I did not experience violence at the hands of my sociopathic husband, and for that I am eternally grateful. But 36 percent of the people who completed the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey said they were physically abused, and 34 percent said their lives were threatened.
A short film by Sharon Wright, called Tell Me That You Love Me, provides a chillingly accurate depiction of violence in an intimate relationship. It’s chilling and accurate because she experienced it.
Sharon explains why she made the film in a separate YouTube video. I cannot add anything to her words, except to thank her for making the film. It captures, in a little over five minutes, the horror of domestic violence, and the aftermath for the victim.
I also thank Robert in Seattle, who forwarded the links.
P.S. This film may be triggering to Lovefraud readers. Sharon suggests that you not watch it at work or around small children. I second her advice.
[youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/6coONebv-Qs] [youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/2x4694ExyCU]
OxD, I know that I come off “cranky” at times, and I have to sort that out. I think that I held myself pretty well when I told the colleague’s g/f that I was leaving, that day, and she responded by asking me what I’d done to my hair because it “looks nice.” I simply answered in one syllable, “No,” and went on to express my appreciation for their hospitality. What I REALLY wanted to do was to jump up and scream in her face that I could see what she was doing, and I’m pleased to be leaving her environment, even if it was to enter into a cardboard box! LOL
Eralyn, have you involved yourself in some strong counseling, yet? I’ve been married to 2 spaths, and I’m a vociferous advocate of counseling with someone that “gets it.” Without counseling therapy, I wouldn’t have learned how to managed the aftermath of my experiences, or to identify where my issues began. I have a lot of work to do to heal myself and construct high, thick, and strong boundaries to avoid being victimized, again.
Somebodysdream, how is it that he has your contact information to text you, still? Even if you’re not responding to his text messages, it’s still a type of “contact” and does nothing but hinder your personal healing. Not to sound harsh – I don’t intend to come of as being harsh, but I would block his number quicker than the blink of an eye.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak,
After I returned home to my farm,, EMOTIONALLY I still could not move into my house. I parked my RV next to the house and hooked up the electric but I stayed in the RV instead of moving back into the house. My son D moved back into his old room.
I also allowed some people that I knew were toxic (I now know they were both psychopaths!) to move on the the farm in their RV motor home (they had lost their regular home through financial mismanagement) just before I got home. So they were already set up here when I got home.
Stupid thing was, I THOUGHT without ever checking with him, that son D was okay with it, but he wasn’t and we didnt talk about it, I just allowed them to move in and he “went along” without saying anything about his own misgivings.
LIFE LESSON HERE: Communicate with those nearest you about things that you plan to do that effect both of you. BEFORE YOU DO IT.
Six months went by and I am still living in the RV, strangely uncomfortable going into the house. However the “friends” have no had such discomfort and the woman of the pair is using the bathroom in the house and the kitchen in the house and they are FILTHY SLIMED.
I got up my courage to ask her to clean them and she replied “well, you know what a slob I am, ha ha”
Then their two pit bulls have begun to “get loose” and roam the farm threatening animals, including my own little Jack Russell terrier….so I have a talk with them YOU WILL KEEP UP YOUR DOGS ON CHAINS IF THEY ARE OUTSIDE AT ALL TIMES.
Next episode of their dogs loose….I open the RV door to let the little dog out (loose) to go pee and there are the two big dogs, brisltling and just waiting for him to emerge. If I had not been QUICK to get his collar before the door got all the way open, he would have flown out iinto their jaws and to his death. I tell them that if their dogs are found loose on the farm again, I will shoot them. The man says “YOU CAN’T SHOOT MY DOGS!” And I replied, “well, then keep them up where other animals are safe, where MY animals are safe. OR ELSE.” That was the end of them “getting loose”
Then one night I hear a noise and open the door of the RV to see the woman sneaking away from my food freezer with a large sack of meat and vegetables.
Now I would have given her all the meat and vegetables that she wanted or needed, I had plenty. I am blessed with an abundance of home grown meat, and in fact, the summer before when one of my Great White Pyreneese dogs was sick from the heat I fed her on CHOICE meat, cooked to her pleasure…probably 300+ pounds of this meat because otherwise the dog which was ill wouldn’t eat. We lost her that fall. So meat was no problem, the woman could have had all she asked for. YET she stole.
