After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 15 – Comfort and Joy
PDF Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the turn of the year, the winter solstice and all the holidays of the “dark” time of the year are celebrations of the miracle of renewal. The harvest and colorful leaf fall of autumn is over, and the seasons are turning again to the beginning of the annual cycle of life. Our gifts, all our gatherings, the lights and candles are all expressions of joy in our shared warmth, and our faith and hope in our survival through the cold months to the blooming of spring again.
This morning, reading in bed (Richard Powers’ Prisoners Dilemma), I found this line: “Inside each of us is a script of the greater epic writ little, an atlas of politics so abundant it threats to fill us full to breaking.”
It made me want to write you about the “politics” of getting over a relationship with a sociopath. Sociopaths challenge our faith and hope. Our faith in ourselves, and the goodness of the world. And our hope that there are happy endings for us, or that anything we do will be enough to prevail over the forces of evil or the random destruction that appears in any life. In some ways, this is the biggest challenge of healing – to recover our easy belief that we are precious in the world and that what we need is here for us. Somewhere in our hearts, we remember feeling that way. But we are struggling with a terrible lesson that seems to prove otherwise.
As I write this today, I am looking out the windows behind my desk at a grey sky. Sleet is coming and dangerous roads. The snow is frozen hard on the ground, and dozens of finches, cardinals and jays are at the feeders. At dawn, deer came to nibble on the ears of corn my son scattered at the edge of the woods. My furnace died earlier this week, on a day where the temperature never climbed above 25, and it was 12 hours before the repairmen figured out how to get it going again. Now, with the heat turned up, and me wrapped in sweaters and fleece and woolen socks, my fingers and toes are chilled by the cold that falls through the storm windows.
Elsewhere in the house, my years-old Christmas cactus is blooming beside a wildly-sprigging rosemary bush that looks vaguely like a Christmas tree. Wrinkled but still sweet apples, picked months ago from a local orchard, wait to be peeled and mixed with mincemeat for a pie. A leg of lamb is in the refrigerator for Christmas dinner with a man who was an untrustworthy lover, but a loyal and delightful friend. After dinner, we will go to the movies with my son to see Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes.
All of it stories of risk and survival, disaster and renewal, the fine edge we walk and the mysterious providence that brings us to each new day. Even the most blessed life encounters harsh weather, and sometimes we find ourselves in trouble that taxes us beyond our conventional wisdom. When our rules don’t work, and our usual insurance policies don’t suffice, we are challenged. And often, we don’t know what it means.
Does it mean that somehow we have fallen from grace, that our luck has changed and we are no longer loved by the world? Does it mean that we are broken in some fundamental way, and no longer dare to be comfortable with ourselves? Does it mean that the world is darker than we once imagined, and that we must struggle harder for less?
This is what a great philosopher called the “dark night of the soul.” In this midst of this challenge, there is something truly great happening. A kind of personal miracle that – depending on how we think about things – occurs in our intellect, emotions or spirit. When faced by something we do not understand and cannot manage with our usual tools, we are learning and growing. Like the germs of life stirring in the seeds buried in the cold earth, we are experiencing the birth of something new in ourselves.
Because the challenge is threatening, because it makes us question ourselves and what we know, the first part of the learning seems like recognition of evil in the world. Sociopaths seem to be dark messengers, informing us that our love, goodness and hope cannot triumph over their selfishness, greed and senseless destruction. But in time, we come to realize that this lesson is not really about evil at all, but despair.
This is about a war – profound and eternal – of belief. Are we, as sociopaths believe, essentially alone in an uncaring and untrustworthy world, forced by circumstance and entitled by the survival instinct to take whatever we can grab for ourselves? Or is there something about us that is blessed by connection to something larger – the love we share with other people, our dependence on the combined strength of our communities, our instinct that an infinite wisdom and strength exists beyond our imagining, larger than us, but also part of us? And that we are meant, by some birthright that we can hardly explain but that is clearly part of our deep character, to find lasting peace, understanding and gratitude.
What we ultimately learn from an intimate encounter with a sociopath is that this battle is not in the world, but in ourselves. The sociopath triggers our fears, our insecurities, our willingness to give up what we value for the illusion that the ultimate source of love or safety is outside of us. In their betrayals, in the brutal disappointments they return for our commitment to the gorgeous illusions they cast to draw us in, we are thrown back on ourselves. They prove to us, in a way that is a perfect mirror of however much we were willing to give them to make this illusion real, that the first source of our love, safety and greatest wisdom is inside of us. That, however important shared love and community may be, the foundation of everything good in our lives is inside us.
It is about what we believe. At base, under all the little rules we’ve picked up from parents and teachers, under all the little restrictions we’ve placed on ourselves as a result of old traumas, under all the lingering resentments or fears we’ve never resolved, is what we believe about ourselves and this life. It is what, under it all, we know to be the truth and the meaning of our stories.
Our lives, like the life of every other living thing, are about survival and growth and learning. Our lives are about understanding more as we age, an evolving wisdom that sometimes grows out of joy and triumph and sometimes out of pain and loss. Our lives are about trying, not waiting around for something to happen, but also believing that trying is not just us working at what we see. Trying also magically attracts new resources to us. Everyone here on LoveFraud knows how trying to get better brought us here, and here we found resources that simply zoomed toward us, challenging us in good ways to wake up to new ideas and use them. That is how the world works.
Our lives are also about seasons. Not just the season of age, but the seasons of mastery. We have little challenges to learn on a daily basis, and we have huge challenges that we inherited, and that are so much part of the fabric of our family’s history or the state of the entire world that a lifetime may not be enough to understand it all or master its opportunities. We learn the immediate things – how to change a diaper, work the e-mail, get along with a boss, drive in the snow. But our lifetimes are also about those immense inherited questions, and part of the meaning of our life is how much we do learn and how our learning affects the great whole.
Nothing, not one breath or molecule of these recoveries from grief and loss, is wasted. We are part of a great turning of seasons. What we do here is important. We are important. The world and the great spirit that gives it life force have given us a gift, an opportunity to learn something amazing. About ourselves. About the meaning of love and belonging, as well as solitary courage. About how to be whole in the face of adversity. About the great cycle of renewal in ourselves, and how truly dependable is the fact that we are meant to learn, grow, thrive, bloom again, and face new challenges as we feel strong enough for a thrilling new learning experience.
The earth is turning toward sunnier days. Seasons when we take the warmth and light for granted. So are we.
As Oxy likes to remind us, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Not just to endure. But to recover joy, confidence and belief that every bit of this is a gift, sent to us to help us clear our internal decks, get rid of fear and grief and anger, and open our minds to the bright spirit of faith and hope, peace and joy, understanding and gratitude that is our birthright, that lives in the center of our beings.
Namaste. The light in me salutes the light in you.
Kathy
written by Kathleen Hawk • Permalink •
henry says:
Free I went to Movie25.com and they want a credit card number….
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sotired says:
Happy New Year!!! Spath free.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Henry: try alluc.org
some of the sites it links too will give you stupid options to ‘play poker’ or ‘download a special plug in’, but there are usually many links for each movie/ tv show.
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ErinBrock says:
Free:
If you WANT to get your dog back……and this is an important thing for YOU….then call the police.
I assume you have a licence or chip or vet records, reciepts on the dog?
Pull them out, call the cops and report it, go over and get the dog back!!!
It wasn’t the S’s dog to ‘dispose of’….or give away….
So, if it’s important to you…..I say….fuckem….go get your dog.
DO NOT let them intimidate you……
You might also mention to the cops the guys a dope dealer….and hey….did your ex trade the dog for drugs???? was this how the dealer got the dog….drug debt…hmmmmmm.
If you have read any of my posts in the previose threads along the way…..I am one to NOT let the S’s intimidate me and cut their balls off legally in court……
I stand by….right is right and wrong is wrong…..and I am a feisty bitch when I am confronted with anything an S does….
Now….i know this may not serve most well….and we all must decide the ‘risk’ involved in the particular S we are dealing with……
99.9% of what we worry about will never happen……
I applied this to the worry and intimidation from the S…..I broke down everything I ever worried about and none of it happened……all his threats…etc….I view him as stale wind.
BUT I”M NOT!!!
S, You can throw out all the threats you want…..but I’m gonna follow through…….
I say…..call the cops…..man up and stand up for YOU!!! (and your companion)……
The message it sends them…..DON”T FUCK WITH ME.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
EB – can you weigh in on something?
the spath i tangles with used photos of at least 8 people who she was pretending to be.
the one i loved – well, I wondered WHO that beautiful boy REALLY was. and it hurt to know that @#$ had stolen his life, as much as she surely will with MY photos.
so, i have been thinking – she didn’t extort any money from me, so the AG can’t do anything. BUT what about those folks whose pics she used?
If i could find them….
One was a musician, so I expcect that many people had seen him. There was a photo in which his t shirt said, 2007, so they are recent.
many of those photos were used on the website – so lots of us have them. I was thinking about taking THE most used one and posting it on Craigslist in EVERY major north american city.
ideas?
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one_step_at_a_time says:
…and he had tattoos…mmm, police? tatoos?
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ErinBrock says:
Free:
The point is….if they are really going to DO something….they generally DO NOT threaten it….they just DO IT!!!
It’s like someone telling you how rich they are…..if they gotta talk aobut it….it ain’t true….
Mine was a ‘talker’…..the things he threatened he never followed through with….it was only to swell up his own balls to feel better for his ego……he was in control…….
I think we tend to think ‘mafia’ with threats…..if I say i’m gonna cut your nose off……you fear it….me and my cronnies…..but the odds are…..you will have your smeller for lot’s of years!!!
It makes me angry to know how many of us are intimidated by thiese freaks….
I want all of us to slam them legally and serve em up for the celebration dinner afterwards….
I’ll bring the wine!
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pollyannanomore says:
Eb that was what I wanted to suggest
Glad you think it’s worth a crack – the dog would have a miserable life with a dealer anyway – would at the very least be neglected and possibly worse.
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Rosa says:
I’ll bring a small blanket.
Very small.
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ErinBrock says:
Rosa….bring candles….i’ve given the blanket to the new puppy….
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one_step_at_a_time says:
ErinBrock – can you weigh in on something?
the spath i tangles with used photos of at least 8 people who she was pretending to be.
the one i loved – well, I wondered WHO that beautiful boy REALLY was. and it hurt to know that @#$ had stolen his life, as much as she surely will with MY photos.
so, i have been thinking – she didn’t extort any money from me, so the AG can’t do anything. BUT what about those folks whose pics she used?
If i could find them….
One was a musician, so I expcect that many people had seen him. There was a photo in which his t shirt said, 2007, so they are recent.
many of those photos were used on the website – so lots of us have them. I was thinking about taking THE most used one and posting it on Craigslist in EVERY major north american city.
ideas?
…and he had tattoos…mmm, police? tatoos?
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Rosa says:
I like the name Holly.
