After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 8 – Waking up
PDF This is the eighth article in this series about the recovery path, and it is about the second half of the path. This is after we have fully accessed our anger, and begun to grieve our losses and let go. This article may not necessarily be helpful to someone who is still reeling from betrayal and loss, or even someone who is still exploring righteous anger. However, it is part of this series because a growing number of people on LoveFraud are considering the influence of their histories on their relationships, as part of healing themselves and their lives. Please, take what is valuable to you, but if this one doesn’t make sense or, God forbid, makes you feel like you’re being blamed, it just means that you’re at another healing stage. Which is good. Every stage is necessary and good. Be where you are, love yourself and heal. That’s all that matters. — Kathy
In recovering from a trauma or extended trauma like a sociopathic relationship, we often discover that what we lost isn’t what we first thought it was. In fact, our very resistance to letting go – the thing that often keeps us stuck in anger or even bargaining or denial – isn’t exactly what we thought it was.
The traumatic recovery process, if we have the courage to see it through, turns out to be very different from the “he done me wrong” drama it first appeared to be. It’s not about unrequited love. It’s not about us not being good enough or smart enough. It’s really not about anything that is between us and our sociopathic opposite number.
It is really about us waking from a dream.
What is real?
An old friend talked to me recently about feeling so disoriented that she had difficulty finding her way out of her hometown airport. She was returning from her third trip to visit a man in another city. Based on phone conversations with him, she had become convinced that he loved her, wanted a future with her, and accepted her as she was. When she arrived, she discovered that what he wanted was “friends with benefits.” And by the way, would she please invest in his condo because he was having trouble making the payments?
As on the previous trips, he was cold, critical and exploitive, expecting her to pay for staying with him and pay for everything they did together. Knowing that he had less money than her, she did that willingly. She would have given the five-figure investment in the condo, except that her money was tied up in a trust. The one thing she could not do was casual sex, and she could not understand how or why he did not remember that this was a baseline truth with her. If she was in a sexual relationship, it had to be serious and committed. Of course, they had sex before his idea about “friends with benefits” became clear, leaving her feeling used and ashamed.
After the other trips, she had felt wounded and depressed. Half angry at him, half wondering what she had done wrong. This time was different. She finally understood that she had been deluded, and it didn’t matter if he had misled her or she had misled herself. She contacted me to ask me what to do about the feeling of disorientation. She didn’t know how she could have been so mistaken, and she didn’t know what was real anymore.
“I want my old self back,” she said. Then she thought a moment, and said. “No, I don’t. Not if it’s the old self that keeps doing this over and over.”
The broken part
My friend is not stupid, though she has a history of relationships with exploitive people. Listening to her talk about how ashamed she felt about the love letters she had written and her feeling that she was too stupid to live, I could almost see the broken cog in the machinery of her psyche.
With her, as with many of us, this broken part is not really about the exploitive people who take advantage of it. We feel like these relationships are “happening to” us. But what really happened is that a certain set of circumstances triggers something in us that I call a “state.” (Some psychologists call it a ‘trance,” because it is a form of self-hypnosis. It may also be called a “fugue state,” after a type of music where a single melody line is repeated in many variations.)
A state is a reactive response with certain characteristics. One is a narrowing of focus. Everything else fades to lesser importance. Other, possibly unrelated experiences are interpreted through our intense involvement with this state and its triggers. The anger we have discussed in previous articles is a state. The disorientation of my friend and the distressed confusion of early-stage recovery are also states. Other characteristics of states may be reversion to childlike emotional behaviors – tantrums, outsized hunger for validation or security, confusing the feeling of relief with love.
Another characteristic of these states is often disassociation, or distancing ourselves from objective reality. “Inside” the state, we identify with it. It feels “right,” often passionately right, the truth about ourselves. A feedback loop can evolve. The state becomes magnified by our attention; so we pay more attention to it. If the state is painful, we may start looking for self-medication through alcohol, drugs, video games, shopping, work, etc. If the state provides pleasure, we may do more and more of what we think is creating the pleasure. As we pursue or avoid feelings, learning skills or living with the effects of our actions, the state’s structure evolves into more complexity.
So where do these states come from? Especially the painful ones. Anyone who has been reading this series of articles knows already. They are residue of unprocessed trauma. One of the simplest ways to grasp this is to ask, “When was the first time I ever felt this way?” We may not immediately remember the first time, but most of us can track the state backwards through events in our history.
My relationship with a sociopath was not the first time I’d felt completely subsumed by a romantic attachment. (It was just, unfortunately, the first time I’d done it with someone who felt no ethical responsibility toward me.) I realized, fairly early, that what was happening with him wasn’t “different,” but only a worst-case scenario of something I’d been doing my entire life.
Leaving Las Vegas
Few of us on LoveFraud would consider ourselves gambling addicts. But if we think about what gambling addicts really want, we might see a bit of ourselves in it. When a gambler is winning, the emotional payoff isn’t the money. It is the sense of basking in a kind of sunshine of divine acceptance, where s/he is magically doing everything right and being loved for it. The love may be expressed in financial winnings, but the thrill is that big, loving, supportive “yes” from the cosmos.
From the book “Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to Intimacy” by Stephanie Covington and Liana Beckett, here is a brief description of the progression of an addictive relationship:
1. Experiencing the euphoric high of a new relationship, which enables us to focus on another person, rather than dealing with our true emotional state
2. Seeking the positive mood swing, looking forward to it, being willing to make sacrifices to get it, suffering occasional feelings of dejection or jealousy or panic, but the pain is still manageable
3. Dependence, where focus on the lover crosses the line from choice to need, and life becomes narrow, unbalanced, unhealthy with obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors
4. Maintaining contact just to avoid being in a state of chronic depression and emotional pain, because there is no more euphoria and the inner balance is in shambles
Is this a state? It actually sounds like a series of states with a common thread. If we return to the gambler, we can see a similar fundamental story. A pursuit of magical redemption in which we get the prize if Lady Luck smiles on us, or fall back into a kind of emotional hell if she doesn’t.
But is that a fair analogy? Games of luck depend on the random distribution of a shuffled card deck, the end of a wheel’s momentum, the way dice fall. The gambler is essentially passive, beyond risking the stakes. In our relationships, we do so much more, don’t we? We don’t just show up and hope. We go out of our way to be charming, agreeable, enthusiastic, compliant, understanding, tolerant and supportive, while we kiss, cook, make love, arrange our schedules, dress to please, help out with their finances, children, careers, leave behind huge chunks of our lives as they were before. We’re actively building, investing, sacrificing, trying.
Still, the gambling analogy holds, because of one thing. The success of it all is out of our control. All we can do is our best, and hope that we earn a happy ending. In sociopathic relationships, we learn several very tough lessons. But primary among them is this: if our happiness depends on something outside of ourselves, we are living a gambler’s life.
