Catharsis is good for the Mind, Body, and Spirit

Sometimes a little Catharsis is the best thing you can do for yourself. I’ve been having an exceedingly triggering and unpleasant time of things these past few days. If you’ve been with me for a while you know that I have a tendency to bottle, repress, and push down my emotions… which is bad because this causes me to detach and ultimately dissociate from them. In therapy I actively work to remain mindful of how I’m feeling so that I can stay in the moment and not dissociate. Unfortunately I’ve had big enough stressors that I couldn’t even process feeling anything at the time. The reality of things seems like a movie happening to someone else that I’m seeing from a distance, and it’s not until days later that my mind begins to feel like it’s in a safe enough space to process the problems.  Then when other things happen on top of it… well, that’s when things go from bad to worse. 

Fortunately even if I can’t actively get in touch with my emotions, it helps to talk about what is going on with someone you trust. For me anyways. Don’t bottle! Bottling leads to resentment. Resentment leads to rage. Rage leads to lashing out inappropriately. Roommate sent me a fabulous little article on How To Cry Effectively. Catharsis. I’m actually very bad at crying. Even alone. I hate doing it. I’ve never truly learned how to give myself permission to cry. Despite knowing that afterwards the release of tension can be exactly what my mind needed to release not only the pent of emotions, but a release of negative bodily chemicals as well. So take a read and see how you feel afterwards. It may change your perspective a little. 

How to Cry Effectively

When I studied swordplay in China, I came across a piece of information that made me grimace.

“Women are like water. They are supposed to cry. For men, even if something awful happens (like the death of their father), they should never cry.“

I thought this was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. I pictured Lin Daiyu; weeping at the slightest provocation, good or bad. She cries so much and so often that her constitution is horrible and she dies of it. Unrealistic. Revolting.

Surprise, surprise, many of the women at the monastery heard this lesson and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Oh good,’ they said. It seemed to legitimize what they, too, saw as an embarrassing weakness. All of these women were tough. They kicked, punched, ran and trained daily with the men; but I would never call them tomboys or unfeminine. I’d come to trust them.

The fact that those women didn’t bridle at the idea of crying made me second guess my own opinion. I’ve always embraced my masculinity and the behavioral expectations that come with it; but maybe this time I was wrong. I decided to look into the act of crying and figure out how to turn it into a useful tool.

There are three types of tears:

1.      Basal tears – Keep your eyes moist and clean.

2.      Reflex tears – Triggered by onion juice and/or shampoo.

3.      Emotional tears – Triggered by, let’s face it, practically everything.

It turns out that human beings are the only mammals that produce tears in connection with emotions. The tears produced by emotional crying have higher levels of the hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, Leu-enkephalin; as well as the elements potassium and manganese. It may be the shedding of these chemicals that gives the act of crying a sense of catharsis.

The more you picture crying as a physio-chemical release, the easier it is to cope with the need for emotional release. It’s just another product we excrete. Not very many people are sentimental about pissing; especially when uric acid – the stuff that causes gout and kidney stones – is what you’re getting rid of. I’m not 100% on what those particular hormones do in your system. (As far as the elements, manganese helps stabilize blood sugar and prevents hypoglycemic mood swings. Potassium depletion is often associated with depression and general tearfulness.) These chemicals are a physio/endochrinological response to what the brain interprets as feelings.

That said, sometimes you just need to cry. Pressure, stress, anxiety, loss, love, beautiful sunsets, great books, poignant movies and broken bones all fill your emotional ‘bladder.’ Like your normal bladder, some people can hold it in longer than others. Some people are built for long road trips. Others need to pee every twenty minutes or so. If you drink eight liters a day, you will have to pee. If you find that your emotions are very responsive, you will need to cry. The more you hold it in, the more urgent the call for tears will be. Crying is cathartic. When you feel full, you need to let it out. Crying is good for you. Like pissing, like vomiting, you feel better when you’re done. Emotional dump is just like any other dump. Sooner or later, you will have to visit your restful-room.

How To Cry Effectively In 3 Steps!

 

Step 1:

Recognize that you need to go

Ask yourself simple questions. Are you stressed? Do you feel shaky or light-headed? Are you snapping at everyone around you? Are you normally a good eater who has lost your appetite? Did something rotten happen to you or someone you love? Do you feel unusually nervous or uneasy? Does life feel suddenly unfair? Are you about to enter a stressful situation that you can’t freely step out of?

Has it been a while? If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of these, you probably need to go.

