After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 11 – Trust
PDF I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
– Frederic Nietzsche
In recovering from a sociopathic relationship, one of our greatest challenges is to rediscover the meaning of trust. Trust is a kind of glue in our lives. If we are going to be vibrant human beings, living with healthy curiosity and developing ourselves through calculated risks and learning from our experiences, we have to be able to depend on some background truths. When our lives are rocked by unexpected disaster, the impact on our ability to trust our perceptions or our world around us can be massive.
This issue comes up over and over on LoveFraud. We hear it most clearly from the people in early recovery. But it’s an issue at every stage of healing, including the process of forgiving discussed in the last article.
This article will look at some issues around trust, and offer some thoughts about why a relationship with a sociopath illuminates this issue, and what we can do to recover.
Catching the sociopath’s disease
As readers of my writing know, I have my own perspective of the psychology of sociopaths. It sometimes overlaps current theories, but is based more on what I have observed and lived through. I believe that the core issue in the sociopathic dysfunction is a virtually total blockage of interpersonal trust.
I settled on this, because it can explain other symptoms they exhibit. It also matches the personal stories of everyone I’ve known who arguably could be diagnosed as a sociopath, a psychopath, a malignant narcissist or a decompensating borderline. Their personal stories tend to be about the social isolation caused by their differences in temperament or circumstances, or about massive breakdown in their safety or nurture, especially as infants or toddlers. I believe they skew toward the independent, rather than dependent side of the disorder spectrum because of the developmental timing of these crises, as well as lack of support and validation at a crucial time.
Be that as it may, they not only gave up trusting, but blocked off need for it as dangerous to their physical and psychological survival. And they became chronic, eternal loners, living by their wits on the “mean streets,” and viewing any part of the world based on trust-related structures with envy, bitterness and disdain. Their highest sense of the outcome of relationships is winning, because it supports their survival needs and because getting what they want is the only type of interpersonal exchange they can regard as both safe and pleasurable.
With only transient and shallow human connections, they live with emotional starvation, grasping after anything that makes them feel “real” or rewarded. Except for expediency, they have no stake in the world of mutual agreements, like laws or social contracts, and no motivation to behave altruistically. As eternal outsiders, they assume that anything they own or build is vulnerable. So, they are highly concerned with neutralizing threats and building invulnerability (wealth, social acceptance, etc.). But jumping ship, when necessary, is relatively easy, because their need to feel like they are winning or in control is more essential to their internal stability than their attachment to any person or thing.
All of this is important in the context of contagion. Feelings and feelings-connected ideas are contagious. We know this from mob psychology. Peer pressure. The way the character of an authority figure, like a CEO, can shape an entire organization. Many of us have gotten involved in “project” relationships where we feel like we have the resources to help someone out of depression, addiction or some kind of life failure, and discovered they’ve dragged us down as much as we’ve dragged them up. And of course, we are influenced by emotional vocabularies of our families of origin, as well as our intimate relationships, because we strongly desire to stay bonded.
Relationships with sociopaths put a special spin on the issue of contagion. The sociopath urgently wants to influence us. On our side, we are typically comfortable with sacrificing some personal independence for a positive and intense connection. (All relationships involve some compromise, but people who evade or escape early from sociopathic relationships may more resistant to early concessions.) So we have one partner, the sociopath, who needs us to give up our autonomy and another partner, us, who is willing to do so in exchange for the benefits of intensely positive relationship.
We feel like we are in agreement. We feel like winners. But as the relationship progresses, our objectives begin to conflict. We are looking for ongoing emotional support and validation, to feel loved and to know our wellbeing is important to our partner. They are looking for control of resources in their ongoing struggle to survive as unconnected loners. Once they have won with us, they turn their attention to new sources, unless we threaten to revolt. Then, they may re-groom us with loving attention or try to diminish our will through verbal, emotional or physical abuse. For them, the choice of technique isn’t meaningful, as long as it works. Over time, they are more openly annoyed at “wasting” energy on us, unless they are getting something new out of it.
For us, living with a sociopath’s reality is both a radical re-education and an ongoing demolition of beliefs we need to be true. LoveFraud is peppered with statements that begin with “How could he…?” and “I can’t believe that…” and “What kind of person would…?” One of the core pieces of our learning the sociopath’s reality is feeling alone, unsupported and unable to depend on a supposedly trusted connection. Another piece is the feeling of emotional starvation and being in a game designed to keep us in the loser role. Another is the discovery that trust is a fool’s game, and we have to stop if we’re going to survive.
That’s not all. There is the chronic bitterness, envy and resentfulness. There is the aggrieved entitlement to any behavior that serves them, as payback for whatever forced them to jam their ability to trust into the locked basement of their psyches. There is the whole mechanical modus operandi, rigidly designed to avoid the fear and grief of abandonment. There is frantic need to keep busy, developing new schemes to avoid slipping into a pit of depression that they equate with suicide. Ruthless survivors, at whatever cost to themselves or anyone else, is probably the most accurate way to describe them.
All this is what we have been exposed to.
Understanding the lesson
“When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive,” is a well-known Buddhist saying. Another bit of Buddhist wisdom is that we fall in love with our teachers.
When it comes to relationships with sociopaths, this perspective can be a hard pill to swallow. However, we can agree that falling in love with these people initiates one of the most costly and painful lessons of our lives. For those of us who are vulnerable to these relationships, the lesson is also difficult to untangle and ultimately profound. Eventually, it leads many of us to question some of our deepest beliefs and to find the courage to let go of beliefs that have outlived their usefulness, even though they once gave us comfort and feelings of safety in the world.
Fortunately, that courage pays off for us, though we may not know it while we’re grieving something we loved. The greatest achievements of our lives often involve surmounting fear to take huge risks. There is no more fearful risk than letting go of a foundation belief that we trusted for our survival. But we let it go when we have no choice, because it is clearly no longer adequate to support our survival.
