After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 10 – Forgiving
PDF This article talks about work we do when we are ready to work on clearing the influence of betrayals from our minds and emotional systems. It is about recovering our feelings of safety in the world and moving forward to create better and happier lives. Those of us who are still battling our betrayers, still clarifying our feelings of outrage or still developing our self-defensive skills may feel outraged by the very idea of forgiving. And so they should. Forgiving is something we do “at our leisure,” later when we have the time to think about restoring our emotional systems to a pre-warzone state. Ultimately we want to be positive, creative, optimistic people — without ever forgetting the lessons we learned in our histories. This article is about what we do, when we’re ready to put it all behind us. — Kathy
“Forgiveness is a dangerous passage.” This is a quote from an unknown source on the white board on my office. It’s been there for years and every time I think about cleaning it off, I think “oh not yet.” The temptation to forgive for the wrong reasons is something I don’t want to forget.
In this tenth article of this series on recovering from traumatic relationships, we will discuss the process of forgiving. It is a bridge between the grieving/letting go and the rebuilding phases.
Why bother?
A lot of people have a lot of opinions on forgiveness. Most religious or spiritual disciplines will tell us that forgiving is essential to our spiritual health. On a more mundane level, we may we aware that our friends and supporters are losing patience with our extended healing process, or may be pressuring us to get over it. On a more personal level, we may want to reenter the world without all this emotional baggage that makes us so hyper-conscious of potential threats that we have a hard time seeing or taking advantage of opportunities for good experiences.
In my mind, the only reason to ever consider forgiving is that we want to free out minds of the residue of anger that hangs on after we grieve and let go. There are other benefits we get out of forgiveness, but the first motivation has to be to improve the “quality of life” in our own minds. It’s a matter of our relationship with ourselves.
In addition, I believe there are a few prerequisites to really forgiving anything. The most important of them is that our suffering is fading. (That doesn’t mean that we’re not still dealing with repercussions of some sort, but that the level of pain has diminished to the point where it’s less important than our desire to get over it.)
The other one is that we have the stability and presence of mind to know that we can forgive without getting back into the situation that caused us all this pain in the first place. If we’re still attracted to that situation or others like it, we’re leapfrogging ahead to forgiving before we’ve done the preliminary work of getting angry at our betrayers, developing defensive skills, and facing the fact that there are things we just cannot fix or change.
What is NOT a good reason for forgiving is some sort of social expediency, because we have to deal with our betrayers or with other people who are not sympathetic or pressuring us to get over it. There are other ways to handle that situation.
Here are some of the things we may be thinking as we approach forgiving:
• These angry or frightened feelings don’t have any place in my life anymore. I want to move on.
• I’m ready to find more interests than this bitterness
• I want to clean up my emotional system so I become more positive and optimistic
• I’m starting to remember how I felt before all this happened, and I want to recover some of that joy of life.
• This just isn’t worth the energy I’ve been giving it
But to forgive, we have to overcome one major obstacle. Fear. Forgiving is actually part of overcoming fear. But we have to face it head on too.
Fear and forgiveness
The progress of healing involves us becoming more and more real about what happened and how we feel about it. In anger, we get closer to recognizing our fear, but our reaction is to throw things at it – blame, threats, vengeance, work on fixing things so it never happens again. In grieving and letting go, we accept the specific losses that we have endured. While that is good work, it also clarifies our vulnerability to random events or to specific threats in the world. We may work on accepting that vulnerability, along with our other losses, but it doesn’t change the fact that it exists.
And so now, our increasing awareness of the costs of our vulnerability raises a new issue. How do we live with the fear?
This question makes sense of all we’ve been through to process the trauma. We may have dabbled with fear in our processing. Asking ourselves “what if” this or that. What if no one ever loves me again? What if I am really too stupid to live? But we never sat down to really look it hard in the eye.
Because fear is an extremely uncomfortable emotion. In fact, if we look at all the so-called negative emotions, including shame and guilt, and do enough digging down, we find fear at the bottom of them. Other than love, it is the most fundamental emotion. And it is the antithesis of love or connectedness. We literally can’t feel love and fear at the same time. One will overtake the other.
Fear is designed to stop everything else until it is resolved. It generates the noises of anxiety and need for immediate relief, while blocking or compromising our ability to see into the future, our ability to fully recognize and enjoy what is around us, and our ability to take the normal risks involved in forward movement in our lives. It eats up our energy in a million ways and drives us toward behaviors that are about nothing but self-protection and relief from the mental noise.
This is why facing and acknowledging the fact that we are afraid can be such a powerfully transformative thing, all by itself. It is a form of clearing away all the intermediate structures of trauma-processing and getting down to the center of it in a totally authentic way. So we are no longer lying to ourselves or pretending. So that we are no longer trying to talk ourselves into irrational ideas about being stronger or safer than we are. So that we are finally clear about the fact that the universe whacked us and we don’t know when it will whack us again. It is out of our control.
This is tough stuff, the toughest of the entire grief process, and until we are ready for it, we can’t do it. Our minds won’t let us. We will slip and slide away into denial or bargaining or anger or another round of grieving and letting go, all the things that we know made us feel better than the stage before. And that is fine. Our minds have their own wisdom, and we face this issue when we have the structural underpinning in place to do this. It’s why the healing process is progressive.
But one way or another, when we come to think about forgiving, we’re going to run into this issue. How can I safely forgive if I really don’t know when I’m going to be facing the same thing again, or something worse? Or vice versa, how can I experience my fear if I’m relaxing my angry alert and protection systems by forgiving?
This trauma was nothing compared to the first one
The experience of trauma is built into our emotional histories. In a way, every trauma we experience is a replay of the primal trauma that every child experiences, the transition from life inside the womb to life out of it. It is the fundamental “expulsion from the Garden of Eden” which transfers us from a situation where we are fed, warmed, held, connected to our source to a new situation in which we are separate and dependent for our survival on things that are out of our control.
The developmental activities of the first four years are actually about the child navigating that separation to acquire certain basic intellectual perspectives and emotional skills necessary to healthy personality formation. It is our first experience of trauma processing. It occurs both on a macro level of gradual emotional acceptance of separation from the “source” and on a detail level of dealing with separate events that trigger fear, disappointment and uncertainty. If all goes well, we maintain steady bonds with our caretakers that allow us to ease into independence, self-soothing skills and the beginnings of empathy.
So we “know” what trauma means from a very early age. One way of describing trauma is that it is an unexpected breach of the rules we took for granted. Or the rules we depended on for our survival and sense of security in the world.
A whole series of emotional reactions to this breach are reasonable and normal. All the emotional stages we discuss in trauma processing, as well as others that we have not discussed in depth, such as feelings of betrayal, rejection or shame. If we go back to the nature of the first trauma, it makes sense that we would feel offended. One day our life is one thing; the next thing it’s another. What are we supposed to think? At minimum, it would be reasonable to think we are being unreasonably screwed with.
This brings us back to the primal argument. Because who, ultimately, is screwing with us? To cut a long discussion short, our big argument is not with any one persecutor in this world, not our parents, not our selfish lovers, not with the truck that hit us. It’s with God or the universe, or however we look at the overall intelligence that organizes this place. Because clearly that big intelligence has forgotten that we were previously important enough to have the suite at the center of the universe, and for reasons not made clear, we have been demoted to just one small, helpless life form in this place full things and life forms that clearly do not recognize our centrality.
Welcome to the first time we felt the fear of being vulnerable and alone. And to the basic human challenge of living with those feelings at the same time we experience love, trust, some kind of internal dignity, and the ability to risk moving forward with our lives.