German Shephards are very intelligent, GREAT watch dogs, & intensely loyal.
I had one growing up….Loved that dog.
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ErinBrock says:
ONE:
I think people in general need to be completely violated (harshly) to be able to ‘justify’ getting the law involved….
Bottom line….no one wants to be involved in ‘trouble’.
It’s easy to look the other way…..
I believe you would be ‘wasting’ your time and energy seeking these folks out to see if they ‘care’ that a sociiopath was using their images.
Even if prosecuted, the road is a long and not prosperous one.
people just don’t have the stamina.
I know this isn’t prob. what you want to hear…..but in my battles…..this is what I have found….
You just can’t recruit an army to fight a sociopath and shut them down……it’s a one person show.
Now….on to YOU……
I am not sure your ‘fight’ is worth the price your paying with your health.
I want you to ask yourself…..
WHAT AM I GETTING FROM THIS FIGHT to expose?
There isn’t any financial payoff…..custody or property awards.
And I understand, better than anyone your wish to expose….
But I hate to see you compromise your health and well being for this spath.
I think your not going to get much cooperation from the authorities….because in the eyes of the law…..your damages are ‘minimal’…..(I understand the damage, but I can see you being dismissed along the way).
Your time may be better spent on educating others and raising awareness of all the general S’s around us all!
Just my two cents…..although I totally understand your wish to see her fry…..I’m worried aobut your health….and I allowed mine to be compromised for 28 years until it surfaced and almost killed me!
Take CARE of you darling!!!!
XXOO
EB
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one_step_at_a_time says:
EB – thanks for your response. I needed to ask someone who is willing to engage in a fight. X
one step
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ErinBrock says:
I’ll tell ya…..ive become a fighter….had too….for my own sanity….and with the S….I didn’t see a choice….
I said early on and I truely believed this…..I could give him my eyes, heart and brain on a silver platter, along with all assets, possesions and children……AND HE STILL WOULDN”T BE HAPPY!!!!
So at the risk of not being ruined financially and not having my health to get back on my feet again….If I was…..I was 140K in debt due to his actions of non payment of community liabilities and I had to go for the jugular!!!
I didn’t feel bad in the least…due to his actions/abuse and the fact that he has over a million dollars in cash in his posession hidden.
But….if I was that person your spath was using a photo of….and you contacted me right now……I have to say….I don’t think I would engage in the battle…..My cup is running over at the moment….
I am not sure there is anything that can be done to punish the spath legally….maybe just a cease and decist order…..
You have to be able to prove damages to receive any financial judgements….and the jugements wouldn’t be awarded to YOU……
It’s a thankless ‘job’.
I think it’s a situation of chasing tails…..
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7stepstoheaven says:
Oh pollyanna!
Your “pain-relief rap” made me LAUGH OUT LOUD!
CHORTLE! SNORT! YIP!
You are one funny lady!! I was so ready for a good chuckle!
And the similarities continue…. My mother was date-raped in the summer before her senior year at college. Had to quit school, hide out, have the baby and give it up, just like your “mum.” This was in the early 1950′s, and it was a horrible shaming event for her. I did not know this for a long time – she only told me after I got sick the first time and I had gone back to live with her. After my father (alcoholic beater) and my stepfather (spath) she swore off men FOREVER. She told me many times “I just feel I am very bad at picking men.” I don’t really think she ever dealt with the pain from that. She went on to have four more children, and she always calls me “her firstborn.” The woman is a survivor. She says she had a very happy childhood – she thinks that helped her cope.
My mother married the SP when I was about 8. I had a father again so it took a little adjustment. They married, he adopted her 3 girls, and then when I was 13 my moth had his child, my brother. The SP was our stepfather for over 10 years. My mother divorced him in 1977. more on that later.
Night all!
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Erin Brock – I can appreciate that our circumstances are very different.
(I had been thinking if i could find those people in the photos that maybe the AG would have something HE could work with. dunno. I know it would get her kicked off the website – for about five minutes until she got a new remailer and uploaded the next set of photos she has tricked someone into giving her- or has stolen. I will ask the AG about this)
I AM talking with the folks who are suing her. She learned from her run in with that woman and didn’t pull shit on me that I could have sued her for- and right now I would add, ‘unfortunately’.
I know I will end up being the ‘face’ of love’ to someone else when she uses MY pics to defraud someone. the original beauty boy was very seldom even mildly agitated with anything i did – but was when i posted a couple of pics on the website that i had given to ‘him’ he had a couple diff stories about how that affected him (from diff characters)…and now i think that was about the fact that she couldn’t use them there herself in one of her many manifestations.
i am thinking a lot about what i can and will do and the timing of things. – if i am behind her being outed online, i will not do it myself.
i am thinking more clearly most days – i get triggered, PTSD, and then i am gonzo for a bit – but at least i see that now and that is awesome.
I am questioning, and haven’t come up with any answers yet: what do I want? what is my desire in relation to her? what do i need? what do i want? how do i get there? if she has no deep conscience, then i cannot hurt her – perhaps i can slow her down – at what cost? how do i really feel about testifying against her? how do i really feel about being in her presence?
if i don’t want her to fuck with me, then i should just leave it alone – if THAT is my goal. I keep coming back to vengence and wanting power. I do want to ‘get’ her. And i don’t know if i will be satisifed until i DO SOMETHING. I cannot accept ‘just don’t do anything’ as best advice – I HAVE to untie EACH knot and stand in knowledge and REALLY do what i think is best for this creature ‘one step’, not just what may sound wise.
i see right now as a time of regaining some balance and getting smart. I have many things that need my attention. I will have to do my work and healing around all this no matter what, and i think it is a long journey ahead of me – she hurt me profoundly. And i want to stand her down.
She manipulated me with such glee. I gave ‘him’ such love and light. it WAS magical for me. She made that person and then she took him away. And it feels INTENSELY personal. i don’t think i have ever wanted someone as much in my life.
‘He’ brought out parts of me I hadn’t experienced in decades – and some parts of me i didn’t know could breath so fully, feel so fully, WANT so much. I felt freed. And wanted. And ‘on task’. ‘He’ was amazing, i loved him, and he’s gone. And SHE DID THIS. I am angry at her for taking my fantasy away. She posted, as one of the nasty characters (after she had called me as the resurrected boy: ‘ reality is what’s left when what you believe in is taken away.’ I feel her hands on my arm – my bone snapping; she is cruel.
Her m.o. is to kill off the ‘boy’ and then step in as someone sort of close to herself (well FEMALE at least
and VERY close to the ‘boy’ and infiltrate the dupes life. And she then becomes the ‘protector’ of the boy – ‘who really existed’ but who needed to be protected from the duped. I can imagine that being on the other end of that part of the play would be emotional hell. truly. after being told you were THE best thing since sliced bread, you endure a death, then are love bombed by this bitch AND then are told – no, you were in fact, a predator.
i think she was trying to go there with me. she had the sister set up – she was calling and emailing me – but maybe things are diff for her now that she is married again, maybe she isn’t so quick to haul her ass around to the dupes and literally move in with them.
but as the sister she was very weird very fast. and she made some big mistakes. and i knew things were very rotten after a few phone calls. (she IS one hell of an actress.)
But I doubt she knew that i did in fact, ‘feel’ him. i knew when ‘his’ emails were coming – but he was supposed to be dead – and her email would show up. there is so much i don’t understand and i want to know about her scams- it will put me at ease.
i have felt her around me for days. and i don’t know if it is incoming contact or what. she has no way to contact me except snail mail.
someone contacted me a few days ago saying ‘he’ (this person doesn’t know who ‘he’ really is) was alive and they are all alive and someone else we know is chatting with them all. i told her no, ‘ONE person’, and she challenged it (and she was one of the first doubters) and i just shut down and said – don’t want to know and blocked her email. IF i want to know what the spath is doing I CAN go look myself – i am a trustworthy source, this other woman is not.
but beyond getting triggered that day it has stuck with me – it is the weirdest thing- and comes back around to the thing of ‘being one who the precious one needs to be protected from’ and ‘he continuing his life with the chosen’ (the internet has given this bitch SO many more tools – she doesn’t even have to leave the house to pull a con) –
I feel rejection, abandonment, jealousy, feel i am missing out on THE BEST PARTY, I feel devalued – and I KNOW HE ISN’T FUCKING REAL!!!!!
So, I need to work with these feelings. I feel jealous that someone else is being duped and not me?!?! FUUUUCK!! I DON”T WANT THAT BACK. And yet, here I am – bequeathed a rat nasty nest of feelings.
Most days, most of most days all the sock puppets stay in the big shoe. I am grateful that the woman who blogs about her – who is suing her – posted some of the things she did – cause I have PROOF for my delusional mind when crap like that email make me doubt what i know – that all of the manifestations ARE HER, which makes Her SPATH.
\
I put something together today: that time that many here talk about- the shift from their wow factor to their ick factor. Harder to see when there are 6 of them – but it came together for me today. So, now I can start seeing all that the manifestations said and did as the ‘whole of the path’s actions and words’. And that already made the ‘turning’ accessible to me.
…as usual one good trigger always provokes a long post. And I am better for it.
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pollyannanomore says:
One Step I got sucked in by a guy overseas who was all rubbish – I don’t even actually know if he lived in where he said he did or not! I was a few months separated and pretty damned vulnerable – we conversed everyday online and I am pretty sure whoever he was, he was also on the Cluster B highway. We conversed for months, with him sucking me dry and giving very little then one day a lightbulb went on for me and I pulled right back from him – deleted all his contact details and went cold turkey – the guy had manipulated like you wouldn’t believe – all these promises of a future and arrangements made to call and visit that would always fall through.
I felt really dumb after that – I missed whoever he was. It is so easy to build the illusion of intimacy online with someone you never spend real life time with. You must feel incredibly violated by this person especially finding out so much about the real person behind it. I never did find out if the guy was real or someone pretending to be someone else …and eventually I was able to let it go. Did you just talk online with your’s? No cam I assume from their end or phone calls? How long were you talking with one another for and what kinds of plans were made? (sorry if I have missed you posting on another thread about this, but I tend to miss a lot of posts!)
Glad the awful rap gave you a chuckle – you have a tangled family history to resolve for yourself – are you in contact with your siblings still? Did you ever find the sibling who was adopted out? I just wonder how our mothers and grandmothers coped with all the pain they went through in bad relationships … so much unresolved shame in pregnancy outside wedlock in those days.
Hope your pain is better today – you sound like you’ve got a bit of fire back – good to see!
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free-at-last says:
Henry,
If you go to movie25.com, DO NOT click on the DOWNLOAD THIS MOVIE. That is the deluxe link so to speak. scroll down a little and it will give you a playlist of version 1 version 2 etc. These are the free ones. Sometimes you have to try a couple of differant versions to find one that doesn’t lag. They also have some advertisements you have to sit through. That is why they are free.