The crumbling foundation
A recent show on HDTV was about the crumbling foundation under a house. Contractors mortared cinderblock up against the old walls and dug trenches around the outside of the foundation to divert the water that had weakened the concrete. In all, they managed to preserve the rooms of the house above by shoring up the old foundation.
What we face in getting over a sociopathic relationship something like the same problem, although our solution may be quite different. Our “states” are like rooms built on the foundation of old coping responses we adopted when we faced an overwhelming event when we were younger. When I was very small, I learned that no one would protect me from my father’s unreasonable verbal and physical abuse, and in fact, I was responsible for keeping him happy. At three years old or so, I developed an immediate coping response that involved alterations in patterns of feeling, thought and behavior, designed to manipulate circumstances and myself in order to survive. All of it was founded on an awareness of impending danger. But it also included a memory of the time before the danger, a dream of a better time, when I was loved, safe and could thrive as who I was.
That is a quick illustration of the foundation under a “room” in my psyche. I developed through my childhood and adult life with that “state” ready to be triggered by any circumstances that seemed to “fit.” Through the years, I furnished this room with more experiences that supported its reality, learned more survival skills for a world of impending danger, and once or twice, learned that I could relax and be myself in certain circumstances, thinking I was making big progress in my life.
But the twilight-zone reality of this room, which began with the original decision about how to handle an overwhelming childhood event, is what allowed the sociopath to take residence in my life. A coping strategy that was designed to help me survive danger as a child turned into a vulnerability to tremendous danger as an adult.
My friend who kept going back to a man who is incapable of loving her and uses her for money isn’t trying to hurt herself. In fact, she is trying to help herself out of other circumstances in her life. Because of her family background, she has a life strategy of being very, very good and helpful, because love must be earned and the alternative is punishment. Her dream is that, if she earns love, she will be able to recover the lost state of being accepted for herself and the right to her own identity. In this “state,” she is vulnerable to interpreting small kindnesses or seductive behaviors as “love” and acceptance. Especially if the other person meets certain other criteria, like bearing psychological resemblance to her pathologically selfish father.
All of us have gone through these perfect-storm situations when the right stimuli and our old coping strategies come together to throw us into a “state” that seems exciting and redemptive. But for my friend, on her final encounter with this man, something new emerged from this relationship – a realization that she was deluded. She was understandably disoriented because this realization potentially affected not just this relationship, but the structure of her entire life. When she said “I don’t know what to believe anymore” or “maybe I’m just too stupid to live,” she is talking about cracks in the foundation. Not just in the way she understood the world, but even in her ideas about her own identity.
How much can we lose?
In dealing with the residue of a sociopathic relationship, we feel separated from parts of our identity. We talk about not being able to trust again or love again. We talk about the loss of ourselves as lovable or attractive people, as trustworthy to ourselves or others, as believers in the goodness of the world or in a benevolent deity. We have feelings – like bitterness, anger, vengefulness – that we fear or dislike in ourselves. It seems like our rules of social engagement, romance or personality integrity have become broken or unreal.
It is no wonder that many of us need time before we jump back into the world again. With so many basic realities up in the air, a larger question emerges. If the world is so different, if we are so different that what we imagined, then what is real? Or more importantly, is real about us?
As profoundly disorienting as this may be, it is also part of the grieving and letting go stage of trauma processing. Because as we start to allow ourselves to face irretrievable losses – like the loss of the person we loved and the loss of the dream that person represented – we often discover that those losses are just the superficial veneer over deeper losses we have not yet grieved and let go.
In my case, grieving the loss of this man also brought me to the realization that he, and all the other lovers of my life, were band-aids I used cover a very old wound. That was the too-early loss of supportive protection when I was a child. I saw how much of my life was constructed around my coping with impending danger, and especially in my search for safety and restoration of a sense that I belonged and was welcome in the world.
In healing, I had to revisit that child who still existed in me, who was still holding up the foundation of that now-dysfunctional room that welcomed my sociopathic lover as a savior. I had to grieve with her about the childhood she lost while I reassured her that I was taking care of her now. That she could drop that weight finally, stop holding together all those coping strategies like a little Atlas with the world on her shoulders.
If you had asked me five years ago who I am, I would have given you a list of all the characteristics I developed in that room. Hardworking, responsible, trustworthy, generous, tolerant, kind, polite, presentable – all “virtues” that were really highly developed skills to earn the acceptance and approval I needed to feel safe. If you had thought to ask me who I was underneath all of that, and I was feeling particularly honest, I would have told you I was scared and tired and alone. Chronically and unfixably, except for the temporary respites I got from diving into another relationship, winning some praise for my work, or buying or eating something that made me feel better.
Today, if you asked me the same question, I would just smile. The question doesn’t compute. I am my “states,” and yes, they still exist. I still have knee-jerk responses to the stimuli that remind me of my old “world of impending danger.” But increasingly, I recognize them as responses to trauma. I observe myself slipping in and out of these states, being tempted to behaviors that are band-aids for pain.
In getting outside these states, I stopped limiting my identity to characteristics based on arranging my life around impending danger. I freed myself to grow into a larger identity. It includes characteristics – like selfishness, undependability and anger – that were forbidden before. I am more fluid and accepting of myself and other people. But most important, I find that my center has shifted. It’s hard to describe who I am now, but it includes this “observer,” as well as more awareness of the world around me, and more openness to feelings of joy, awe, gratitude and compassion.
I let go of a lot of things. It wasn’t always easy. There was backlash from well-intentioned “rules” and critical voices designed to keep me safe in a world of impending danger. I had to feel my way along to discover what rules were reasonable and which were obsolete artifacts of coping with a scary daddy.
This process of letting go of parts of myself will, I believe, never end. But, to my surprise, it becomes increasingly enjoyable. I once grieved over the discovery that I was not always trustworthy and that, despite all the effort I put into it, I could not make everyone like me. Now, when some inner voice tells me “I have to” do something, my inner observer frequently pops up and decides whether that “state” is useful or whether we have better options. More and more, everything about me is optional, because every moment is new with new challenges and new opportunities that have nothing to do with my history or with some frightened little identity that is really just baggage from that history.
As far as impending danger goes, that’s another issue that we’ll discuss in a future article. Fear, the natural fear of the dangers of a random universe, is something we still have not addressed in this journey of recovery. Grieving and letting go paves the way for that next stage.
Namaste. The joyous awakening spirit in me salutes the joyous awakening spirit in you.
Kathy
P.S. I owe a debt of gratitude to the writing of Stephen Wolinsky, Ph.D., for many of the ideas in this article. You can find his books on Amazon.
written by Kathleen Hawk • Permalink •
shabbychic2 says:
henry: You made me laugh out loud with your definition of an S: “They are ticks on our ass, sucking the life out of us until we are empty and almost dead. Then they find another ass to bite.” OMG! So true! You have such a way with words!
