Hi Kristin -

I've been off the boards for a little while to regroup and rest, but I wanted to step in and offer you a few words of support.

I would suggest you continue to work on detachment. As Blu wisely said above, it is primarily for your protection, first and foremost. It forces you to focus on yourself alone, and remove any awareness of/involvement in whatever drama W is going through. It sounds like W is in emotional turmoil - and i kind of think that you really don't want to have to deal with all of that too, on top of your own rollercoaster of feelings and emotions. It's a lot to take.

Detachment sounds counterintuitive. It is. I've been DBing for almost 10 months now, in a sit that has persisted for 15 months. I have only just started to see some softening, some bits and pieces of awareness that all was not as terrible in my MR as I was told at BD.

This is a slow, crawling, patience-testing endeavor. It takes much much longer than any of us think it will take at the beginning. And there is no guarantee that it will have a positive outcome. That is the other side of detachment - it prepares us all for an outcome that might not be what we want.

Detachment is tricky sometimes. It doesn't mean being cold or rude - it just means letting WAS go. That's what WASes say they want - time and space, distance.

I am glad to hear that meditation is proving useful to you. smile I might not be here today if I had not thrown everything into meditation when I was at my lowest. Going more "Zen" has helped me to see the bigger picture - to step out of my own perspective and see that detached kindness and love will defeat momentary anger and hate, always. It is not always easy and it takes practice, but I am proof that it can calm anxiety and clear one's mind.

Stay strong and calm, Kristin, and keep yourself grounded.

Take care smile