I have watched around 100 free movies from that site and have never given a credit card. The free ones are the capped bandwidth and slow buffering sometimes. The fast stream ones are the ones that want a credit card #.
7 step. I have chronic back pain from a pinched nerve in my back. I am so LUCKY to have a physician that lets me have pain meds. She does however monitor me very closely so I don’t get addicted to them. I have been taking them for about 5 years now and am so very very stingy with them myself because I don’t want them taken from me and have to live in with the overwelming pain. Honestly, if I did not have the pain meds I seriously would consider taking my life. The quality of life living with that kind of extreme pain is not worth living to
me.
Erin, The whole story with the dog is rather twisted. He actually got it from a man, John, accross the street. I am not sure if this man is a psn or not but his gf kicked him out because he had no job and she got tired of paying his bills. The dog stayed with the gf at the time. John and my p kind of tricked her into giving the dog to us. John owed me about $40 for running my phone bill up. The gf Paula, is bi polar and was on meds but quit taking them and started going nuts. Out in the street ranting and raving throwing stuff at neighbors and just acting scary. She threatened the man who lived in the other half of the duplex from her with a knife. My p ran over there and the police were called. She ended up giving the dog to my p for the $40 she and John owed ME for the phone bill. This is in front of a police officer. What better witness to have than a police officer to say the dog is HIS. Well the money was actually owed to me so it is my dog right? The dog,Junior, and I were the ones who loved each other. He slept with me. My P had another room BTW. He was the only animal I have been able to get close too in about 20 years. I have had pets but they were mainly my children’s pets. You know how a pet seems to be drawn to one person or another in the family. Well this dog was MINE. He gave me solace and comforted me. He was perfect in every way. But, how can I go to the police when he has a police officer witness that the dog is his??? And now this homeless guy John comes in the picture saying the dog was his orignally. The drug dealer, Andy, is also John’s drug dealer. So they are all against me. And, I did tell the police that Andy was a drug dealer. But they acted like I was just a crazy old hysterical woman trying to get these 3 good buddies in trouble. What is that called triangulation or something when the P can get others to go along with their plan and motives. My p like so many others is very glib and can charm the socks off of most people. He sounds so reasonable to people outside of our relationship. Anywhere from casual friends family to the sales clerk to the cops. That really seems to get me the most is how they can fool EVERYONE. It makes me absolutely CRAZY. Then I act crazy. My now 19 year old son advised me on the day my P gave the dog to the drug dealer that I was the one who looked CRAZY not the p because I was hysterical. My P was all nice calm and charming as usual when he wants to get something from someone. He sounded so rational laughing and joking with the cops. My son went outside with me while the cops were there and kept me calm by whispering over and over not to get upset or loud because it would just hinder me and the cops would think I was the problem.
Everyone advised on LF if you have to go to the judge or anyone in authority that you have to remain calm or you will be looked at as the crazy one. For me that is nearly impossible. IT is just so absurd what these people can do (the psn’s) and get away with and others don’t get it. The Authorities are the ones that should be on your side and stick up for what is RIGHT. The ones you should be able to turn to for help. Yet, They are the ones that enable the psn’s to get away with it. Just like Henry’s story when his p broke into his house yet the cops said they wouldn’t get in the middle of a homosexuall affair. HMPH!!! what the heck does that have to do with the fact that the p committed a crime???? It is just bizare. The poeple who it around and watch these awful things take place or even particpate in letting it happen are just as guilty in my opinion. An old saying “If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem” is apt with all psn’s.
Sorry but it just angers me that it is all so circular like that. My hands are shaking so bad right now I can barely type.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Donna – what is wrong with the lovely blog? New site?
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one_step_at_a_time says:
yay, we’re back!
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7stepstoheaven says:
Kathleen – as I go back and read what you and others here say I see and learn completely different things from the way I understood it on the first reading (or 2nd or 4th or 10th!). Here you were talking about changing the dynamic of a relationship which has been based on dysfunction, in order to shape it into a more rewarding one:
“If you can figure that out, then you can go after it. Reinforce their good behavior. Ask for what you want. If you don’t get it, say thanks for the effort, but let’s focus on other things in the future. If they do something you hate, say “I hate it when you do that.” Teach them how to be good, by being what you want them to be, and ignoring what doesn’t match. It might take a year or two, but they’ll figure it out, if they really want a relationship with you.”
—————–
I first read this and thought, I have tried to do this but it hasn’t worked at all. If the other person doesn’t care than this change ain’t gonna happen no matter WHAT you do.
In coming through my catastrophizing fog I find I need to give myself some credit for actually working on developing a positive relationship with my mother. In dealing with the rest of my family I have been stuck like a little gerbil running in her exercise wheel while getting nowhere. There has to be some level of communication and trust, and even love and compassion, FROM them, to try to “retrain” people in your close relationships so that the interaction becomes more insightful, respectful, and kind.
Since she is now the “lightning rod” through which I experience the rest of my dysfunctional family, my anger with them has kind of piled up on her. I had to think about that a lot this week, and today I realize that my relationship with her HAS CHANGED for the better. I do know that our interactions have become more positive and our relationship has grown. She still drives me crazy much of the time, but she doesn’t lie to me.
Wow – if my expectations are so low that a good relationship is someone not lying to me, I need to reconsider that, don’t ya think?
I know that she loves me, trusts me, and that most of the time she RESPECTS me. She listens to me now, in a way she never could when I was a child. She will tell me what she really thinks and feels, in a way that she is afraid to do with my siblings or with anyone else. I can’t really expect her to change the dysfunction in how she relates to them, but maybe in some small way our changed relationship may influence their own insight and healing.
Kathleen:
“Honesty can be truly a weird element in a relationship that was formerly based on nice lies. People get shocked. They think you’re being rude or not playing by the rules. They accuse you of deliberately trying to be hurtful. They’re so accustomed to burying their own truth that they feel like they deserve payback by everyone else burying theirs. So when you inject authenticity into these relationships, it can take a while for them to get the hang of it and realize it’s a good thing.”
—————
I played these games with my mother for a long time. She was brought up in a very conservative small city in the deep south, where manners and appearance were everything. Being rude to others or saying what you really were thinking was just not an option. Upsetting the status quo by not being NICE was the most unforgivable sin. It is an environment that breeds perfectionism and hypocrisy.
But I realize that I am fortunate because she is an honest person. If she distorts information it is from her own denial or hurt. She is not the kind of manipulative person who plays people for fun, or is deliberately deceptive, although she can be passive-aggressive at times. As a woman raised in an era and culture where she was expected to be passive in relationships and to submerge her own ambitions in marriage and raising children this is to be expected. She was taught to put everyone else’s needs before her own. This did not prepare her for the difficulties she had to face in her life.
If she was dishonest then a relationship with her would be untenable. She accepts what I say now as coming from an equal (most of the time), and I realize that that is a long way from where we used to be. It is the one basic foundation that appears to be missing in transactions with my siblings. It is the most important element in having any kind of relationship with anyone, regardless of familial ties or love or other worldly obligations.
Kathleen wrote:
“You’ll notice them starting to divulge things with a kind of guilty pleasure long before they actually get a grip on the fact that you’ve changed the game in a good way.”
—————
I had to realize that she will be completely honest with me, and is not afraid to tell me anything. This IS a huge change. And also the fact that I do pretty much tell her how I feel about the dysfunctional doings of my siblings. I may not get the RESPONSE from her that I would like, but I have realized that it is enough that I am able to tell her what I think and how I feel. I had been feeling only the frustration and the failure of trying to get HER to change, when in fact the good news here is that I have changed, and that is something positive.
In fact, she has told me things recently that I know she has never told a living soul. That information is important, not only for her to be able to acknowledge her own thoughts and feelings, but for BOTH of us to bear witness to the actual truth of our shared history. It means something that she can say these things to me. I am only interested in the truth, and not some story to placate me and wrap me up in a giant cotton ball, shielded from harsh reality.
pollyanna you said:
“7 Steps – I am glad you and your mum are getting through some of the denial and pain as you work your own way through the labyrinth towards healing – I do believe if we are brave enough to go on this journey then 1) mighty forces will come to our aid and 2) our process of enlightenment will support others to reach for the light as well. I sense from your very insightful post that you are starting to understand why you were raised the way you were with your mum as you see her experience and pain by having experienced it yourself.”
——————
I realize that my anger is not so much with my mother any more. I had long ago decided that I needed to forgive her for her inadequacies as a parent, because she had been so terribly abused herself. I felt a lot more compassion for her as I began to learn the terrible things that she endured, and that a lot of what I had experienced as hostility and neglect was her reaction to events which had affected her, NOT because of inadequacies in me. She did not treat me that way because I was bad or unlovable or defective in some way. She cared for me in the best way she knew how, and some of it was good. She worked very hard, and tried her best to give us a nice home. She would make us wonderful meals and share her love of music and art and the good things in the world. She was responsible and loving TO THE BEST OF HER ABILITY. I had to ask myself if I could have done any better if I had been in her shoes.
pollyanna everything you say in your response to my post is so understanding and so close to my own experience. It gives me a whole other level of understanding, how life experience teaches compassion as you go forward, in sometimes horrifyingly painful ways. What you said to me was a gift, and even though these lessons put us through hell, we are better human beings for it. Some things are only understood when you have been tested and tried in the fire of your own life experiences. I would rather have this knowledge than go through my life as an endlessly consuming, emotionally voracious and destructive, empty person that is the sociopath, who is the embodiment of a life full of pain, without gain.
This goes back to what Kathleen said:
“The most difficult and hardest part of healing is getting through all the layers of self-blame, imagining that we might have done better, anger that things weren’t different, fear that we’ll never be whole or okay, struggling with the idea that we didn’t deserve better, to the simple knowledge that we’re carrying around an unhealed wound.”
————–
My learning curve over the past 20 years regarding my own co-dependence and dysfunction had to come first, before I could even begin to understand the way she had experienced the world, or how our relationship was shaped by those experiences. Many, many steps. Work on understanding myself, trying to heal and change myself, trying to understand her behavior, trying to understand the way in which her history affected the dynamic between us, and then trying to change the way in which we interact. Trying to think clearly about what it is that I want/need, and then developing the ability to SAY what it is that I want. Being attached to what I want to say, but detached from the result. Trying to become ACTIVE, not REACTIVE.
When you realize that this is what healthy people have learned to do instinctively, you are faced with quite a task.
I had to stop taking it personally, because I am not that bewildered child anymore. I had to imagine myself in those situations, and understand that I might have reacted to them in
my own confused and fearful way. My biggest, most difficult task has been seeing the disconnect between my thoughts and emotions, looking back to see how this happened and how it still happens. I have to perform a type of mental surgery in going back to re-attach the thoughts to the emotions, the context to the stark detached memories of experiences which are in a completely separate box from my emotional truth.