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henry says:
we are easier to manipulate and control when we are sleep deprived, emotionally and physically drained – it’s part of their plan, they take great joy in torturing us.
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Kittycat3660 says:
wow, i never thought of this, asking me not to hate him and asking if i was going to kill him. This was so off the wall. I did change my locks. He would say each day “please dont hate me” and i could not get what he meant. In the end now i know. Funny a woman he used to live with wrote to me before this and told me he also was very mean to her cat. I chose to ignore all the red flags. He could go days without sleeping even though he took so many sleeping pills. I saw him take 7 benadryl once, that would have knocked me out for days. He had no respect for anyone spitting on their walls, and puking in their house. God, im glad he is gone. I never knew about projection. Wow, what an insight and henry that was good i laughed at that one too. He asked me if i hacked his email one day, i dont know even how to nor would i, the fact is he hacked mine. I found little items hidden in his back pack and he kept his suitcase locked. Freaking weirdo. It took me almost a month to get him out. thank god he is off my hands. thanks for the info.
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James says:
“**I don’t want to offend anyone, so I caution you….
it’s a really catchy, carnival like tune….but the lyrics are more ‘carnie’ like.
The title alone says it all “F–ck You” by lily Allen.”"
Juicy! Love it! and thanks!
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James says:
“I then asked about him and we talked about what he had been up to but then he brought it back around to me again.”
mo152
This part of your entry is what is very interesting insomuch that people who are “really” interesting in sharing and bonding would validate your desirer to know “what and how he is doing?” But instead he control the direction of this conversation back to you.
Has he changed? Good bet would be no, because none of us never really change we just learn new ways to manage and handle our life‘s. Our core personality is fixed. Even in therapy those with personality disorders keep that core personality but with the assistance of the therapist learn new ways to manage and handle their life and those who are nearest and dearest to them.
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Rosa says:
Sugar&Spice:
Your ex is a specialty doctor? I am sure he’s running a really slick game. Charm, wealth, & success are very seductive to most people. The title DR. screams “integrity” and “trustworthiness”. Makes it tough on you.
Finding a new church and making new friends is a SMALL PRICE to pay compared to what this man could potentially do to you.
I am assuming you do not have children with this man, and you are not in business together.
It is a no-brainer. Remove yourself from that situation.
If you are no longer in that church, maybe everyone will begin to see this guy for what he really is. Sooner or later, the mask begins to slip.
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James says:
slimone,
“She just couldn’t see how damaging and awful he was. And because it wasn’t ‘physical’–he wasn’t abusive and dangerous.”
It is this way of thinking by some people that really gets to me. No, they didn’t break my bones but my heart did break many times. No, they didn’t leave bruises on my face but my eyes were red and puffy with tears from his/her words to diminish and devalue me. No, he/she didn’t pull strands of my hair out of my head but they did destroy my own self-esteem and personal worth strand by strand!
When will these people ever get it?????
You don’t have to hit someone to hurt them deeply and these emotional scars take much longer to heal then broken bones…
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James says:
Kitty,
“I could not get it, and he told me i was the one that was hot and cold on him.”
These we call projections. You might to read up on this term.
“I was so confused and disoriented. I could not focus on work, my mind wandered, i started having panic attacks again, and got on medication which he helped himself to.”
Whenever we are exposed to a toxic material we get a reaction. This also happens whenever we are expose to a dysfunctional relationship. Your mind and body is reacting to someone in your environment that is toxic to you. One would avoid “toxic waste” so I wonder why so many times we don’t do the same whenever exposed to this type of a toxic dysfunctional relationship?
“I now know that he would have drained me emotionally and mentally, cheated on me most likely, ruined what was left of my esteem and in the end left me anyways.”
But I see you are getting all those pretty little lights coming on inside of yourself! Good for you!
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ErinBrockovich says:
Witsend,learned, sabrina:
Your all correct!
I sleep to keep my ‘power’ up!
I know he will NEVER go away!
I keep doing what it takes to protect myself and kids!
I will NOT LET him win the war!
I am prepared and continue to be.
I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes, for whatever it is I need to do!
I am determined, I am wise, I am not a victim, I will not stop my life for another minute of fear from him, I am aware, I am prepared and I won’t let him run me down, I will NOT give him that power over me!!!
I WILL TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!!!!
My benefit is he is stupid, but he’s the only one who doesn’t see it. I gave him power for almost 30 years, letting him use me and my ‘assets’, smarts, sense etc…and he thought they were all his…..NO THEY WERE MINE! I just loaned them to you for those years. He relied on me for anything that took brains, I enabled this.
This turned out to be an asset to me, leaving the S.
I took them with me and left him with his stupid self, just thinking he was successful.
He’s nothing now….NOTHING but a scrapper with a big ego….and a bigger mouth.
I know he is desperate….this is why he will never go away!
My kids ALL see it now…..by his most recent tactics!
I KNOW HIM, I have put together the pieces of his puzzle.
The downfall is, he never took the time…..or had it in him to get to KNOW ME!!!! BIG MISTAKE!!!!
Yes, he knows I am smart, a documentor, tenacious…..He knows (or should) that I would never take on a battle that I thought I couldn’t win, I lived by right is right and wrong is wrong. I would never disguise a situation just for a fight…..THAT IS HIS MO.
He likes the drama…..I will be the producer and make the executive production decisions!!!!
At some point I WILL BE ABLE TO SHUT HIM DOWN and RUN HIM OUT OF TOWN!!!! But I think this might take several ‘beatings’ from me legally to get into his brain.
He will go away, find another supply…..but I know he will forget and when he loses his ‘current’ supplier…..HE WILL COME BACK.
I WILL BE PREPARED! I WILL ALWAYS HAVE ONE EYE ON HIM!!!! Until his death! I have studied his ‘weather reports’, and I know how his typical storms hit. He is an open book, not capable of changing, he has done the same thing for 30 years. He obviously thinks it ‘works’ for him…..but I WILL WORK HIM!!!!
Like I said before…..and this was the gift of my illness….MY LIFE HAS CHANGED, I HAVE CHANGED WITH IT, I AM NOT AFRAID OF DYING…….Consequently the fear of fighting the S is not there!!! I WILL NOT LAY DOWN FOR ANYONE….
I AM LIKE A HEAT SEEKING MISSIL…..DON”T PROVOKE ME!
I have been inherantly aware of my highs and lows…I think the gift of the length of time this has gone on for me has taught me to minimize the highs, so I don’t fall so far on the lows. We refer to this a balance. I haven’t mastered it, but I have become pretty good at it. I am aware of the constant evolutions…..they are always present….this is where complacency begins….THIS was the ‘old’ erin….embracing new things has been my past few years…..and I really have no idea what the next few hours hold, so I have gotten good at ‘rolling with the punches’, something I hated in my ‘prior’ life! Again, not letting myself get to high (excited or looking forward), because everything was pulled out from under me at one point in the past few years……it could happen again. I realize this…..and as a protection for myself and my emotional state…..I am prepared to lose everything again…..BECAUSE I KNOW I ONLY HAVE MYSELF AND MY SHADOW….and quite frankly my shadow isn’t much help in trying times!!!!
