Guest Post: When You're Avoiding the Pain

by StillStanding1

Obsession gives you something to do besides having your heart shattered by heart-shattering events. 
~Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything

Lately, I've been under a lot of stress. Health issues, digging into new challenges with my business and taking on new and scary things are all forcing me to stare my deeply rooted feelings of inadequacy in the face and attempt to dig them out. Before I got here, however, I had been slowly watching my old compulsive behaviors around food begin to spiral out of my control. And it’s been confusing. I thought after weight loss and successfully tracking my food and being “good” about my exercise that I had “figured it out” That I had reached a place where I knew what to do and could do it. Turns out I was not quite right about that.

And the reason that food tracking and weight loss after D-Day was so successful was because it was an all-consuming obsession that took me away from the heartbreaking reality that I was living; that my husband had been having an affair and now was carrying on with it, flagrantly throwing it in my face. It also converged with all the things I had always told myself about what would make me worthy of love and belonging. That if I was thinner, fitter, prettier, if only I lost those relentless last few pounds, then I would be lovable. And since I was in fight or flight mode, I threw all of my energy into this thing I thought would keep me safe. Add in that, for the first time in my life, I did not want to eat. At All. And I lost a lot of weight. 

The food tracking kept my mind busy, so I would not have to feel the pain of betrayal, the loss of safety. If I made myself thinner, perfect, it would fix everything. Tracking food gave me a job, so it acted as an escape. It was a way to check out. It was about fixing me in order to make the pain and problem go away. Turns out this was not what I needed to be fixing.

And this is why, as I am discovering, the food tracking and weight loss worked then and why it is not working now.  Now I am in deep discomfort of a different kind. I am doing work that forces me to face my feelings of inadequacy (“my work is not good enough, I’m not a REAL artist” etc ad nauseum), forces me to be visible (you can’t get customers if you can’t be seen and if you don’t show up) and being vulnerable (putting your own art work out for judgement is very vulnerable, being available in a new relationship is terrifyingly vulnerable) and my brain and body are screaming “run away! You can’t do it! You are not good enough.” All of which are lies that keep me small and safe. 

And so now I am using old compulsive eating behaviors to check out from the discomfort, to numb the pain. And frankly, I just don’t want to do this any more. So I am reading the book by Geneen Roth from where I pulled the quote. It is about sooooo much more than food. Really it is about all the ways we check out from the pain of not loving ourselves. I’m working on loving myself through these feelings of inadequacy and learning to trust my judgement as a creator, designer and human being. 

There are so many unexpected ways obsession can let us feel like we are escaping. Obsessing about the OW keeps our mind off the fact that someone we trusted hurt us. Food, even “clean eating” can be numbing or be a fix-ourselves obsession that is about a deep-rooted belief that we are not enough. Same with drinking. Spending. Fixing ourselves, self-help obsessions, detective work. Relentlessly working at a job or career with no rest, sacrificing all our time to our kids, being angry. All these can evolve into obsessions that feel like a fast train out of the vast metropolis of our pain.

Now when the pain comes up, I am trying to make room for it. It’s not so big when you do, when you write it down or say it out loud. When you touch it and let it exist alongside you, you don’t have to become it. You don’t have to be that wounded child again, you just need to give her room to step into the light. 

I don’t know where this work is taking me, but it feels right. Not overwhelmingly right and clear, just like the next right step into an unknown land.  I feel lighter and brighter. It’s a little scary, but a good scary.

Opening to the Questions

If you're like me, you've likely spent a lot of time moaning into your pillow. I will never get over this, you wail. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. I can't live like this. I don't know how to get through this.
And so on.
Your words might be slightly different but the sentiment is probably the same: I will never get over this pain.
Words are powerful. They define our reality. They frame our experience.
And telling ourselves that we will never get over this pain is kinda like Krazy Gluing us in place. It keeps us stuck. It keeps us hopeless. We don't bother to look for a way out of the pain because we've already told ourselves that there's no point. So we don't bother making that appointment with a therapist. We don't bother doing the journalling she recommends we do, or read the book he suggests.
We don't make an appointment with a lawyer. We don't take a hard look at our finances.
Why bother? We've already declared that misery is our home. Today and forever.
But what if, rather than statements, we chose questions? What if, instead of something like, I will never get over this pain, we asked ourselves, how can I get over this pain? What if, instead of words like never or impossible, we instead chose today or maybe.
What could you do today that might move you, even just the teensiest bit, through the pain?
If you're coming up empty, how about these suggestions:
•block the OW on social media and stop yourself – today – from looking at her social media
•make an appointment with a therapist
•go for a walk
•begin to journal
Those things aren't magic. The pain won't vanish like poof! But each one of those things is a small healthy thing you can do, a next right step.
But it starts with opening yourself with a question rather than closing yourself with a statement.
No more never or impossible. Instead, today and maybe.
Cause maybe today, you could sit for 10 minutes in meditation and discover that all that pain and fear you've been holding at bay can creep so close, you can feel its breath in your ear but that it won't swallow you. When you refuse to flinch, it shrinks back. A teeny bit. You are bigger than it is. You are stronger.
Ease into the question: What can I do today to move myself a bit further through the pain toward healing? And then, take that tiny step. Maybe it will help. Maybe you won't notice a change. But will tomorrow be different? Maybe.