Only when you finally see the results of this work, can you understand the appropriateness of the emotions you have to the situations you experienced. It is like many many deaths in your soul, and you go through all the mental reactions to death again and again. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You can easily get stuck at any stage, and for a very long time. You can be stuck at different stages with different people at the same time, according to where they are stuck.
This takes so much focus and energy, and mindfulness. You have to go through mental and emotional gymnastics in everything you do in the world, every personal interaction, every decision. And to gain the confidence that you can make the correct decisions takes a very long time. You have to go through a long time of being very hard on yourself when you did not make the right decision. You begin to see that the wrong decisions are based on a kind of blind impulse that takes over your brain like some kind of misguided avatar. It’s a loss of consciousness that completely overrides your own best interest.
I am the driver. Never, ever give the steering wheel of your own life to another. This is one of the biggest ways in which we become vulnerable to people who wreak havoc in our lives, because we want to be rescued, accepted, taken care of. We want to escape into a fantasy. We can give away the responsibility of thinking for ourselves to someone else. This becomes our addiction, because it feels good when we do this. We feel relief. Our fears are buried. Our needs are met for the moment, but the consequences can be horrendous.
BOY I SURE DO TALK A GOOD GAME DON’T I – WISH I COULD ACTUALLY APPLY IT TO MY LIFE!!
No wonder we are so exhausted! The work is difficult but the rewards are great. It is a long haul, and you have to stay the course to the best of your ability. Any action based on fear or addictive need will ALWAYS be a complete retrograde motion away from an action based on our long-term needs and goals, the actions which can truly lead to happiness or at least a feeling of acceptance in our lives.
SHORE WISH I COULD GET BETTER AT DOING THIS!
POLLYANNA
“are you in contact with your siblings still? Did you ever find the sibling who was adopted out? I just wonder how our mothers and grandmothers coped with all the pain they went through in bad relationships … so much unresolved shame in pregnancy outside wedlock in those days.”
I have thought about the fact that I have an older sister out there somewhere and it has saddened me. The brief thoughts I have had about trying to find her have been tempered by the fact that my mother has absolutely no wish to do so, and that for this girl to find out that she was the product of rape could only be awful for her. Add to that how badly my siblings have behaved and I just can’t see anything positive coming of it.
It happened almost 60 years ago, and since she was adopted at birth she probably went to a family that wanted her. Is it too late for me to be Adopted Out??!!!
I have almost no contact with my siblings by choice, because they have basically scapegoated me. I remember reading a couple of years ago that if one sibling in a family gets ill, they are often scapegoated by their sibs, which is awful but appears to be close to my experience. I thought I had great relationships with all of them but then was entirely blindsided. If I had had any idea that this would happen I could have been better prepared for it, but when I was at my most vulnerable they pulled the rug right out from under me. The pain of this abandonment has been very difficult for me to get beyond, but like Kathleen has said, you can weep, wail and moan but it won’t change the facts.
It is not possible to contend with their distortions, lies, and betrayals. It might be possible to deal with my sisters one on one, but with one manipulating the other there is no chance for any meaningful communication. My brother is just selfish and irresponsible and if he thinks relaying any private information will give him some attention then he is all in. Discretion is a concept entirely foreign to him – except if it is within his own interest. Learned that one the hard way.
When I rarely speak to them it is very superficial and polite. It’s not worth exposing myself to that pain. I send holiday and birthday gifts to my niece and three nephews but have not seen or spoken to them in five years, and they are all practically teenagers now. It horrifies me now to think how my sisters have probably spoken about me in front of the kids without my knowledge or input. I know that I have no control over that and I haven’t done anything wrong. I just want the kids to know that their aunt loves them.
The last time I called to speak to the kids, my sister put the speakerphone on to monitor everything I said, like I suddenly had become untrustworthy or a loose cannon. The speakerphone event just sickened me. That their expectations are so low and so full of paranoia says a lot more about them than it does about me. That was just it for me. More stress than I could deal with anymore.
Thank you I do feel better today. Decided to bite the bullet and take the pain meds. I was going to spend some time with my mom but I called to let her know I was running late and she got all nasty and whiny that I wasn’t over there already – not the kind of attitude that makes you want to spend time with anyone. Took all the air right out of me. She is such a child sometimes. I decided under those circumstances I’d rather stay home and talk to you guys!
For all of the above scribblings that our relationship has improved, at times she can suck any compassion you may have had right out of you. She can get away with guilting her children, but I know she would not dare behave that way with anybody else. I just hate that horibble yucky feeling that immediately overtakes me when she does this. Wish I could just blow it off but that ain’t happenin’ anytime soon!
She’s probably on the phone now whining to my sister that I bailed on her. Some things will never change.
I loved the Lily Allen vid on youtube! That was pretty special!
That and the GaGa vid for Bad Romance – did not know that girl could dance. How the heck does she do it in those shoes?!
Oy! Cannot seem to make posts of reasonably short length! It’s just all the thinking y’all make me do!
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henry says:
Free at Last Calm down – BREATHE – Look at the shape our world is in, the corruption etc. We are out numbered. ..sorry you are having a bad day…….
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henry says:
Testing 123 – Beam me up scotty – is this yesterday? today? or tomorrow?
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Pollyannanomore: don’t know if you will ever SEE this post – what IS wrong with the blog today?
i think part of your post re sibs etc. was meant for someone else. my sister wasn’t adopted out.
the spath and i were in hardcore phone/ email contact for most of this year. 2 hours a day for the last few weeks of ‘his life’.
and my heart can’t tell you the number of promised and failed ‘meetings’. i went to meet him once – but, oh, his plane was delayed, blah blah blah.
i also spoke to his sister when ‘he died’….. the spath is very talented with the accents and various voices. i know this cause i know a bit about – oh such a small amount compared to what i want to know – her spathing history.
but how she faked being him day in day out – well, there is a level of mastery there that has been absolutely WASTED ON A SPATHING CAREER! SHE SHOULDA’ BEEN ON STAGE, AND A WRITER – AND DROWNED AT BIRTH. Oops, sorry – did i say that last one aloud?
one step
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one_step_at_a_time says:
and polly….i have a WHOLE new list of does and don’t for online connections.
this was only the second person I have met online. and i am a good person, and i can smell sh*t in real life – but obviously not online, cause the first one i met online and dated off and on for 2 years is an N, and now this one, is a spath.
I had been alone for 18 years when i met (and i did meet her within a few weeks of meeting her online. she lived in another city) the N. 18 years is a long time. It was that long ’cause – the last person i had been with was an alcoholic, and i scared the bejeezus out of myself and didn’t trust myself for a long long time.
then there is that thing of finding someone to date. i know the spath was supposed to be a boy – BUT WASN’T (SNORT!), but ‘he’ was an anomaly – my heart is with women, and the % is small in the population and even smaller in smaller places. I think it would be hard enough for me to find someone if i were str8t – but htis is just ridiculous – so i went online. and got me into some bit of trouble!
i don’t like big cities much – but it is either that or go live in the boonies by myself and just forget ever having a lover. period.
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henry says:
onestep – The boonies are full of lesbians. They have nice big homes, drive big butch trucks and drink beer and watch lots of football. They have lot’s of parties and friends. My gaydar is better with lesbians than gay men. So maybe moving to the boonies is not a bad idea? Have you ever gone to womens sports events like basketball or soccer? Seems to me lesbians are better with long term relationships than gay men. And lot’s of women become gay after being involved with a jerk husband or boyfriend.
I live in the boonies. I love my privacy. I am a hermit. I am left alone for the most part. I wouldnt trade my little modest humble home on my 5 acres for any big house in a big city. I can see the stars at nite and the moon is bright. I hear see and feel nature. I grow things. My little weiners love the freedom and adventure of patrolling their territory. I have so muh to be thankfull for.
I am sorry this internet, texting thing happened to you. But for me the only good thing I have found on the internet is lovefraud. I will have to meet someone eye to eye. The internet feeds our fantasys and waste too much of our lives. Sorry for rambling but I just watched Paranormal Activity and I am pumped up with adrenaline – sheesh that is a scary movie…..
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Henry – I laughed when i read your post – ’cause what i edited out of mine was:
‘…and i don’t play pool, drink beer as a hobby, have no interest in the butch/ femme paradigm, not interested in people who never developed any politics around orientation or whose politics froze in the 80′s, don’t care about sports (of any kind) don’t have a rat tail or own a pair of ‘birks’….
one friend told me i was a fag. um, noooo, i think she actually meant, ‘artist’.
…and THAT’s why it is hard to meet a girl.
Butch trucks, however, ARE something I am very down with.
I can see the stars at nite and the moon is bright. – and this is worth it’s weight in gold.
and i wish it had only been an internet thing. that i didn’t spend precious hours every day, talking to the stupid spath.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Henry – are the RECENT COMMENTS on the side bar refreshing for you? they haven’t been working for most of the day for me.
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7stepstoheaven says:
one step – sorry you were having such a bad day yesterday. If you can be happy about one thing it seems to me that at least someone has a legal case against this predator. It’s probably not going to be you personally that gets the payback – but at least someone has the goods to take “it” down.
When you said “I know I will end up being the ‘face’ of love’ to someone else when she uses MY pics to defraud someone.”
that just sent creepy chills down my spine. I know that the Internet is one big impersonal place, but using your face is like stealing your soul – like the aboriginals who wouldn’t let people take pictures of them. It’s identity theft in a way that could impact you personally if anyone recognizes you.
Probably pretty far-fetched but that would concern me. Maybe you could send the person who does have the legal case a letter that describes your experience with the spath, and that at least DOCUMENTS the facts with who when where and what your concerns are.
In case this ever comes back to haunt you you will have SOMETHING. It probably is too stressful and bad for your health to pursue your own grievance, but to have your experience on the record with the person who does have one may be a good idea. These people get away with murder, and the more smoke signals they leave behind could prove to be their undoing.
My stepfather was so devious that it wasn’t possible to pin him down. If he made any mistakes to mark his trail we will never know. He was always three steps ahead, and was smart enough to cover his tracks. By the time I began noticing anything fishy, he had spent 10 years in my family and was outtathere. His tentacles were everywhere. He’s still doing damage, because of the repercussions of all his crimes. The more we stand up and are willing to at least talk about it so we are no longer silent passive victims is very important.
My mother went to work for a psychiatrist after stepdemon left, and she read “The Mask of Sanity” way back then in 1977. In my family we have clearly understood what sociopaths are since then. He looked like a productive, socially acceptable, intelligent and charming person, not like some criminal monster. But monster he was.
It’s only AFTER coming here to LF that I realize the legacy of this can be inherited. 30 years after the man left our family the damage is still like fresh garbage. If there is any justice in the world I can only pray that my stepbrother never has children.
Erin nobody better mess with you girl!! You are FIERCE!
I have been watching “Lolita” this evening – this movie is teeming with psychopaths -almost too creepy to watch. Hard to figure out at times who are the victims and who are the predators. Lolita said this to Humbert when he was weeping over her infidelities “I’m sorry I cheated so much, but these things just happen!” Great sociopathic line – I am sure many of you may have also heard it!