The S had 30 years to figure me out….he didn’t take the time…..I have no mercy for him….He’s made some fatal errors in messing with me and our kids!!!!
I AM A MOTHER AND A WOMAN….I WILL DO WHAT IT TAKES, WHATEVER IT TAKES……IT ONLY MAKES ME STRONGER.
I know everything happens for a reason, this is confirmed to me every day…..I used to let it get me down when things would happen like I thought, or wanted or as quick as I thought it should….now I realize …..no worries KARMA WILL STRIKE, but I don’t decide when, where or how……..
IT WILL BITE HIM IN THE ASS……or will that be the sensation of BUBBA, or Matt’s ex biting him, when they are hangin with the feds????
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James says:
Erin
Thanks again for the song Flk U by Lily Allen!
Great song need to add it to my MP3 players.
And a Great song whenever thinking about our ex s/p….
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Kittycat3660 says:
thanks james, my little lights are going to be my life saver. xxoo
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Tilly says:
Sabrina,
My ex P used to do that whole “TV on all night in the bedroom” thing too! He would argue he wanted to watch some special show EVERY night. I had never had a TV in the bedroom in at home before. So I would wait till he was asleep then turn it off . As soon as it went off he would put it back on again to torture me. Then I would go sleep in the other room and he would come in and harrass me to go into his bed. Then, once I was in his bed he would do it all over again. Eventually, I had my own room, but still slept in his 50/50. The week or so before we split up, he did this whole scenario in the extreme so it was IMPOSSIBLE to sleep in his bed. In retrospect, i think he had already lined up his next victim ( a younger girl from India!), and he was trying to get me out. If only he had asked me I would have taken my dog and my things and gladly left. But he wanted to hurt me and be “in control’. I know that he was on the phone to his ex, “secretively”, every waking moment he was in the house with me. Probably planning the whole police drama they created. I AM SOOO ANGRY TONIGHT!!!
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Tilly says:
I still have a lot of trouble remembering exactly what happened and why. Its all so confusing and such a shock. Such a masquerade!
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sugarandspice says:
Slimone:
“She asked me how smart I thought it would be to tell someone else not to be scared when a big man-eating tiger was rushing toward them. Would I want to ‘help’ them disable their natural fear and revulsion, and thwart their ability to run to safety?”
It’s a big relief to have that feeling validated! That “got shakey and sweaty and uncertain and fearful” reaction was exactly what I experienced, frequently, because I kept dragging myself back to my church where he’d often be. Wow!
I saw a therapist a few times immediately after the break up. I remember she gave me a few tips to deal with the fear. She tried to teach me to basically rationalise my reaction to things eg ‘ if you hear a noise in your backyard late at night and you’re home alone, what different conclusions could you come to? a) its a burglar, so be afraid, or b) it’s your neighbour’s cat and there’s no need to be alarmed.. etc etc etc.
I tried and tried to get rid of my fear and discomfort around my ex-N/P by using these silly techniques to downplay it. What a waste of time!! and money!! It is good to know there was a very good reason for my sense of danger… I don’t think the therapist got it.
Rosa:
nice choice of words, yes I think my ex N/P is very slick and his success and status is seductive. Not to mention all the cred he gets in a church environment where all the old dears think that a Doctor must have a good heart and be a kind person. Not!! I remember catching the flu once when we were together. Ugh, what a nightmare. It was such an inconvenience to him.. We were travelling, and he seemed to resent me because suddenly I was weak and slowed him down. (So weak, so inadequate, so…. – these are the messages in my head from him that I have to erase still)
Rosa, James:
Your comments on it being a’small price to pay’ to leave that church and that group of friends is a great perspective for me to learn, because I’ve clung on tightly, thinking they are all I’ve got..
But I do want more – more out of life, and more out of my friendships, so if I keep repeating your mantra, I’ve got some hope of letting go of my security blanket in search of better.
Thank you all
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Rosa says:
Sugar&Spice:
You weren’t allowed to be sick because it was “an inconvenience to him.”
That is CLASSIC PSYCHOPATH!
This guy sounds like the “Drew Peterson” of the medical profession!!!!
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slimone says:
Mo152: Typical psycholothario remark! Classic brutal honest sharing of that kind…to infer other relationships in such a casual and thoughtless way– I got a pretty steady diet of that. And what has struck me in the aftermath is the pure off-handedness of the comments. Absolute thoughtlessness in regard to effect. As if they are entitled to be so non-self editing and indiscreet, because they are superior and ‘above’ all the pettiness and jealousy of the plebes. When in fact it is because they have NO CLUE how healthy people feel when faced with deceit and betrayal.
Sugarandspice: I felt validated too, when she pointed this out to me. I don’t know about other folks here, in regard to fear and the whole fight or flight feeling of seeing/interacting with their ex-tox’s. But somehow having this validated relieved some of my sense of weakness and ‘failure’. Instead I saw it as something more natural. AND I listened to it and have attempted, at all costs, to avoid ANY kind of contact.
I changed some of my routines, shopping routes, etc….BECAUSE I listened to what my body was telling me……DANGER, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!Instead of being embarrassed, I feel more informed. And that feels a lot more self-loving to me.
James: yeah, I think much of society has such contempt for the ‘world of the emotional body’, that we are in denial about non-physical abuse being actual violence. Most people I have spoken with do not have any understanding of the aftermath of psychological/emotional abuse. They use this as the line between a**holes, and REALLY dangerous people.
Funny, but so sad, that most people won’t understand until they experience it. I wonder how many walking wounded it will take till we get a substantial awakening?
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Jen2008 says:
“You weren’t allowed to be sick because it was “an inconvenience to him.”
That is CLASSIC PSYCHOPATH!”
Sure is! Wow, this brings back bad memories. My ex got so furious when I had the flu one time. Never mind the doctor said I had the flu. Nope–nothing wrong with me except I drank too many pepsi. He opened the cubbard and saw a box of hamburger helper that had fallen over and went beserk screaming at me about getting up off my not sick a@@ and cleaning and what a slob I was because of that one box. Think Sleeping With the Enemy here. My ever being sick was absolutely out of the question in his eyes. But let him sneeze one time and he expected to be treated as if he was on his deathbed. (ok, I like that thought!)
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Jen2008 says:
He also took my meds, including drinking my perscription cough syrup because it had hydrocodene (?) in it and he liked the stuff, and he did it in spite of my trying to get it away from him. I ran out of my meds because he kept taking them all and I ended up with early stages of pneumonia. But I STILL wasn’t sick and didn’t need the stuff–but he did need it of course!
