Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2018 17:36:16 GMT
I'm an FA who has moved closer to secure over the period of the last two years in therapy.
When I was a little girl, I looked to boys as potential objects of fantasy for the ideal love and I only seemed to really love the ones that didn't really like me.
Then in my teenage years, I used sex and relationships as substitutes for the intimacy I was lacking at home and in my social life.
I have always had a love interest or a boyfriend until around 9 months ago when I quit dating cold-turkey after a bad attachment to a less self aware FA who was using fault-finding to distance... the attachment only lasted around 3 months but it so fundamentally triggered my AP side that I am still having the phantom ex feelings around this person despite me ending the relationship rather than them.
I just cannot seem to get this person out of my head, and the fantasy thinking just sort of happens to me, more like intrusive rumination and I go through cycles of it.
In the past, I would have naturally just moved onto someone else and this wouldn't be an issue for me, but I feel like it's an issue because for the first time, I don't have a romantic attachment in my life because I want to grieve properly this time and date when I feel available.
I try to tell myself that the degree to which I "miss" and "desire" this person is not really about the other person, but rather a healthy desire for a loving attachment of that intensity and that I'm mistaking that healthy longing for a longing for the other person as they are the current "placeholder" in my mind that reminds me of those feelings.
It says in the 'Attached' book that it takes a long time to get over a bad attachment - but this is taking a really long time given how short the relationship was. I am most likely a blip in his radar and he has somehow encompassed mine and I feel helpless to the cycles of rumination. I often catch myself in scenarios in my head of us reuniting, and it's not only unreasonable but I don't even really want that? I'm sick of projecting my longing onto poor other souls who can't give me what I want, or even want to give me what I want, but I almost can't help that I do it and it drives me kind of nuts.
Has anyone else experienced this?
How do you try to kick this?
When I was a little girl, I looked to boys as potential objects of fantasy for the ideal love and I only seemed to really love the ones that didn't really like me.
Then in my teenage years, I used sex and relationships as substitutes for the intimacy I was lacking at home and in my social life.
I have always had a love interest or a boyfriend until around 9 months ago when I quit dating cold-turkey after a bad attachment to a less self aware FA who was using fault-finding to distance... the attachment only lasted around 3 months but it so fundamentally triggered my AP side that I am still having the phantom ex feelings around this person despite me ending the relationship rather than them.
I just cannot seem to get this person out of my head, and the fantasy thinking just sort of happens to me, more like intrusive rumination and I go through cycles of it.
In the past, I would have naturally just moved onto someone else and this wouldn't be an issue for me, but I feel like it's an issue because for the first time, I don't have a romantic attachment in my life because I want to grieve properly this time and date when I feel available.
I try to tell myself that the degree to which I "miss" and "desire" this person is not really about the other person, but rather a healthy desire for a loving attachment of that intensity and that I'm mistaking that healthy longing for a longing for the other person as they are the current "placeholder" in my mind that reminds me of those feelings.
It says in the 'Attached' book that it takes a long time to get over a bad attachment - but this is taking a really long time given how short the relationship was. I am most likely a blip in his radar and he has somehow encompassed mine and I feel helpless to the cycles of rumination. I often catch myself in scenarios in my head of us reuniting, and it's not only unreasonable but I don't even really want that? I'm sick of projecting my longing onto poor other souls who can't give me what I want, or even want to give me what I want, but I almost can't help that I do it and it drives me kind of nuts.
Has anyone else experienced this?
How do you try to kick this?