When We Shift, When We Become: Infidelity Through the Lens of Trauma

We experience a subtle spiritual awakening the moment we see that life goes on, even after our life has been ripped apart by loss. However unimaginable, life goes on even when we don’t recognize it as our life. It’s absent of the familiar people, places, or things we previously used to navigate it, and it’s without the tenuous threads we used to bind it together. When a relationship so central to our life proves unreliable, we might wonder what is real.

~From Lion's Roar

It's a feeling familiar to anyone who's experienced trauma. "We might wonder what is real." Is this really happening? Will I wake up from this nightmare? Can I step out of this back into my life?

We're jolted from our comfortable lives (or even from our uncomfortable but familiar lives) into something that feels unreal. Wrong. Like we've been cast in the wrong role in the wrong play. This isn't where we're supposed to be. This wasn't supposed to happen.

And then, compounding our incredulity, the sun comes up again the next day. And the day after that. The earth continues to tilt on its axis. The tides rise and fall. The bills come due. The fridge empties. The laundry piles up. Life, even if it's a life we no longer recognize, goes on. 

And that realization creates a barely perceptible shift, an understanding that though nothing feels the same and reality itself feels like an illusion, the laws still apply and, wonder of wonders, we're still here.

How is this possible? We look in the mirror. Except for some dark circles and, perhaps, a skinnier frame, we look the same. But we're not the same. We're not the same at all. Everything has changed. Why doesn't the world see that?
A lot of struggle with seeing infidelity through the lens of trauma. I did. A friend of mine, recently struggling with her husband's emotional affair, is beginning to recognize that what she's experiencing now is trauma, but it has taken her two years. Part of it is that the word trauma feels so...dramatic. Like we're making a big deal. We weren't raped, we think. We haven't returned from a war zone.
But let's consider what trauma does. It leads us to wonder what is real. It creates hyper-vigilance. The world feels unsafe. We don't trust anyone. 
Sound familiar?
Thought so.
It was when I began to allow myself to use that word – trauma – to describe my own experience that things began to make more sense. My responses didn't seem crazy, they seemed to fit right in with what therapists expect with post-trauma. 
I gave myself permission to sit with the pain. I took tentative steps toward healing. I rested when necessary. And slowly, I rose. 
You will too. 
I promise.
But first, you hurt.
And that hurt goes deep. That hurt is, often, traumatic.
That's not drama, that's truth.
Seek help. Let others hold you. Let the light of those further ahead on the path to healing guide you.
Learn to trust yourself again.
You are shifting inside. No matter that the world seems the same, you will never be. And that's okay. You are becoming...

Our Mother: Still Standing Despite It All

Like many of you, I watched in horror as flames engulfed Notre Dame. I lived in France in my 20s and it was clear that Notre Dame, "our mother", presides over Paris and the French. It had survived world wars, rebellions, toppled monarchies. It stood as solid as a mountain, built by humans in honour of the divine.
And so when it was revealed as vulnerable and in imminent peril, it inspired shock and grief in millions around the world. No matter if you were Catholic or atheist, French or not. Notre Dame, "Our Mother", represented something that we craved. Permanence. Trustworthiness. Reliability. Evidence that humans are capable of creating beauty and sanctuary, even when there's so much evidence of cruelty and betrayal.
Our marriages felt similarly solid for many of us. We took those vows, perhaps in a church though likely not as grand as Notre Dame. We created a life with someone we chose as trustworthy, and though we knew the risks – it's hard to ignore a divorce rate of 50% – we believed that our marriage was different. Ours would survive. It had already withstood challenges. But it was solid. Built by humans in hope of touching the divine.
So when we find our marriage engulfed in flames, what do we do? When the spires topple, do we cover our eyes and turn the channel? Or do we root for the firefighters, bravely and strategically tackling the fire that threatens to swallow the building whole?
Our marriages are not 800-year-old structures. But Notre Dame wasn't just a building. It was a testament to faith of all kinds. To commitment. To restoring what holds value to us. To history.
Notre Dame, like a marriage, is as fragile as our belief in it.

Wednesday Word Hug

On trust and vulnerability and why it's still so damn hard

Trust is choosing to make something that is important to you, vulnerable to someone else's actions.
~Brené Brown, Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations

My heart beats quicker even writing those words. Because I know that, for all that I profess to have moved on from my husband's betrayal, for all that I claim to be through that pain, trust is still really hard for me. Still. 
Perhaps, always.
Cause I don't really remember a time when I fully trusted. Well, except one. I fully trusted my husband. For perhaps the first time in my life, I had absolute faith that this person would not betray me. That he, above all others, was worthy of my trust.
It had taken me a long road to get to that point. When you grow up in a home where trust is routinely betrayed, where promises are consistently broken, where what you see with your own eyes is called into question, then trust is impossible. You learn that not only others are untrustworthy but that you are. When gaslighting is a daily occurrence, when you're told that you're the crazy one for pointing out what's there – right there! see it? – you stop believing anything and anyone. You hold your breath and when the people you surround yourself inevitably reveal themselves as untrustworthy, then you blame yourself. Because there is clearly something about you that makes you undeserving of commitment and loyalty. The occasional times when someone entered my orbit who was trustworthy? Well, I betrayed their trust because what sort of loser wants to be with me? There was clearly something wrong with them. Better to dispense with them now.
The sisterhood? That was the stuff of fiction. Girls were the worst, as far as I was concerned. I expected men to disappoint me. But occasionally I allowed myself to believe that my girlfriends were true blue. Indoctrinated by sitcoms and teen novels, I imagined a world where a friend would never betray me, where my secrets would be safe, where I could be vulnerable. 
The reality was gossip and backstabbing and, in my early 20s, a devastating betrayal by a friend. 
But all along, I clung to some deep belief that maybe, with help, I could trust myself. Despite consistent gaslighting by a family who insisted that I made things up, I held on to the truth like a life raft. I wasn't crazy, they were. I wasn't making things up, they were. After all, I would say to myself, who's a more reliable narrator: the sober kid watching or the parent who's six drinks in? 
But D-Day robbed me of even that tenuous hold I had on self-trust. I had been so wrong. And if I was wrong about him then, surely, I was wrong about everything. About everyone. 
Healing from my husband's betrayal became an exercise in learning to trust myself. Him? Forget that. Wasn't going to happen. But I knew that my only path toward healing had to be through learning how to trust myself.
I began with a thorough excavation of a whole lot of painful experiences – times when others challenged what I knew to be true. Times when I betrayed myself by choosing their version of events over my own. 
And then I started trying to discern that same small still voice – the one who had been right all those times and that I had ignored. It's there. I promise it's there. Dormant perhaps because, after all, nobody was listening. But nudge it awake. Tell it that you're listening now. 
It's still hard for me. Too often, I prioritize others' versions over my own. It still requires intention to nudge that voice awake because I ignore it too often.
But I'm getting better at it. There's work to be done, clearly. Otherwise my heart wouldn't ache slightly when I typed Brené Brown's words. I suspect it will be the work of my lifetime. Those old messages make deep tracks in our hearts. 
But I can look around now and notice all the people that surround me now. Family and friends that inspire trust. People with whom I can – sometimes! if I try really really hard! – make myself vulnerable. And, almost, trust that I will be safe. 

Why I Love Betrayed Wives Club

I've been busy. Which means that I haven't been responding to comments with quite the speed that you're probably accustomed to. By the time I post my once- or twice-weekly blogs, as well as select my Wednesday Word Hug, it's time to close the window on my computer and move on to other work. But I think of you all so often. "Haven't heard from Dandelion in a while. Wonder how she is," I'll think to my. "LilyLove hasn't been posting so often, nor has LLP. Hope everything's okay with them." And, as you all know, the list of BWC members goes off. Sometimes, searching for an old post to link, I'll notice a comment from a name I haven't seen in years. I'll smile because they don't need us anymore. That's cause for joy. 
What's also cause for a deep joy in me is something else that happened this morning. I was clicking publish on the comments that didn't involve trying to scam you all into hiring hackers or spellcasters and I noticed a response to some comments I'd missed responding to on one of our Just Finding Out threads. I often miss those comments, tending to, most often, respond to comments on recent posts. The others, unfortunately, tend to get lost to time.
But Heartfelt was compelled to respond to Emily with a story of her own trauma and an assurance that everything Emily (and her spouse) were feeling was perfectly normal and also assurance that these feelings would pass. That time (and therapy) would work its magic and life would once again feel more stable. That wounds heal. That our hearts can remain open to love.
And watching this simple gesture – one heartbroken woman reaching out to a stranger via a computer screen reminding me why I continue to run this site, even as life tries to crowd it out. It's because of all of you who, over the years, helped each other heal. Lots of women who came here won't read this post because they're long gone. They're like me. Life has crowded out Betrayed Wives Club. And that's a wonderful thing. We should all hope for that day.
But that Heartfelt, who hadn't herself been here in a while, took the time to wrap another in a word hug, made me feel, yet again, so lucky to be among you. 
We all get busy. And reaching out can sometimes feel scary. Sharing our stories can make us feel vulnerable and raw. None of us is under any obligation to write anything. This site is like a buffet -- take what appeals, leave what doesn't and don't feel as though you need to bring a dish. There's plenty to go around.
But for those who have made this site part of their conversation, please know how grateful I am for the role you play. Betrayed Wives Club wouldn't work without you. There would be no buffet if, to butcher this metaphor further, there was only my single casserole sitting there growing cold. 
You all remind me, every single day, of the good that came out of my heartbreak. I confess I wasn't a huge fan of the sisterhood. Too many betrayals by too many sisters.
But you've restored my faith. You've taught me the power inherent in women helping women. We often say this is the club we never wanted to join. I can't say that anymore. Cause this club is one of the best things that's happened for me. 
As Viola Davis says above, I didn't set out to save you guys. I set out to save myself. And it was you guys who saved me. Thank-you.