In a relationship with a sociopath, we are immersed in an entirely different human reality than our own. The mutual attraction between people of a sociopathic type and people who have codependent tendencies is a cliché that is probably not accurate to all the people and situations described on LoveFraud, but it does describe an interpersonal dynamic that is reasonably consistent. Even people who have been blindsided by out-of-the-blue personality changes face the challenges of dealing with sociopathic relationships with our non-sociopathic beliefs and survival strategies.
This interpersonal dynamic is a kind of head-on collision of radically different survival styles. The sociopathic partner is committed to depending on himself, no matter what temporary dependencies he or she might arrange. The other partner is oriented toward depending on agreements of mutual support. This doesn’t mean that non-sociopaths cannot survive outside an intimate relationship, anyone who would attract them or even consider a relationship with one of them probably is the type of person who feels they do better in reciprocal, committed and trust-based partnership with another person.
The reason codependency comes into this is that codependents and others on the dependent side of the personality spectrum experience needs (rather than wants) in their preference for mutual support as a survival strategy. The more intimate the relationship, the more they need the other person to become actively involved in the preservation their wellbeing, especially in the emotional realm. Those perceived needs (rather than wants) make it more likely they will bargain away important aspects of their identity, resources and plans into order to obtain that caring attention.
Sociopathic survival depends on other people’s agreements to provide them with resources. We could argue that they are just as dependent as we are, but the key difference is the way we make decisions about our lives. Sociopathic decisions are “me” oriented, whether they are impulsive in-the-moment choices or important long-term choices of change in life direction. Their partners – who are both targeted by the sociopath and self-selected by their tolerance or inability to escape the sociopath’s treatment in relationship – have the tendency to put “us” first in their decision-making.
At this point, I can hear rumbling out there of “Tell me something I don’t know.” I know you know. But I hope this long description clarifies the real nature of our challenge. We have been closely involved with someone who doesn’t trust or connect emotionally, and who uses our need or desire for a trustworthy partner to enforce our involvement and extract resources that he or she has no intention of repaying. We have immigrated to planet Sociopath and our visas are all stamped “loser.”
Since this is their world, what would they tell us if we asked them about how to get this loser stamp off our visa? If we caught them at a moment when they were blissed out with anti-anxiety drugs stolen from their last girlfriend or feeling generous because they were feeling flush after some big win, they might say, “Don’t be such a dope. The world is full of people and situations in which other people win by using you. If you don’t care enough about you to protect yourself and your resources, this is what you get. Save your whining for your victim friends. You must like it or you wouldn’t volunteer for it.”
Ouch. Well, the Buddhists don’t say anything about the teacher being a nice guy.
Power and Resilience
The meaning of this lesson changes as we move through our phases of healing. People in early-stage recovery are terrified by the prospect of a world without trust. People in the angry stage are fighting back, sharpening their skills at identifying situations and people that cannot be trusted, building better boundaries against aggressive users, and getting active in neutralizing threats to them and people they care about.
After we develop and practice these skills, we earn some confidence about our ability to deal with incoming threats. This enables us to gradually shift our focus from vigilance against threats (what we don’t want) to interest recreating our lives (what we do want). We don’t forget what happened or minimize its importance. But we build on what we learned about our power and entitlement to make choices. Maybe for the first time since we were teenagers, we invest serious thought on how we want to feel, who we want to be, and the way we want our lives to play out in this new world.
With our power to choose comes increased emotional independence. We start viewing our lives as something we create and our results as something we earned. We still value relationships, but we are less willing to compromise our identities, give away our resources or change our plans. We become more interested in less dramatic relationships with other people who are learning through living. We share stories, validation and encouragement, but we are also conscious of each other’s limited resources. A relationship may naturally deepen. But we don’t need that to survive, and we are cautious, because we don’t want to discover too late that our great friendship did not prepare us for the different needs of a love affair.
When we face the idea of never trusting again in the way we once did, it can be very scary. The scariest thing is what might happen inside us. We don’t want to become suspicious, angry people. We don’t want to live in a constant state of anxious alert.
But we’re not giving up the ability to trust. We’re giving up something else, the trust of a child who has no choice but to trust, because it is dependent. And so that child turns to magical thinking to preserve belief in the trustworthiness of its parents or the safety of its environment, no matter how much evidence there may be to the contrary. This is the mirror-reverse of the sociopath’s survival strategy of blocking of trust. If we are still doing this magical thinking as adults, we also are dealing with blocked development that keeps us in a childlike reality. In learning to trust conditionally, and to limit our investments in other people’s lives to match what we get out of it, we are transitioning to the world of grown-up trust.
The childlike trust is a trust in being loved and supported, no matter what. In truth, we haven’t really believed in this for a long time. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have kept paying more and more to be accepted and loved. Even though we can live in ways that reduce our risk, we already know that no one can really buy an insurance policy against things changing. Everything changes. An awake, aware life creates itself with the knowledge of change. But it doesn’t mean that there is nothing we can trust.
It just means that we trust conditionally. We trust what is consistent, until it isn’t consistent anymore. This makes almost everything in our lives trustworthy. The sun rises and sets. Snarling dogs are likely to bite. Cars eat gas and steel bumpers are stronger but more expensive to replace that plastic ones. Roses like a lot of rain. Tomatoe plants don’t. The leftovers in the refrigerator that smell icky are bad to eat. People who don’t share our ethics or world views are interesting at dinner parties, but risky to do business with or marry. These are background truths we can conditionally trust until something changes.
These smaller, conditional trusts serve the same purpose as our desire for larger, unconditional trusts did before. The real difference is that we trust now in a way that leaves more room for life. Knowing that trust may be transient makes it that much more lovely. We have limited resources – intellectual and emotional – and one of the risks of life is to trust what appears to be stable, so that we can use our resources to make new things grow.
