Quote Originally Posted by aspi
Just to clarify this, I don't talk to that person and rarely to others which know both of us. They are in pretty much no way part of my life anymore, so this isn't a Problem of an actual connection to them that I have to deal with. It's mostly all in my head and I need to get it out or at least put it someplace where it doesn't bother me constantly.

My problem isn't that I remember the emotional parts vividly. It's that I remember the small, meaningless things that ultimately lead me back to the bad ones. For example, I have to walk past a spot every day where we split ways for the evening three years ago and I remember what we talked about. I remember what they said, what I said, why I said that, how I felt and their reaction. None of this was important in any way or had any deeper impact on either of our lives, but it's enough for me to remember how these thoughts and feelings became part of a greater whole and then of course how that eventually turned out. The same is true for certain words or phrases, concepts, places, peoples and even an entire language - all in all way to much to cut all of it out of my life.

It's kind of a "pink elephant" thing. Once I encounter such a trigger, my mind just goes there, even if I don't want it to. I know that this is normal to some extent, but the frequency is worrying and since I remember just too much of our relation, it's all connected and it all leads back to bad memories.
Quote Originally Posted by Nai_Calus View Post
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I wish I could give you some good advice, aspi, but I've had a very similar problem, and honestly, the only thing that helped in my case was time and reasoning turning the agony to anger, and that's not that much of a help.

But I know how you feel. Every time I saw his name somewhere, or ran across something associated with him, it stabbed me in the gut all over again, for months and months and months and the pain just would. not. stop.

I wish I could say things turned out for the best and I came out of it stronger, too, but that's completely not true.

Time, I guess. Give it time.

It doesn't heal the wounds, but they eventually hurt less.
This is the best advice I can give now as well aspi, considering the circumstances. You'll never stop feeling the pain, but at some point or another, the pain will be bearable. I'm walking the same path as you, and I'm still feeling those low blows in my stomach everytime I see something that I can even remotely connect to those people. But it becomes more bearable as time passes, except maybe for some more personal moments, but that gets better as well. Bear with it, cope with it and deal with it.