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ember halo says:
i’m still having trouble… wondering if my soon-to-be-ex husband really is a sociopath, or if he just had a drug problem & is *truly* getting better… wondering if it’s for real, or if he’s doing an act so i’ll take it easy on him in the custody mediation… don’t plan on taking it easy on him at all though, regardless.
vacillating between playing the game with him long enough to fool him to thinking i’m fooled by his act–thereby getting what *I* want, which is him to not contest the divorce; calling it quits & going NC (which might piss him off enough to contest); or being open to believing what he’s saying–that his behavior was due to a drug problem…
i dunno. just so confused!!!
big red flag today–he gave me “terms of togetherness”!!!
lmao–yeah, like HE should get to set terms on ME, when HE’s the one that lied, stole, & was a total jerk…
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Jen2008 says:
Ember halo,
Sorry but I don’t remember your story or what drugs your soon to be ex might be taking. But just from my experience of being around drug use (the ex used for a long time and I didn’t realize it as he kept it hidden, then near the end started using in front of me), whether he is a socio or a druggie, either is bad news.
The thing with drug users is, they can hide it from you and “appear” to be getting better or off the stuff, when really they are still doing it. If he is using hard drugs, I wouldn’t count on him being off the stuff. Relapses are real common, even if they stop for awhile. I don’t know anything much about drugs other than cocaine and crack, but if he is using either of those, well, lemme just say that can result in some seriously BIZZARE behavior that could put your children in some serious jeopardy. Alot of people think crack users all end up on the streets and don’t work etc. Not true. Alot of regular crack users have jobs and led what on the outside appears to be fairly normal lives and that was a surprise to me as I had never been around drugs before. But I found out alot of his “friends” who were regular users had jobs, homes, etc. and families with kids etc. And some of them used frequently—as in every day or several times per week. So be careful in what you believe.
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ember halo says:
that’s another weird thing–his drug of choice was POT!
that’s not even supposed to be addictive, and he even admitted that he didn’t *want* to quit up until now–and that if it were legalized he’d probably start smoking again! said it made his life so much easier. hrrmph. didn’t make MY life any easier–supporting his habit & the family on my own. i always said i felt like a single mom to a surly teenager & an infant.
so… i’m thinking all the recent “niceties” are an act…
he has little hope of getting much, custody wise, unless i go easy on him… well, i don’t trust his words. i’m certainly NOT going to do anything differently in mediation because he *says* he’s changed!!!
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Rosa says:
The movie, “Sleeping with the Enemy” (Julia Roberts), is a “must see” for all of the women here at LoveFraud.
One of my all-time favorites. I have probably seen it close to 100 times.
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olderbutwiser says:
Hello To All,
I have been reading many of the posts on this website and, although I have yet to share my own personal experience, I do have a question regarding Dr. Hare’s book “Without Conscience”. I can’t decide which of the many threads is the best forum for my query so I just decided to pick one and go for it. I would be interested to hear if any others have felt this way about Dr. Hare’s book:
Although there was a lot of good information here, I must say I was more than a little disappointed, after reading “Without Conscience”, to discover that Dr. Hare seemed to focus almost exclusively on the “criminal” psychopath, that is, the “stupid” ones (for lack of a better word) who actually break the law and end up in jail or prison.
So many of the posts I’ve been reading here seem to deal with the more common theme of “love frauds”, that is, those “sub-criminal” psychopaths who prey on and manipulate loving, kind, altruistic, vulnerable romantic partners. To me these “smart”, cunning “sub criminal” psychopaths seem to be so much more prevalent in our society and they are the ones who wreak so much emotional havoc in our lives. They are the ones who get away with the destruction simply by virtue of their charm and their uncanny ability to be “good” and seemingly kindhearted just often enough….. that we come back for more, time and time again, hoping with all of our hearts that “this time it will be different”.
Any thoughts on this? I am going to order Dr. Brown’s “Women Who Love Psychopaths”, and I am hoping that her book will be more specific to the type of situation I have experienced. The healing process is so slow for me that I really need to hear that I am not an idiot for having fallen for this guy (and then stayed for 10 years). I tried to leave so many times, only to be sucked back in by the empty promises.
Thanks to everyone for any comments you may wish to share on this subject. Thanks also to all those who have shared their own stories of pain and recovery. They’ve been a great inspiration to me as I begin my journey back to strength and wholeness.
Best Regards,
Older But Wiser
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Matt says:
olderbutwiser:
Dr Hare’s research focused on criminal psycopaths because prison is “where the boys are” (apologies to Connie Francis). The fact of the matter is the subcriminal psychopaths are wired exactly the same way. So, at the end of the day, Dr Hare’s findings are absolutely applicable to the subcriminal psychopaths.
That doesn’t mean that the subcriminal psycopaths are any less dangerous or destructive than the criminal ones. Destroying people fiancially (ala Bernie Madoff) is every bit as bad as shooting them. Destroying people emotionally (lovefraud) is the emotional equivalent of physical rape.
I have an expression “same church, different pew”. I think that sums up any dealings with a psychopath perfectly. Their actions, regardless of the type or variety or regardless of where the psychopath ends up, in the end is designed to destroy their victims. Doesn’t matter if the psychopath ends up in prison or not, their victims all end up in the same place.
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olderbutwiser says:
Matt:
Ah yes….same church, different pew….well said. And you are so right that no matter where the psychopath ends up, we victims all end up in the same place….whether it be emotionally devastated, financially ruined and/or spiritually drained, we’re the ones who have to pick up the pieces while they go merrily along their debris-strewn paths, remorselessly adding to their collection of broken hearts and shattered lives.
What’s saddest of all, of course, is that there will never be a shortage of new “hosts” for these parasites. I am madder than hell and often find myself wishing someone exactly like HIM would come along and give him a taste of his own medicine, but that will probably never happen, since people like him are not capable of feeling the pain and heartache we do.
Ah well, all we can do is let them go and focus on our own healing, right? Thanks for your input Matt.
olderbutwiser
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Donna Andersen says:
Older but wiser,
Psychologists study the psychopaths in prison because it’s easy. They have a captive audience – pun intended.
Researchers can’t find the psychopaths who aren’t in prison. These psychopaths don’t go for treatment. They aren’t going to sign up for a clinical study because they don’t think they have anything wrong with them.
So, they experts study the jail birds. But Matt is right, the characteristics are the same.
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olderbutwiser says:
You are absolutely right of course Donna. Instead of admitting they have a problem, psychopaths are incredibly adept at “projecting” and convincing their victims that they are the ones with a problem. And boy, do I know that tactic all too well!
Looking back over the last 10 years, I am still amazed at my BF’s ability to charm everyone around him and put forth such a loving, caring persona while simultaneously wreaking pure havoc and emotional destruction in my life. How the hell do they do that!?