Step 2:

A trip to the rest(ful) room

The restful-room is anywhere you feel comfortable crying. It could be your bedroom, a closet at work, your car, or anyplace at all. Sometimes, it can be the presence of another person*.

*Crying, (like peeing) isn’t something everyone is comfortable watching. So, if you need someone to cry to, make sure that person is trustworthy, not a dick, and knows what to expect.

There are two ways to handle going to the restful-room.

The first is to wait until you really REALLY have to go and you’re doing ‘the cry dance’ (shaking, anxious, having trouble thinking, feeling overwhelmed, a little lightheaded, irritable/belligerent), or you can go in advance. Give yourself about an hour, and then go for it. Let the tears and snot gush forth like a fountain. If you need to really get into it, throw a cookie sheet at the floor. They make a lot of noise, but are hard to break.

The second is to have small, 5-10 minute bursts over smaller issues.

For example, if your week is going well, but you’re really nervous about an interview, cry before you put on your fancy interview clothes.

Depending on your needs, you could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours crying. Looking at your schedule for the next day or the next week can give you a hint about whether or not you need to cry, and also when it would be the best time to do so. It’s just like going on a long drive; you can decide to pee beforehand, or you can plan out some stops along the way.

Step 3:

Mopping up

Now that your cry is done, you’ll feel a little worn out. That’s normal. Crying takes a lot of energy and stamina, just like a workout. Like a workout, it is critical to have a glass of water once you’re done crying.

Let me say that again. When you’re done crying, drink a glass of water.

I’m serious. Especially for hardcore throwing-yourself-to-the-floor-and-kicking-and-screaming-for-three-hours crying. You must drink water. You’ve just washed your system clean of all those pesky chemicals, now you need to replenish yourself so you don’t get hung over.

Wash your face with cool water.

By the time you’re clean and have had something to drink, your heart-rate should have slowed back to normal.

And you’re all set!

The key is to recognize when those feelings rise, and to get yourself to a safe and private place to do what you have to do.

Once you discover your rhythm, and can better predict when you’ll need to hit the restful-room. Other aspects of life will become clear. You’ll start to identify why things upset you. From there, you can look at them more objectively and be able to decide if it will affect you. If you are calm, and you’ve had emotional release, you’re in a better position to think clearly and find solutions to things that challenge you. If something is truly out of your control, then it does no good upsetting yourself.

It doesn’t matter if the bus is late. If it isn’t there, you can’t get on it. With a clear mind, you can pursue other options; such as walking, calling people to say you’ll be late, or enjoying the play of sunlight and rain on the passing cars.

If you’re an emotional person like I am, it often feels like your feelings are trying to put you in a choke-hold. You can’t talk, you can’t think, and you can’t see a way out. By taking an interest in yourself, your needs, and your own rhythm, you can save the choke-holds for something really important; like the asshole that made you want to cry in the first place.

Do People with Borderline Personality Disorder Act Out When Love is Withheld?

The easy answer to this is often ‘yes’. If you use your love and affection as a weapon or a form of punishment, someone with Borderline Personality Disorder is going to feel threatened because this feels like a sign of abandonment and rejection.

However, it depends on the kind of person your Borderline loved one is. If they’re more an Acting Out type, they could get angry and express their rage. This was very much how I was when I was younger. I would lash out, bait and pick fights, act impulsively, shoplift, drink at parties…

If they’re more the Acting In type though, they might become more withdrawn, be more prone to take it out on themselves through self-harm, excessive drinking, racing, ruminating thoughts that act like a non-stop mental beatings, self-abuse…

Sometimes they might turn elsewhere, to someone else to find love and affection.   Not all people with BPD are prone to cheating, or if you are not in an established relationship at all it’s a moot point, but for someone that is terrified of abandonment and rejection, the first thing they may feel the need to do, is validate that they are still wanted. If you’re not willing to do it, then someone else might. If you’re withholding love, they may go where love is not being withheld. 

The interesting thing is, the thought process isn’t typically a conscious one. It’s not, “Well if you won’t love me, someone else will so I’ll go find that.” It’s more subtle and insidious. It’s typically – I hurt. I’m in pain. I feel alone and abandoned. I don’t know if my partner still wants me. I’m bad. What if I’m never good enough again. I need to stop feeling this way. Anything to stop feeling this way …. That’s often when things like self-harm, drinking, anything to dull the overwhelming feelings of anxiety, depression, or anger start to kick in. Things can escalate from there. The Acting In, Acting Out, whatever, they tend to be an escape, a way to manage the pain and fear, the overwhelming feelings, not a conscious end game.  That’s how it was for me at least. I didn’t really know it at the time. All I knew was that I was reacting to how I was feeling, not really thinking it through. That’s what acting impulsively is though.

