The Bird, the Cage, and the open door.

[AJM]

Just to touch on a couple things. I think it was a mix of holding onto the hurtful things she said and the rush of emotions that flooded over me

I think you'll find that as emotions are revisited, so too will the feelings that may be associated with them. Kind of like dragging a piece of metal wire across the floor and every now and then hitting an outlet.

I really like your description of how you overcame the bed thing. To be honest, I did things in a similar manner for my entire house, car, kids, etc. I forced myself to face it rather than be haunted by the "ghosts". Not for everybody, but it turns out that if you do face them down, the mountains become mole hills and you stop having that ptsd-like reaction to inanimate objects. More importantly, you face your fears and "ghosts" so they no longer hold power over you.

As you may have noticed, it takes a while. Removing the pain or re-associating the new memory with a new feeling is essentially what you are doing. Which has some sort of technical named therapy that it's called by those in the business. I'm not, so it's just 'technical named things' :0)

Good on ya, Cali 2.0. Seems things are progressing. Sometimes lurching, and at others zipping, and still others it seems to be kind of a drunken-crab-walk like stupor, but progress it is.

Peace,

AJ