I so often feel that no one would ever believe me if I were relate all the myriad ways he has subtly undermined my sense of self. I struggle with my inner demons all the time: half of me desperately wants to “out” him and the other half (the Buddhist half) consoles myself with the knowledge that his own terrible karma will eventually do him in. And even if he never gets his comeuppance, it doesn’t really do me any good to put too much (wasted) energy into that train of thought.
I also realize that no matter what I do or think it would never change him anyway. The “public” face he displays and the number of people who say what a GREAT guy he is, have stood him in good stead for so long, that even I sometimes have a hard time believing his Jekyll and Hyde personality.
At this point I know I just need to move on and get my life back…….and that’s my only concern right now. Thanks again for all the feedback.
ObW
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Matt says:
olderbutwiser:
Read the archives. REad Martha Stout’s “The Sociopath Next Door.” Read “The Betrayal Bond” — this book has been a lifesaver for a lot of people on this site because it explains how these creatures get and keep their hold on us.
Bottom line — knowledge is power.
You are in the right place — everybody here will believe the havoc and emotional destruction he had.
Moving on is your only concern right now. You can take care of taking care of him after you take care of yourself.
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olderbutwiser says:
Matt:
Good advice. I have been trying to read as many of the archived posts as I can (without allowing it to become too much of an obsession;-) and am learning that the contributors to the lovefraud blogs do indeed understand and have a great deal of insight to impart through their own healing and recovery process.
I have no doubt that everyone on this site would have no trouble whatsoever believing me….and I think that being able to read so many validating posts just might be my ultimate saving grace. But I guess my biggest tug-of-war is going to be the struggle to overcome a desire to somehow get my P’s friends and family to “see the light”.
But, of course, that would be much too self-serving and as much as I fantasize about it, I have a feeling (knowing them as well as I do) that they would only look at me with either pity (as in “you poor thing, can’t you just accept the fact that it’s over and let him go?”) or utter disbelief and maybe even anger at my slanderous accusations.
So, your suggestion to focus on gaining knowledge through reading (as well as reflection) is a good one and I thank you for recommending the two books you mentioned above.
Whew! Hard to break away and actually get some work done (the paying kind anyway) but thanks so much for your insight.
I feel better already!
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ErinBrockovich says:
So I just got back from the courts…..i’m a regular!
It’s kind of sad to know that they know me by first name at the courts AND the police dept.
But….hey, one can not have too many people around!
Okay….something in my gut was telling me to call my cell phone provider…..Sure enough…..S was in a store, trying to charge a new phone to my account just a few minutes after we left the divorce hearing in court last wednesday.
CAUTION to all: Set up a password on all utility accounts, gas, power, water, sewer, credit cards, mortgages, landlords, cell phones, landlines, internet etc……IN ADDITION TO your ss#.
THANK GOD I did that early on…..but keep in mind, the PHD’s that work in the cell phone stores are so eager to make a sale….they will give out any password you set, in addition to any other information you DON”T want given out…..which compromises all security….DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD ON ALL ACCOUNTS!!!
I just REAMED my cell phone company…..they tried to back out of it…..BUT I PULLED AN EB ON THEM TOO!!!!!!
So tomorrow, I will spend the day contacting all my accounts and changing the passwords and ‘shaking’ it up. All because some fool gave out my information to the S at a cell phone store.
Thank god for recon work, and recon trolls.
It’s much easier than going with out lights, gas or anything else the S decides to try to get at!
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Matt says:
ErinBrokovich:
Also contact TRW, Equifax and Experian and put security freezes on all your credit reports and your kids’ too. A security freeze is not the same as a fraud alert, which lasts only 90 days. The security freeze is permanent. They assign you a passoword, and only you can authorize them to unlock the report and provide the information to a particular person/entity for a certain number of days.
In your shoes, I’d swear out a warrant on S for trying to steal your account.
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Matt says:
ErinBrokovich:
Question: How did you lock down your social security number? I’ve locked down all my credit reports so S can’t do much with it, but he still has it.
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housie says:
olderbutwiser,
Welcome to a VERY safe place. Feel the waters, develop your own comfort zone, and know that you are valued and understood. On another thread I spoke of my involvement with a P for 42 years. There IS life abundantly after this experience. I am 62 years young and feel alive for the first time in many years.
For the first little while on this blog, I just observed. Then, little by little, as I felt safe, I shared my story, and have been met by some of the most wonderful people – people just like me who are deserving of the best life has to offer.
Thanks for joining us as we trudge the road to happy destiny!!!
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olderbutwiser says:
Housie:
Thank you for your warm welcome. I Do feel safe here. And understood. That in itself is immensely comforting. As you suggested, I am taking the time to familiarize myself with the various threads and reading as many of the comments as I can. Once I’ve gotten a handle on how to condense 10 years of experiences into “encapsulated” form, I will share my story.
Until then I will continue to work on myself, love myself as much as I can and always look for the beauty in life. Happy destiny, indeed……
There’s nowhere to go from here but UP!
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learnthelesson says:
Hi Housie….
Ive been reading posts and missing some and catching up to old ones and then there are sooooo many after each post I read that I end up falling asleep late at night..
I just wanted to send you a smile and hugs…your posts have rays of sunshine in them…and lots of wisdom and the ability to express yourself as you are in the moment – painful ones and uplifting ones — Im glad you are here sharing and your post to olderbutwiser SAYS IT ALL!
Welcome Olderbutwiser….
Sometimes when Im here and Im down and out or confused or learning or confused…I feel like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz …only when I click my heels I say “Theres no place like LF…Theres no place like LF”
And the best part is when my eyes open its real and its true….Theres no place like LF!!!! Sorry you have to be here, but glad you are on a journey of a lifetime…Sociofree and ToxicRelationships Free!
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freshlyduped says:
Kathleen (or anyone else who is reading..)
What are the best books for reading up on narcissists? I want to know them to avoid them, just as I did with the S.
Also Kathleen, in one of your p0sts you talk about posting your online ad and not coming off as the submissive type who has had great career success – a definite magnet for sociopath. I went back to my online seld description and can totally see what the S would be attracted to. What would you recommend to put in your online ad? What way can I convey strength and boundaries?
Thank you and I hope you get this post since the last one posted 6 months ago!
FD
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justabouthealed says:
One of the best books on narcissists, as far as dating, is “When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself” by Keith Campbell. I reread it often.
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freshlyduped says:
thank you for the book recc. I am going to check it out. I am voracious reading this website as well as any books I can get my hand on. I’m mentally exhausted but trying so hard to understand this.
FD
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witsend says:
Another good book about narcissists is “Why is it ALways About You?”