One step at a time, one day at a time, into the new year….
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pollyannanomore says:
Seven steps = that sounds like a mighty tangled family history – and when you add to it a child conceived via rape – well ther is little chance for anyone to reconcile that relationship. In any adoption situation the feelings of all parties have to be considered. Having started to forge relationship with my missing sibling I can attest to how difficult it is when you only share blood and no memories together. There is no rule book or guidebook to follow … I wonder what the title would be if there were! This forming relationships after the fact has presented itself in my life twice – once with my sibling and once with my father – I reflect quite a bit about why I am given those particular situations to live through.
Like you I see it as learning – we are given these situations for spiritual learning. I guess that’s part of what made it so hard with the P = I came to a point where I couldn’t see any point in it – I couldn’t see the value of the learning at all and it just seemed like one of those ‘unfortunate’ random coincidences that happen in the universe. That really shook me because I have always thought that in some ways things are fated a little – we are sent what we need for growth at a particular time. So to consider that it had no meaning just busted that concept apart and left me with no prevailing ‘life philosophy’. Fortunately I have moved past the meaningless stage and can now see the learning in it all for me … and in fact for others around me if I take the opportunity. That doesn’t make it any easier to live through but I can see the point of it in the grander scheme of things. And this time, rather than being all about him, it’s all about ME
You had a great deal of wisdom in that big post … let me just pick out a couple of gems
“I had to stop taking it personally, because I am not that bewildered child anymore. I had to imagine myself in those situations, and understand that I might have reacted to them in
my own confused and fearful way. My biggest, most difficult task has been seeing the disconnect between my thoughts and emotions, looking back to see how this happened and how it still happens. I have to perform a type of mental surgery in going back to re-attach the thoughts to the emotions, the context to the stark detached memories of experiences which are in a completely separate box from my emotional truth.
Only when you finally see the results of this work, can you understand the appropriateness of the emotions you have to the situations you experienced. It is like many many deaths in your soul, and you go through all the mental reactions to death again and again. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. You can easily get stuck at any stage, and for a very long time. You can be stuck at different stages with different people at the same time, according to where they are stuck.”
This is right – many many deaths – this is what I was referring to when I wrote about having to review and reprocess everything – it’s much more complex than a simple objective review and I doubt I can delineate the steps involved but it definitely involves elements of appreciating how you acted in the moment and why, forgiving yourself for your actions or lack of them and considering how you would respond in future situations – for people who learned to ‘react’ – who were programmed by others to always behave in certain ways, there are elements of reprogramming going on here. For perhaps the first times in our lives, we are learning to act consciously in our own best interests – to consider what we want and to start to take steps to get it. When you have learned to expect nothing and act in the best interests of others, this is an exhausting process and extremely daunting. I have days when I literally don’t know what to do to move forward and feel totally overwhelmed, but I am starting to move out of that space – slowly and surely. When I was with him, I was completely stuck all the time and on autopilot.
You also made a point about our abilities being different with different people – very true. Some people trigger unconscious reactions in us – I guess the knack now is trying to remain mindful and acknowledging what comes up in these situations – if we watch we can learn from it. I read a quote and I think it was from Freud – perhaps a better read member can correct if wrong!
“Individuation is the ability to remain yourself when around family.” It refers to the unconscious family scripts and roles we enact – you talked about being made the family scapegoat and the topic of gossip – all families have one somewhere to relieve the unspoken tensions that nobody else will name.
“This takes so much focus and energy, and mindfulness. You have to go through mental and emotional gymnastics in everything you do in the world, every personal interaction, every decision. And to gain the confidence that you can make the correct decisions takes a very long time. You have to go through a long time of being very hard on yourself when you did not make the right decision. You begin to see that the wrong decisions are based on a kind of blind impulse that takes over your brain like some kind of misguided avatar. It’s a loss of consciousness that completely overrides your own best interest. ”
Yes yes yes! We were literally on autopilot with the SPNs – that is what they wanted for us. We stopped analysing and standing up for ourselves and sharing what we wanted and taking actions to get it – there was no point as we were always blocked in some way. We learned to have no expectations – I have heard this referred to as their behaviour of managing our expectations down. So in becoming lucid, we are switching on our drives again as well as our emotional and rational thinking – it is mental gym at its best and is really draining. I find I am drawn to lots of entertainment now – I can think and reflect for a while, but then I desperately need a break. Before, I would sit with the unsolvable puzzle of the relationship wondering why I couldn’t work the damned thing out when I was capable of achieving in every other area of life. It was like one of those russian puzzle rings – seven rings all intertwined and he threw them on the floor and left me to try and get them back together so they fitted as they needed to. Or like a rubiks cube – the relationships were all unsolvable because that is one of the things that kept us all hooked in. If I had realised long ago it was hopeless naturally I would have left – he dangled hope like a carrot in front of me and stupidly I kept reaching out for it.
Keep writing! These long posts have lots of meaning that others can relate to. I liked the whole post and could relate to many aspects of it, but these are the parts I was especially impressed with. And you certainly do talk a good game – articulating such complex thoughts is the beginning of living them – I know you are already embodying them now and as you probe deeper they will sit more authentically with you as you get used to them. Read over that post once more – you’ll probably be shocked at what came out when you see the whole thing and read it cold!
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pollyannanomore says:
One Step = you are right – my apologies – I am getting my steps all muddled up!
I can’t believe the show this Spath put on for your benefit – imitating a sister? Dying? WTF? This is like the worst kind of net fraud you read about sometimes and is truly truly sick – people like that make the net an unsafe place for the millions of people who don’t lie and who do present themselves as themselves. To use false photos is just horrible.
I had a friend who did that – he wasn’t handsome but had a pic of a model up as his own. As we conversed over time, it became clear to me that he was lying about himself and hiding elements of his life – told me several fake names and made out he had a bad experience with another woman online who tried to ruin his career – high profile and supposedly he was protecting himself. In the end up I had to delete him and end contact – I just can’t be associating with liars anymore.
There is a postscript though! A few months later a random chatter appeared with the exact same profession but apparently from another location – different pics this time. I had a funny feeling in my gut but decided to keep talking and let him hang himself and sure enough if I conversed quickly enough with him, the same stock phrases were used that the previous friend had used. The guy had english as a second language and had rather unique phrases he used so I was able to recognise them quite quickly and there were definite anomalies in the way he used english. I called him on it and confronted him demanding he put up his cam so I could see who he was in moving action. COnveniently he responded his cam was broken – I told him I didn’t believe him and outlined my theory that he was the deleted friend, which he strenuously denied. It made no odds to me – I cussed him and deleted him.
No more liars. No more excuses. So I think perhaps this creation of a false identity online is fairly common these days unfortunately. Neither man scammed me out of money, but it made me feel violated to realise I was talking with someone deceptive and deceitful. I am quite quick now at picking up when something isn’t right!
I just don’t get why they do it. Do you? Why bother faking who you are? To seem more impressive? Or is it just a control tactic?
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7stepstoheaven says:
free-at-last –
“7 step. I have chronic back pain from a pinched nerve in my back. I am so LUCKY to have a physician that lets me have pain meds. She does however monitor me very closely so I don’t get addicted to them. I have been taking them for about 5 years now and am so very very stingy with them myself because I don’t want them taken from me and have to live in with the overwelming pain.”
Hey free – I have been just the same way, stingy with my meds. It just really annoys me that so many people abuse these meds and doctors are punished for prescribing them. Part of the problem is some of the doctors’ fault, too. Why are they giving MONTHS worth of pain meds to someone who had a toothache or outpatient surgery?
That pinched nerve thing can be very bad – pain killers don’t always work very well for that. After 20 years of fibromyalgia I have developed arthritis in my neck, because the bones have deformed and are pinching the nerves. At least there are a lot of options today with nerve blocks and surgeries and tens units etc.
Not that they always work! I would rather have had treatable cancer than what I have.
I remember clearly that 4 days after my hysterectomy (laparoscopy – so I didn’t have a large incision) I did not need pain meds anymore. The pain I have on a daily basis is much worse, but a lot of people in the medical profession will look at you and say – well there is no degenerative disease, you’re not going to die or bleed to death or whatever anytime soon, so people with chronic pain become the poor stepchildren of the medical profession. Part of the reason they don’t want to treat you is because there is not much hope of success. It’s a very difficult problem.
I also really hate the fact that the first thing that goes through the mind of any medical professional, before they know me, is that maybe I’m playing them for meds. I feel like all of these abusers out there have an effect on MY reputation. But also I think I’m hard on myself and TOO STINGY with my meds. I need to take them more often instead of just suffering all the time.
I have my moments like yours – “Honestly, if I did not have the pain meds I seriously would consider taking my life. The quality of life living with that kind of extreme pain is not worth living to me.” I love life and I want to live, but I seriously think that some of our medical advancements to preserve life at all costs actually prolong suffering for a lot of people. On the other hand the advancements also lead me to hope that the NEXT treatment or medication down the road may be just what I need.
Sometimes I think it’s my curiosity that keeps me alive – although it killed the cat! Shows you just how perverse I can be!
—————–
Hey Henry! – I thought it was about time to tell you how much I enjoy your posts. You have a wicked sense of humor, dude! I don’t think my mother is quite as warped as yours, but she has her moments! When you decided not to answer the door to your spath, I could feel that panic attack! But you stayed strong – such a good example for us all!
Like you I usually don’t mind going out by myself to movies or lunch. But I was just feeling too pathetic to go out by myself on the holiday – wasn’t EVERYONE else going out with family or friends??!! You reminded me that sometimes you need to JUST DO IT!
I just have to laugh – was it Bob Dylan who said “If it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all?”
Peace out!
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Pollyannanomore: this one has been at it for decades, long before the computer became a tool for her – telling bold face lies, faking letters and cards – internet is only a new tool.
Found out some more things about her earlier today – others who have tangled with her leaves little bits of info around about her. The internet is her ultimate tool – but it will also be the one that gets her in the most trouble.
Creating a bunch of folks is also ordinary for her. and in ‘my’ story total it was a total of 4 deaths (one i didn’t think of until the Attorney General pointed it out), three suicide attempts, 3 surgeries, 5 friends and family that i had email from (plus a whack of kids and dogs (who i never had email from …um, that’s both kids and dogs
) and COUNTLESS physiologicalthe meltdowns.
ahhh, i was about to say the phone cards alone must have cost here a fortune…..HAHAHAHA, another piece of lie just fell off me -SHE HAS UNLIMITED PHONE CALLING IN NORTH AMERICA!!! HAHAHAHAHA
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Donna Andersen says:
Hi Folks,
As you can see, we’ve updated the blog software. Still working out technical issues with “Recent Comments” feature. Hope to have it working soon.
Donna
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one_step_at_a_time says:
7 steps: Given the blog glitches, I have just seen your post to me. thank-you!