There is no human being who has not been through this. And there is not one of us who doesn’t live with this challenge on a daily basis in some part of our consciousness.
It’s important to know this, because as we move forward with dealing with our own fear, we also know that some people have found ways of managing it more effectively than others.
The cost of doing business.
We have these bodies. They have their own intelligence and they want to survive. Our spirituality has its intelligence. Our intellect has its intelligence. Our emotional system has its intelligence. (See Daniel Goleman’s books on various forms of intelligence for wonderful discussions of this topic.) They are all integrated and mutually supportive, but the body is the instrument and the house where it all plays out, and one of the body’s primary vocabulary words is fear.
We cannot get away from this, but we can decide what we’re going to do about it. And that is where forgiving comes in.
There are a lot of dictionary definitions of forgiving, but for our purposes in this article, we are going to experiment with a new one. That is, making a decision about how much energy we want give to a certain source of fear in our lives.
This is not about minimizing the damage or our struggle to get over it. It is not about condoning other people’s bad behavior or the real dangers we face in the world.
Rather it is about recognizing something about ourselves. We have done all reasonable work to identify the problem, to protect ourselves in the future, to let go of what we have discovered is now gone, and to face our fear. We know what we are afraid of. Now, we consider a decision about reclassifying the issue as something we may or may not run into, something that is (to some degree) out of our control. We begin to consider whether or not we are served by continuing to let fear of this thing drain resources that could be spent on positive forward movement.
Forgiving is not the same as denial, because we make this decision with full awareness of our losses and our future risks. It involves no forgetting. We respect all the information we have gathered, in case we need it again. We respect all the feelings we have gone through, because they are part of the truth of this experience. We just decide to start withdrawing our energy, turning off that faucet, and shifting our attention to other things.
What forgiving is and isn’t
Forgiving is a decision we make and then gradually follow through, adapting that decision to our own comfort level. It is a decision we make from a position of power over the one thing we truly have power over, our own choices. Especially that supreme choice of where we place our attention.
Forgiving is something we do, knowing that we cannot totally control fear, because our bodies have their own agendas and they will generate fear if they feel it is necessary. So it also involves a deal with our bodies that we will listen to their fear, that we will not become airy-fairy pseudo-Buddhists who try to stuff their fear because they think it’s unfashionable. But we make a deal with our bodies that it’s better for the entire organism if we manage our fear, reducing our investments in fear about things we already know about, and saving our big extravaganzas of fear and anxiety for the surprises.
Forgiving is about trust at two levels. First, trust that certain bad things will happen. We can look at this statistically, if we’re inclined. A certain fraction of people we meet will be destructive emotional cripples. A certain fraction of things we buy will turn out to be unusable junk. A certain number of conversations with our relatives will include uninvited comments about our choices, our characters or our weight. Trusting that these things will happen eliminates the surprise factor and enables us to plan around these statistical likelihoods.
Second, forgiving is also a kind of trophy we get for doing the work and coming out the other side of the trauma processing. In that sense, it is about renewed trust in ourselves and in the universe. What was once a huge deal is now fully digested and just a learning experience attached to some unpleasant memories. We are whole again and on generally good terms with the big intelligence that runs everything.
In all of this, you’ve probably noticed how little I’ve talked about the perpetrator. And I’m sure you understand why. Because this is really something between the various forms of intelligence in ourselves, and it is something between us and the big intelligence that runs everything.
But still we need to get down some practicalities too. So here is what forgiveness is NOT:
• It is not condoning or acceptance of anything we find hurtful, unethical, uncaring or anything else that is bad for us. (We may find ourselves releasing negative feelings about something, when we come to understand why it happened, but we don’t have to. This is not ultimately about them. It is whether we’re ready to move on.)
•It is not about compartmentalizing or denial. We are not “stuffing” it or pretending it never happened. We’re not trying to convince ourselves that we haven’t just been through a battle or deluding ourselves that we’re more powerful than we are. We are just gradually shifting our attention away from it, as we feel comfortable doing so. We are gradually reclaiming our interest in other things.
• It is not a reason for re-involving ourselves with people or situations that hurt us. We don’t forgive so we can jump into that pool again. The only reason we would do that is if we have evolved past the point of being hurt by what hurt us before (something that doesn’t often happen) or if the person or the situation has gone through some kind of cosmic surgery and is now something else. Remember, forgiving comes AFTER we have learned self-protection in the angry phase and let go of whatever got us into this situation. If we forgive because we want to do the same thing all over again … well, you don’t need me to tell you what you’re volunteering for.
• Likewise, it is not a social cure. If we’re forgiving because we’re embarrassed about being such a bore, or because our bad feelings are alienating our families, or because we want to get along better with people who just don’t get it, we victimizing ourselves all over again. We’re giving away our authority over our own feelings, and trying to force ourselves to feel something we don’t, in order to be accepted. If it’s really important that we not communicate the full force of the outrage or grief we’re dealing with – like in a work situation or in court — we can do that. We can selectively choose where, when and how much we share, while we continue to work through our trauma privately. The ability to do this — letting some people in and keeping others out — is good practice in developing the skills of conditional trust.
• There is no reason that we have to forgive people to their faces or even let them know about it. In fact, if we’re really ready to stop wasting energy, we probably won’t. We don’t just stop bothering with them in our heads; we stop bothering with them in real life. We avoid engagement. If we have to spend energy on some kind of mop-up or dealing with continuing drama from their side, we handle it with an eye toward ending all of it, because we want to be done with it.
Finally, forgiving is not an all-or-nothing thing. Nor is it a carved-in-stone solution. We don’t say, “Oh, I’ve decided it’s not worth caring anymore about what he (or she) did to me, and now I have to not care about the new thing he (or she) is doing to me.” It doesn’t work that way. Forgiving is a way of allocating our own resources. If new circumstances require us to grab a sword and slay a few dragons before dinner, then we do it. After we come home and shower, we can decide whether we’re ready to forgive the loss of our afternoon, or if we need to spend more time processing that little irritation.
And if we absolutely feel like we must announce our decision to forgive to the sociopath, here’s a suggested forgiveness note:
I’ve decided not to give you any more attention. I’m not going to track you down, hire a hit man or sue you for theft or mental suffering. I’ve dealt with my losses by myself. But don’t confuse this with weakness. The next time you show up, it won’t be such a pleasant or profitable experience for you. I also advise you to you grow up, for your own sake. Not everyone is as forgiving as me. As Henry the XV said to a murderous friend, “I pardon you, but I also pardon whoever kills you.”
In the next article, we begin on the wonderful topic of becoming who we want to be.
Namaste. The wise emotional accountant in me salutes the wise emotional accountant in you.
Kathy
written by Kathleen Hawk • Permalink •
Advocate55 says:
As I have started to understand the ‘forgiveness’..this article surely has brought me to a greater understanding of healing through the process of forgiveness. I thank you for that this important information.
Over the years, so many things have happened to me and walking in forgiveness enables me to move forward, even though the person continues to do certain things that are very emotional damaging to me and my family.
Having a strong faith system in place, supported by friends and family and joining groups such as this, only bring greater levels of healing to myself.
Even the sharing of my story is healing. Because of the trust being broken over a period of 16 years..trust is another major area of my life, that continue to heal. Without trust, I cannot enter into any relationship, with strong faith I can.
Truly healing from all kind of abuses, betrayals, etc..is a journey of healing, one day at a time.
