What was your sanity level when the A ended?

[veryhappy]

I'm one month away from my sweet exMM choosing his M, and me leaving him to enjoy his life. I went through a week or maybe a little more in the early stages where I felt that I was close to losing it, I felt on the brink of insanity. I am the type of person who always, and I mean always likes to have it together, I'm very aware of my behavior and for the most, most part I keep myself in check.

 

However, for that period of time when I felt i was going insane, I don't know how things would have ended if there was a confrontation of sorts. I was simply walking on a very fine line. I was hurt, i wanted to hurt him, i wanted to hurt her, and for me it's the craziest I've ever felt. The level of perceived betrayal was so high, it just threw me mentally in uncharted territory.

 

Nothing happened in my case, the rational part of me won, but I do have some understanding for bunny boilers and OW going crazy.

 

Any similar experiences of losing one's sanity?

[Silly_Girl]

I lost the plot. Love does stuff that nothing else has ever done to me.

 

I was insane on the inside and depressed on the outside. I thought it would never end.

[Mount]

Cute, you are just a human being, as far as I see, you are a logical person. So you will get through this, just give it sometime.

 

The emotion you've gone through, it is normal I suppose. You are doing the reflection about yourself right now which means you are in perfect adjustment period.

 

Just give yourself sometime, and take care/pamper yourself.

 

 

I'm one month away from my sweet exMM choosing his M, and me leaving him to enjoy his life. I went through a week or maybe a little more in the early stages where I felt that I was close to losing it, I felt on the brink of insanity. I am the type of person who always, and I mean always likes to have it together, I'm very aware of my behavior and for the most, most part I keep myself in check.

 

However, for that period of time when I felt i was going insane, I don't know how things would have ended if there was a confrontation of sorts. I was simply walking on a very fine line. I was hurt, i wanted to hurt him, i wanted to hurt her, and for me it's the craziest I've ever felt. The level of perceived betrayal was so high, it just threw me mentally in uncharted territory.

 

Nothing happened in my case, the rational part of me won, but I do have some understanding for bunny boilers and OW going crazy.

 

Any similar experiences of losing one's sanity?

[veryhappy]

I'm out of that phase, it was in the very beginning. Then I just continued with grieving. I was expecting grief, but not insanity.

 

When I read about how an OW was so crazy, and BS wonders how the WS could have been with her, some of it must be the person, but some must be the situation. I suspect a BS would never believe the extent of make-believe the WS engaged into with the OW.

[MissBee]

I'm one month away from my sweet exMM choosing his M, and me leaving him to enjoy his life. I went through a week or maybe a little more in the early stages where I felt that I was close to losing it, I felt on the brink of insanity. I am the type of person who always, and I mean always likes to have it together, I'm very aware of my behavior and for the most, most part I keep myself in check.

 

However, for that period of time when I felt i was going insane, I don't know how things would have ended if there was a confrontation of sorts. I was simply walking on a very fine line. I was hurt, i wanted to hurt him, i wanted to hurt her, and for me it's the craziest I've ever felt. The level of perceived betrayal was so high, it just threw me mentally in uncharted territory.

 

Nothing happened in my case, the rational part of me won, but I do have some understanding for bunny boilers and OW going crazy.

 

Any similar experiences of losing one's sanity?

 

Sorry for how you're feeling. I can relate to post-breakup insanity. I experienced it once, but it wasn't after my A. I was a lot more saner post-A. I think it's because it gradually ended, unlike a relationship I had where I became insane for a while lol, which ended abruptly.

 

But yess that other breakup is what brought me to LS and I felt all over the place! I felt so betrayed, paranoid, jealous, insecure, needy etc. I did things and accepted things I'd never do/accept/think, because I felt my soul had been ripped out. The worst part is, now, I realize I never actually loved HIM. The pain was so vast and terrible and I spent lots of time obsessing, analyzing and hoping and swore we were soulmates and "twin flames" LOL...but it was more about me and why I needed the relationship (not him) than anything else. I GREW a lot from that, once I started realizing I had to focus on me and the lesson I needed to learn (as all relationships teach you something). I liked him for very superficial reasons and missed him for very superficial reasons. We were not at all a good match, but on paper he was right for me and so I built a fantasy with him. We were very much together, but not because of the reality that we were so compatible and a good match...but I projected what I wanted on to him and was having a fantasy scenario. People get mad at the word fantasy when talking about As, maybe it sounds like something an insane person would do and like it's all made up and trivial...but lots of people have fantasy relationships with even single people they see all the time. The fantasy is projection, building sand castles in the sky, overestimating compatibility and all that. I did it with a SG and I think in As, just the nature of it makes that a lot more likely.