I am glad you found lovefraud – that your understanding of your stepfather’s impact is becoming clear – that you have the opportunity to unravel those ties. Is he still alive?
I wish i had the money to pursue an investigation of the spath’s life. I would do it. Slowly and with balance – but I would definitely do it. She needs to be exposed, so that every time someone googles things like, ‘death blogger, ‘sock puppets’, ‘fraud’, ‘did my internet lover really die’, ‘how to be safe on the internet’, etc. HER NAME APPEARS. (and not just caus ei’ve written a key word article, but because EVERYONE has.)
I have learned SO much about computers and the internet because of this experience. I went to sleep this am thinking: I really need a remailer…’
About giving info to the woman who IS suing her – i have been in touch with her, her lawyer and the Attorney General’s office and have given them info. I need to write an outline of times and events and get it to them.
I don’t doubt she will use my photos, probably as a bit player, cause i didn’t send her as much as might be needed for the central ‘character’ – AND THEY always seem to be male.
i have such a feeling about the photos she used in this scam – wanting to know who those folks are and give their lives back to them. this is, no doubt quite wed to the feelings i had for the main character, and ‘his’ image is connected to those feelings
writing the timeline and list of events for the lawyers is a bit hard for me – i can’t ‘engage with the story’ yet.
I told that f*cking story SO MANY TIMES WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING – it is ingrained in me as a TRUE story, where my feelings are very wrapped around caring for someone. First, when i came to know what was REALLY GOING ON, all i could say was: ‘blah, blah, blah’. Now, I see, in the last few days (quite triggered by reading a post of Kathllen Hawk’s) that the details of the story are starting to surface again. it cost me so much energy to say all that crap all the time – and i really need to conserve my energy. and i have had to work hard every day to remember that none of the folks in the drama are in trouble, need my love or support, cause it is ALL a lie.
deconstructing the con is ongoing. the more i know about who and what she really is the more grounded I feel.
But, there still is this chasm between the story and what I now know to be real. I think this is some form of protective denial – i can only process so much at a time. getting that he never, ever existed, that she did this on purpose, without remorse – this is the ongoing trauma of it – but I see that i am making progress –
and thank you for saying lolita is creepy – it was recently characterized in a radio report, as ‘being one of the ‘best written and important pieces of literature of the 20th c.’. May be tue, but NOT a WORD was mentioned about its SPATHINESS.
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Kathleen Hawk says:
I haven’t been n this thread all week, and I see that some people responded to my post. So I’m going to try to give a few responses in return.
pollyannanomore, your long post was very interesting. And I understand your resistance to more inner disruption. But the solution is actually a lot simpler. It’s getting past all those self-sacrificial rules you’re living with and become more familiar and responsive to your own feelings.
The gift of experience is that we see more clearly into the future, and you don’t want this experience to cause you to imagine that everyone who expresses interest in you is out to exploit you or harm you. Understandable, but the lesson here is not to reject everyone, but to be more careful. To let people prove themselves, and also know that you may make mistakes, and when you do, to back away. You back away on the strength of your own feelings, rather than consulting any rule. Which is why this recovery, among other things, is about learning to trust yourself.
blindsided31, I understand exactly how you feel. I told my ex to go away and he did, but I missed him desperately and painfully. I stopped missing him, when I finally realized that he was an avatar for what I wasn’t giving myself in my life. Or rather, I stopped missing him when I realized this whole mess was more about me than him, and started really working on what was going on with me.
Sociopaths are mirrors. In fact, they are perfect for us to project on. They are so much of what we aren’t. And so little of what we are. There’s just nothing standing in the way of us making them exactly what we always wanted.YOu’ve I don’t know if you can understand this, but I’m seeding it in your head now. What you love about him is what you fear you can never be alone. But it’s not true. You are all that, or you wouldn’t be able to recognize it in another person.
And he, you will realize one of these days, is not the man you love. He is a dream of wholeness. And he took advantage of your dream for his own selfish purposes. Try to get unconfused about this. You don’t love the bad man. You love what you imagined he was. He found out what you wanted and helped you imagine it, again for his own purposes. You don’t need him to be whole. You may need some help to get whole (and you will as you heal), but you are intrinsically real, whole, wise, courageous, and able. You just have to rediscover it in yourself and you will.
7steps, you’ve written some really amazing posts. I applaud the work you’re doing. However, I’m going to quibble over one little point. You wrote, “I have tried to undo this for the past five years. I have been vocal to everyone in my family how this behavior doesn’t even make sense.”
If you’re doing this, you’re analyzing and judging them. You’re focusing on them, not you, not telling them how you feel about it and what you want. And then drawing lines, explaining your line and why you’re doing it for your own sake, and then enforcing it.
You can’t get anywhere trying to influence a dysfunctional family by analyzing and judging them. (That is, trying to reason with them or using externally-based rules on them.) You have to be willing to make it about you. Knowing they they will call you selfish, insensitive and crazy. If you know about the “drama triangle,” you become the “perpetrator” because it’s the only way out of the victim-rescuer drama. If you stop playing, you become the bad guy. However, if you’re honest about your own feelings and needs, you inject a really powerful element into the triangle. That is authenticity. Over time, authenticity has an effect, and other people start connecting with you, because they want to talk honestly too about their feelings and needs.
When people are being honest, we have “real” material for relationship-building. Like when your mother shared that information from her past with you. Authenticity is actually a gift we give other people, but sometimes it takes them a while to recognize it. It’s also a lot of work for us, because we have to figure out how we really feel. You said in one post that your mother didn’t realize she hurt you. Obviously you should tell her, but telling her means figuring out what is really going on with you. What is the nature of the pain? And why are you feeling it. What need isn’t being met?
One of the reasons people don’t become honest is that they are terrified of what will happen. They’ve been trained to stuff their feelings or risk being punished or criticized. And so they do that to everyone else. Again, the only way to break this is to stop doing it, and become the model for another way.
As I said, don’t expect to be thanked for it at first. You’ll probably be ostracized initially. But you’ll know that you’re doing the right thing for you. And they’ll catch up with you when they do.
I hope this makes sense. I learned a lot of this by studying non-violent communication, and there are helpful lists of feelings and needs at http://www.cnvc.com. It’s compassion-based communication, but we have to be compassionate with ourselves first. That is the foundation of authenticity.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Bless you Miss Hawk,
this is the truth for me:
‘He is a dream of wholeness.’
I read one of your older posts about what the spath was for you, to you. I cannot write about it yet- but it is my experience also…
besos,
one step
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Kathleen Hawk says:
One_step,
I’m so glad that made sense to you. I sometimes think it’s like crossing the great divide in our healing, when we realize that this is not about them. They were just triggers or symbols or teachers that showed up when we were ready. Not, of course, realizing we were ready, or we wouldn’t have to work so hard to figure out what this is really about. Like babies who don’t want to be born, saying “No thanks, I’ll stay where I am, if you don’t mind.”
I know I wrote the whole story of our relationship three separate times. I had vivid memories. But no way I could talk about this to anyone else. It drove me crazy. I was a writer. I was in PR. It was my job to find the story in the circumstances, to distill meaning out of bits and pieces of events, feelings, what happened and why. But all I could talk about was anecdotes. What he did. How awful it was. I couldn’t even say that he was wrong or bad, because there was a kind of terrible logic to his behavior. But there was also an inescapable, concrete reality in my pain. I couldn’t get away from how horrible I felt. I felt like a messed-up fool. And I was so embarrassed, so deeply and incurably humiliated, not just by him but by myself.
I was the queen of obsessive thinking, turning it over and over, looking at all the facts. Trying to understand him, me, the circumstances. (It all started at the height of the Internet boom, when I was making more money than I’ve ever seen in my life, and there was a kind of inevitability that a handsome, seductive and oh-so-plausible lizard would show up to see if I couldn’t be persuaded to give some of it to him.)
I wish I could remember exactly when I started to really take seriously the idea that he wasn’t the inevitable result of me getting rich, but the inevitable result of the way I’d been living my entire life. The fact that I had money made it about money. But when I didn’t have money, I was doing the same thing. Making myself important and non-expendible to people who I thought were stronger and smarter than me, that I “needed,” but who needed me to help them in ways that were so important to them that I made my life about them, deferred whatever I really wanted, until they got what they wanted, imagining that it would be my turn later. And I called this love. And I was so really good at it that I could make a living out of it, in PR, the profession for people who help other people achieve their dreams.
At first, I called him an “icon” for what was wrong with me. Later, I decided I liked the word “avatar” better. Because he was a living symbol of a whole complex of things. The rules of living that didn’t really support who I was and wanted to be. The ideas I had about how I couldn’t trust myself and wasn’t competent. The parts of myself that were undeveloped, and deeply valued in other people because I felt they were so different from me.
I had tried writing a few personal profiles on Yahoo and Match.com. I had made lists of what I was looking for. I started looking at them again in a new way. Someone who is comfortable with himself. Someone who knows what he wants. A sense of humor and a sense of fun. Someone who will create some adventure in my overworked life. Someone who will drag me away from my desk. Someone who is not afraid of life, and can see through people and circumstances to find his own next best steps. Someone who has dreams and commitments he takes seriously. Someone who thrives on enthusiastic support.
Oh boy.
At the time, I never could understand why I attracted so many men who seemed to think I was looking for a dominant, or other men who came on to me with “tender” and “gentle” words about how they understood that I needed more support and a man who could take care of the hard stuff for me. Fortunately, I had a visceral fear reaction to these types. Yes they were right, but no, I didn’t want more of that.
What I didn’t grasp at the time was something I read later. That I had to become what I wanted to attract. That I had to develop in myself all these things I wanted.
Thoughout my entire recovery process, I wrote letters to my ex. Mostly unsent (and those I sent with a final warning not to write me back if he didn’t want repercussions he wouldn’t like). But I kept talking to him, even though the “him” I was talking to was incomprehensible to him. Even when we were together, he was never able to to respond to anything I said or wrote to hm, as I imagined him to be. Later, much later, I realized that I wasn’t writing to him, but to the avatar of my lost self. I was writing to the parts of me that were still in darkness.
I sometimes write about this healing process as turning on the lights in parts of my psyche that were previously dark. They existed. They actually affected my life, but more from the subconscious level. And in fact, I think that the huge unmanagable attraction to this man was really about those aspects trying to break through. He was the epitome of selfishness and he was truly broken when it came to ability to trust or bond. But he also managed his life by what HE wanted. He was ruthless it about it, but he also made his life about his dreams, his values, his impulses, his needs. And that buried part of me was going “Look at this! See how he does it. Learn about how it works, the sacrifices you’ll have to make because everyone won’t like you when you’re not sweet and accommodating Kathy anymore, but what you might get out of it.”
I had to go back into my past to understand why I was behaving in such self-defeating ways, where I had developed my personal rules that were so totally geared to being safe because I believed I was so inadequate. And I had to undo the rules, and learn to trust myself and be willing to risk failure as part of working toward having and achieving anything I want. I had to accept that pain was part of living, and stop being so afraid of it.