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Kathleen Hawk says:
Advocate, thank you posting. Your faith is inspirational.
I want to say something that I’m not sure I said well enough in the article. This was not about forgiveness, the state, but forgiving, the practice. And the kind of forgiving we’re talking about has nothing to do with them. It’s choosing how much we want to think about this.
You said this person is continuing to act in hurtful ways. This is a very difficult situation, because it’s not healthy to ignore a new trauma. You have to pay attention to it, check out the damage, make sure you’re okay. And at minimum, have a little grieving-and-letting go session for the peacefulness that was lost to this event. Then, if you want, you can decide that you’re not going to give it anymore head space.
Maybe you can. But maybe you’ve got a continuing problem that will require more attention from you. I mean, it’s not enough to find a way to tolerate continuing abuse. I don’t think it is. Not if you’re actually planning on having a life that is happy and fulfilling.
I don’t know your story. I don’t know what you mean when you say this person’s actions are emotionally damaging to you and your family. But maybe you can do something about your reactions. Maybe you can reframe the situation somehow so that you don’t care. Like coming to a personal conclusion that this person is simply deranged and not worth paying attention to. Or find some smart, little strategy to neutralize this particular type of emotional damage. Like if that person is spreading lies about you, you just role your eyes if someone reports them to you, and say, “Oh, that’s typical of so-and-so” and walk away or change the subject.
Trust will heal in you when you are more certain of your ability to take care of yourself. If you aren’t yet, you might be jumping the gun on trying to forgive. I know we all do these things in our own order, but I really do believe that having good defenses and a refined awareness of what problem people look like is the biggest step toward recovering trust in ourselves. And when we trust ourselves, it’s easier to have a little more confidence in the rest of the world.
The other thing about trust is that it’s not a state. Like forgiving, it’s a practice. As we go back into the world with this new knowledge, we are also smarter about trust. We trust conditionally, but not permanently or completely until someone has really earned our trust over time. Or we are “trust neutral,” being friendly but careful, until we have enough time with that person to see whether they are trustworthy. But in all of this, we are fully prepared to withdraw anytime we discover that our trust is not earned.
This is what we learn in all of this. And it enables you to not wait for trust to be restored. But simply to learn new habits. It is a journey of many steps, and it sounds like you’re working on it.
Thanks for posting.
Kathy
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Rosa says:
Hi 2Much2Take:
It sounds like the mask is gone. You are seeing him for what he really is. That is a huge step. It took me forever to get out of the FOG.
You also found LoveFraud, which is huge.
I have learned things on this site that I did not even plan on learning!!! LoveFraud is like a treasure chest filled with little nuggets of wisdom, healing, and comfort, especially during a time like what you are going through now.
I don’t know the details of your relationship, so I don’t know how difficult it will be for you to get away from this man. But, you are realizing that you “desperately need to get out”. Again, that is HUGE.
I would tell you to start reading and educating yourself as much as possible. OxDrover said it, “Knowledge is Power.” And what you need right now is to emPOWER yourself to get out of a toxic relationship.
“Has punished me for leaving him once before.”
Please be careful 2Much2Take. This man sounds like he could be dangerous.
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2MUCH2TAKE says:
Hello~ I posted on another part mistakeny! So, in case you don’t see it I just wanted to say Thank You. I read what you people wrote and cried. First time in a long time. I could FEEL something. Understanding. I know I have much work to do. I needed to be validated. No one else knows how smooth these people are. He has never hit me. Just extreme mental and emotional abuse. He is kind to everyone else. Goes overboard to be nice. Buys their loyalty. Then when I erupt, they think it’s me. He has exploited me for years. I am left morally, spiritually, emotionally and mentally bankrupt. But I finally feel like a part of who I am is rising out of the ashes. I will be around, I think I am going to start at the begining of these chapters and try and empower myself. Knowledge IS power. I had no idea whatsoever people could be so cruel. Never, ever, ever, again. So much of what you guys said resonates to the core of me. Trust condidionally. I have no trust. In myself or anyone else. The longer I am away from him, the better I do. And Rosa, I think you are right. I don’t think he would hurt me if I socialized, however, I think the people I socialize with would be a target. Especially if they were men. Thanks, Ox, Shabby, Escapee (LOL), and Kathy your wisdom is truly a tool to become free. God grant me that blessing. Thanks, I have some reading to do!
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geminigirl says:
I am finding it almost impossible to forgive my daughter, as she has never once apologised for any of the truly rotten things she has done to me. Ive asked her for one apology to cover all the abusive incidents,[too many and awful to list here}, but she has never replied to this request, and I dont suppose she ever will, as in her eyes she id faultless and blameless. In the past she has managed to 'gaslight" me and make me the awful, selfish person, even as I {foolishly] continued togive her huge sums of money and fall for her lies yet again.I cant get closure if she refuses to say sorry,I cant get over the anger, [mainly at myself for letting her sucker punch me time after time.} She wont reply to my letter, setting boundaries,so I have no choice but to go NC. Im doing quite well,-it was hard on her Birthday, but I reminded myself that she has never ever even sent me a card on my Birthday!
Her ex husband is seeing a psychiatrist, after 15 years of lies from her, he is screwed up too.he isa great guy, and has promised to bring the kids over when we get back from our Holiday.Maybe I cant forgive her, but I can forgive myself, and make myself a promise, NO MORE! and permanent NC, even tho I still worry about her. I know she doesnt give a rats arse about me, or David!! Love, and thanks, geminigirlXX
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shabbychic says:
geminigirl: amazing that you have asked for ONE apology, and she won’t even do that, how sad, for you and her. I am also working on forgiving myself for letting people walk all over me. Good to hear that you will be able to see the kids, that makes me happy!! Stay strong and follow your heart.
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geminigirl says:
Thanks, shabby chic!No, she wont even give me one. I asked for a blanket apology for all the rotten things she has done,{the worst being to ban me from her wedding in 1994,} She was 8 months pregnant, the wedding was doomed anyway,-her poor long -suffering husband stood it as long as he could, and got out 3 years ago. She invited my present husband,and my ex,but told me I was banned! Id just sent her $1,000 as a wedding present!
The only way I could cope with my breaking heart was to take myself off to Greece for 3 weeks by myself.Ive come to realise they have No conscience, are never wrong,everything is always the other persons fault.You cant reason with them. Thanks to all you great guys on Lovefraud, I am finding this NC gets easier by the day, I am feeling happier, and more at peace, and my bank balance is recovering! Im still scared of her ringing up in tears, as in the past, her tears ,{crocodile or otherwise} have torn at my gut. Im determined that if she rings me, I will say,”Until and unless you agree to my boundaries, ie, apologise, then I dont want to have anything to do with you. Goodbye!”.That way, the door is not completely closed, but the ball is firmly in her court. Another thing,-can anyone tell me what is the long term future for NSs? As they run out of suckers to use, flounce out of one too many jobs,[because it was the bosses fault}cant pay their bills and rent, and cant sucker punch family any more, what is to become of them? It cant be a good future for them!Much love and thanks! geminigirlXX
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Kathleen Hawk says:
geminigirl, don’t worry about forgiving. You can’t do it, because you’re not there yet. There is a path, a sequence of healing. That’s why I wrote these articles in sequence. We may be doing different parts on different threads of our lives. So you might be ready to forgive some other things. But with your daughter, you’re in another part.
It’s really important for you to be doing the anger stage right now. You have been accepting so much bad treatment without taking care of yourself. And now you’re drawing a line.