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freshlyduped says:
Thanks. I’ve been on this website all of a week and I have put about ~15 books on hold at my local library – all recommendations from everyone on this blog. I’m voraciously trying to learn it all. I feel like I know sociopaths pretty well now but I’ve noticed that a lot of S have N characteristics and I don’t know too much about N’s. I’m thinking my S was an N also. By definition, they are self serving, so they would fit the definition of an N. I feel like I need to know the distinct definition before I start dating again for fear of not recognizing these red flags and then making excuses for them and bending over backwards only to be hurt all over again.
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justabouthealed says:
You might also enjoy “How to Spot A Dangerous Man” , though the other one I recommended is my favorite. I’ve read “Why is it Always About You” also, it is good, but Keith Campbell’s book spoke the most clearly to me.
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OxDrover says:
Dear Freshly duped,
ONLINE AD—-NONE, the “on line dating” thing is a POND FILLED WITH PREDATORS— if you are dipping into that ponod the likelyhood of geting a predator is VERY HIGH.
There are many reasons for this, first off someone can easily pretend to be anything on line, and you have no way of knowing if their presentation of themselves is right or not.
Predators camo themselves on liine, just like they do in the wild, “wolves in sheeps clothing” which by the way is a GREAT book by George Simon, Jr. PhD.
By usually living not close to these people you meet on line, the short amounts of time that you are able to spend with them in various situations and on the telephone allow them to keep up the pretense more easily.
At least if you meet some one in RL you can get to know them over a period of time, in various situations, learn about them, their friends, their co workers, their neighbors and more easily VERIFY that they are who they say they are,
However, a good con can even pull one over on you in RL if you are not cautious and take TIME getting to know someone and in order to do that you have to spend a great deal lof time with them.
I also (and I am no prude) recommend NOT becoming physically intimate with a partner for quite some time after meeting them, BECAUSE for normal people sex is a BONDING ritual that releases chemical bonding hormones and will more quickly TIE you to this person than if you are not having sex with them. That sexual intimacy is another HOOK in which they can get you more deeply involved more quickly and one in which they use frequently.
If a guy is too pushy about sex or you lose him, you have NOT lost anyone of any value, and in the meantime you have not possibly exposed yourself to STDs with this person. I also highly recommend that before sexual initimacy with ANYONE you SEE a COMOPLETE test for all STDS—and if a man or woman is not willing to wait, and is not willing to be tested AND not willing to use condoms, YOU DO NOT NEED THEM. RED FLAG!
That’s not paranoia talking, not prudery talking, that is a retired medical professional with a wide knowledge of the STDS out there that cannot be treated with penicillian—they are, unlike “true love,” FOREVER!
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one_step_at_a_time says:
I have a unsettling couple of hours. I could usually tell when my spath would contact me; some of it was habit and someof it was the sort of mental connection I form with some people.
I remember the 2nd or third time ‘his’ ‘sister’ contacted me via email – i was pacing before it came, cause I could feel ‘HIM’ (this was during the time ‘he was dead’, aka before the ressurection, SNORT!)
Well, I had the spidey thing a couple of hours ago, and it sin’t abating. ‘She’ has no way to contact me – email is diff, cell phone is diff, and although my phone isn’t locked down yet , ‘he’ would never leave a message, and i am not at home.
the spidey thing: at first i was a bit surprised when i felt it, then I thought, (because of all of my thinking about what spaths really are – a reflection, a mimic) i thought maybe i was just feeling a bit of happiness in response to myself.
but it’s nagged at me. and now i am being obsessive and that has taken me from my focus on my work. so, i though i’d use my lunch time to write a bit here and see if i could process this or circumvent it.
since all this came down in the last 2 months i have been walking with my head hung low and my chest caved. this is NOT my usuual way. I was walking home yesterday and i picked my head up and lifeted my chest and immediately began to cry at the realization of the amount of shame i must be carrying to cave so badly. nad i’s here/ not her, cause she hooked into old things in me.
I have also been having a lot of flashbacks the last few days – things said and done over time. hoping against hope that she at least got some sexual pleasure from our time together (i know, that’s twisty, but she was sooo convinving, and yes I know people can do that while reading the newspaper if they are a pro, and yes she is a pro con. sigh)
the sexuality mattered to me. a lot. and the ‘oddness’ of it was concealed behind the weird of it (to explain: i am down with weird, but the oddness – it was just strange – where ‘he’ engaged and when he didn’t.
and that goes for things i made for ‘him’ also. I remember writing to his sister that i thought perhaps he didn’t say much if somethign was deeply important to him – ‘she’ said that, yes, ‘she’ thought that was true. sigh.
he just had a stunted response to some things. although we laughed all the time and the conversations very emotional on his part, he often didn’t respond to MY emotions in a ‘volumetrically appropriate’ way; ‘he’ didn’t seem to know how important a thing was or wasn’t, didn’t respond at the right volume to a thing, although ‘he’ often got the right emotion. make sense?
when we first started to talk about sex ‘he’ used to say how he was all about service, was a submissive, and it was other peoples pleasure that mattered to him/ then it was that ‘he’ was not a selfish person, but that his illlness made it more an dmore impossible for him to do ‘his’ bit. DUDE, it was phone sex? Just how much stamina did you need? oh, so not a selfish person.
i wrote at that time that he had nothign to give – but he alsways framed it in terms of illness, and i have gotten more than one email that said, in one way or another, if you don’t like what you are getting, if two people didn’t ‘match’ then one should go as the other had an OBLIGATION to be tue to themsleves. i figure you can figure which player ‘he’ was in that equation.
ouuu, this stuff is flooding back. I AM very grateful for that. But not so grateful that I cannot fully address it cause i need to work today.. I have deicded to work as many hours every day to get my work done. The pressure to not go into reverie and be 100% on task is just too great. And it doens’t serve me and doesn’t work with my nature – which is to problem solve and figure the best way to do something.
i could just float awya in this right now…I still hold ‘him’ so deep within me, but it’s like a healing wound. I am integrating the bits of him that are me, back into me, and allowing ‘him’ and her to merge. And hopefully we go to she and i being separate and not alike. being that i am not a spath. and she is not ‘him.’ ‘he’ did NOT exist. but he did for me.
i loved him. today is a bit wild.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
feshly duped, and for evidence of ‘on line predators’ and how much fun that is, read MY post above.
(my spath used to talk about how ‘HE’ was prey. Man, I have learned a lto in a short while.)
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freshlyduped says:
oxy and one step
I totally agree w/the sex thing. I have that down (withhold it!). I’m not one to give that up early. And neither did my S. He made some BS up about not wanting to ‘just have sex’ and wanting to make love instead. lol. what a good wolf he was, just knowing what to say. he even went to get condoms and never initiated and always aimed to please me first. he was good with that which makes me think he just didn’t want me for the sex. It was the companionship and love and support and whatever else I’m still trying to piece together in my mind. Or just knowing that he was duping me with 3 kids and a wife at home whom he was obviously unhappy with…? b/c I was the weak and vulnerable one that he sought after.