 

Anyway....your feelings are normal. Fortunately you're reflective enough not to have flown off the handle and gone bunny boiler. My main suggestion is to allow yourself to grieve and to also turn some of that outward energy (focusing on him and what he did to you and her) and turn the mirror on yourself. I took 2 YEARS to move on because I blamed him and focused on his issues and what was wrong with him. Through a slow process, I gradually started to see that we're all complicit in most of our choices and usually we give situations permission to happen to us...and we have to ask ourselves how we're responsible for any of the hurt we feel. Once I started focusing on me and why I chose him, why I wanted him so badly, why I felt like he needed to be with me, why I wanted him to hurt etc. things started making more sense and illusions started falling away and I began to heal. I wish you all the best in moving forward

[AnotherRound]

It sucks that some MPs are actively lying to anyone - their spouse or their AP, and I think that often times, that triggers the type of behaviors that you experienced. You seem pretty balanced (from what I know here), and so, for you, it was probably purely situational - especially since it only lasted a couple of weeks.

 

However, some people are just wired wrong - and can't handle much of anything thrown their way (my exMMs OW is a good example of that I think). So, they would react to ANY situation with an exaggerated feeling of loss and erratic behaviors.

 

I also understand why some people "go crazy" for a minute - obviously, certain situations are the catalyst for that with "normal" people. Imo, when that lasts for an extended period of time, with no provocation (as in, no new "injuries"), then something maybe got jiggled "off" in that person.

 

After my mother was murdered - I had crazy revenge fantasies - for a few months, off an on. I never acted on anything, despite knowing exactly who killed her and having access to him - bc I knew that my thoughts were a stress reaction - not my "normal" brain thinking logically - and had enough sense to not act out on anything that I was feeling in the direct aftermath of a very traumatic experience.

 

I'm glad you are out of that phase... It's a normal grief reaction (anger) and can come and go. It's not an issue unless someone acts out on it or gets stuck in it - then it becomes complicated.

 

Ime, I didn't really experience it - but, I wasn't involved in a deceitful affair, nobody was being lied to, and I wasn't "thrown under the bus" - AND, I chose to walk away, and wasn't "dumped" - so, that probably helped a lot. I was ready to walk away, and did so without any regrets or doubts as to whether it was the right thing for me to do or not (and hindsight has proven it was indeed the exact right thing for me to have done!). So, I got to kind of skip the shock, denial, and anger parts of grieving and just kind of went straight to acceptance bc I had a lot of control of the situation, luckily. Perhaps in your case, it was triggered by that lack of control - as that commonly evokes anger in us bc our lives are upended without our input and we are helpless.

 

Again, glad you are through it... I'll be interested to read this thread!

[SecretFlower]

I think my sanity level was at it's worst (or lowest) prior to my ending the affair. Those last few months, even the last year, was such a high and low. One day I'd be confident in my place and the next I'd be miserable and wanting to run away. For me, it all just came to a point where we exploded and then it was just a natural progression. There was no big blow out, just me leaving him and him being aloof. I guess in the days and months after I ended the affair I was pretty depressed, but I wasn't bunny boiler crazy.

[wanting more]

I Definately went thru an "insanity" phase. I often wonder if we had just ended how would I have been. I know they say closure is over rated but I never had that. I know one day it won't matter and that I'll get passed this.

There's so many things I regret about the last 3 years. But I fell in love, with someone I had no right to fall in love with. And I thought he loved me also. I now think I was just a "game". When d-day happened and he just completely threw me away like a piece of trash, he broke my heart. Im passed the insanity phase and hope to soon be passed the hating phase.

[RickFox]

Honestly, I was distraught, confused, angry, depressed and all around F'd up.

 

I was hurting and knew I hurt my wife which made me hurt more and confused about how I'd been thrown to the wolves which hurt me more and caused more pain all the way around. In the end, it was more about me and it took time to realize I'd hurt someone else far more.

[firstandlast]

I lost the plot. Love does stuff that nothing else has ever done to me.

 

I was insane on the inside and depressed on the outside. I thought it would never end.

 

Does it end? Please say it does.

[firstandlast]

After my mother was murdered - I had crazy revenge fantasies - for a few months, off an on. I never acted on anything, despite knowing exactly who killed her and having access to him - bc I knew that my thoughts were a stress reaction - not my "normal" brain thinking logically - and had enough sense to not act out on anything that I was feeling in the direct aftermath of a very traumatic experience.

