I’m also having a very difficult time being hard-shunned. So much so it’s causing weird dreams and nightmares I’ve never had before. My therapist has helped me to understand just how traumatic this experience of being disfellowshipped was and that I’m not processing the trauma but rather repressing it.

Processing is more than just sitting with the emotions, you have to actively talk through your experience with a close friend or therapist. We do an uncomfortable practice where she pretends to be someone from my past and I say the things that I wish I could say to them about how they hurt me. Its so uncomfortable but it helps to process and eventually be at peace with being hard shunned. This all ends with me writing letters to each individual that I’ll never send. I’m not saying you’re repressing trauma, because I often worry about the exact situation your in. The reality that none of my family would attend my wedding or be able to be apart of my kids life.

But she explained to me that she’s used this practice to help a woman process the trauma of her father sexually abusing her from an early age to 18. She moved to South Korea to get away from him, and through this therapy she actually got to the point of forgiveness toward her father, and that’s not for him that’s for her to move on. Apparently her life flipped like a light switch, she began thriving. I say all this because this type of therapy could maybe benefit you, what you’re dealing with is traumatic and if you don’t process it it won’t go away.