You are identifying her as the problem, not you. You’re no longer taking responsibility for her rotten behavior. You didn’t cause it. You can’t fix it. The only relationship you could possibly have to it is to be a victim. And you’ve decided to stop doing that.
The angry phase sounds like it’s just one thing, getting mad. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s also about recognizing in ourselves the feelings that rise when we’re threatened, when someone is going to hurt us or take something from us. Because you want to learn how to act when it occurs. Instead of accepting and accepting, and then having all the toxins of this built up resentment in your emotional system and your body.
Right now, you’re dealing with a lot of backed-up anger. And that’s good. You need to go through it as much as you need to, event by event, and say “This was not right, not fair to me, not respectful to me as a person. And this was bad for me.” That is a good definition of bad. If something is bad for you, it’s bad. You don’t have to second-guess yourself or apologize for how you feel. It’s very simple.
And if it’s bad for you, you are entitled to defend yourself or do whatever you have to do to get this thing out of your life, and to preserve your health, your resources and your mental wellbeing.
That’s another part of the angry phase, developing those skills. Part of it is just saying “no.” Which is what you’re saying to your daughter no. No, I don’t want this in my life. No, this doesn’t work for me. No, I don’t want you around me, go away.
Part of it is developing more skills of awareness so that you recognize these people when they show up, and respond more quickly. So you can take care of things on the spot.
Finally, the stage of anger is also about mastering these feelings and these skills. So that ultimately, you don’t get overwhelmed by anger, but just recognize it as your alert system. A message from your survival center that you need to pay attention and possibly act.
When you master the skills of anger, you’ll be mastering the skills of personal power in a defensive sense. You won’t have to look angry or be abrupt with people. You can smile and be polite, while you divert a conversation from something you don’t want to discuss. Or graciously express your sympathy when someone is giving you a pity play, and say you hope they can sort it out (but not offer to help). Or smoothly deflect insults or disrespectful behavior by saying that you’re too busy to talk right now.
Above all, this is a time when you start developing conscious personal boundaries. A sense of what you will and won’t allow in your life.
This is a tremendous important time for someone who has suffered abuse for a long time. And because of it, has become shaky about your own entitlements. You are entitled to take care of yourself.
You’ll get to forgiveness later, when you feel secure in all this and you can afford to be forgiving, because she can’t hurt you anymore. Right now, stick with the muscle-building. It’s good for you.
Namaste.
Kathy
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Advocate55 says:
Being in a state of forgivness. Totally aware of any tramua caused by currrent events from a unstable ex husband..I am in control of how I react..and taking care of myself..thanks for your comments..this site brings get empowerment and support..
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Kathleen Hawk says:
Advocate, thanks for popping back into this thread. I wrote the previous post to you on too little information. I was concerned that you were trying to leapfrog to forgiveness — as some people understandably want to — without taking the time to develop strong boundaries and also learning to comfort yourself first, before you worry about forgiving anyone else.
But I’ve read your other posts and I can see you’ve been working on this for a long time. I’ve been really lucky in that my ex just disappeared, and doesn’t keep zooming back into my life like a two-ton blood-sucking mosquito. I’ve has something like that with certain family and work situations, but nothing as long-term annoying and energy-consuming as what you’re dealing with.
Your equanimity is impressive. I’m glad you find support here. I have a feeling you could give advice to some of us who are dealing with people who refuse to go away and leave us alone.
Kathy
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Advocate55 says:
Thanks Kathy..for all the support..today, I am standing my ground..taking care of myself..knowing what I am dealing with has made a big difference in my life..I actually do online work..on myspace and facebook..my specialized work..is: Child Sexual Abuse..but the work I do..involves Domestic Violence..currently working on going back to college to obtain my BA in Criminal Justice…for Victim Advocacy..
Again..glad to part of this site..I live near Donna Anderson..found this site after researching about sociopaths..
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Kathleen Hawk says:
Advocate, we have at least one other person on this site whose profession sounds something like what you’re doing. Her name is justabouthealed, and you might watch for her posts.
It would be interesting to find out how many of us around turning our experiences into careers. My belief — and it’s embedded in this healing path — is that we ultimately turn these disasters around into something great in our lives.
Congratulations of what you’re doing. You’ve found a great place to do research, and to find friends.
Kathy
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Advocate55 says:
For me..healing means..giving back..sharing the gifts of healing and empowerment with others..glad that I am here..
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justabouthealed says:
Kathy,
What I’ve had to work on is forgiving ME. Maybe that is a different step in this process, but I’m posting here.
This morning, while half asleep still in bed, I pictured myself on trial for my role in all this, and though I entered the plea of guilty, the jury voted me not guilty, entirely. So did the psychiatrist I saw, so did the therapists I saw, so did my husband. It has just been a tough road to forgive myself. You know I harp on “no bad guy, no problem”. But perhaps I harp on it so much, because it has been so hard to forgive myself for my contribution to the whole mess.
but even if I were guilty, I think the judge would say I’ve already served the time. I’ve been beating up on myself for two years. One has to ask what I’m getting out of that. I guess lessons learned, a determination to never be so blind, so unethical, so “people pleasing”, such as wuss again, but all that is hard for me too. Just “trying to get it through MY thick skull”. I used to be so unassertive that if a bus driver told me I should have correct change, I would burst into tears as soon as I was out of his sight.
I am so assertive, so much a “speak truth to power” person in my work, and often doing work that requires bravery, and so comfortable with public speaking to large audiences, that people who know me in that environment would be flabbergasted to see the me that could be wilted by the narcissiopath. Or the me that still has buttons that a man can push that devastate my self-confidence. I have a very hard time with an angry man in intimate relationships, even family relationships. I’m trying to get over all that.
And part of it is forgiving myself for the past, and realizing that my past need not define who I am today.
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ThornBud says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ure=fvste2
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kim frederick says:
Very nice clip, Thornbud, thanks.
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skylar says:
I’m wondering how to forgive someone who still want you dead. I’ve heard it’s possible. But I think it involves pity and I’m not supposed to pity.
I’ve heard of, “forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” this from a man dying on a cross. But in my case HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS DOING.
I want to move forward and forgive him, but how?
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OxDrover says:
Dear Skylar,
To me, “forgiveness” is not pretending it didn’t happen, or giving them another chance, it does NOT mean trusting them, it simply means, STOP BEING BITTER ABOUT IT, put it where it belongs, in the past and then NC and even if they are still trying to hurt you (my son would love to hurt me and I have no doubt is still lplotting) but I will NOT let the bitterness come through and damage me.
The Bible says we should forgive our enemies and those that hurt us, but if you will go back and re-read the story of Joseph whose brothers sold him into slavery, he forgave them a long time before they showed up in Egypt to buy corn, but he TESTED them to see if he could TRUST them before he even let them know who he was.
Carrying bitterness in our hearts hurts US, so the forgiving them is cleansing for US, but it doesn’t mean we trust them or associate with them. Just my take.
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kim frederick says:
Skylar, I think what that quote really means is that they are spiritually disabled, that is to say, they don’t know what they are doing to themselves and the state of their own spiritual well-being. They are handicapped. I think some pity might be called for, in this sense, and I do think it helps in forgiving.
It doesn’t mean you re-enter the FOG with them, or sanction their behavior, you just accept what is and move on.
I also think that at some point in recovery, it helps to look at yourself. Where did I play a role in all this. It’s probably not something we should do early on, as we have been blamed for everything for soooo long, and we first need to realize the “It wasn’t you” part of it…and just be righteously angry. It all sounds so confusing, I know. I have had an intimate relationship with AA, in the past, and continue to be worked on by the twelve steps. They are a rich source for anyone trying to recover from anything, and they in fact have been working me this morning. Step four says we take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Step five says we admit to God and to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs….