I saw her in the porch light and she knew I saw her and she mumbled and left.
I cried for 3 days because I might have HUMILIATED HER….then I talked to my son D about setting boundaries with the couple.
I locked the freezer. Then when the 3 days were up andn I had finally talked to D about his feelings about them, he had never wanted them back on the place, I walked down to their RV one bright morning and said “I think we need to talk” and then I said “This just isn’t working out I think you guys are going to need to park somewhere else. I will give you two or three weeks to find another spot.” Then I got up and left. They didn’t ask “Why” or anything else, they just said “OK”
Then eventually we moved the MOUNTAIN OF JUNK they had parked here off our place into an old shed that is on the exterior of the farm so that they could come get their stuff without ever coming on the farm itself again. Before we had moved their stuff off, she would attempt to come here when we weren’t home (or she thought we weren’t and we caught her)
She and he have eventually divorced and gone their separate psychopathic ways, both exposing themselves as what they are to ALL of the many good people they had conned.
I admit I loved both of these people, my husband loved them, and my son D had loved them since he was a little kid….looked up to the man like a god…looked at the woman like another mother. He and I were both EMOTIONALLY devastated by the betrayals.
The thing is though, that these loses, these emotional betrayals, and the thefts of our “stuff” can have lessons for us, and this woman and her husband were the catalyst for the lessons for me of SETTING BOUNDARIES. Standing up to those you “love” and saying, “I love you, but I will NOT ALLOW you to abuse me”
OxD, what a great post. It is all about learning how to set and maintain boundaries, and I’ve never had them for my entire life. Now, it’s an odd feeling to disallow behaviors because I always felt responsible for everyone else’s happiness or well-being. I’m learning about what I have control over and what I don’t. And, the only thing over which I have any control is me, my choices, and my actions.
Very good post, and thank you.
Brightest blessings
Dear Truthy,
The worst part was I THOUGHT I KNEW HOW TO SET BOUNDARIES, but I only could set them with others I was not EMOTIONALLY involved with (friends and family) I HAD BOUNDARIES with co-workers, employees, employers, with patients, with clerks in a store, and folks I didn’t know well or closely….but with “friends” and family like you I WAS RESPOSIBLE FOR THEIR HAPPINESS AND MY HAPPINESS DIDN’T MATTER, I HAD TO KEEP THEM HAPPY AT ALL COSTS. If anyone in my family was unhappy It was MY FAULT.
When I TRIED to set boundaries in the family, like with Uncle MONSTER, my egg donor’s alcoholic brother who had beaten his wife and kids at gunpoint and also did that to my grandmother when she was 78 years old, holding her at gun point for 3 days, not letting her eat (she was diabetic) and threatening to pour boiling waater over her….I didn’t want anything to do with him after that. i.e. NOT HAVE CHRISTMAS DINNER WITH HIM LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED…EVERY year at Christmas egg donor would start in oh how I was RUINING HER CHRISTMAS by refusing to have Xmas dinner with Uncle moonster at her house.
I asked her once when we were both crying, “what about MY Christmas being ruined by him?” She never answered. Of course I was not doing my Christian duty to “forgive” (i.e. pretend nothing had ever happened) so I was going to hell and she loved me so much she didn’t want me to go to hell for not forgiving. ya da yada!
Anyway, I would pack my kids up and we would go to California or Texas or some other state to have Christmas with friends rather than stay and have Xmas dinner at egg donor’s home with Uncle Monster.
Now, with uncle monster dead and gone (she has no other sibs) she has NO family for Christmas and she has to go to a friend’s house for Christmas or Thanksgiving cause there is no one to come to her house. Patrick is in prison, and son C and D and I are NC with her, her nephew and 2 nieces have their own families or places to go and so she is out of relatives to enjoy the holidays with. I’m sure she makes the most of the pity party about how abused and abandoned she is. LOL
But you know, I am NOT responsible for anyone’s happiness but my own, and I am not going to allow someone to treat me less well than I would or do treat them. I expect the SAME courtesy I give. That is a boundary.
OxD, that’s the bottom line: what we are responsible for is our own well-being, and nobody else’s. And, I’m going back to the “cranky” thing – I’m not rude about it. I’m just intolerant of it, anymore.