For readers who are not anywhere near ready to feel powerful about their choices, here is a simple rule you can use until you are. Guard your trust as though it were an extension cord from your heart. Don’t give it away to anyone you don’t firmly believe deserves it. And be prepared to unplug the cord at a moment’s notice. You can always plug it back in again, if you find you’ve made a mistake by unplugging it. No one who really cares (or who is capable of caring) about you will mind you taking care of yourself. But your trust in other people and in the world should be a conduit for good into your life. That’s what it’s for.
If it brings anything else, don’t thing twice. Unplug it. A good life should have lots of these extension cords, some heavier duty than others, leading to all kinds of things that bring us good. People, institutions, books, artists, blogs. If unplugging one or two makes us feel lost or destabilized, it probably means we need to find more things we enjoy without our lives depending on it.
In conclusion, you’ve probably all figured out that this is really about “becoming the sociopath,” but in a good way. We use the contagion to strengthen some of our weak spots, and to gain access to the “inner sociopath” when it’s appropriate. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with what sociopaths do, except that it’s all that they do. They can’t respond to love. They can’t trust anything but themselves. They can’t stop replaying their primal drama, because their lack of trust blocks them from ever learning that they are not alone.
Fortunately for us, more dependent types are open to input. We not only can learn, but many of us are truly excited by anything that breaks us out of our limitations. We know we’re not losers, but sometimes it takes a long time to overcome our training. In getting involved with a sociopath, we took the biggest risk of our lives. We stuck our heads into the mouth of the lion, and if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve taken a good look around and said, “Hey, I can do that.”
Next time, unless I get distracted, we will discuss love. This week I will not be available to follow the thread, so I hope you enjoy it, that it makes some sense to everyone, and it makes you feel good about wherever you are now. If you are on LoveFraud, I think you deserve to feel proud of yourself.
Namaste. The spirit of enlightened self-caring in me salutes the spirit of enlightened self-caring in you.
Kathy
written by Kathleen Hawk • Permalink •
geminigirl says:
Hi, all you great guys out there! I need your prayers right now, as this is my daughters{the NS]s 45th Birthday today, the 6th July. After my letter, drawing my line in the sand, and having set my boundaries, I said the door was still open but on MY terms from now on. I said if she could apologise even once, for all the mean and rotten things she has done to me over the last 30 years, the lies, con tricks, using me as a cash cow, wrecking my home and studio, etc. etc., THEN Id be willing to see her, but if not, I considered the relationship to be over. This was over a month ago, and not a peep out of her.
This is the first time in over 30 years I havent remembered her Birthday, or phoned her up . I know I MUSNt weaken and ring her to wish her Happy Birthday, but I still feel bad about it. I know I must stick to my guns and not weaken.PLEASE send me some strength! I have to do this! Thanks and Love, geminigirlXXX
(Report abusive comment)
Brilhancy says:
End,
My ex S left home to go on a dangerous adventure overseas(read my posts above). He didn’t even say goodbey to our two children who at that time were 15 and 16. Once overseas he was talking to me online all the time and saying how much he loved those children. I asked him to talk to them since they were all on the internet, and say those things to them. I also passed his messages to the children. After I begged him so much to contact the children (he was not giving any financial support) he said. Tell them that a phone call cost too much. WOW…..I said right. Then I asked the children to call him . They said NO he went away he should call us, we are busy studying..
I insisted to the children to contact the father and vice versa. The children said: Mum we know you are doing everything for us to get in touch with Dad. forget about it. We are better off without him.. After all what in the hell is he doing overseas for so long.? I said I do not know ..you should ask him.. Anyway. After six months of the father playing his games (having fun overseas with lovers, lies and manipulation and possibly defamation againt me) and we did not contact him and I did not replyed to his MSN messages, he started calling 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning when the children were sleeping and asking to talk to them I said they are sleeping and I will not wake them up. Call in day time on their mobiles. He asked: are they OK?. I said: Yes we are all fine. Anything else? Ok bye.
He done this for three months twice a week. He knew I had to wotk next morning The purpose of his calls was to torment me and make me tired. I did not change the phone and I always answered the phone alwyas with the same answers: We are all fine. He got tired and stopped. Two months later he called the son’s phone begging to come home. My son said: I have nothing to do with this, sort this with mummy. I am fine and doing great at UNI ALREADY. Wow this blew his fther’s mind away. Two years later he called begging to come back . I said: too late you do not have anything here anymore. It is all in my name ONLY. The children have changed their last name as well, and unfortunately the issue between you and the children is between you and the children and for your information they are now adults both graduated from University and doing really well in there careers and I can not influence their decisions anylonger.
After Six years my son decided to look for his father and gave him a call… wow… wasn’t him surprised and in tears and so emotional and my son said: “there is no need to be emotional you chose your path in life. By the way I will be visiting your country in the next two months I am going on business. Do not worry it has nothing to do with you we are not after you.” That kills him…
He asked about : how is Mum, how is your sister? My son said :they are great and Mum is really well. He asked If I married again and my son told, ” this is for her to answer I do not interfere with her life. The father started telling about : it is because your mother and so on…. My son said Dad I am the man that I am today because of her She is a great woman and we are very proud of her. That put the father in complete silence.
Anyway when in the country, my son tried to organise to see him He started playing games to pretend to be the big shot, because he believed my son would pay an air ticket to see him. But my son told him “since I am here so close, why dont you come and see me. I am busy with business commitments and my time is limited. At the end the father had to admit he had no money to pay for the ticket. My son told him. I understand dad Oh! well maybe next time I am here we can see each other.
