Good stuff in-thread already, here are a few points that pop for me when reading your OP.
Learning & learning to value self-care & putting yourself first isn't a feeling, it won't come naturally. It's a process that takes constant practice in all ways you can. It is NO joke when I say that I started to question my EVERY decision, no matter how basic & no matter how many times I'd made it before. Actually, especially if I'd made the decision so many times it became a rote response that I had stopped examining.
No joke - "Fire, do you want chocolate ice cream?" followed by a very, very long silence where I thought - do I? I usually get vanilla. Is that because I WANT it or because I'm used to it? Has it just become easier to order vanilla? I really have always wanted to try raspberry, but idk..... so WHAT if I don't like it? Is that the worse thing ever?
Basic, but you get the idea. I had to question, examine & refine all of my personal paradigms.
The practice of self-care is about everything, every day. It's enforcing boundaries, choosing healthier foods or groups, making time for activities & new stuff, rearranging furniture, painting or remodeling, or moving into new space altogether, etc, etc, etc . But you HAVE to practice it. It won't happen just because you acknowledge the logic of it mentally.
Dandy's famous for advising about "Time & Space" & it is one of the truest things - and the most frustrating because absolutely nothing can speed of the process of either. For me, I focused on how time would pass anyway - how did I want to spend it? Where did I want to be at the end of that period? I think the biggest thing is that until you have that space/time you can't establish a "new normal" - the one that doesn't revolve around crisis & chaos. I think that's why, for me, when it did "click" it was like the flip of a switch, just a feeling of everything seeming to change overnight.
It's like you take that 1000th baby step & hit the top of the peak, see the majesty of that view...... it wasn't JUST Step #1000 that mattered.... the other 999 were as important, just less explosive.
Right now, you make progress &then lose some of it every time you interact with your Ex in any way that you don't feel strong enough for just yet. That diminishes the return on investment you're seeing for the time you put in on your own recovery. It's hard - by nature we Codies react to those around us.
I would need short-term tools to use when I had to interact with Ex. Mantra, visualizations, breathing exercise, whatever could bring my focus back to reality & not stay enmeshed in his chaos once I felt myself getting dragged in. My goal is to always be a witness - observing but not participating in his unchanging behavior. And ditto to everyone else about cutting communication, reducing interaction if possible, etc.