All of this is one of the reasons I stopped calling him a sociopath (except here where it helps the dialogue along). I do believe he’s a seriously damaged person, and dangerous to the other seriously damaged people who fall in love with him. As far as I know, I’m the only one of his ex-girlfriends who came out of it very well. But that is also about the culture and our training, how hard it is, what a lot of courage it takes to realize that other people’s behavior is not about us, but that our lives and what we do with them is in our own hands. That all the rules we grew up with are not necessarily helpful. There may be helpful parts in them. But we are not only free, but obligated to figure out what works and what doesn’t for us. So that we can live healthy, coherent, fully realized lives.
So today, when I find myself remembering him with love, which I still sometimes do, I let myself feel it in all it’s piercing longing. And then, while it’s still fresh in my mind, I start taking it apart. What is it that I’m longing for? What did I imagine he was going to give me that I am not yet giving myself?
For me, usually, it comes down to needing someone to drag me away from my desk for a little fun. Or bring something to lighten me up and make me laugh. Or take care of some little mess or adminstrative business that’s starting to bother me. So I do a little more work of breaking the habits of being a victim, or I give the avatar a mental kiss and go out and have some fun.
This is the real reason I recognized him when he appeared in my life, and I welcomed him. I got the lesson. It was so hard to learn not because he was so awful, but because those old rules and beliefs were so entrenched. It took something that awful to convince me that I was not taking care of myself. And not using the full spectrum of feelings and capabilities that were built into me, including self-interest, focus on what I wanted, and endurance of loss and pain in the pursuit of what was important to me.
Nothing I hadn’t done before. But now I was clear that this was about me, not giving myself away so that other people would love me or keep me safe. Oh, they would. I wasn’t really losing anything in that respect. But they would for better reasons that made all of us feel better about ourselves. Respecting myself, expecting respect from other people, enjoying the process of unfolding relationships (not just jumping into instant happy endings), being deliberate and careful about figuring out what is meaningful and what is not, acting with courage when I decide what is right for me, being able live cheerfully with failure because it’s part of getting anywhere, these things change a life.
A long response, but hopefully relevent.
Kathy
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7stepstoheaven says:
Kathleen – I am repeating your quote because it has produced more than one lightbulb moment:
“You’ll notice them starting to divulge things with a kind of guilty pleasure long before they actually get a grip on the fact that you’ve changed the game in a good way.”
Kathleen – the “surprises” that have been coming from my mother’s mouth really are leaving me slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. Apparantly once the lightbulbs start going on you can never turn them off again.
As I said earlier, my mom recently remembered a story that provided me with some validation, when she told me that baby sister P had told her doctors that my mom was a cocaine abuser. This wasn’t true. Baby sister repeated this behavior years later, saying that I was an alcohol abuser and should be shunned by the family.
During this same conversation she said, “I remembered something my mother (my grandmother) said to me before I married STEPDEMON” (my stepfather).
At the time, I was nine, middle sister seven, and baby sister about 2 1/2. My grandmother was a sweet, blue-haired Southern lady of around 70. When she would take my sisters and I out she always wore a hat and little white gloves. She was always very sweet to us – much nicer than my mother was. My mother always perceived her as very naive, but I am wondering about that now. Now before I recollect this I must remind you that the stepfather sexually abused my youngest sister BEGINNING AT THE AGE OF THREE.
My mother said this to me, just 2 weeks ago – “You know, my mother told me before I married stepdemon, “You keep an eye on him around the little girls!”"
When I heard this part of my brain went into shock, I am not even kidding!
I said: “I didn’t think my grandmother would know about anything like that!”
My mom replied, “Well I knew what she meant but I didn’t believe it. I just scoffed at her when she told me that!”
This conversation took place in 1965 or ’66.
HOLY FREAKING COW! I have just been awarded my Phd. at the college of knowledge!
pollyanna: “You also made a point about our abilities being different with different people – very true. Some people trigger unconscious reactions in us – I guess the knack now is trying to remain mindful and acknowledging what comes up in these situations – if we watch we can learn from it. I read a quote and I think it was from Freud – perhaps a better read member can correct if wrong!
“Individuation is the ability to remain yourself when around family.” It refers to the unconscious family scripts and roles we enact – you talked about being made the family scapegoat and the topic of gossip – all families have one somewhere to relieve the unspoken tensions that nobody else will name.”
———
Boy, is it ever apparent that you have been giving this some serious thought! This is like holding two completely opposite ideas within your brain without it exploding!
I think there are so many triggers and abuses where my mother is concerned that dealing with her will always be painful for me. And it is actually dangerous for me to trust anyone in my family, for they have demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to act detrimentally to my own best interests.
pollyanna: “Before, I would sit with the unsolvable puzzle of the relationship wondering why I couldn’t work the damned thing out when I was capable of achieving in every other area of life. It was like one of those russian puzzle rings – seven rings all intertwined and he threw them on the floor and left me to try and get them back together so they fitted as they needed to. Or like a rubiks cube – the relationships were all unsolvable because that is one of the things that kept us all hooked in. If I had realised long ago it was hopeless naturally I would have left – he dangled hope like a carrot in front of me and stupidly I kept reaching out for it.”
———-
The rubics cube – I swear that same thought went across my brain.
I was always confused because elsewhere in my life I would just tackle a problem with either brains or brawn and and it would eventually yield. I was stubborn, obstinate, persistent, and it usually worked. Everything you’ve been taught to do you throw at this problem until you have nothing more to throw. And then you give up, and feel like a failure.
Kathleen: “I was the queen of obsessive thinking, turning it over and over, looking at all the facts. Trying to understand him, me, the circumstances.”
If you are the queen of this I am the supreme universal overlord!!
So yes I could very well remain myself with family – the angry hurting betrayed self!! And a big part of this is the 10 years I spent with my stepfather not knowing that the relationship was a lie. Age 10 to 19.
The whole foundation of a relationship with my surrogate father was based on lies and complete ignorance as to who he actually was. I wasn’t a grownup when this happened, I had barely left home. It’s difficult to face the facts as an adult who went into an exploitative relationship, but I had not even made that choice. I thought my stepfather loved me! He treated me better than my mother did most of the time.
pollyanna: “I had a friend who did that – he wasn’t handsome but had a pic of a model up as his own. As we conversed over time, it became clear to me that he was lying about himself and hiding elements of his life – told me several fake names and made out he had a bad experience with another woman online who tried to ruin his career – high profile and supposedly he was protecting himself. In the end up I had to delete him and end contact – I just can’t be associating with liars anymore.”
——–
Back to the themes of true identity, false identity, personal photos and the internet. I have not really felt safe in putting photos up. I have been telling myself that it’s just because I don’t have any good ones, but that is not really it. I just feel too exposed, I cannot put my pics up because I KNOW the predators are out there. On my facebook page I put up the photo of a beloved pet. People ask me “Well why on earth wouldn’t you put a nice photo up?” It is difficult to answer that without sounding like a paranoid nut.
It HAS allowed me to reconnect with some great people I had lost touch with. But my brother’s ex broke into his account 2 weeks ago and sent a nasty letter to his GF – who did not know he was still married. Last week I went on to the fb account – which I wasn’t really comfortable having up at all, took out almost EVERY scrap of info in my profile, made everything else private, even my email address. People can send me messages. They are only going to get more info if I know who they are, and even that is at my discretion, not in my profile. I will NEVER EVER share pictures with the world.
Same thing with my dating site account. Just uploaded a crappy pic I took with my cell phone. People put up pics with their friends and relatives. I would NEVER do that. Many many people have instantly closed me out because they don’t take a second look at the picture. I think, goodbye and good riddance, a$$holes! It is very hard to know what you know and still react in any kind of normal way in the world. People talk about how it’s not trusting to do background checks on someone you are dating. NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT!! Too bad if you think that’s a terrible thing to do – you must have something to hide!!
pollyanna – “The guy had english as a second language and had rather unique phrases he used so I was able to recognise them quite quickly and there were definite anomalies in the way he used english. I called him on it and confronted him demanding he put up his cam so I could see who he was in moving action. COnveniently he responded his cam was broken – I told him I didn’t believe him and outlined my theory that he was the deleted friend, which he strenuously denied. It made no odds to me – I cussed him and deleted him.”
——
You are one smart cookie with a rubics cube!!! Way to take ‘em DOWN!
I pretty much assume that ANYTHING ANYONE says to me AT ANY TIME could be a lie. It’s a hard and disturbing way to live but it’s the only way I can go. How do you go on protecting yourself while at the same time not approach everything in your life fearfully??
And Kathleen YES I read your post about coming to trust ourselves and make better decisions etc. I would love to be in that place. I truly don’t kow if it is at all possible. When I have reached out with the olive branch I just get more reasons why I will be abused and taken advantage of. If people are toxic to me why would I even want to keep putting myself out in the line of fire? I did trust my middle sister, until suddenly I couldn’t. They act like they are catually ENJOYING the pleasure of hurting me. It doesn’t matter to me anymore how much they change – because they are obviously capable of deliberarely causing another person pain.
It may be about me and the healing I need to do – but it doesn’t change the fact that I would be stupid to EVER trust them again. I am finally getting a clue. My needs would be better met elsewhere.
There are so MANY MANY things in your post which are relevant to my experience. To think of them all at once will make my head explode.
But earlier you were talking about recognizing the “bad” people. I am now realizing that they are the ones who are bad. They are the ones that did the hurtful things. I thought maybe I had done something to deserve it. Now I know that’s not true. I have to make this step to get back some semblance of the boundaries I never had.
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Kathleen Hawk says:
Great post, 7steps, and once again a tiny little quibble.
You wrote: “And Kathleen YES I read your post about coming to trust ourselves and make better decisions etc. I would love to be in that place. I truly don’t kow if it is at all possible. When I have reached out with the olive branch I just get more reasons why I will be abused and taken advantage of. If people are toxic to me why would I even want to keep putting myself out in the line of fire? I did trust my middle sister, until suddenly I couldn’t. They act like they are catually ENJOYING the pleasure of hurting me. It doesn’t matter to me anymore how much they change – because they are obviously capable of deliberarely causing another person pain.”
I never suggested holding out the olive branch to people who clearly don’t know how to treat each other respectfully. I said to withhold your trust and love until people earn it. Or alternately, give it conditionally — just as much as you feel that they deserve, in the sense of being trustworthy or able to return your love.
I do understand that there’s some larger ideal at work here. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything in the family supported each other and go along? But that ideal turns into one of the “rules” that has more to do with self-sacrifice than taking care of yourself, unless you know for sure that you’re dealing with people who respect, appreciate, understand and feel compassion towards you. From a totally practical perspective, why would you invest in people who have a history of making you feel bad?