Wow what do you think the father felt. No matter how S one is Those things must cut deep into his soul.
And the son has no plans to see him again. He just said: My conscience is in peace. I tried and he fell once again in a big way.
This is to give you inspiration that the children see a lot more than we think. They see the situation at cold blood . They understand the games and they will take a stand against the bad parent. The important thing is Keep building your life and do the things you are supposed to do for your son. Forget about the father and to not give him amunition to keep playing his games Be firm in your answers but always with dignity and politness., This will break him apart.
Be brave and keep safe in your box..
(Report abusive comment)
PInow says:
Brilhancy,
what a story!!
I bet you I can guess what that father felt: The S is so great and you have raised the kids to be ungrateful and mean to his highness. Remorseless, remember? I saw my own kids change their opinion of the P within a year’s time. They welcomed him with open arms, they really befriended him. Then, by the end of the third year, they hated him with passion. His response: “they never accepted me anyway”. Not anything he’d done, of course.
End, I am reading the book, it’s huge, I will copy/mail it tomorrow. Good read for sure!! God bless us all!!
(Report abusive comment)
ErinBrockovich says:
Geminigirl:
You know what you have to do, so keep your strength and keep on keepin on……
Keep yourself busy today and do what you have to do to get through the day.
It’s a day you knew was coming, didn’t sneek up on ya…..but you gotta stay true to yourself….Don’t get mushy or centimental….your recognizing her on her birthday is something she expects…..but doesn’t appreciate…..when you give teh gift of yourself….you do it for the pleasure of ‘giving’….your giving to your daughter doesn’t seem to give you pleasure. So why waiver. Your feeling sentimental because of the way you have handled it in the past, because she is your daughter and you expect the relationship to be mutually satisfying…..but you leave saddened by the experience. This is not satisfying!
So…..here you are, growing and gaining experience through teh pain……it’s reality, it is real…..
Go love on your wonderful husband and spend the day giving gifts to yourself……this will be ever so satisfying to you. Start ‘new’ traditions, this will see you through.
Your daughter is not ‘what’ you had hoped, you did your best…..IT IS WHAT IT IS!!!
So, be good to yourself…..and go do something nice for YOU!
take good care and I wish you peace today and in the future.
XXOO
(Report abusive comment)
geminigirl says:
Thank you so much, Erin. Its 7 pm here in Sydney, and I havent weakened and called her. Still feel bad, but Im getting through it.By contrast, I just got an email from my lovely ‘adopted” daughter, Roya, hoping I was OK,{after a minor op to remove a BCC carcinoma from the side of my nose last Monday}. Roya and Abbas came for lunch last Sunday, and she brought a couple of meals shed cooked for me, so I wouldnt have to cook, plus a home made cake. She is so sweet and thoughtful. Its very hard not to compare, as Deb in 27 years has never brought even a packet of biscuits to my home! As you say, “She is what she is.” I did the best I could, and then some, but it still hurts.It does worry me what will become of Deb when she runs out of people to con.Do you have any knowledge as to what usually happens to NSs as they get older? Shes still my daughter, and I still worry about her, unfortunately! Thanks for your support!{Hugs} geminigirl
(Report abusive comment)
Ithevictim says:
Hi folks,
I don;t know where to begin…..after reading Kathy’s post and all your comments, I feel like you have all told my story…..I had loved and lived with a psychopath for one and half years and its been 5 months now since I stumbled upon his web of lies which turned out to be the tip of the iceberg….Over a period of two weeks I discovered that everything that he claimed to be was a LIE, everything we had was a LIE… and yet I had no clue what he was all about until I read extensively about sociopathy and met his therapist who he had seen for treating his BPD…as it turns out BPD and NPD were the smaller things…he was a pure-bred psychopath. My story is on my blog http://evaharidas.blogspot.com
I am still in the angry stage but as I know more about psychopaths/sociopaths and hear the stories of other victims, I am beginning to fit the pieces together both within and without. What has helped me tremendously, apart from the blogs like this one and the stories shared by all you amazing survivors, is the love and support of my wonderful friends and family and the strength of my spirit. Also, I got in touch with all the women and people he conned and frauded and built this karmic bond of victims whose only fault was to have crossed the path of this man.
Thank you everyone for sharing the stories and for helping me believe that I can heal and find the soul that he tried to crush and kill….he almost succeeded but then, as destiny would have it, his cover got blown. And so here I am, trying to gather my life around me, trying to get back the sense of reality he completely destroyed, trying to live again and perhaps one day, to forgive and forget. I have my bad days when I can’t make sense of anything and anger and sadness overwhelms me but then I know now that I have to go throught them and be thankful that I can still feel, I can still love unlike him who is unable to feel and unable to love. What greater curse and punishment can there be than the inability to love? Bless you all!!
(Report abusive comment)
Tilly says:
Gem:
I’m sending a painting of Lilies for our Lily. I will email you first.
(Report abusive comment)
geminigirl says:
OK, darling Tilly, Ive replied to this on another blog!Love, Gem.{{HUGS}}}
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
“Guard your trust as though it were an extension cord from your heart. Don’t give it away to anyone you don’t firmly believe deserves it. And be prepared to unplug the cord at a moment’s notice. You can always plug it back in again, if you find you’ve made a mistake by unplugging it.”
i find i am at least doing the quick unplug and reconnect.
it is interesting to watch how my trust has changed/ is changing, and scary. i feel a mess of contradiction. my love of people remains intact, perhaps more precious for this experience of evil. but it has changed in as much as it is precious and i desire it, i don’t expect or TRY to love people.
oh my god how i *tried* with the spath. Many times i made it to a point of, ‘i’m done.’
i have been chipping away at the big effort of clearing out the piles of paper that have accumulated in the last few months. and coming across things about and for the spath. i found something yesterday and i felt such compassion for myself – for the person who cared so beautifully and deeply who i now know, was duped.