Not that I think you are guilty of anything. I guess this is just where I am this morning.
I think forgiveness is a process, and just wanting to forgive, doesn’t mean you can, yet. But it’s at least moving in the right direction.
I hope this helps, some. Don’t analyze so much. KISS. another tid-bit from AA. TOWANDA! a tid-bit from LF.
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skylar says:
Kim,
He knows he is going to hell. he thinks he’s possessed. His solution to this is to take as many with him as possible. He revels in all things evil. So he DOES know what he’s doing to his soul. I think he doesn’t realize or want to realize that he has an option to change. Or that he is stupid, he doesn’t realize that.
I’m only bitter when I dwell on it, which I don’t often. It’s strange that I hate his minions more than I do him. I’m sure this is an error in my processing because HE recruited them. I think the pity is what keeps me from being bitter and hating him. I pity him but not his minions.
I guess it is ego to hate or to have pity. I need to rid myself of the ego. I’ve known that for a while but forgot. Ego is really hard to get rid of!
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blueskies says:
Skylar:) Just a little Blueskies tid-bit;) I have been trying to work through the fall out from my abuse at the hands of my parent(s) and one of the things I have been working /thinking on, is trying to find a way to forgive at this time. I find it almost impossible at this point in the process to honestly and heartfeltly do that… (I aint giving up on this process though)
so I am thinking about ‘what is the manifestation of opposite of forgiveness within me?’… well its hurt, anger, fear, pain… all living within me… poisoning me, making me ill.
now, I dont have a magic wand where I can wish them away just like that, but I can work on letting go of the hurt, letting go of the need, letting GO…. my plan is that when I have done a bit more letting go it will lead me to forgiveness…
BUT maybe this is a chicken and egg situation, which comes first?!:Dx
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OxDrover says:
Dear Blueskies,
Anger is normal when you have been wounded or hurt by something or some one.
Heck if you stub your toe on a chair, you get mad at the CHAIR! LOL that’s normal. It is hanging on to that anger forever and getting so bitter that you take the chair out and chop it up for fire wood! We stubbed our toes on psychopaths, just like the chair—we can’t take it more personally than if the chair was the cause of us stubbing our toes. If it was dark and we couldn’t see the chair we had no way of knowing, but our toe is still broken, but being mad and angry at the chair is about like being mad and angry about the psychopaths.
If they get in our paths we get hurt—period. We might as well let go of the anger and bitterness because they are just doing what psychopaths do when we run into them.
‘
If that makes any sense at all. It IS difficult to let go of the anger, but just NOT feeding it will eventually “starve” it to death and you will not feel so bitter against them. Focus on your HEALING rather than on what you are healing from as much, at least tht worked for ME.
I don’t think much about what my egg donor did to me, or the others either, and when I do think about it, it is more like an old movie I saw, not so much emotion connected to the “story” like it was at the time it happened but now I focus more on ME…on what helps me grow, what helps me be better, happier, more at peace, less stress, instead of saying within myself “that sorry so-and-so did such and such”
The anger and bitterness will kind of “fade away” (at least for me) and one day you just realize it isn’t there so much any more, unless you take it out and FEED it. I COULD work myself up into a big mad/anger/bitterness if I TRIED, but I work on avoiding that state of mind, and if it does come, I try not to “feed” or “pet” it while it is here….I do fall off the wagon every once in a while, like I did with the minister’s letter, but over all, I do okay with getting rid of the bitterness.
a friend in an e mail today called it “missplaced dominance behavior” and that is exactly what he was doing he was trying to express his dominance over me for the NS I had given him in my letter requesting he send back my paper work. I poked him with a verbal “stick” and he was responding. I should NOT HAVE RESPONDED by lettingit “get to” me.
Back to the drawing board, another lesson learned.
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blueskies says:
Oxy, thanks for this:)xx the Chair analogy makes loads of sense.
.. and ‘Focusing on your healing not what you are healing from’ is the best thing I have read today:) Going no contact with my ‘parent’, will give me a chance to do that, hmmm….at least start.
I am not totally NC right now I realise, she has not given up her attack , she is just doing it from afar, she’s in slander and deformation of character overdrive.
This week I have had concerned calls from three members of family who I seldom see, (none s/p/n’s) worried about me after being told (respectively and by her) that I was bi-polar, that I had schizophrenia and wished my sister’s baby dead, and that I had been fighting with the police!,…. I actually think I got pissed off for about a minute. Good going me. Not sure I would be so collected with ACTUAL contact from her though…. I think I would be more tempted to do the thing where I ask her why she would DO that… then get angry… no point trying to get answers out of a chair!
At first the focus so much on trying to find out ‘WHAT’ this person is (a chair;)I feel you need to do that, and I guess it does ‘feed the anger’, but then yes I totally agree, the focus needs to shift back on to you and your OWN healing, no point shouting and screaming at the Chair!
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OxDrover says:
Dear Blue skies,
To keep from being injured in the future, we just need to “turn the lights on” when we are moving around, and realize the CHAIR isn’g going to change or move out of our way, so we just have to “go no contact” with our toes! LOL Gosh, I have had so many literal (real) broken toes from stubbing them—you’d think I would learn to wear steel toed books or something! ha ha Anyway, you might as well be talking to the chair, it will listen as much as our P-parents.
NC does keep us from having NEW injuries. Your egg donor is doing the SMEAR campaign by telling everyone you are crazy (that way whatever you say won’t be valid) mine did the same to me—-my son d ran into one of my egg donor’s friends at the store the other day and she told him what a SAINT he was for staying with this delusional old person (me) and taking care of me!!!!!
So that is what they say about us and if we don’t pay it any attention or even “notice it”—-it doesn’t hurt us. Hard to do sometimes, but it gets easier the more you practice.
The BEST way (though I don’t always do it) is when someone starts saying what the P told them about you, or starts to discuss the P, is just CALMLY say, “I’d rather not discuss what P is doing, or what they think of me, that’s not germaine in my life right now.”
A lot of the time th eP is saying this to dupe the others into callilng you. My P son did that, he wrote letters to a bunch of folks and said he was “worried” something had happened to the family (after his P-trojan horse went to prison) and he hadn’t heard from Grandma (at that time she was NC with him) and he was concerned about her. She would answer th ephone and all these people would be so worried about her. she would at that time, say nothing except “I’m fine, thank kyou for calling. CLICK! and hang up.
Of course he kept on with the letters to her whining in some, pleading in others, pity play in some, anger in otehrs until she finally sent him money again. then it went down hill from there and she kept on reading.
That is why NC is so important whether we are victims or dupes, but dupes don’t “get it” and keep on listening to the lies. There may or will come a time I think when we can hear about them and not be “triggered”—just shake our head and sort of sigh and smile, “same old chit, different day” and let it wash right off our back. Some Ps just never seem to go away and get completely out of our lives.
I am financially forced to live here on the same farm with my egg donor, but my house is waaaay back in the woods and hers is on the highway. I see her house very seldom, and I try my best to stay away from that end of the farm, but sometimes I ahve to go out there and she is one of these that is peeping out the windows all the time so I know she most likely is watching me if she does see me out there.
