write in the journal?

I have drafted an email  for her, I don’t know if i should send it out at all. My therapist did suggest me to write email/ letter to her and I did suddenly want to talk to her.

But I am really unsure if I should send

Dear all

Last night I had a dream, I dreamed of her breaking up with me.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and was very upset. I think probably related to me detached from the apps etc.
I realized i clinging to my upset feelings this morning, was going down the spiral and I tried to distract myself. I also downloaded the ’15 things you can’t control from here as well. it did help.

When I first agreed to this break i was thinking it does take a month to really figure out if you miss someone. No contact may be good since she knows how it is without me(given I have very clear ground rules, I was struggling so much the first week without those) But in practice, it is really difficult for me,  I probably wasn’t really ready for the possible bad outcome(whihch is break up for me) at that point, logically I think that my be a solution. And  also probably because I am the one who is more attached to the relationship. I realized now that I am very attached, sometime may be just to the idea of the relationship, sometime it is indeed her. This obsessive feelings have been here since childhood, probably from when I felt out of control when I was young.

Then I realized I am very good at thinking, but not very good at practicing. I need to practice how to let go out things that can’t be controlled, knowing isn’t enough.

I still feel the cloudy/ muddy feeling in the chest, will deep breath!

Hi Anita

it is hard to find the balance: Her needs and my needs. How to deal with the emotions when I take care of her needs(such as now when she needs space which conflicts with what I want); and how to be mindful of her needs when she takes care of me.

For now, i am very mindful of not giving up hope, and expect/ imagine that we will break up after these few weeks

Balancing is hard indeed