SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I could use some input on a few questions right now. Thank you in advance for your help.

How do you control your fight, flight, or freeze response when your BS is angry so that you can engage and be there for them in a mature way?

When digging for your "why?" has anyone else encountered a mental health diagnosis? If so, or I guess even if not, how do you accept your "why?" while not using it as an excuse? I know the answer is that you just don't-- you acknowledge it and also acknowledge the inexcusability of your behaviors, but what does this actually LOOK like? Like beyond saying this, what does living it look like?

I watched a helpful video which talked about the importance of helping your BS know you are trying, above anything, to win them back--to pursue them. How do you balance this without "love bombing" them?

Thank you again.

It is ok to take a break if you have actually reached fight flight or freeze response you just need to be open with BS about what is happening with you and set a time to re-engage. The better thing to do is recognize when you get to yellow and take a quick minute to ground yourself breathe and not get to FFF response. When my BH sees me going there he asks me what I am feeling and we get out the feelings wheel and when I can identify the feelings then I am better able to explain why I have gone in that direction. Not sure if that’s helpful as I am not really connected with my feelings so when they come up it’s an issue as I have never dealt with them

For the mental health diagnosis, I have OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, childhood sexual abuse, attempted rape, sexual addiction and a whole host of other terrible things in my history. None of these are the reason I cheated. The coping mechanisms that I put in place so that I didn’t need to deal with these is the reason I cheated. So dealing with all of those things and breaking down all my walls and getting healthy coping mechanisms is what owning that looks like.

As for love bombing, I would define that as when that is all the WS is doing. If you are having the conversations, going to therapy, reading the books, doing the work AND giving extra attention tips to your BH I don’t think that’s love bombing (assuming he wants it). But it may be an important topic to go over with him. How does he feel it’s coming off?

As for FFF response, I can only remember that happening once and my BS helped me through it.

When I started digging for my why I convinced myself I was bipolar, took myself to a psychiatrist who was happy to try me on all sort of meds that made me miserable. Long story short, I absolutely don’t have bipolar disorder. I believe I was reaching for something to explain how I could do something so awful because I didn’t want to be that monster. I went down that I’m a monster rabbit hole big time at first. The people here kept gently swinging the 2x4s and along with IC worked miracles to help lead me down the path of dealing with my FOO issues, and unhealthy coping patterns. I’m not saying discovering psyc diagnoses when you start digging through to find your why is uncommon. I’m just sharing what my experience was. I do have some psyc diagnoses that I am currently able to manage medication free but I did need IC to help me learn some healthy coping and to help me reframe tons of cognitive dissonance.

Thanks folks. It seems like I definitely have BPD, which explains some things but again, I know does not excuse it..I still chose unhealthy ways to cope with it and those choices were mine.