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I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but can someone explain to me what pain shopping is? Also the rabbit hole and madhatter please?

Painshopping... more below
Rabit hole... no idea
Madhatter... someone that has been both the BS and the WS.

My experience with pain shopping.

I had this friend named Barbie. She had issues with depression and was in therapy and on meds. She was one of those people that lived in either "high" or "low". The regular grind of life was not tolerable.

Most of us go through our days taking care of business. We wake, do morning routines, go to work, fight traffic on the commute, do the dinner routine, take care of the household duties, got to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Barbie could not tolerate the normal routine of life. When she wasn't dealing with actual drama, she would dredge up old hurts to chew on again. As her friend, it became exhausting. If I wasn't talking her through a current drama, I was talking her through dealing with something we had been over in the past. She was constantly shopping for pain. It garnered her attention and sympathy. It gave her something to talk about. It gave her a reason to reach out to people and connect. But she resented anyone else's happiness and would pick at it and cause drama there. If someone else had unfortune she could trump it with more unfortune and turn the attention to herself.

Barbie and I are no longer friends.

Madhatter is someone who is both BS (Betrayed Spouse) and WS (Wayward Spouse).

Rabbit hole is likely a reference to Lewis Carroll's Alice and her bizarre experiences in Wonderland.

Pain Shopping is when you intentionally do things you know will hurt you. Like going to OW's facebook, or continuing to monitor your WS when you already know everything you need to know. Many of us had trouble disconnecting from investigative mode.

As pain shopping and madhatter have been sufficiently described I can say what the rabbit hole is to me. Its when I dive headlong into all of it, all the trauma, the pain, the hurt and memories. Its like being in the Alice in wonderland rabbit hole where everything around you is another bizarre and hurtful thing that makes no sense.

Ok that's what I thought. Thank you.

Many of us had trouble disconnecting from investigative mode.

I know what you mean by that when all this happened when I was trying to recover deleted messages I felt like a detective or a spy or something but not in a good way it made me mad I had to go through all that. It became a obsession and on top of that I have OCD so yeah it became a bad obsession.

Just being honest for a moment, but I really hate the new buzz word 'pain shopping'. It annoys me to to no end. I know what it is meant, but in posts I have read it seems brought up to quickly. Especially when BS's are in the process of getting their ducks in a row and gathering evidence. To me it seems kind of dismissive.

It might be pain shopping to go back an look at emails two years out, but if a BS is triggering and they are trying to figure out why, I don't really consider it pain shopping . If years out a BS feels the need to go back and relive something, that has to be a reason why they suddenly don't feel safe.

It has been a few years for me, I am in a better place, I don't stalk the woman on face book, but I still trigger when I remember that I have no clue who the first woman was. Sitting quietly and reliving what it upsetting me I don't think is pain shopping. I don't talk about it with the FWS anymore, and to be honest, even in the middle of Affair season, I doubt it even crosses his mind anymore.

I just might be reading it the wrong way but that is what I get from it when I see those words.

MystiKay - I agree. My hubby asks why I torture myself. Like I have a choice to think about this shit or not. I do the best I can, I'm trying as hard as I can and when I don't I don't. Believe me, I dont' want to have pain either.

Yea the pain shopping...not a big fan of that one either.
Occasionally I do go back and look at my evidence file, so.I can remember. My ws is so very good at covering his tracks and pretending all is well. If I didn't force myself to look,.I just might start falling into the trap again. In the beginning I was a bit obsessive but I had to look and make it sink in because.I tend to slip into denial easily and am way to comfortable there.

Ditto Ostrich and I am so far removed from my first DDay and happily reconciled, that it's ridiculous on my part to relive that stuff - but sometimes I'll have a reminder (hate the word "trigger") and I'll review my evidence. I am proud that it will be 4 years in October since I've done that. Just cannot bring myself to destroy it all. <shrugs shoulders>

The rabbit hole, to me, is when I'm just sitting at my desk and get an urge to look at an OW's facebook. Just a little look. So I do that. Then I google her, try to find out what I can, then I go back and read old emails obsessively. And suddenly I'm down the rabbit hole, just meant to peek and now I'm tumbling and spinning.

I see that as related to pain shopping. I can say that because I'm far enough out that I should not be doing those things.

As long as we’re on the subject(madhatter) how did we get from mercury poisoning from someone making hats causing dementia insanity to someone that is both WS and BS?