Withholding love, in any relationship is dysfunctional. When problems arise it’s okay to take a step back to regroup, let tensions calm down for a few minutes so that you can address the problem calmly, but then you should try to re-establish a productive communication as soon as possible. Especially when your partner has a Borderline Personality Disorder you need to work on keeping communication open and reassuring so they are aware that you are not actually abandoning them.  It doesn’t matter who started it either. When you care about someone and you’re trying to work through difficult issues, it’s important not to focus on blame so that no one feels attacked. You can certainly discuss how things make you feel and what the issue is, but it’s important to try to do so in a non-blaming, non-confrontational way. Always try to remain mindful of the other persons feelings and perspective. It’s okay to disagree; it’s okay to not understand. It’s never okay to invalidate another person’s feelings though. Validation isn’t about agreeing, it’s about understanding that another person feels the way they do and it’s okay that they do. This goes for both partner. It’s also important to be reassuring from the start, that things can be worked out, they will be, and that you are willing to listen and hear what is going on.  Investing time to work on effective communication builds trust and will work to lessen the times of Acting In and Acting Out. 

How Trauma Affects the Brain

Today I thought I’d talk about something that affects many people, those of us with BPD and those of us without it. In the past I railed against the idea of my PTSD diagnosis due to the sexual trauma and abuse I’ve experienced, but the more we talk about it the more it makes sense. Especially in the sense that I keep having dreams, flashing thoughts, and inescapable sadness and depressions brought on by triggering episodes related to those incidents. It’s something I’m slowly coming to grips with. Trauma is a terrible experience for anyone. Trauma for someone that is already hypersensitized to emotions and the experiences they face can be exponentially worse. It feels like a punishment. As if the event itself wasn’t bad enough, but not being able to let go of certain events, situations, things people have said to you… having a mind that constantly throws them to the foreground of your thoughts. It often feels like I’m constantly being punished by my past, unable to escape it.

Many if not most, people with BPD have a history of trauma of one kind or another. What's more, things that most people don't feel to be traumatic, we often do, they're amplified due to our highly perceptive natures. 

So I thought I would share this article on How Trauma Affects the Brain. It’s not just you. It’s not just that you aren’t able to let go or move on. Your brain is physically holding on to certain things.

PTSD Symptoms: How Trauma Affects the Brain

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Michele Rosenthal

Have you ever had someone say to you any of these things:

“PTSD isn’t real; it’s all in your head”

“Just get over it already!”

“Only veterans get PTSD”?

I speak all over the country about PTSD symptoms. Mostly, these audiences are comprised of civilians: survivors, caregivers and healing professionals. Sometimes, too, there are people who have no PTSD connection but have been invited to hear the presentation. Inevitably, whether it’s before the presentation has started or after it has finished someone addresses me to say some variation of one of those three things (on a really awful day, all three!).

Why don’t people “get” what it means to struggle with PTSD?

Essential PTSD Information

As a PTSD survivor, I hated those comments while I was in recovery. They made me feel powerless, invalidated, stupid, pathetic and as if people believed I was actuallychoosing to feel as miserable as I did.

Now, as a healing professional, I make it a point to educate everyone I meet about what symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder are, where they come from and what can make them go away.

I don’t think most people intend to be unkind or dismissive when they say the things. We, as survivors, hear them as hurtful. I think they really just don’t get PTSD, or what it means to live with it. A few years ago, I wrote 10 Tips for Understanding Someone with PTSD. It was meant to inform outsiders what it means to be on the inside.

3 Facts on How Trauma Affects the Brain

Those ten things were my own ideas about why we behave the way we do and what we need while we’re working on coping. It occurs to me now there is even more basic information that we, as survivors, need to spread around: The science of PTSD, which we know now more than ever. So, today, three important facts about how trauma affects the brain that every survivor should know — and share with those who don’t understand:

Fact #1:

During trauma your amygdala (an almond-shaped mass located deep in your inner your brain) is responsible for emotions and actions motivated by survival needs. In threatening situations it:

• increases your arousal and autonomic responses associated with fear
• activates the release of stress hormones
• engages your emotional response
• decides what memories are stored and where they should be placed around the cortex
• applies feeling, tone and emotional charge to memory (including the creation of ‘flashbulb memory’: when strong emotional content remains connected to a visceral experience of fear or threat.)
• Your amygdala tunes to dominant experiences. The fear induced by trauma makes a deep imprint on your amygdala and hypersensitizes it to danger, which makes it seek out threat everywhere. In some PTSD cases, the amygdala has actually been shown to enlarge through excessive use. (In healing, this change often reverses.)