I know several people who claim that they’ll say what needs to be said, and they are harsh, rude, and most often cruel in their methods. They aren’t speaking truth – they are speaking their minds. And, often the words that come out of their mouths are utterly incongruous with their own actions. This is something else that I will not tolerate. If it’s “true,” then okay. If it’s simply spouting words that don’t apply, then it’s white noise.
I intend to have the best Holiday season of my life, this year. Not because of gifts, or anything else. Because I am free of the senseless need or compulsion to please everyone else. I’m fearful of the future, but I’m actually beginning to feel hopeful, as well. However I do it, I’m going to be okay. My son is going to be okay. And, we’re both going to learn independence from others, including one another. 🙂
At the moment, we’ll need to help each other along, but there will come a time when we both can fend for ourselves, independent of one another. That day will come, and it will be a bittersweet and hard-won victory for us both.
Brightest blessings
SOME: In your post you claimed; “I’d say the emotional abuse was the worst.”
I could not agree more. I have been physically, sexually and emotionally abused by my ppaths…I far prefer the first two to the emotional torture I endured by the ones who really know how to hurt with actions and words. The problem is it is easier to hide secrets with an emotional abuser…to talk things “away.” Unfortunately, sometimes words can cause an effect not unlike a cancer that grows and grows within the emotionally capable target.
I am left sick and sickly just thinking about all of my losses as a result of the shame and humiliation my parents put at my feet to pick up and carry for them.
I feel guilty for writing my book – and sometimes wonder if I did the right thing by putting my experiences to print – which seals the deal with all of my family.
I feel guilty for being a “speaking up” type of “supply” when the rest of my family think I should “just let things go” and not “rock the boat” as I have been known to do.
I am CONFIDENTLY finding my voice, finally…and by turning away the opportunity to be in a documentary and perhaps bring good attention to my book, I feel proud that I was able to tell this fellow, Jeremy Torrie, in an assertive, not passive aggressive or aggressive tone, that he had crossed my boundaries and I would not work with him – on the day he was suppose to arrive in my city. I had regained my own voice and set my boundaries in a manner that felt appropriate to me. And it is only me who can judge my actions now.
If I can really live with whatever I do, knowing it is the truth as I know it to be, then I have done what I am suppose to do, take care of myself first.
Thanks for bringing that point up; about emotional abuse.
I enjoyed everyone’s comments about triggers and boundaries as well…
(((hugs)))
Bob Dylan just brought out a new single from his new album with a quite ‘disturbing’ video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mns9VeRguys&feature=player_embedded
I like the video though. Basically it tells the story of a stalker who’s both stalking and trying to lovebomb his target every day with stolen roses. But it doesn’t end well for the stalker. She sprays him with pepper spray, he gets chased by cops for stealing the roses and during this chase he tries to get rid of them by making a ladder fall while he knows there’s someone standing on it. The ladder guy has a broken arm (and thereby probably loses his income), but the ‘hero’ of the clip shows no remorse whatsoever… just collateral damage to him. He still ends up caught and in jail, and when he’s released, already on his way back to his stalking stake out, he gets kidnapped by gangsters hired by the ladder guy and they break his knees, then throw him back on the street, where Bob Dylan passes and ignores the creep completely.
The interesting thing is that of course the stalker is a pretty boy, and he just seems to have an innocent crush and of course things befall him he could use for a pity play. Normally as music clips go the guy would get the girl, instead of being rejected and beaten up. The romantic lightning and cheerful song all fit that expected myth of romance. The clip though violates that romantic falsehood crudely, as it should… and with Dylan almost literally walking over the broken body of the creep on the street, it reveals that Dylan isn’t fooled by the pity play.
Darwinsmom, what an interesting insight. Bad begets bad begets bad…..harm begets harm begets harm.
I truly believe that karma has an often wry way of knocking at people’s doors and smacking them in their faces with a rotten salmon. Somehow, it all comes back full circle.
As with the ending of Sharon Wright’s video, the spath chooses their own demise. Oddly, this is something that the exspath used to pontificate about by saying, “We all choose the manner of our own deaths.” I often wondered why this was such an important topic for him, but it finally makes sense – he’s chosen a dark, dismal, and terrifying path, and Karma will tap on his shoulder, soon enough. I don’t need to know about it, and I don’t WANT to know when it comes back around to him. He’ll reap what he’s sown, and that’s just a simple fact.
