Help for LBH who has a WW (new thread)

[PigPen]

Thank you Sandi, my thoughts and prayers still include you and your family. Your generosity to this board is extensive and sincerely appreciated. Thank you!

I've been mulling over the question of why we LBS's insist upon doing something and feel that doing nothing equals the death of our M's. I have likened it to this situation. This is my own experience.

As an LBS, I felt like I was sitting in a room that was suddenly set ablaze on BD day. I could see the flames, smell the smoke and feel the burn. It was real. It was visceral, experiential, and REAL. No one could tell me that the room wasn't on fire, every one of my 5 senses told me otherwise. I had to DO something to put that fire out. Thinking calm thoughts, meditating, writing, finding solace in spiritual texts, working out, crying...none of it touched the fire. None of it.

The only that seemed to make the fire diminish was direct communication with my W. A text that responded to with a "love W" instead of just a "yes" made it seem like the flames were going down, or at least their was a possibility that they may some day go out. So I sent 200 texts.

When I was writing emails, letters and more explaining how I knew I had made the room more flammable in my M - but now I was "Johnny Flame Retardant" - it made it seem like we could live back in that room, calm, cool and collected. She just needed a few more reminders. Or stronger ones. Cool as a cucumber I was now, I just had to paint the right picture. I had to DO something about this room, that was still up in flames - and show my W that I was doing something. My gut instinct, the very thing that had kept me alive for 40 years was telling me the more I did, the more the flames would go out.

It was only coming onto this board and heard from vets, talked to people that had also been in the same room that I realized that the more frenzied activity I put in, the more it stoked the fire. AND, the fire wasn't real. It just felt real. Nothing is real. I wasn't getting burned, it just felt like it was. It felt like I was, but when I kept waking up each morning still alive it couldn't have been real.

It wasn't until I came on here and Cadet and the vets told me that if I just STFU and Sat TF down that the flames would go out by themselves, or at least I would see they weren't what I thought they were.

Not only would the fire go out by itself, but I actually need and can use the heat to alchemize myself into the man I'm supposed to be. And the longer I sat in the hot room (as long as I did the work,) the better I would be at the end of it. With my W or without her.

But, oh my lord, is that a lesson that can't be understood rationally. OH MY LORD is it a lesson that has to be swallowed one ounce at a time. Then thrown up, then swallowed again until it stays down.

To this day Sandi, I still wake up in a panic over being back in that room. 8 months later I can still smell smoke when I'm out in town. I still check my phone to see if maybe "someone" is going to tell me the fire is out and not only have I survived, but I'm allowed to go back in there and start repairing the damage. My gut still screams to DO something about it despite the time, energy, and hard earned lessons to the contrary.

Doing nothing seemed like emotionally burning to death (not to be overly dramatic...), but it did. Doing something seemed like the only available survival option. Doing anything for that matter. Otherwise the whole damn house was going to catch fire.

Cadet told me the house no longer existed...it disappeared the day she left. Poof, gone. No more worry about the flames spreading. Now use them. Time to alchemize.

Now I get it. The more I ran around like a chicken with no head, the higher the flames rose and the more they pushed my W away. Still a bit of a mind (censored) though.

Big hug to you and Wonka for this thread and to everyone it helps. You're both invaluable assets to al of us on here. All of the vets are.