Fact #2:

• Adjacent to the amygdala, the hippocampus is responsible for the formation, organization, storage and retrieval of memories. Technically, it converts them from short-term to long-term, sending them to the appropriate parts of your outer brain for storage. Trauma, however, hijacks this process: the hippocampus is prevented from transforming the memories and so those memories remain in an activated, short-term status. This stops the memories from being properly integrated so that their effects diminish. In some cases, when the hippocampus’ function is suppressed, it has been shown to shrink. (In healing, this change often reverses, too.)

Fact #3

Lastly, the prefrontal cortex (located in the front, outer most layer of your brain) contributes two important elements of recall: Your left frontal lobe specializes in storing memories of individual events; your right frontal lobe specializes in extracting a theme or main point from a series of events. After trauma, a few things can occur:

• your lower brain processes responsible for instinct and emotion override the inhibitory strength of the cortex, so that the cortex cannot properly stop inappropriate reactions or refocus your attention.
• blood flow to the left prefrontal lobe can decrease, so you have less ability for language, memory and other left lobe functions.  (I suspect this is why it's harder to focus on happier things) 
• blood flow to your right prefrontal lobe can increase, so you experience more sorrow, sadness and anger.

There are many reasons why we know PTSD is not “all in your head”, and why you can’t “just get over it”. With the three offered above, I’m hoping we can start a conversation around proof of what you and I know to be true: if PTSD were easy to heal from, you would have done it yesterday. Since it isn’t, respect must be paid and support given.

Month of Giving Thanks

Hello Everyone. It’s November! For those of us in the States that means a month of Thanksgiving. Despite the actual history of indigenous genocide and free range destruction … it’s typically a time to give thanks to all of the things we are thankful for and to do nice things for one another. 

This month I thought I would try something new in that spirit. I’m hoping to encourage people to donate a little here or there, whatever they can afford, so that WE can present one large gift donation to the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation doing research on Borderline Personality Disorder in partnership with Families for Borderline Personality Disorder Research.  

“We are a grassroots group, Families for BPD Research, who have children and relatives with borderline personality disorder. In the past few years, we have met and talked with many in the mental health field and have discovered that research is precisely where answers will be found to help our family members and so many others cope with and recover from this devastating disorder. We are grateful to have connected with the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and formed a research partnership to support promising young investigators in BPD research.

Funding new investigators is vital to furthering research breakthroughs in areas which include underlying biological and environmental causes of BPD, earlier and better diagnoses, treatments tailored to individuals, improved quality of life, and recovery. Especially, with senior investigators in BPD research starting to retire, supporting young investigators now will provide them with valuable opportunity for guidance from these experienced researchers. Such collaboration will offer greater expansion of research initiatives, continue to broaden our common knowledge of BPD and give us increasing focus on and vision of recovery. “

What do you think? Is this something you’d be interested in helping me contribute to? Any little amount helps! In the end ultimately it will not only help people struggling with BPD everywhere, but it will help you as well. 

Brain Activity Patterns in Anxiety-Prone People Suggest Deficits in Handling Fear

So today I found an interesting article discussing the handling of Fear in anxiety prone people… like us. Borderline Personality Disorder has a deep issue revolving around the fear of abandonment and rejection. This creates intense anxiety which can often lead to Acting In and Acting Out in very destructive ways for us. I like being able to find these kinds of correlations and showing that, no in fact, we’re not just crazy people, check out this science…

Brain Activity Patterns in Anxiety-Prone People Suggest Deficits in Handling Fear

Science Update • February 9, 2011

Anxiety as a personality trait appears to be linked to the functioning of two key brain regions involved in fear and its suppression, according to an NIMH-funded study. Differences in how these two regions function and interact may help explain the wide range of symptoms seen in people who have anxiety disorders. The study was published February 10, 2011 in the journal, Neuron.

Background

Anxiety disorders are characterized by an excessive, irrational dread of everyday situations. Some people may experience general, chronic anxiety, while others become anxious in response to one or more specific triggers. Many studies have implicated two brain regions in anxiety—the amygdala in fear responses and the ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) in suppressing or regulating fear. Questions remain, however, about how trait anxiety—a person's typical anxiety level on any given day—affects amygdala and vPFC functioning.

