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No contact day 9: the comparison day
Somewhere around here the imagined version of their life gets vivid: they're fine, they're out, they've moved on. Almost none of this is based on evidence, and the small amount that is comes from a feed.
What goes wrong on day 9
Comparison is the most reliable trigger for checking, and checking is what makes the comparison worse. It's a closed loop with no exit inside it.
None of that is a prediction about you specifically. Day 9 looks different depending on how long you were together, who ended it, and how many times you've tried before — this is the shape it takes most often, and the part of it worth preparing for.
One thing to do today
Close the specific route the images are coming through. If you're not checking anything and your mind is generating them anyway, name that plainly — an imagined feed is a thought, not information.
A slip costs a day. The spiral after it — "I've ruined it, why bother" — is what costs the month. If today didn't go the way this page describes, that's information about which door is still open, not a verdict on whether you can do this.
Where you actually are on day 9
Two minutes of honest answers and the read gives you your real day count, the pattern you're in, and the hour that's likely to be hardest.
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