The Universe requires a balance, I believe. I mean that I truly believe that everything within the Universe must maintain a balance. Stars and planetary systems are born and they die. Black holes suck in galactic matter and repurpose it to produce new galaxies, stars, and planets. Everything works in a chaotic balance, and I truly believe that this holds true with human actions and choices.
As for pity…..the end of Sharon’s abuser was still demanding pity, even as he bled out. Yes, we can feel badly for someone like that without feeling pity. I reserve “pity” for those whose experiences had nothing to do with their personal choices or actions. I can feel badly that someone has no soul, but I don’t pity them for it.
pffffffffffffffft………..(waving hand in the air) I’d step over the exspath in the same scenario.
Brightest blessings
I found it an empowering music video that rightfuly disturbs the typical marketing message we get bombarded with.
It does start off with that air of a commercial, especially with the cheery song… How often do commercials involve some pretty, model looking types meet each other and fall in a swoon over each other, because of the right alcohol drink, or perfume, or shaving tool being used in a matter of secs. This video uses that kind of theme bu reveals there’s nothing normal about it. If you have a guy waiting each day across your front door on the street to follow you around and try to catch your attention and even open the door of the car while you’re seated in it, then that ain’t romantic at all, but someone you defend yourself from with mace. If you’re a flower salesman where each entitled stalker thinks he can steal a rose from once a day, at some point you’ll have the cops waiting in hiding around the corner to catch him for it. And if you lose your means of income because some spath thought to use you in order to escape the consequences of his past actions, then yeah, you’d like to really hurt them.
The video shows that he’s been staking out and following her at least once before the first time we witness it being done the first time.
Another contrast that I liked is Dylan and his gang of misfits (including a guy dressed up like Gene Simons in his KISS outfit) with the stalker. The stalker LOOKS normal and handsome and trustworthy, whereas Dylan and his band of misfits LOOK like gangsters or creeps almost. But the real creep is the stalking spath, a piece of worthless shit.
Brilliant. What a good example of karma. I wonder what I did in my last life to deserve what I have endured in this one. If I could think of anything I can change, I change it…but sometimes I am just stumped.
Here is my reply to OX in regular inbox…to give you an idea:
“Yes, thank you for sharing that…it’s still hard to think about Trevor’s last two hours – especially since I was not able to be there for him. No one was as his wife went to a different hospital. It will be 10 years next May and I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. And how slow. My son was the only person in my family who had feelings like me…while my ex is likely not a spath he had very few feelings. He cried harder when a race car celebrity died than when Trevor died.
I am so sorry for your loss and all the pain the aircrash caused you. And I’m glad you are in the room. I am so very insecure…sometimes I read my posts immediately after I post and I seem so choppy.
I’m just getting my bearings back after my boyfriend of five years was found to have been molesting my granddaughter…my precious sweet who was my son’s and I should have been more vigilant in protecting her.
I’m getting smashed down pretty big from her mother’s side of the family…blaming me. I don’t blame them. However, when I found the c.d.s I took them to the police immediately and moved that weekend while he was away. He is in jail now, for 18 months. Are sexual molesters of children spaths? It would just figure.
What goes around comes around and around again it seems – at least in my life. I begged her maternal side for forgiveness and they wouldn’t give it to me. *tears* can’t talk about this right now… I feel all of the pain of my childhood back in full force at times. PTSD overcomes me. But, I will be okay…I just need to keep calling my granddaughter and sending her cards…one day she will be allowed to visit me in my city again, I’m sure.
Meanwhile I can go see her for a day or so…just no overnights. It’s hard because we live 3 to 4 hours away from each other. We went to the Pacific National Exhibition together while I was in Vancouver about 2 weeks ago and had a blast.
He wasn’t even my boyfriend anymore, but I shared his house and had two bedrooms on the other side of the home thinking everything was great. I had a man nearby and no obligations. Oh how wrong I was. Blind as a bat. Which is weird because usually I’m the first to suspect such perverts being a survivor myself.
That’s why my trust level is zero now. I just have no sense of judgement – so when Jeremy was playing this cat and mouse game I just stopped it in its’ track.
Did Jeremy give you his phone number? You would think after my complaints to him he would smarten up somewhat. He described himself as very poor…always hinting at money issues.”
(((hugs all)))