That in itself used to really bother me, it was like a “black cloud” hung over that end of the farm. Not now…though. As long as she lives and the land (and the house belonging to me, and the one belonging to my son C, and the one belonging to her) are all tied up in the land trust, I have to stay here (at least keep this my legal address) but when she passes away, I can sell or keep the farm and the houses or do whatever with them….if the P-son gets any significant money, then I will feel that I need to sell and move elsewhere, but I can do that then…so in the meantime, I am just cautious, but I CAN NOT let it EAT at me and I won’t.
I think forgiveness is sort of just getting to the point that what they say is not able to hurt you any more….because you don’t CARE any more…you know what they are. You ACCEPT what they are. If you don’t care any more what their opinion is, their bad opinion doesn’t matter to you any more. It sort of makes you (almost) “Injury proof” from them running their mouths.
Realizing that we DID care, we did want to please them because we cared, at first hurts, but as we care less and less about pleasing them (first off because we know it is impossible) then we get to the point we stop trying to please them because we know it is only more pain to keep on trying.
NC gets to be automatic at that point I think. Cause I really really do NOT want a relationship with her….even if (and I know it is NOT going to happen) she truly repented and begged my forgivness I could never again trust her no matter what she did or said. I can’t ever see WANTING a relationship with her, or that there was ever anything she could do to make amends for what she has done. How could Hitler have made amends to the Jews? Yet, Dr. Viktor Frankl forgave the Germans for what they had done to him and to his people, because for HIMSELF to have a life afterwards, he HAD TO.
I strongly recommend that you read this book of his, “Man’s Search for Meaning” because it was what helped me to learn to accept and to forgive. ((((hugs))) and PEACE for us all!
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blueskies says:
Thank you again for you reply Oxy xx. I was quite amazed by myself when I realised everyone was so worried about my mental health(lol), because there was a definate ‘same crap different day’ vibe going on for me.
So maybe another little bit of progress:)x
I am caring less and less about her and anything she does/says whatever, maybe that should read she is losing her power to hurt me.. (although i am talking about her now aren’t I?)
I have basically told anyone I am in contact with on a regular basis that might mention her, exactly your advice there, about not wanting to hear anything regarding her, so she went further afield! But ya know, she’ll run out of obscure relatives pretty soon:)x Also – she kinda shot herself in the foot by doing it, by exposing herself to people as a vindictive liar. Ho – hum…
thanks for the book recommendation:) I am still half way through Children of the self Obsessed…(told you I am a slllllllooooooooow reader… it’s really great though… some really great exercises, really helpful:)x
(((Big Hugs)) back Oxy. You really are an astounding human being. I hope I get to be as ‘delusional an old person’ as you are very soon! xxx MUCH love.blue.
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blueskies says:
Opps I meant Children of the self absorbed. big dufus that I am:)x
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ThornBud says:
Dear Oxy,
what to do if P/N who hurted u died, and u realized u was a victim AFTER he died?
NC by ur own will and decision offers some comfort, u feel as “things are in ur hands”, even this NC is sort of pinishment or revenge. It gives some satisfaction. No?
I am totally confused, cant stop thinking at my childhood, my N parents and damage they left on my soul
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blueskies says:
Thornbud:)xxx I am not so good at advice, so I look forward to hearing other’s responses:) But I have to tell you your question really resonates with me.
My father died, he was a narc with a penchant for young girls, 13 – 15 (and they’re called…) and he died suddenly.
Now even though he didnt hit or touch us,his children, his behaviour had a PROFOUND effect on us as children and adults.
I had a REAL struggle after he died dealing with being bereft for someone I LOVED and dealing with the fact that the person I loved did so much damage to so many people’.
BIG stuff to work out… but it’s quite interesting, especially after what Oxy was talking to me about above that I feel ‘done’ with that now.
It’s hard for me to explain, but I was briefly talking to my Niece about it last night and I realised that I had ‘done’ all the exposing, searching looking, trying to find where it all fitted in…and it didnt…but somehow I had stepped away from it all together. … I had dealt and its over.
So I guess what I am saying is that it IS possible to work through this stuff, maybe never getting an ANSWER but getting to a point where you can really, really let go. (disclaimer…it does have to be gone through first;( )
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blueskies says:
P.S from my personal opinion, wether their dead or alive, the process is the SAME and it’s not about ‘revenge’… (going back to Oxy’s analogy about the chair…revenge on the chair is futile!;)
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ThornBud says:
Thanks, blueskies
I was about to post my story, but whenever i start, i am facing so many things and i just cant put all together into one post.
Well, my father was huge N, and mother, i cant say – maybe enabler, maybe N as well. She had hard childhood, left alone on this world at her 15 (during WW2), during the war she got marry but her husband also died, leaving her with baby.
She met my father and they got married, got 3 kidds,but it was not happy marriage, he used to cheat her and she used to suffer from it. Final victims were kidds.
She was so occupied by his cheatings that she neglected children, so my brother got seriously sick after some innocente flu (later on, as an grown man, he died at his 40 from consequences, leaving 2 sons without bread).
She suffered from bad conscience considering that matter and was trying to “make it up”, so he became all her world, and i became a Cinderella. One sisted died, another left home at her 18.
I had to “earn” every attention, every kindness, but nomatter how hard i was trying, it was never enough. From the other side, my N father locked me at home, i was not allowed to have friends, to go out, to have BF, so i studied hard, was the best at University, it was the only field i could prove myself as valuable person, BUT NOT TO THEM. They always took every my success as “normal” and i got never any nice word.
I was so eager for love, tenderness, friends, any affection, and i saw my way out in marriage, at my 21. U can guess that i ran straight into P hands
It was a hell, not just a P, he was an alcoholic, too, which i did not know.
Instead of “friend”, going out, having fun, i got a prison. First night i was raped, and every other night i was raped, i had to “make love” after he beated me and forced me on sex.
After 8 months i escaped, i ranaway one night after huge fight and beating.
Many times i could not go to work cuz i was all in bruises, beatten. Many times he used to come to my office, just to see if i am decent (i was an angel) and if, by some chance, some of colegues looked at me, i was called names, whore, and – of course, beaten.
OK, finally i understood i have to save my life. But, had nowhere to go, but back to my parents home.
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OxDrover says:
Dear ThornBud,
Blue skies is right, I think, as it doesn’t matter if they are dead or alive, and yes, I too have my injuries/wounds from the man who sired me (I will not call him a “father” as he was never a father to me) He is dead. My maternal unit (the woman who bore me) is Alive, she also injured me very badly, and continues to send money to my P-son who also would injure me or kill me if he could—-it doesn’t matter if they are dead, alive, out of your life entirely, or still trying to injuire you, the BITTERNESS in your own heart, EATS AT YOU not them. It does TAKE TIME however, and is part of a long healing process.
Even from the terrible things that happen to us we can draw LESSONS as well as injuries. Such as if you are a child and touch a hot object, you are burned but you LEARN not to touch that thing again, so there is injury and pain, but also a lesson for the future.
All children deserve loving parents, but not all childrn get them, so we must be out OWN PARENTS and love ourselves, and be good and nurturing to ourselves and since we had no role models as children, we must learn these things as adults. BUT WE CAN, and we can be stronger and better even though we started out at a disadvantage over children who did have good parents. Life isn’t fair, but to be bitter because of it only hurts US. It is a process though, not instantly—but you can do it. Don’t be hard on yourself, give yourself all the time you need. ((((hugs)))) and my prayers for your peace, TB. Oxy
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ThornBud says:
Back to prison again, so after i managed, i left parents home, again straight in another P hands.