I met my S in real life- so I totally agree about the online thing. There are a lot of predators out there but until my experience with the S these last 3 months, I didn’t realize how big of a pool there really is. It’s a bit scary. I really don’t know where to meet people anymore. I want to settle down and start a family. I am not at the “trusting” stage of healing yet. I realize the TIME you have to put in to get to know someone. It is long and arduous and that’s probably the hurt that comes along with it, knowing that you’ve invested so much time and energy and soul – only to realize it was all fake? So I can’t imagine snagging someone online and moving at an even slower speed. it would take years to get to know them…
Today I had a lot of flashbacks about all our conversations. I have been going through shocks after realizing a lot of the supporting ‘fake talk’ was fake and just there to boost my ego, or get me to bond with him more. My body reacts physically and my heart starts racing and I get a PTSD moment where I’m losing it. They love to mirror us, because they admire us. Everything I did, he did too. No wonder why I thought we had so much in common! LOL. Any conversation or newsworthy info, he had some parallel comment in his life that made me think, wow, he’s having the same feelings and moments I’m having. I told him I went for a run after work (i’m a runner) and pretty soon, he’d start saying that he had to go for a quick run before the day is over. I used to think, ‘oh really? when did you start running?’ I never questioned those little weird moments. and now they are all flooding back to me.
I SO understand the no contact and truly believe that is the ONLY way to go. I get that. I wish I didn’t have to see him at work. I was off work today and will be off tomro too. I went to the bookstore to read “without conscience by robert hare” today and I felt so good afterwards. If I had a wand to wave him away for the rest of my life, I would. I wish I could do that in my head. I want to see a hypnotherapist to get him out of my head. Do you think it’s worth it or do you guys believe in that?
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OxDrover says:
I’m not sure a hypnotherapist would work, but what the heck, it couldn’t hurt anything. I hope though that before you try the hypnotherapy and quit thinking about all this, as really there is no short cut to grief, you will try processing some of this–not so much about HIM as about you, why did you fall for this, etc.
the thing is, there is a BIG LIFE LESSON in this relationship for you, so that you never fall for it again, Mr. NEXT P, in other words.
I think that lesson FOR ALL OF US is very important and knowledge is power—why not stay around here and read and learn. go back through all the old articles in the archives and read about the ps, and then read about healing, etc. there is a lot of good information there that will forearm you for the next one you meet….and belive me, yoiu will get to know more in the future, but learning about them, learning th elessons they have to teach us, is PRICELESS.
You got out “easy” this time, no kids, no joint mortgage, hadn’t put him through law school, etc etc. so you know what, you got a scholarship to the school of hard knocks for a short course, I would get all the “learning” out of this one I could, so you dont’ flunk the next course and have to pay full tuition.
Think about it. (((hugs))))
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freshlyduped says:
I woke up with several panic attacks and anxiety this morning. He invaded my dreams all night. There were pictures of him holding his baby son being shown to me and I woke up startled. I hate this. I know I have to go through it. I’m not sure why this is so difficult for me. maybe it is about me. Maybe my dreams are telling me that I should not be so vulnerable next time. I am on LF all day, reading article after article. Last night I came across a few that helped me understand why and how not to to miss the ‘good moments’ b/c he just help create them, not necessarily participating in them emotionally even though it may have seemed like it. So that got me through the night and I slept happy. But awoke to my subconscious reverting back to the realities of my brush with satan.
(((
I need to focus on the positive and see what good can come out of this. other than learning how to identify and avoid them, what are the other lessons….there is just no way in hell I am going through this again in my life. I know it was short. he just got my heart. I dont have to split a house, kids, money, etc.
As much as I am addicted to LF, I sometimes feel anxiety when I come to this website b/c I associate it with him. I’ve been doing well with NC and so coming onto this website makes me feel like I am in a way having ‘contact’ with him.
thanks for your supportive post.
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Twice Betrayed says:
freshly duped: I understand what you are saying. Your wounds are still too fresh to take too much info at a time. Let yourself go at the pace you can progress. Try not to ‘overstudy’. Just take it easy. Do things that are clearing for your mind=a nice trip to a place you enjoy [even if only for a day close by], some music that releases your feelings, friends that can just be quiet and close by, animals that you feel healed by….small or large, movies that do not require heavy thinking=drama, pretty scenery, sleep and rest yourself one step at a time. When your thinking is overwhelmed by your emotions tell your mind to step into the reality of the situation. Time will gradually erase these feelings until you can step into the situation in a more ‘clinical’ frame of mind and believe it or not….someday you will find humor in it even…..sarcastic humor maybe, but humor nonetheless. *Do as little as you need to and as much as you feel like. No more/no less. This is what I have experienced and is working for me. A few days ago I passed another hurdle. I felt it….I no longer find him in my dreams….I am passing this….I felt the shift in gears.
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OxDrover says:
Freshly duped, TB has some GREAT advice for you! At your own pace, and the not “over styding” ia a good idea too. Just a little ach day, there’s a lot to take in, and it IS about YOU, not him! (((hugs))) and God bless you!
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freshlyduped says:
TB and oxy
Today I took Oxy’s advice and decided to focus on ME instead of him. I wanted to know what was it about me that allowed Mr. S into my life and how I didn’t listen to that voice in my head when I started to see the selfish behavior, inconsistencies, and eventual lies. I think a lot of these things have to do with my upbringing. Raised by a single father after my mother left us (still have not found her, it’s been 30+ years), he was very much a controlling parent who gave me conditional love (gave it if I was good but took it away when displeased) and took a lot of his grief from his childhood and failed marriage out on me. Ten years later my dad remarried a woman I was forced to call “mom” and embrace her as if our family did not have a break in it. He wanted it to look perfect on the outside to everyone else. I did as I was told and never spoke my opinion. I was betrayed also since my father had told me that my biological mother had died vs. voluntarily leaving. He didn’t want to explain it to me and to this day never has admitted that to me (I found out through a family member) Growing up, I was never allowed to show anger and that’s where my inability to set boundaries began. I realize this is where my source of self doubt, lowered expectations and confidence, as well as the feeling of being unloved stems from. I understand where these insecurities as an adult come from and can now work to make things a little better. I need to practice showing my anger and thus developing my sense of self and esteem/confidence. What a revelation today to be able to logically understand what my childhood experiences have lead me to be as an adult.
and the best feeling – this has nothing to do with him and I can work to make myself better for my life and my future without having to dwell about how I’m going to get over him in my head. He seems so trivial compared to revelation.
Thanks TB for your advice. I am a very goal oriented person and will usually stop at nothing to solve things if it is not right. Especially when I have anxiety. I don’t like waking up drenched in sweat and knowing that he haunted my dreams all night. I am just so eager when I come home to sit at the computer and read, read, read LF. I love all the articles and insight. I’m learning so much and feel like a sponge, soaking it all in. My own pace = overstudying unfortunately…
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