Are there times when you feel like you are loosing your mind? The problem may not be you or your thinking. It could be that you are actually dealing with some crazy making situations and their crazy solutions.
I remember facing one of those crazy making situations. I received the message “we need to talk” from Cindy. What she told me totally blew me away. In a matter of seconds, things went topsy-turvy. Things seemed very upside-down.
Although I could repeat back what was said to me, I could not grasp what it meant.
The sounds went into my ears. My brain understood the words, but I could not grasp the emotional impact of what she was telling me. It was if my brain heard it, but it did not register.
The relationship news she shared… shocked me. In a single moment there was rejection, disgust, confusion, along with many other mixed emotions. It felt like each emotion was taking me silly putty-like in several different directions at the same time.
What she shared with me did not make any logical sense. My mind was unable to understand the news, much less what was behind it. After leaving the meeting, things were a blur. I knew I was upset, but I wasn’t sure why or what just happened. The only thing that was clear was that “things were different”.
I felt zoned out driving back from the meeting. It was so upsetting, I pulled into the closest grocery store to my home and bought something to eat, thinking that it may somehow help. I was still shaking so bad, it took some serious concentration to grab items and handle the money. I needed some plain old comfort food. I needed something I was familiar with to help me gain my footing in this situation. My body knew it needed comfort and the grocery store seemed like a good place to go to find some.
I managed regaining my composure over the next few days, yet the whole experience of feeling like I was loosing it was unsettling. From that shaky episode, I gained some valuable lessons.
I have since learned that when communications are not logical, they are likely driven by emotions.Since affairs are often teeming with emotion driven choices, you are likely to encounter communications that are not logical.
Since emotions are not logical, they can make you feel crazy. My brain which was used to things being logical, could not shift into the emotional non-logic. When faced with relationship news that was more filled with emotions than logic, it felt like I was loosing it.
The reality was, I was loosing control, not loosing my mind. Getting them confused leads to wrong conclusions and wrong actions.
The desire for the familiar in such crazy-making situations now makes more sense to me as well. Comfort food, contact with old friends, watching old television shows, listening to music you grew up with, etc. are all part of those attempts at self-comfort or the term in vogue today, “self-soothing”. Some of them worked and some of those ‘solutions’ did not. (I go into greater detail on the role of self-soothing in my webinar on “Affair Trauma“).
The cheater may have a vested interest in you feeling like you are loosing it. When you feel that way, you are not available to them, so there is less guilt in running into the arms of another. When you are ‘loosing it’, they also feel that they can dismiss things you say as they choose.
They may also understand that when you are in such a state of loosing it, you are easier to control and manipulate. A confused mind just reacts, it does not process information. They know this and may be using it against you.
You do not have to continue fumbling in that state of having lost it. You can take steps that move you ahead with the Affair Recovery Workshop, which helps you regain your lost footing.
Best Regards,
Jeff
