Dear Maile/Fiest:

You are very welcome!

Is your ex a married man (“I can’t stop thinking about my ex being quarantined with his family.. having gone back to his wife and kids”), and when in the relationship with you, he was separated from his wife?

Regarding (1) the “constant painful images and thoughts of him..  will not go away.. my brain continues to play this harmful thought on a loop”, even though you are meditating, writing in a journal, exercising, etc., and (2) sometimes feeling that you are “in purgatory or being made to suffer for something I’ve done”, you asked: “Is there some purpose for this?”-

– there is pain underneath your awareness that is fueling this loop of thinking about him being happy with his family. That pain is your childhood pain for not having been happy with your family, is my guess. The purpose you mentioned may be an invitation for you to bring this childhood pain up to your awareness.

You probably remember unhappy events from your childhood, but do you feel the pain that you felt then, as a child?

anita