betray

Triggers From HURRICANE BETRAYAL

Lauren Beth1 Comment

One of the most difficult symptoms of betrayal P.T.S.D. and trauma are the triggers.  Triggers can be physical or mental and can wreck havoc on your health.  For a long time I had difficulty explaining what it was like having triggers day-in and day-out.  Below is the best way I could describe it.

You can start by imagining yourself as a small lake, the beautiful sandy shores are the barrier you built to protect yourself. You have existed for a long time with nothing disturbing your waters and the shores, but the occasional wind and rain (kids, family, work, etc.) until the unexpected happened.  A rare category 4 hurricane named Betrayal barreled through your waters and damaged your shoreline. Not only did Hurricane Betrayal spend a good amount of time breaking down your shores, it also broke down a rocky ledge 1000 ft above you. Within a day this ledge starts to crumble.  The very first piece to fall from the ledge is a boulder the size of a Semi-Truck. This boulder disturbs your peace and safety over a period of a few days reminding you of the hurricane. The next boulder that falls into your water is the size of a pick-up truck.  This boulder disturbs you for a day. The next boulder is the size of a compact car, you are disturbed a little less than the previous boulders but dislike how it reminds you of Hurricane Betrayal.  You have these boulders sporadically crashing down for a few months. They vary in size.  Every day you are unsure what type of rock is going to be falling into your water and what memories it will stir up.  It could be any size at any given moment.  This makes you worried, edgy, panicked, and nervous every minute of every single day. Every single pebble that comes down from that ledge reminds you of Hurricane Betrayal.

After 6 months of large boulders, rocks and pebbles disturbing your waters, you no longer identify as a lake, you are unsure what you are.   You become highly sensitive to anything that touches your water or shoreline. The wind and rain (children, family, friends, finances, work) pick away at your shores little by little even if just a minuscule amount. Everything that touches your water leaves its mark on you. You are in constant fear of no longer being a lake, of a boulder completely crashing down into your water destroying all the shoreline you have left after Betrayal hit.

Years goes by, you are exposed to the wind and rain. The ledge letting boulders, rocks and pebbles go is something you accept being there.   You are still a lake, like before. You have weathered through it all. You even made it through another hurricane.  Some days you would have a boulder and tiny rocks land in your water.  On other days the ledge would drop pebbles all day long.  Gradually over time the ledge stopped dropping the boulders and only dropped pebbles and an occasional stone.  Sometimes the stones would be significant and sometimes not.  There was a week where you didn’t have anything fall into your water.  The ledge you kept constant eye on no longer looks like a ledge.  You can barely see where it was. You will always remember what that ledge looked like right after Hurricane Betrayal hit. You will not forget the damage Betrayal and that ledge did to you, but you might appreciate what it made you become.

EMDR & Home Therapy Exercises Part 5 “Chores”

Lauren BethLeave a comment

I have learned a lot over the last 3 ½ years when it comes to what works when I am overwhelmed with triggers and heavy emotions. Some of the worse times for triggers are when I am doing household chores. A good example is when I do the dishes. I go on auto pilot when doing them and that is when the thoughts, triggers and emotions sneak in.  All the everyday chores a Mom must do are the type of chores I would have the hardest time with all the thoughts coming up. At any given moment of any day you could catch me balling my eyes out, frozen from the hurt, paused in time, in the middle of doing a chore.   

A little over a year and half ago during an appointment with my EMDR therapist I learned what to do when I was doing household chores to help process all the triggers I was having.  At the time I was having a hard time at work.  I was having to open boxes upon boxes of wood flooring.  My therapist brought up using a cross body motion to slice the boxes open.  The next day I sliced those boxes open with passion.  After the relief I received from this I started to implement the same thing to all chores I did.  After this second D-DayI am using this same therapy tool again. 

The way to do this exercise is simple.  When you are doing everyday household chores turn them into a chore where you use your body in a left to right rhythm. This is very similar to when Daniel in The Karate Kid does the “Wax on and wax off.” If you are unable to do the whole-body rhythm use your left hand, then switch to your right hand. A good example is when I vacuum, I push the vacuum with my left arm and pull back with my right. When I do dishes, I make sure I am passing the dish from one hand to the other. When cleaning counter tops I do the same thing.   I try to get the largest left to right motion and keep at a good fast paced rhythm. I allow all the triggers to come at me. I don’t try to control my thoughts or emotions. They tend to go as fast as they come when I would normally go on a roller coaster ride with my thoughts. As long as I keep a good pace, the thoughts are getting processed the way my brain can handle it best and in turn keeping myself from suffering anymore physical ailments.

This is a great way to process your thoughts and get them “filed away neatly” in your brain. I have noticed while going through this second recovery round I am having an easier time processing my triggers and find myself naturally doing the exercises and tools I learned from before.  When you practice all the different at home therapy exercises and tools you develop a second nature to processing your triggers that can provide some relief.    

Link to all At Home Therapy Tools

“Come on!” Having sex with a married man wasn’t enough?!

Lauren Beth1 Comment

I have witnessed some horrible human behavior throughout my life.  But this last episode of “Come On! Are you that stupid?” has got me thinking “Is every homewrecker really that dumb?”  I have heard horror stories but this last one takes the trophy for the dumbest I have dealt with. I am appalled that this woman even thinks she has a leg to stand on.

I have never met her, never talked to her. I had seen her at a large motorcycle camping party, where she avoided me and now, I know why.  I only messaged her a few times via social media prior to my knowing she had sex with my husband and multiple other married men along with a few brothers from my husband’s club. This lady is a serial homewrecker. She is known in the little motorcycle community of my town as the slut, a massage therapist with a happy ending among many other things.   There is not a single man on this earth who would be stupid enough to settle down with her.  She reeks rotting twat. Woman like this sicken me as they have no regard for humans at all. 

I used to feel bad for people like this and would make excuses for their behavior, but I am out of excuses and I am tired of being an innocent victim of their immoral behavior.  It is appalling a person like this would make up lies about the betrayed.  You already did a huge amount of damage.  Enough already!

There is one main reason I needed to write this rant out being you are called a home wrecker, you  screwed up a home and marriage by being one of the “other woman” there is no need for you to lash out at the betrayed for calling you out on what you clearly are.  If you don’t like the truth, then F off!  You should have learned to think before you act a long time ago, you are a grown adult.  You should never open your mouth or even worse put it in writing for all to see you harassing the betrayed with lies and stories when you haven’t even met the betrayed spouse or heard their side of the story.

I do not do my blog, website, and social media accounts for attention.  I have NEVER liked attention, if you need confirmation maybe you should talk to the “brothers”.  I am a person who helps others. That is my life mission.  I am taking something that makes me unable to live a normal life and turning it around to help others who are going through the same thing. The accusations from an uneducated dumb whore will not be tolerated by myself or my tribe.    

The amount and extent of the pain a betrayed spouse goes through is something unimaginable until you have been through it.  Studies show that PTSD from betrayal trauma is one of the hardest things to suffer from mentally.  It takes years to recover and you will never be the same.  To be a person who wants more pain on the betrayed makes you a special kind of evil.  I will enjoy watching karma do its magic.

To all my fellow survivors. You should never let one of the other women dictate anything. Thankfully in my case it was a calculative move that worked, and she buried herself (love it when this happens.)   Stand strong and tall fellow survivors!  You are and always will be the better person!