david.perl7 months of total NC have passed. Something has shifted in me over the past couple of weeks where i feel limerence (and all romantic love) with such clarity – it’s just me reenacting my “parental rescue fantasy”. All limerent feelings have evaporated. I also feel more secure in my primary relationship.
I think what helped me integrate a knowing into a feeling was some work i did at a workshop on isolation. I reenacted my last conversation with LO with a woman on the workshop. I made an aggressive angry remark. the last conversation with LO was similar, me telling her why we can’t be friends by using aggressive angry words. By seeing the impact of my words on someone else helped me see things from a different perspective. It brought up a lot of shame for me and i saw so clearly how i dissociate when confronted (as i did as a child). I was forced to sit through the workshop with these overwhelming feelings and process them. Somehow all this helped integrate something. One of the bigger cogs in my brain turned a little and freed something up.
Ive also been reading more around complex trauma, child abuse and separating from parents and FOO’s. This is helping me feel the anger and resentment towards my parents. In the workshop, i read out a letter my mother wrote to me when i reached out to her 15 years ago. It was good to have my hunch validated by others about her behaviour. She was a bully and an abuser. And my dad was equally guilty for not protecting me when he knew what was going on. I haven’t seen either parent for a couple of months now and that’s helping me see feel more clearly. My infrequent telephone conversations with my dad are all kept at a head level with no revealing of my feelings. My mother’s brain has turned into a marshmallow so i don’t have to speak with her.
As for the limerence, its gone totally. I don’t think of LO at all. I don’t get any euphoric recall. I can speak to SO about my limerence without getting any emotional charge. I tell others im a love addict without feeling any shame. The only thing i am curious about is i’m still triggered by the car LO drives. I suspect if LO hasn’t developed any consciousness around her need to get narcissistic supply from our “relationship” she may still trigger me so NC will continue.
As an aside, i’ve had a couple of friends who are caught up in relationships with narcissists that they can’t let go of. Neither want to hear that NC is the best way to start on the road to healing. It frustrates me as both have done a ton of self development work. I do think we all need to go through the experience in our own way and our own time. It teaches me comparison to walk alongside them as they make their own mistakes and go through the turmoil we all know so well.
It intrigues me as to how few people get what romantic love is all about. Hollywood and the music industry (and others) has done a good job to dupe an entire planet.