i had a board meeting yesterday aft (a board i sit on as a volunteer) and after a few of us went for ‘drinks.’ it was a struggle to just have a cup of tea, no food or a drink – struggle in as much as i would have liked both and could not afford either. but, i was practicing being more authentic. talking about things that matter some to me, and asking questions that come from a place of true inquisitiveness. it’s funny i feel myself so damaged, AND then i reflect on the day and i see signs of things that i am asking for and wanting badly – like being more authentic to who i am now. this changed one step. (man it’s hard not to slip and write my own name sometimes. comes as easily as F**k and i have to try almost as hard not to use it
)
i have become the queen of compartmentalization. i could not survive right now, if i wasn’t. i would go somewhere dark in side. i still worry so much and go to fear if i let some of the things that i have to deal with into my sight line. so, i try not to.
i talked to the chaplain at the army base yesterday because i am seeking resources for dealing with PTSD, he asked me about my situation. My situation came gushing out of my mouth. The hyper voice, the agitation, the profanity. Harmed one step spoke. i want so much to get to know and love her. i wish i could give her more attention, much more. there are too many things i have to deal with right now – i don’t have the time and head-space to give as much as i want to her. when i finished – it was maybe f minutes, he said, ‘wow, that’s a lot of stress.’ now i know that he is well trained to validate, but the tone of his voice…from a man who deals with traumatized soldiers….it was a good mirror. it’s always a bit of a shock that pros. are shocked when i tell my story.
sooner or later things will become more balanced in my life, but right now i feel like a world wobbling on it’s axis – an axis that has been disoriented. centre is off. reverb is powerful.
another day of waking with my skin burning, face numbed, hands sore, eyes and throat swollen. toxic. but i will go to the beach again on monday
the air is clean there. so god for me. my friend who took me there last friday for my birthday had never been to the conservation area – now she is hooked! yay for me! another friend asked if i wanted to go out on friday and stay over night – but we have no car and no way to get there and get the gear in. but i will plot and plan for later in the month. to spend 24 hours out here – this is a place of my soul – and it would be so good for my health.
okay, all for now.
good morning lovefraud posters!
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
Good morning beach bum! The beach sound like it is a great place for you and I hope you are there again very soon!
Boy do I get the hanging on to the planet with a few finger tips thing!
I go from being queen of the world to scared of my own shadow and back a few times daily and it has all to do with the proces of integrating of blending the inner voice which has wanted attention for a long time. I uused to think that we me speaking to the world but I come to know that is what I call the little me asking for attention and If the mature voice of my own answers her, she quiets. Its been a very healing lesson.
I think a lot about kayaks. A Kayak doesnot travale a straight line and if its ok of a kayak, then keeping the oars in the water is what counts- rythmic daily strokes to pull forward.
We make more progress forward that we can see if we only look at each side to side pull.
It occurs to me that the population of people here are extraordinary in our ability to cope with stress. Look at you- you carry around a big anvil of it – but you go through the days and are gnereous in what you give to others and making your way towards solutions for yourself and maintaining relationships with other people.
I dunno, but I think its amazing. I think on the whole the people who get through these kinds of situations in life are amazing. Guess it comes back you won’t be given anything you can’t handle. Well, we must have come into this life equipped. That is one of the handles I cling to anyway.
I hear you about trust. I’m looking for bogeymen behind every tree and I’m noticing how much I observe, hear and feel that sets off the old bullshit meter! Was the trigger on it stuck for a while? Maybe. Well, it isn’t now.
Not sure the readings are true, but If it goes off, I am running down the answers like a DAWG!
It is a day, let us be glad and rejoice in it!
Good to see you here One~!
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
kayaks…another unfulfilled love, but one that made me swoon with happiness when i read the word.
there is something in having had my dreams exposed, folded and burnt by the runt of a spociopath that propels me into both extreme fear (my compass was smashed) and into being willing to believe in the COMPLETE redemptive value of beaches and kayaks and the momentary sparks of thought that is may just be TRULY possible to leave this shell of a life for something greater.
i don’t know if i can articulate this – i don’t know exactly WHAT it is, and as clarity of thought is the propellant for being able to articualte i find myself a bit challenged. But
it’s like i just have to change my direction – literally and figuratively; that all the thinking ‘maybe some day’ and ‘trying to get a foothold’ in this life to move into a life i want just has to let go of. surrendered. (this reminds me of skydiving. i was going out of the plane and wanted to get a good foothold on the beam before pushing off – i did not. i just fell, and flew)
if i can find no safe home, then I need to put things in storage and go live in a tent on the the land, or run to an island somewhere. how would i eat, how would i work? no idea. i have no idea how to get serious about my life – so that it is something that feeds my soul – but i see points of light. land. water. and as much as i spend time looking for another @$%^& job and trying to pay my bills, etc., i also spend time and energy opening those pathways.
no idea the ‘goals’ – just to feed soul. it’s such a risk opening up to ‘whatever.’ not knowing. navigating with a broken compass, broken trust, but also with a stripped down raw wish to be real.
i just reread your post. we are saying some very similar things.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
Keep the BS meter on!
Keep flappin’ We’re flyin now!
Yes, its an open road and we are travellers on it.
Funny how it is, even if there is a lump in your throat or a know in your stomach, your feet still work.
We can and will, keep going.
And if there was a way to know where it would all end up, I am sure it would be nice to, but there just isn’t. No dress rehearsal this.
Its 90% what we do about it and 10% what happens to us. So action is what its all about and the actions that ground and free us spritually are very important.
Have you ever come across the book what color is my parachute? Its a good one. Lots of work, but, its about falling with style.
Surrender, redirect, surrender again. I know all the platitudes- but the process seems to waddle- like my confidence. Law of averages say a lot of it will come back.
