Here I go again, and again, and again…

[Justanotherlostgirl1]

lostgirl,

So sorry for that explosive argument! I know how incredibly draining those can be.

Two book suggestions:

Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist by Margalis Fjelstad
The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans

Both of those helped me tremendously with getting a stronger picture of what's going on and how to deal with it.

Thank you user! Really looking forward to reading these!

[PlantFlowersNotWeeds]

I find that I can get emotionally charged as a result of my experiences with my PD ex-husband.

One simple trick I try to use, not always successful, is just to take some time - wait before you respond - be in a calm state before you respond or choose not to.  Think through things - does this really matter to me?  Can I let it go?  Why is this so upsetting to me?  I try to be as reflective as possible.

[notrightinthehead]

Lost girl, check out this technique for control of overwhelming emotions:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNcleF-sDk

[Justanotherlostgirl1]

Lost girl, check out this technique for control of overwhelming emotions:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNcleF-sDk

Wow, thank you so much for this! I'm a very rational person and I really need things to DO rather than just thinking about things or trying to remember to MC,GR and etc. Looking through the videos on this woman's channel, a lot resonate with me. I have a very hard time expressing emotions, especially anger, so this is very helpful for me. Appreciate it so much! I hope this will help to calm my flashbacks a bit. I get triggered by a lot of things, but I have noticed one major one is when I feel helpless to change something it triggers me back into that feeling from early childhood where I felt so helpless and out of control. During arguments with my bf he will not listen to reason and just becomes more and more upset and says a lot of rude or negative things. I try to tell him things rationally, but he is very emotionally driven. When I can't get through to him and he goes into his circular arguments, I feel helpless to stop him and the emotions build up.

Really so glad that you've shared this!

[Justanotherlostgirl1]

I find that I can get emotionally charged as a result of my experiences with my PD ex-husband.

One simple trick I try to use, not always successful, is just to take some time - wait before you respond - be in a calm state before you respond or choose not to.  Think through things - does this really matter to me?  Can I let it go?  Why is this so upsetting to me?  I try to be as reflective as possible.

Thanks so much for the tip! I will try my best to do this. I think part of the issue is I know exactly why this triggers me. It sends me back to when I was 15 and reported sexual abuse against me by a boy I went to school with - and I was not believed. Since then I've made it a point to always be honest. When people think I am being dishonest, especially someone close to me, it really upsets me and I always feel a need to explain myself. It really gets into the core of who I am. Nobody likes to be called dishonest, especially when that isn't the truth and I have been open and honest about my friendship. For me too, my sense of self and self esteem is very flawed. I tend to see myself as wrong, defective and etc. Most people may see they did something bad in a situation and think "I did the wrong thing here, I'll try my best to do better next time." In my reality, I would think "You are wrong. Everything about who you are is wrong". Therefore, being told I'm lying when I'm not, or that I'm hiding something when I'm not really cuts deep and I end up reacting when I should be trying to calm the situation.

Thanks Flowers, I will try to remember this in the future.