[AJM]

To me Bright, the too many narratives statement resonated in the sense that it was (is?) like my ex was playing out scenarios in her head. Many at a time. The manifestation of that was confusion, forgetting things that were said, etc. It feels like it's too many story lines going on her head at the same time. Kind of like a short-circuit if you will. I've referred to at as her having an emotional stroke and trying to recover from it. My IC mentioned it was like an IED going off and I was too close.

All fairly apt descriptions in many ways. The emotional stroke is one that I used to describe things many times as she was no longer able to construct sentences very well. Others might look at it and say it was like hearing from a teenager. She's highly educated, so it's been odd regardless. Lately, she'll try to start drama, include her H (OM) and my daughter in the emails. The pattern is that she'll follow it up with a well constructed sentence structure where she's being nice and asking for something or relaying some information as if nothing ever happened. It's a controlling mechanism to be sure, but it's odd.

I don't think that's out of the norm for MLCr's to be honest. I've read about it countless times on these boards. To me it's like she's been trying to put herself together for years now, and only recently are there "changes" of some sort. I don't pay much attention, but I do notice patterns and changes in them.

Those changes used to throw me for a loop when I was less detached from it all. I noticed it would affect me when I had to communicate with her. It's been years that I do not start conversations with her. It's been years since I've had those feelings, but I can still sense when somebody is trying to drag me into drama

Some of the anxiety.. I used to feel some of that as the communication would change. Why? I think it's because I was so used to the attacks, that when it was something different I was still too close and needed to readjust. During that time to readjust, I would feel some anxiety. It may be the same for her for all I know. That dynamic would feed off itself if left to itself.

That was years ago that I noticed that, and it took a while to free myself from it. It may be similar for you and contributing to your anxiety. Changes are a pain sometimes

AJ