I feel so much more defended and so much more vulnerable than ever at the same time. And if that is the way it is, its authentic.
My experience with the spath was short. We never got to the ugly place. It was all lovely until he got hauled out and my let down has been the post disappearance discovery up to talking to the woman he is already married to the other day.
The haunting is very hard because I don’t have memory of his doing or being bad, just the evidence in plan sight- so weird that the evil part is so without texture and the sound of his voice calling me darlin’ in that laconic cowboy still so resident in my brain.
My kayak waddles back and forth down the river of days and I know its headed for the haystacks of getting real- pulling together the inner child and the grown woman into the authentic navigation of life.
Good to be able to eddy out here a while with a kindred spirit….
(Report abusive comment)
ErinBrock says:
I’d join ya both…..but getting into my Kayak on the shore….I got stuck and tipped over…..so I gotta figure it out!
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
EB, I’ve got my waders on if ya need me.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
that WOULD be the thing about a kayak, they tip pretty easily-
well- that’s because they are designed to roll all the way over on cue from your hip.
The thing about that maneuver is that its really hard to get re oriented when you are upside down in the murky water. You are sposed to put a paddle blade on the surface of the water and give it a good whack to pull yourself around.
The best thing in the case of getting stuck is to pull the skirt and dump yourself into the water and swim to shore with the boat.
Erin, I’m not sure where this leaves you, but do you have any idea what poison ivy looks like? Just askin’?
Now if we were going after the analogy thing really hard this would give us fabulous material to play with wouldn’t it???
But you all’d be gagging so I will leave the working of it to each imagination because Kim would be working those waders up to the top!
Don’t get a trout caught in them waders Kim, its hard to git’em out….
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
Silver,
Trout can be fun.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
(Tee Hee – thought you’d rise to that:))
(Report abusive comment)
OxDrover says:
Silvermoon, you mentioningn that “what color is my parachute” reminded me of the book “Who moved my cheese?” It is a simple little book, but a good one, and I should go read my copy. Also a great one is CRONES DON’T WHINE for older women on celeb rating what it i s that we have when we reach our cronehood! We become (we hope) WISE WOMEN and in previous generations the wise women of the tribe the older women were venerated not scorned!
Getting OLDER doesn’t make us wiser but learning and growing DOES.
Passing that knowlege and wisdom that we ahve accumulated THE HARD WAY is a good thing for us to do, just like Donna talking to the school girls the other day. GREAT!!!!
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
Is that Phishing or fishing? Sigh, I’ve got a wicked humor tonight.
Couldn’t help but be thinking of the irreverent Trout Fishing in America.
But having a breakthrough on the “stuff” was about as comfortable as laying an egg this afternoon.
It just feels like about everytime I’m inclined to back slide and I slug my way through it, there comes a grand illumination.
And it always comes down to life on the river. You know, where you find the ducks. As in if it walks like, or quacks like, go figure: its a duck…..
SO here comes the fast water….Hope you are good.
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
Do ya’ll know anything about the red hat ladies. I’m old enough. I might wanna be one.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
You bet Ox!
And I’d submit that writing chapters to be included in psych 101 textbooks at the collegiate level would be good too because most of students have to suffer through it -
Why not put something REALLY good in it!
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
Yep. Read it for an Experimental Fiction class about 15 years ago. Richard Brattigen (can’t remember how to spell it) right?
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
Yeah, Oxy…I kind of like the idea of being a crone. There are supposed to be three stages of womanhood. 1) the virgin…the woman who is complete unto herself. 2) the mother, the woman who nurtures others. 3) the crone, the wise-woman you speak of….in ancient times these were the weavers, the herbalist healers, and the magicians…root word Magi, meaning wisdom.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
K-
That sounds wonderful- I have never seen red hat ladies out in public who weren’t laughing and having a great time!
Go for it!
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
As always, though, I have trust issues. I don’t want to get caught up in a bunch of snottery. I’m poor…my teeth are bad, and my red hat would come from Goodwill.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
Well, all you can do is check it out. I think the whole red hat thing is that it doesn’t matter and I think the majority of those hats come from exactly that!
Under a red hat, the point isn’t about the things you are worried about -no?
What’s the worst that could happen? YOu go check ‘em out a few times and maybe its all good, maybe its only some good or maybe its no good- but you don’t know until you go- do you?
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
Yeah. It might be a total celebration.
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
If you go, celebrate that too. Just going means a lot!
Can’t wait to hear how it is! You will tell me?
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
Hey Kim…my mom was a red hat…she got alot of her accessories from second hand outlets…she had a ball…I have pic of about 30 members in my store(local newsworthy stuff!) HAHA….even if it serves a temporary outlet for you to get out and you know some ladies…I agree…go for it….never too late to change the road we’re on…right??? You aren’t trying to fool anyone by checking it out….we don’t trust ourselves more than anyone right now…right??the btards make us not trust….ourselves more than them…I think???…that was my biggest loss … not trusting me anymore….rambling now
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
Silvermoon – this is a response to your 10:32 Am post yesterday
‘Keep flappin’ We’re flyin now!’ Yes. (In my flying dreams, I have to work for it – find the updraft and flap….)
‘Funny how it is, even if there is a lump in your throat or a know in your stomach, your feet still work’ I don’t know if you meant ‘knot’ or know in your stomach – but I like them both very much.
‘We can and will, keep going’ Absof**kinglutley!
‘,,,and the actions that ground and free us spritually are very important.’ Uh huh.
‘Have you ever come across the book what color is my parachute? Its a good one. Lots of work, but, its about falling with style.’ Yes, and Oxy’s cheese book and true colours…and…have done a lot of this work. but I like your statement that it is falling with style…and perhaps it is also ‘failing’ with style.