 

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but just out of curiosity, was the murderer every brought to justice?

[skywriter]

I'm one month away from my sweet exMM choosing his M, and me leaving him to enjoy his life. I went through a week or maybe a little more in the early stages where I felt that I was close to losing it, I felt on the brink of insanity. I am the type of person who always, and I mean always likes to have it together, I'm very aware of my behavior and for the most, most part I keep myself in check.

 

However, for that period of time when I felt i was going insane, I don't know how things would have ended if there was a confrontation of sorts. I was simply walking on a very fine line. I was hurt, i wanted to hurt him, i wanted to hurt her, and for me it's the craziest I've ever felt. The level of perceived betrayal was so high, it just threw me mentally in uncharted territory.

 

Nothing happened in my case, the rational part of me won, but I do have some understanding for bunny boilers and OW going crazy.

 

Any similar experiences of losing one's sanity?

 

 

Well cute, it must be par for the course, because I have experienced the same symptoms as you. I'm relieved now for the most part. I needed resolution, so I ended it.

[suki1]

Personally I had more insane points in the few months prior to it ending. I knew I was going crazy when I started hating his wife. I'd never met her and had no reason to feel that way but one day I just stopping being sad and hating the situation and started hating her, though I'm well aware I had no right to and in fact she, had she known, had every right to hate me. At that point I went crazy but when I calmed down, and he did his fake ending it to get me under control thing again, I hit a moment of weird clarity and haven't seen him since. I was depressed as hell after, but not crazy. Crazy moments do clear up. Try to use the experience to learn more about yourself and gain better control of your reactions

[veryhappy]

At least two posts mentioned the months prior to ending the A, and I realized that it was a huge factor in my mental exhaustion. The last 3 months were sleepless and painful, so by the time the end hit, I had little resources left.

 

I did get to the point of not standing to hear, talk, or think about his W anymore. During one of my mini detachment periods from him, one of the things that struck me was that after one day, she was just erased from my mind. He liked to bring her up a lot in the discussion, and then say I was interested and starting the conversation. I wonder if he enjoyed the sense of having two women competing over him in some sense.

[Spark1111]

At least two posts mentioned the months prior to ending the A, and I realized that it was a huge factor in my mental exhaustion. The last 3 months were sleepless and painful, so by the time the end hit, I had little resources left.

 

I did get to the point of not standing to hear, talk, or think about his W anymore. During one of my mini detachment periods from him, one of the things that struck me was that after one day, she was just erased from my mind. He liked to bring her up a lot in the discussion, and then say I was interested and starting the conversation. I wonder if he enjoyed the sense of having two women competing over him in some sense.

 

Of course he did!

 

And every post I have read here sounds exactly like what a BS goes through following dday and the two or three crazy months following it!

 

Hating the wife or the OW is a defense mechanism to protect your psyche from the lying, deception and rejection. Terrible no?

 

I always said we have so many more similiarities than differences.

[skywriter]

I can say, my emotions were never negative about his W. My emotions were directed at my own guilt and the anger at myself and at him.

 

In my case, the MM, was such a liar, and I kept catching him lying.

Then he was a hugely inappropriate flirt.

 

He called my girlfriends , and text them. Those were a few of the elements behind my sanity level deminishing.

 

Yea,....it was the best decision I ever made getting out when I did....and i'll leave it at that.

[BrokenPrincess]

Cute, thanks for the tip to come to this board. The posts here are giving me much more solace. Today is officially 1 week since D-Day and I have not felt insane or irrational, just really, really, really depressed.

 

Last night I tortured myself and read through old email exchanges from the past year. Just funny little check-ins, articles, innuendos (we kept it clean on email since we were at work) All the warm feelings came rushing back....so not insane, but definitely overwhelming sadness.

[veryhappy]

Princess (you will not be broken forever), the very positive lack of insanity in your case is due to the fact that there was no future faking, no plans to be together. The insanity happens when MM sell a bunch of bs and plans to be together, and then turn around and say "You know what? I'll go give my precious marriage a try, because I haven't". Same M they were until the day before so done and over with, they were planning on not even trying MC. It's the betrayal and the web of contradictions(a better word for "lies") that is crazy making.

 

You are going through the cycles of grief. You will be okay in the end, if you don't have any contact with him at least for a long while. It depends on what you want, and you need to decide in advance if and what are you expecting from any contact.

Edited October 20, 2012 by cutedragon

[Pierre]

The OW loses her mind after the break up. That is OK and expected.

 

 

However, if the betrayed wife loses her mind on d-day she is a bitch that needs psychiatric help. ha. ha.