Years were passing, i lost one child, another, third. My country entered a war, i lost only friends i had, i lost my career due to political strungles . Than i met my husband, beautiful man who also adored me, as i adored him. But, life started to play again. I got a daughter but soon she was diagnosed by cancer, i was diagnosed by cancer, passed 11 surgeries in between her 3 surgeries. Than my brother died leaving 2 boys unprotected, and i took care of them. I lost again my job. Than my father died, my mother, i had again few hard surgeries..country in hell, war, bombing every day whole day. It was just too much to stand. My loving husband was so caring all the time, supportive, but after my brother died i just snapped cuz i adored him. I became introverted. My brother died and i took it as my fault. He lost his job and was without money, he needed money for medical care, but i did not know it, and i always was blaming myself for being blind. If i helped him, maybe he would not die. Than i promissed to myself: i will never ever let someone without help and support……….
Me and my husband got somehow distant, i know it was my fault, i was just full of pain, problems all arround. And, was it a fate or smth else i dunno, i started to escape from real life to internet, met a man who reminded me on my brother, helpless, needy, pore…he was soooooooooo caring, tender, he seemed to understand all my pains, i was “the one”, and all the well known stuff what goes with P. I was catched into another P’s trap.
To be continued
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ThornBud says:
Well, at first, i told him about my bad conscience considering my brother. Soon, he told me he needs help, to start life, to finish his education, to start working. I was working 24/24/7 days a week to provide it. I gave him money for his education, i gave him money to start work and open an office, i gave him money to get started and initial rent, all of it taking from myself, my familly and my only child. Was i insane, crazy???? He bought a car, telling me he needs car for work. Again i worked to provide money for his education, but instead to start working (i bought all the equipment for office) he started to sell things without asking me. I gave him credit card, he emptied my account. 3 years after he told me that he never meant to open an office and he was cheating me all the times. I dunno why he told me that. Than, my daughter got sick, but he abandoned me, discarded, but always coming back for more money, for his teeth, for car to fix, for familly needs…..and my daughter grew up watching me fading, crying, tired and sick
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ThornBud says:
All the time i thought what did i do wrong, was i supportive enough, what should i do more to “earn” his love, but same time i was suffering bad conscience that i forgot to be there to my own child. I always was thinking: she is young, i will make it up, just this one more time to help him to stand on his feet, day after day, month after month, year after year.
All that time my husband was next to me, holding me and helping, he knew smth is wrong with me, but he thought its cuz of all the problems and health issues. Yes, it was, but he did not know the whole story, he never doubted, i was always perfect wife, decent, it never crossed his mind i could be unfaithful.
Now, i am full of guilt, full of bitterness, full of all kinds of shits, facing new medical treatments, with ruined health.
Thanks God i managed to uprise my child into blooming person, but it costed me my only free time. I used to sleep 2-3 hours per day, and now i am all ruined, not able to stand and hold her
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JLP0108 says:
There’s one thing that does help me when I’m angry. It’s not only that “They know not what they have done” (which is so very important), but it’s the knowledge that God tells us that he will judge all, and that justice WILL be served. Revenge is His – I don’t even have to worry about it. The Lord loves justice and hates robbery and iniquity (Isaiah 61:8).
I know I will have to forgive my N ex husband, and am not there yet or even close, but I do know that God gives me his grace and complete forgiveness for all of my wrong doing. This means, that if I accept his grace and forgiveness, I need to be able to forgive all of those who have hurt me as he commands me to do. Unfortunately, this includes the monster. I dont’ know yet how I’m going to get there, but I know that I have to.
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ThornBud says:
blueskies and oxy, thanks so much, and sorry for spitting out my pain
it just fled out from my soul, i needed to let it out
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ThornBud says:
JLP0108,
we are together in process
me too, i dunno how, but i know i have to. maybe it is most important thing, to make a decision that we won’t stand it anymore, and we wanna go through, we wanna move forward, leaving our P/N’s behind, in all their dust and dirt
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blueskies says:
Thornbud, just before I hit he sack I wanted to say that when this ‘all came out for me’ it was like a flood… it still is to a certain extent, and I still have trouble separating things out,or being clear, or explaining, because there is SO MUCH! dont apologise for that.xxxx and the guys here are here to exchange this stuff, no matter what stage we’re at respectively, or how upset we are or how complicated the situation, and help each other:)xxx
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ThornBud says:
Yeah, exactly, bleskies, it is like fllod. I am participating here, sometimes i post parts of my story, but what i believe and what i saw here is that we are not aware of the extent of damage. Sometimes i realise that if i start talking, i am going through the pain, and i try to avoid it by keeping inside. It is God’s gift for me that i have found this site, where ppl trully can understand what i am going through.
I was told that i used to buy love, that i am crazy for standing what i stood, no one understood or even knew about psychopaty. It is such relief to be here and to know u are understood, not blamed, not judged.
I started to believe i am bad or insane, i was drowing into the guilt feeling, and if did not have my child, i would for sure commit suicide. Now i have to learn to live, to love myself and to take care of myself. Hope its not too late cuz my health is ruine till the max. I just have to find strength to live and to be there to my child and a man who carried me all this time, never asking anything.
My main issue is to forgive myself, at first. I hate myself right now
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ThornBud says:
I was reading Oxy’s posts over and over again. God, Oxy, u are our lighthouse here, i cant find words to thank u for waking us up, teaching, sharing, educating.
Huggs and blessings to all LF’s
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ThornBud says:
Again i am stucked at night and it left just few hours for rest before i start new working week. I am also having medical tests, i am affraid so.
Wish u all good night/day and peace with urselves
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skylar says:
Thornbud,
thank you for sharing your story. Your story, was like a fable for me. It helped me see the common thread in all of our stories: empathy.
The details are horrific, but unfortunately, the basis of your story is the same as that of everyone else here: WE HAD TOO MUCH EMPATHY. it’s like we crave something to do with all this empathy we carry around. The moment a P shows up, we feel relieved that we’ve found someone to dump our empathy on.
Please forgive yourself. You were not aware of the burden you carry of being too empathetic.
But you are now.
I don’t know the answer. I’m working on figuring it out.
I can tell you one thing though. some P’s don’t know what they are doing, but mine does. He asked me why I had no EMPATHY.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
everyone – i only caught a piece of this radio show about forgiveness, but the interviewer, sook yin lee, always does interesting shows. there is a diversity of ideas presented in the piece I caught.
i am going to email the link to Donna also – maybe she’ll post it as its own thread.
http://www.cbc.ca/dnto/
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one_step_at_a_time says:
bitter weighs so much. i could get much past the first paragraph of this post – too overwhelmed – but the frist paragraph is a good one to contemplate:
‘ This article talks about work we do when we are ready to work on clearing the influence of betrayals from our minds and emotional systems. It is about recovering our feelings of safety in the world and moving forward to create better and happier lives. Those of us who are still battling our betrayers, still clarifying our feelings of outrage or still developing our self-defensive skills may feel outraged by the very idea of forgiving. And so they should. Forgiving is something we do “at our leisure,” later when we have the time to think about restoring our emotional systems to a pre-warzone state. Ultimately we want to be positive, creative, optimistic people — without ever forgetting the lessons we learned in our histories. This article is about what we do, when we’re ready to put it all behind us. — Kathy’
i wish miss hawk still posted more and that she had been more honest with me months ago – saying ‘call anytime’; then ignoring my email and saying there wasn’t really anything to respond to was messed up. she is a good writer, and she is VERy good at contextualizing experience in a positive way for people – she reframes mud to verdant soil.
she said – ‘Those of us who are still battling our betrayers, still clarifying our feelings of outrage s…. think about restoring our emotional systems to a pre-warzone state.
still clarifying our feelings of outrage – yup. see the edges at least and i am pretty freaking outraged. and biiiiter.
still battling our betrayers – uh huh, but to some extent that is within my control. when i posted some inof about the spath – to let others know is was a scam the forum i posted on removed some of the text. x. effing scuze me! i am having to calm myself everytime i think of it. i had to post it – but now i have to make the decisions to protect myself from blowing a vessel. seriously.