‘Surrender, redirect, surrender again’. Yes. lovely. Rinse and repeat.
‘I feel so much more defended and so much more vulnerable than ever at the same time. And if that is the way it is, its authentic’. Me too.
‘My experience with the spath was short. We never got to the ugly place. It was all lovely until he got hauled out and my let down has been the post disappearance discovery up to talking to the woman he is already married to the other day.’ Boy, this is why I couldn’t answer your post this AM. All this beauty and this thing – this (not negative) trigger to tell my story to you. I am not great at remembering what I have said ..p..t…s…d… but I can’t tell this today – somehow I just feel too vulnerable. So I will save it for another time. There wasn’t a lot of nasty for me either – but the reality was that one person was pretending to be many, and some of them started to come after me when I knew too much….and now I know MUCH too much.
‘The haunting is very hard because I don’t have memory of his doing or being bad, just the evidence in plan sight- so weird that the evil part is so without texture and the sound of his voice calling me darlin’ in that laconic cowboy still so resident in my brain.’ Because of my own experience I really relate to this. again, more another time.
‘My kayak waddles back and forth down the river of days and I know its headed for the haystacks of getting real- pulling together the inner child and the grown woman into the authentic navigation of life.’ Me too, yes. Again.
best,
one step
(Report abusive comment)
ErinBrock says:
“and my red hat would come from Goodwill”
Uh Kimmie….
Please tell me where else you would be able to find a red hat these days???????
Their NOT EXACTLY hot ticket items???
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
hehe!
(Report abusive comment)
silvermoon says:
Re hittin the haystacks…..
So I come back to look at my earlier posts on Kayaks and about how they waddle rather than steer with a paddle., But to really navigate a kayak through the white water that rushes ahead and behind a fall, there is a hip swinging rythmn to to it that is added to paddling. A fully exerted effort to keep moving through the water with the current having a wild ridin great time and staying away from dangerous spots.
Its an all in excercise.
So, why isn’t this? This healing and recovery? Well it is and all in means ALL. Everything inside and out.
I’m thinking about having been very sad for a few days and I am thinking about what that costs in terms of time and quality of life.
Is it a luxury expense of a requisite purchase of future?
I come to the eddy over the notion that it is a requisite expense, but like anything you purchase you can buy high medium or low on the scales of cost and quality.
So I ask my self, what has the greatest value- Answer :deep rooted, long term healing.
The idea that in a short time you can read a few books and move on doesn’t seem authentic. The idea that the road goes on and on and on itches. So what is true lies somewhere in between.
I think the answer is in between what you did yesterday and what needs done today. If we are to measure trustworthiness in others by their actions then we must uphold the same standard in our own becasue it is only fair that others will be watching.
What marks transition in the healing process is the difference between a to do list and a journal. A change of focus from inside to out. From me to me in the world.
The kayak still waddles, but as the river picks up momentum, there is a rythmn to the motions all together that is not seperated between arms and hips. Fluidly, All in.
On. On. ON!
And in the rush of the haystacks are highs and lows. But the highs and lows are about different things now. And sometimes we get launched into a big whoopee! and sometimes we have to dig the paddle in hard for a holy shit!
That is the rythmn of life. And the better the rythmn, the less the currents or obstacles can deter them.
Its all going to be what its going to be, but it is all going to be downstream of where we’ve been.
I don’t hate the SPATH, I don’t care.
I don’t hate my past, that was then.
Life is short, dessert any one?
(Report abusive comment)
kim frederick says:
I was lying in bed, in the dark, trying to sleep. Rehashing memories of the spath, questioning a strangeness in a current relatoionship with a couple I know: a relationship that leaves me confused and somehow doubtful of myself, quessy, uncertain….I was remembering horrible things I said that never scratched the surface of a situation, never effected any change, I was thinking how critical I’ve become….how much I desire to be right…I was thinking of how insecure I am, how much I desire to be loved, and how ugly I can be when I feel threatened, or hurt or out of control, and the strangest thing happened..I thought of a loving forgiving spirit that seeks understanding and light, and I desired it. I desired that spirit to be a part of me.
I am not a religious person. This was not something I sought out of fear, or a tremendous sence of guilt.
I simply wanted to be free of the chaos, the drama, the pain, the confusion, the uncertainty, the fear, the anger, the justification, the self-centered demands.
This is really out of nowhere for me. But I think something good came knocking. think I’ll open the door
(Report abusive comment)
ErinBrock says:
Kim~
Fling that door open girl!
Consciousness is a greaqt thing!
XXOO
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
EB..I am so glad you got the best of your a*sp! Thank you for telling me I have nothing to say! Really..I to have my story too….but don’t tell it well…
(Report abusive comment)
Renewedhope says:
Well here I am after being gone so long. I have backslid. I am kicking myself for it. After 4 months of NC I felt remorse for the “Last” email I sent her back in January. It was entitled “Closure”. She answered all that I had to say with “Yes and don’t contact me again”. I had a weak moment this morning and I sent her a new email telling her that I was sorry that I was so hatefull in the email that I’d sent her previously. She took her time obviously to carefully write and at 10 45pm I got my answer. That Again it was ME not her that was obsessed and the new email proved it. That I ruined her friendship with her and ruined the realtionship with her and my wife and our mutial best friend. She again made it sound like she never led me on that I had an affair with myself for the past 27 years on and off..she is completely blameless.But I now know that it is truly over and i can go on. I have some things I have to do now. Throw out everything that reminded me of her.. I mean everything. I didn’t do that before. Now I am.I have seen this woman’s dark side and I don’t wish to see anymore. She hasn’t a clue about what actually happened and who caused this last thing to happen. She says it was all me but she said what she said very carefully over the phone. Being smart not to write it where it could be used against her. But I know the truth. I also know that My friend who was also her friend stopped being her friend because she saw how this S woman led me along and this time to the point of almost ruining my marriage. I will take half the blame but not all of it. I take the blame this time especially because I was doing so good. I am going forward now and I will not make any more mistakes. I am finished with this woman forever!