To explore these questions, Sonia Bishop, Ph.D., of the University of California Berkeley (at the University of Cambridge (UK) at the time of data collection), and colleagues designed a series of experiments to determine how the amygdala and vPFC responded in three types of situations:

Cued fear—a neutral signal or cue is followed by an aversive event. In this study, the cue was an actor in a video placing his hands over his ears and the aversive event was a loud scream. The cue provided a reliable prediction of the aversive event. Cued fear can be compared to the situation-specific type of anxiety experienced by those with a specific phobia, such as a fear of heights.

Contextual fear—a neutral cue and an aversive event occur independently of each other. The cue did not provide a reliable prediction of the aversive event. Contextual fear may be similar to the non-specific anxiety that affects people with generalized anxiety disorder.

Safety—a neutral signal or cue occurs alone without an aversive event. The safety situation served as a comparison for the other two situations.

The researchers assessed the level of trait anxiety of 23 healthy study participants, ages 18 to 41. Each participant underwent a training session that exposed them to the above conditions. Two days after the training session, participants had their brain activity recorded through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a noninvasive imaging method, while re-exposed to the cued fear, contextual fear, and safety conditions in the scanner.

           

Now this study was done with “healthy” study participants… I’m going to assume this means non-personality disordered, non-depressive, non-anxiety disordered, etc., type of people.

Results from the Study

Participants with high trait anxiety showed greater amygdala response to cued fear situations compared to those with low trait anxiety. According to the researchers, this finding suggests that individual differences in amygdala response may contribute to differences in vulnerability to cue-specific anxiety disorders, such as specific phobia.

Unsurprisingly, different people have different levels of severity in their brain responses. Even in “healthy” people. Can you now imagine adding into this someone who is not considered “healthy”, who is HIGHLY anxiety prone, often because of past trauma, and constantly in a state of self-protection? For example, someone with Borderline Personality Disorder?

Participants with low trait anxiety showed increased ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) activity in response to cued fear and more strongly sustained vPFC activity during contextual fear situations, compared to those with high trait anxiety. Notably, vPFC activity in participants with low trait anxiety occurred before the aversive event had ceased. The researchers suggest that this process—engaging brain areas that help to suppress fear even when the source of fear is still present—may help to protect against chronic anxiety disorders even when stressful life events are ongoing.

            So… how do you do that???

Significance

The study's findings support a potential role of the amygdala in vulnerability to anxiety disorders and a potential role of the vPFC in protection against them.

"Individual differences in the functioning of one or both of these brain regions may help account for the variability in symptoms across different anxiety disorders," said Bishop. "A better understanding of these processes may help inform treatment choice and predict treatment response."

Ah, I see. Having an overdeveloped amygdala will make you more prone to anxiety. All of those fight and flight responses. Having an underdeveloped ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) will make it harder for you to suppress and handle fear.  Interesting, isn’t it?

 I’ve talked a lot about the neuroscience of BPD in the past and this plays right into previous findings for BPD, even though this isn’t for BPD. However, we’re people too and this still completely applies to us as well.  

This study was supported in part by a Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) from NIMH. Dr. Bishop was one of 12 researchers to receive this award in 2010.

Reference

Indovina I, Robbins TW, Núñez-Elizalde AO, Dunn BD, Bishop SJ.Fear-Conditioning Mechanisms Associated with Trait Vulnerability to Anxiety in Humans. Neuron. 2011 Feb 10;69(3):563-71.

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I find these studies fascinating and incredibly helpful in breaking the stigma that people with BPD are just volatile, acting out, emotional time bombs coming from nowhere. It’s just not true. You may not know what is triggering them, but there usually is a trigger, and unfortunately there is also a brain chemistry that is exaggerating those anxiety and fear responses.  

Now that doesn’t mean we are not still culpable for ourselves. We are still responsible for how we react and how we treat others. We may have some exaggerated wiring but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn tricks and techniques to learn to control these feelings. Just because the chemicals are pumping doesn’t mean the situation is actually as dire as it feels. That’s where DBT, CBT, even simple meditation, taking a brief walk to cool off… comes into play. We need to raise our personal awareness so that we can recognize our fear and anxiety responses in order to better control how we behave. Be mindful of yourself. Pay attention to how you’re feeling. It will all help on the road to taking control of your BPD and living a fuller and happier life. 