‘Ultimately we want to be positive, creative, optimistic people — without ever forgetting the lessons we learned in our histories. ‘
i feel so ugly, unworthy, and f&*king scrappy. again, i have to calm myself…i don’t like my self much, but i like myself more than i think i should considering how i hate just about everyone else. i see that i cannot be punished enough1?…for what? not sure yet – but seemingly it is endless – rather, ‘limitless’. well, i am challenging that – how ’bout i be hardcore messed with and stop messing with myself because i have been messed with. i kinda like pissy one step – not many do. i can’t afford to feel bad for every pissy thought – tooo many of them. i lack compassion for myself – bitter hard rock of heart is ti-ight. war-zone state.
tomorrow – hopefully it is a better day than this one was inside and outside. .
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one/joy_step_at_a_time says:
Had a revelation today about ‘forgiveness.’
first let me say, I do not routinely advocate ‘forgiveness’ for spaths.
sitting by the water today, in the damn cold wind, I realized that FORGIVENESS IS ABOUT ACCOUNTABILITY. TO FORGIVE SOMEONE YOU HAVE TO FIRMLY SEE THEM AS ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT THEY DID. TO FORGIVE FAILINGS THE PERP NEEDS TO BE SEEN AS HAVING FAILED AS RESPONSIBLE AND ACCOUNTABLE. This removes the taint of their actions from us. We cannot be responsible.
Forgiveness isn’t about compassion (in the case of the unforgivable), or seeing ‘everyone as having some good in them…blah blah), but about knowing firmly the other is responsible and breaking the connection to them by exonerating ourselves.
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skylar says:
Hi One Joy,
It sounds to me like you are looking for a way to release the slime that the spath left you with. Perhaps you instinctively feel that forgiveness is the key. Having now reached the point where you have exhonerated yourself, does that mean you understand that you were not and are not responsible for the malice in the spath’s heart? That sounds very healthy to me. She wanted to make you feel responsible because that is what you do to a scapegoat, you place all responsibility on them. And of course all spaths have to have scapegoats.
A part of the pattern that I’ve noticed about spaths is that they do not want to be responsible for anything. It’s part of being childlike, since children are not responsible for anything, spaths don’t want to be either. My spath actually TOLD me that he never wanted to grow up. Another time, he said, “I shouldn’t have to work, I should just get paid to play, and someone else should take care of me” CAN WE SAY SPATH ANY LOUDER?
This pattern of irresponsibility is repeated over and over in the stories on LF, but they are so different that you might not notice the common thread of refusing to take responsibility – they do it in subtle and insidious ways. Several spaths have their wives blaming the OW instead of the spath. (even when the OW didn’t KNOW he was married). Oxy’s son blames her for being in jail even though HE is the murderer! it’s spathological.
SC, posted a link to an earlier LF thread, I can’t remember the topic but the first comment was by Mr. Green who is a spath, and he said that perhaps the solution is to care less about what happens, in other words, be MORE LIKE THE SPATH. That is just another example of how they “blame the victim” for caring too much. Then they can say that it’s your fault for being victimized. From what I know about your spath, I think she very carefully set you up to feel like this only happened to you because you fell for it, because you cared too much – AS IF THAT’S A BAD THING! That’s spaths circular logic – spathological!! It’s slime. Their ultimate goal is to convert us into them, like vampires do.
HELL NO! WE WON’T GO!
I once read that Love is another word for responsibility. That would explain the inability of the spaths to love.
Forgiveness is a tough concept for me when it comes to spaths. So I looked it up. This link is filled with different concepts but the ones that makes the most sense to me are the Bahá’í Faith and the Buddhist Faith explanations for forgiveness. Basically they are saying, step back, look at the big picture, don’t take it personally because we don’t know everything. In other words, use humility to defend AND heal ourselves from injuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgiveness
Thanks for posting your revelation, it gave me so much to think about!
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hens says:
Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could of been any different.. So they are what they did…I participated in that ‘hope’ that he would be what he said he was..it never happened…. hope lingered long after he was gone…hope that I was wrong about it all….. hope that some miracle would happen …..giving up the hope that the past could of been any different…
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Eva says:
Hens, how well expressed those feelings.
That mortal hope…for a miracle. It’s pure poison.
I started feeling it but i saw it was a trap.
I think i’ve been in contact with more psychopaths in my life and this is the reason i scaped so fast from my personal psychopath.
I wonder when i will be completely vaccinated against them. I think i’m close but who knows. I thought so when i said goodbye to the german God and now i have to deal with this spanish monster who believes he’s the biggest God.
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Ox Drover says:
ONE/JOY,
YOU GET IT!!! FINALLY YOU GET IT ABOUT “FORGIVENESS”—YOU EXPLAINED IT PERFECTLY!!!!!! Yea, TOWANDA!!!!! Oh, my gosh, gal, you get it!!!!!!! That is exactly what it is, holding THEM accountable for what they did and it is NOT US……I wish I had thought to say that that way, you said it perfectly!!!! That is getting the bitterness out of our hearts….they are accountable. They are responsible. We are no longer bitter and feel horrible because of what THEY are responsible for doing!
I hereby dub One/Joy SANE and…well, can’t think of another word to go with that, you are just SANE my dear, you get it. I am so proud of you, I am so happy that you have broken through the barrier! TOWANDA!!!! (doing a little joy dance!!!)
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one/joy_step_at_a_time says:
Oxy – the thing that i understood for many years about forgiveness was that it freed the forgiver. But, as everything was blown wide open by the experience with the spath, and the axis of the earth tilted for me, I have had to re-examine EVERYTHING. And forgiveness is on the table, as what she did is unforgivable.
What i am realizing with the spath experience is that my tool kit has to expand. For example: I can’t just respond to all situations with compassion, some situations require firearms. And so it is with forgiveness.
In some cases we forgive because the person has acknowledged that they have hurt us, promised to try to better (and follows through with this), and we forgive as part of renewing trust. In other cases we forgive because we can clearly see that the other person tries hard, but is not capable of doing better. We see that to release them through forgiveness is to take our energy back. In this case we forgive and either accept that the relationship will always be very limited, or we move on; either way we release the expectation that they could have or will ever do any better. And then there are the spath…..
….who we have to wholy and squarely BLAME and hold accountable for their actions, who we forgive to release ourselves from thinking we had anything to do with their horrible actions. We recognize that they will never be anything but what they are and will never do anything but what they do. This is not the same as dealing with someone who is dysfunctional – there is a difference between lost and evil; spaths aren’t trying hard. In fact they are reveling in the havoc they wreck without remorse – and therein lies the evil. For me, blaming her, holding her accountable is forgiving me, recognizing my own innocence.
In the first two case scenarios we recognize the innocence or return to innocence of the other, and with the spath we recognize their guilt and our innocence as primary. We need to return to innocence to heal – we are NOT at fault for their evil. period.
We are the knowing ones now. We have been through the fire, and we return to innocence, wiser people.
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