(Report abusive comment)
geminigirl says:
Silver, your blog about kayaks reminded me of a saying,
“Life is short,–eat dessert first!”
Mama gem,XX
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
Dear Mom…I am not sad/sorry that you are not perfect…I wish you could admit those times you weren’t ….those time make me sad/sorry…I recently learned/realized she may be blocking…wow….who knew??
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
Renewed: Don’t get into it again!!! You / We deserve much more…that means….truth…honesty…did you get that …when it was all said and done!!!! NO…we don’t get that..we want it however it escapes us……….much as we try …
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
That I ruined her friendship with her and ruined the realtionship with her and my wife and our mutial best friend.—-I think I missed something…you have a wife and a girlfriend??
(Report abusive comment)
shabbychic says:
Renewedhope, good to hear from you, glad you are being gentle with your feelings and thoughts about yourself, maybe your email was just taking care of you, every situation is different. Of course she said it was all your fault… they are blameless, ha!!! Now you have ended it the way you wanted to! Towanda, dude!!!!
(Report abusive comment)
Renewedhope says:
Dear Shab;
God did I needed to hear someone tell me that! I thought I was just being a fool again. But I think she(S Woman) needed closure too because she never said the things she said until I sent the email today. I don’t feel bad anymore. I know what really happened no matter what came out of her twisted mouth and mind. I can look straight ahead now! I just erased every email I had saved from her going back to 2002! My email is now rid of any sign of her! I have some more healing to do obviously. I thought I was almost past her but I wasn’t. Which is why I still need this place to feel validated. Thanks for your kind words!
(Report abusive comment)
Renewedhope says:
Conomo; You are a late comer. I knew my S woman for 27 years as a lover 3 different times and a friend in between. I got hurt by her badly in 1993 and it took 3 years before I could date again and then I met my wife I have now and we have been together for 14 years. The S woman told me last fall that she was dying and as a ex lover/ friend I had to tell her I still had feelings for her. Well she took that and ran with it and told me she still loves me too. It began a 2 month emotional affair long distance. Via emails and phone calls. Call it a mid life crisis if you wish. There was never sex but there was romance which I regret now having pursued. It almost cost me my marriage but I came to my senses and ended the affair. Actually she did because she went through another one of her Sociopathic cycles. By the time the 2 months ended, she was bored with me and I don’t know for sure but think she went on to someone else.I am still awaiting my fathers probate to clear and I will be getting around $9,000 when it does and I think she wanted some of it. She never asked me for anything..just mentioned it in passing that I need this and I need that..and of course me..I fell for it and offered it. But it’s all water under the bridge now and I can go on and not feel bad anymore. She still claims that she didn’t lead me on and that it was all my fault. Not true. She lead me on for 27 years off and on. It wasn’t until this time happened that I realized what she was. And that she won’t ever change.That’s my story. I am not happy about what happened. But at least I didn’t have sex with her or walk out on my wife. Today my wife and I are back on track and happy again. I have no need to want anyone but her. I merely emailed her because I felt bad about the hateful way I worded my final email to her. No I don’t feel bad anymore. I will take half the blame for what happened but not all the blame.
(Report abusive comment)
conomo says:
I am ..I don’t know how I can validate ,you/or vilify her??? I take some of the blame for my situation…we all do…but I think we had to tell them to take a hike…that’s what I have had to do…I am no prolific poster.. just don’t let her infiltrate your life again…it was good when it was…but it was false…
(Report abusive comment)
Renewedhope says:
So So True!
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
test
(Report abusive comment)
one_step_at_a_time says:
Donna – posted to the june 9 oxytocin thread. post shows as there, but the thread won’t come up on the side bar. any ideas?
thanks.
one step
(Report abusive comment)
aussiegirl says:
(Report abusive comment)
one/joy_step_at_a_time says:
friends, having an odd day. i am a bit bonkers.
contributing factors:
i worked 14 hours yesterday…way too much
i ate some food that i think i am reacting to
but i am looking at trust issues: my student should be showing up tomorrow and i am really nervous about this; my business colleague has helped me out with getting my place ready, and will be here again soon – i am having a hard time with this transition to friendship outside of the business enviro. I have another business colleague who i am becoming increasing uncomfortable with, the more we work together…..(she is in another org, but we work together often now). i have been quite forthright with her about a number of things, and she with me. but the closer we work together the more i see that i will have to become more circumspect about what i tell her – i feel like i can’t trust her now. why? something changed. something in her. i rant about the craziness of my job, and she works with some of the same people and has the similar issues with them – but now i feel exposed.
i have exposed my craziness, too. not just my thoughts and opinions. i am trying to not swear so much, and to not complain so much – it’s hard. i go for another neurofeedback treatment tonight and that will help.
i don’t have friends i can rant to. and making friends of business colleagues might not be the best idea. i just have so little interaction with people and i am still so affected by what happened to me with the spath, the MCS, and my family and freinds. i want so badly to exercise and everything is blown out – the hips, the knees…and the puncture isn’t closed yet, so i can’t get in the water.
i feel like this female colleague has turned off me. i am so sensitive to emo changes in others. i don’t know, maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with me, but she seems different right now.
feel better for writing this. getting back to connecting with people is so hard. so many issues. i am not so easy going and not so open anymore – trust has been ruptured. i hope i like the new student, i hope she is normal ish, hope i can handle having someone here. hope she is real, because if she isn’t, i am going to be really messed around by it…turtle in shell.
i feel more grounded after writing this. back to work….
(Report abusive comment)