I do understand the deep desire for a home to come home to. My history of giving up what I wanted, giving up telling the truth, and feeling responsible for everyone else’s feelings began in my family. Not just when I was younger. When I was in my 20s and came back from living for five years in Europe, nearly a decade after tried to protect my little sister by confronting my father about the incest in front of my mother and a minister who’d agreed to sit in on the meeting, I tried to bring it up with her. She told me that my father had told her it was my fault, and she believed him, and if I wanted a relationship with her, I’d have to never discuss it again. And you know, I decided to “forgive” them and acquiesced for almost two more decades, just to have a family, until I finally called them and told them I wasn’t taking the rap for this any more, and if they wanted a relationship with me, they were going to have to face the reality that a 13 year old girl would not seduce her father, and even if she did, he was the responsible adult and he was the predator.
So believe me, I know about what we do to be able to maintain the illusion of having a family that cares about us. And especially, especially if we never had that kind of family in the first place, how powerful the dream of family can be. And because we were not trained by our families to care about ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to expect other people to treat us with respect and compassion, we go on to try to take all the responsibility for making everything okay with everyone else in our lives. And get our hearts broken over and over when they don’t seem to understand the sacrifices we are making for them.
But 7steps, eventually we have to come to understand that what we learned at home was not for our benefit, but for other people’s. And that we deserved better. Just because we are alive, if for no other reason, we have a right to take care of ourselves for ourselves, to speak what is true for us, to judge carefully what we will and will not accept in our lives, and to enforce whatever is important for our self-esteem, our sanity, and our ability to not just survive, but to be creative and active producers of whatever our lives are about.
If they don’t love or support or respect you, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t loveable or entitled to support and respect. It means that you’re not getting it from them. And the reasons have nothing to do with you.
One of the turning points in my healing — and I had some serious work to do on even believing that anyone would really love me or I was even welcome in the world — was when I had the astonishing idea that I deserved to be loved. When it came up in my mind, I wondered if I’d finally gone crazy. I brought it to my wonderful Buddhist friend, who knew the history with my ex, and he said gravely, “But Kathy, you can’t force people to love you.” Which was exactly the right thing, because it made me realize what I really meant. And I said to him, “No, but I can run my life like I deserved to be loved. I can choose people who are capable of loving me or anyone else, rather than wasting my time on people who aren’t. I can run my life as though I love me.”
That was a moment when a lot of fireworks went off in my mind. It didn’t matter whether anyone in particular welcomed me, understood me, respected me, loved me or whatever. It mattered that I treated myself that way. It was my job to live as though I expected to be treated well. And if I wasn’t treated well, to not waste time or energy there, but go find better places and people who were able to recognize me and appreciate me for who I was. I wasn’t garbage. I wasn’t nothing. I was a good, smart, hard-working, generous, dependable person, and I wanted to be around people who not only respected that, but were like that themselves.
As far as the family went, there was a lot of initial anger and rejection. Who did I think I was? It didn’t last long. My truth shook the whole family to their foundations, and they started getting more honest and, as they stopped holding up the whole edifice of lies, more compassionate with each other. (Except my father, who was a full-blown sociopath.) It was too late to change a lot of things that were in motion. My brother died early from complications of his addiction, but he became a better father in the meantime. My mother died feeling like she’d failed as a mother, no matter how much we tried to relieve her. If she’d just lived a few more years, she would have been witness to the recovery of several of her children and hopefully have shared in it herself.
But 7step, these changes began with me drawing a line. Telling them all that if they wanted a relationship with me, I had conditions. That I was no longer participating in their lies. That I was not going to be a victim or a scapegoat. And if they wanted me in their lives, they were going to have to respect my reality. They didn’t have to agree with it, but don’t expect me to hide what I think and feel if I’m around them.
Would you call that an olive branch? I wouldn’t. The olive branch — me forgiving my father for incesting me and my mother for believing I was at fault — was just an invitation to lie about me some more and make me a scapegoat for what they couldn’t deal with. What made a difference was when I said, “You want me? You earn it.” And if they didn’t want me, that was up to them. Because it wasn’t worth it to me to keep trying to be a good daughter and sister, if this is what I got back.
I hope this makes sense. I know you’re working on some hard stuff right now. I’m not telling you this to make it harder. But to help you get to a position that will begin to create the life you want. As I said before, it’s not going to make you popular right away. But it will create real relationships, if it’s possible to create them.
Kathy
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fahrahri says:
oh no!!you all were right…i had a post on here last nite or in the last couple days that i was struggling with questioning if he was really a sociapath because he stopped the calls etc…
well …today he just got to me with a long message of he misses me etc …i thought it was too quite…and i am just trying to stay away from responding …luckily my gf was available and i have to get ready to meet friends in awhile for dinner…i have to stay on trac…cuz this is all so new and raw…
oh god!
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DancingWarrior says:
Kathy,
I like this in your post to 7step: ““No, but I can run my life like I deserved to be loved. I can choose people who are capable of loving me or anyone else, rather than wasting my time on people who aren’t. I can run my life as though I love me.”
I still feel dependent that I still want to settle for a little bit of love rather than risk having no one in my life who cares about me. I wake up with a feeling of dread when I imagine my future w/out my husband. It sounds nice to nurture myself, love myself, or enliven myself, but I long for a man’s love.
And thus my stuckness in a relationship that broke due to lack of respect and giving and compassion.
DW
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Kathleen Hawk says:
fahrahri and Dancing Warrior,
You’re both saying very much the same thing. Where you are right now is very okay. It is raw for both of you. And you don’t have to worry about all this right. Think of it, maybe, as a voice from your own future.
Right now, the biggest and most important thing you have to deal with is staying NC. It’s like you’re detoxing from an addiction, and the more distance you can put between you and the source of your pain, the better and stronger you’ll feel.
I’ve mentioned before that I almost wish we had little emoticons to say where we were, or maybe just how long we’ve been at this. I’m nearly seven since the day I threw my ex out of my life. I’m not sure how far into it 7steps or pollyannanomore, but I know they’re pretty far down the road.
Take care of yourself, both of you. I mean, be kind. Find things that make you feel better. Friends are good. So are bubble baths and music. Above all, you are learning to be your own best friend right now.
Big hugs and thumbs up to both of you. You’re doing great.
Kathy
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recovering says:
Kathleen Hawk: I wholeheartedly agree with your point that our healing evolves when we realize that this is not about them — as you said, “They were just triggers or symbols or teachers that showed up when we were ready. Not, of course, realizing we were ready, or we wouldn’t have to work so hard to figure out what this is really about. Like babies who don’t want to be born, saying “No thanks, I’ll stay where I am, if you don’t mind.”
As you said, in coming to trust ourselves we are in a better position to make better decisions. We are blessed, and become a blessing to ourselves.
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Kathleen,
your post to me is copied and pasted. read and reread.
this next bit is the ‘story’, without editorial about what i know to be true now:
‘M’ (the beauty boy aspect of the spath) was revealed overtime as having multiple personalities. the first, the early 20′s wild submissive, the second, a even younger girl. With words and life to support each. complex, nuanced words and stories; a mind so fascinating as to hold no anger for anyone. and much abuse in the past and much reason for anger and yet no anger – seeing it as useless. and when i first mentioned ire at some situation, he said, “i like how conflict brings out the fantasy violence in you.” and right there a superhero name was born. and we talked about her – and i realized that she IS part of me. and the longer the boy and i were togehter, the more she started to have space in my life.
I started to write a secret blog – her life. her mythic life as i related to him and his bf. and she knew the bf was bad news long before one step giving all more than reasonable doubt, knew.
She wove around through my history – and i saw that she wouldn’t have existed if i hadn’t lived as a dyke, and yet she seemed to not have a sense of orientation, beyond liking and wanting this boy – and being a loner. She was tattooed and knife wielding; knew what she wanted simlpistically, loved the boy WILDLY, had no things and saw the landscpae as shore and dunes and would pack a horse at the wiff of stupid – she was a avatar.
She is MY avatar. Brought to life by my being with him. And I MISS HER, AND I MISS HIM.
The day he died, she got very very drunk. He spoke in an irish patois – her speech was infiltrated by those round rolling ‘a’s (they still come at times) as she spoke to him more than anyone else during her day.
My friend came to get me very early – she brought me rum and tequilla, and we toasted his death in the woods, and i fell against her sobbing, weak at the knees. I gathered my sleeping bag, my money, my knife and my hat – and my friend drove me to the land i rew up on. And i drank – bare chested in the sun, drank till i puked in the dry riverbed. I walked up the slope to the burying tree and sat on my knees, looking out over the field, mind numbing, i feel over into the pine needles and lay until the sun went down.
i crawled back to my sleeping bag- unfurled on the stones and watched for the first shy star of the night – him. in the sky. stellar boy. gone.
……………….there is much more. but all i can do for now.
The avatar – she has been at times numb, drunken (although I am not drinking), fearful, knife raised and whilring, protecting herself….
most days when i ask after her – she is not well.
yet.
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Kathleen Hawk says:
one_step, I’m sleepy, just moving from the couch to bed, and checked in for a moment, found your post.
You have written a beautiful story here, about shared creativity and the grief of losing a partner in that creativity. It reminds me a lot of the larger-than-life quality of my marriage to my second husband, the alcoholic poet who died. I feel for you.
At the same time, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing when we use the word avatar. We might be, but I’m thinking not. This part of you is not buried in your subconscious, but more unused for lack of opportunity. You are willing to bring this out of yourself for the right partner or the right circumstances. My avatar was someone else because I really did not know I had these characteristics in mself, or was even allowed to have them.
All that said, we might well be talking about the same thing, and I’m just too sleepy to understand.
What I do know, however, that this is a wonderful story and you’re a fabulous writer. You should write it.
Kathy
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one_step_at_a_time says:
Kathleen – yes, I understand re definition of avatar – will pursue when i am more awake also. I onlyhad time to respond to a small piece of our post…there is more. It was very provocative for me.
it was larger than life – and that is how i am happiest (although i am reevaluating the stress on my system created by ‘larger than life’) I do not know about your husband, but perhaps over time i will.
there is a very seductive quality to the writing of, and about this story – I have my avatar’s writing and journal entries, also. And right now I can write little pieces of this story at a time; I do not want to be seduced by the quality of it.
it is most important that i keep grounding myself in the REALITY behind what was for me, a love story.
All I have wanted for the last few years was a partner in creativity. I am so sad to lose him.
It is so weird – he is she and she is spath….
but he was laughter and creativity and playing with words and laughing and playing and laughing…and wanting.
sob.
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pollyannanomore says:
One Step – I lost my creative partner too – I am sorry you are going through all this. Please believe me there is another out there somewhere for you – one that will be much better because it will be an authentic person rather than a lie. Don’t let your own creativity slide because of this – that was real – it was the person on the other end that wasn’t. You can still create by yourself to get your esteem for your own work up again and in time the right person will come along and respect what you have done alone. It sucks huh?
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