Forgiveness Not Included

Yesterday I said there was one other issue I talked to my Therapist about that I was leaving for a separate post. The issue revolves around Forgiveness. So often we hear how healing forgiveness is. How healing it is for others, and for ourselves. Yes, it absolutely can be. But is it always? Is it always even necessary?

A couple of my friends have mentioned to me that they are doing something to make peace with their past. This includes making amends with my Evil-Ex.

First I’ll say that cognitively I do understand that they are allowed to have their own reasons for what they do and their lives are their own.

 

That said…

Part of me feels flat out betrayal by this. That’s an understatement. I just feel betrayed by it. I’m extremely angry about it. This is a man-child that abused me, and them (or would have if he could have gotten away with it in the one’s case), for years. I realize this is a selfish feeling, they’re doing this for them, not for me, but it’s how I feel.  I would never tell them this, but it feels like a complete betrayal.

Even as my one friend was in the process of trying to make amends with my him, my Evil-Ex blew up in a fit of narcissistic bullshit and paranoia and accused him of sleeping with me... because clearly that was the only reason he would have been friends with me. What? Um, no. As dear a friend as he is, one of my best friends in fact, that has never even come close to happening. It’s one of the reasons I trust him beyond pretty much anyone. But that’s the kind of thing my ex does. He makes up all these ridiculous stories and propaganda to explain away why someone could possibly do something that he doesn’t approve of or doesn’t revolve around him. He accused my friend of “hiding” our friendship, even though the whole time we were always flat out in the open about it, even though my ex gave him a ton of shit for it. The whole time. My ex couldn’t imagine why someone would just be friends with someone without “getting something out of it”. Especially me.  Friends because we actually just like each other? Shocking! Gaslighting is one of the things my Evil-Ex does best.

Why would you bother making amends with someone that abused you for years? That used you? Used and abused all the people around you? That you loved and cared for? Discarded them like pieces of trash to be stomped out and spit on like you were less than worthless?

I’m sorry but no. Never. The only reason that boy crosses my mind is for the purpose of my own healing and to use my experiences to grow and become stronger, and so that others my use my experiences and possibly grow from them as well. He means nothing to me.

Forgiveness is for people that deserve forgiveness. Forgiveness is for people that want to be forgiven. Forgiveness is for people that have taken responsibility for themselves and are making an effort to change in ways that are no longer hurtful.

I understand him. He’s a self-involved, Narcissist that never learned to grow up and be anything but a tantrum throwing man-sized child. A loud Beta male pretending to be an Alpha that has to rule his little group of friends through fear and manipulation because he doesn’t understand what it is to actually lead people. Sorry, but I don’t respect that. I never will.

The things he did to me were inexcusable. As far as I’m concerned they’re also unforgivable.

I will go to my grave knowing that he will never be forgiven and I will perfectly cont

ented with that fact.

Every time I work on an issue that involves him, I get over one more thing in which he had affected me. It’s one more abusive demon exorcised from my past that I can move on from and put behind me. Forgiveness won’t be necessary for me because he won’t mean anything to me.  Hell, he doesn’t mean anything to me now except as a lesson to be learned from and I still have PTSD (something else I’m coming to grips with) from that relationship.

I think people often think you can’t move on unless you forgive. I disagree. I learned a lot from the abuse that I was dealt. I’m a stronger person for it. He deserves no thanks for it but I learned from the experiences I was put through. I think you can come to peace with what happened to you through your own healing and can even draw strength and overcome what has happened to you. That is what you need to move on.

Therapist actually seems to think it’s not a bad quality to have such a decisive nature like I do. I worry that this is just my splitting, but then again, I didn’t actually imagine the stuff he did. I gave him every chance in the world to change, to show me even a modicum of decency… and unless he was getting something out of it; never. I’m past it all. It’s not worth my time to waste with trying to search my heart for forgiveness. He isn’t worth that effort. Someone capable of that kind of cruelty and maliciousness is worth nothing. Right up until the end I gave him every chance. I allow people to push me much, much too far in the hopes that they’ll somehow turn around, look back, and realize I’m a person too. When I’m done though, there’s no looking back. You’ve exhausted all your chances, all your extra chances, and probably a party full of chances you never should have had. No looking back. I’m absolutely fine with that. He has never shown any remorse, or apology for his behavior or treatment of me. None. 

My time, my energy, my effort, it all deserves to be poured into my own healing, and furthering the healthy relationships I have in my life right now. Those are the things that matter.

I’m not interested in Forgiving and Forgetting. Instead I’m going to Heal and Forget. Some people aren’t worth remembering.