by AlohaTraveler
How many of us have a list, or know someone who does, of the ideal qualities we are looking for in THE ONE? I think these lists can sometimes cause us to miss out on someone quite wonderful because we get so attached to a check list. But that’s another topic. I have a different kind of list. It could be called the list of EXACTLY what I DO NOT want in a life partner! This list has helped me to heal and come to terms with the reality of the Bad Man.
While going through my things this morning, I found a piece of binder paper with a list I had written about the Bad Man in the early stages of my healing. It was written sometime within the first year after I had left him. The list represents a free flowing string of words and phrases that describe the Bad Man.
Before I found LoveFraud, I was aware that my thoughts of the Bad Man seemed to swing back and forth between never wanting to hear from him again to hoping somehow he would learn, apologize and we would live happily ever after. I didn’t totally understand why this was so and it was perplexing, given my descriptive list.
Bad Man was not the clever sociopath that many of the readers here talk about. Don’t get me wrong. He was very smart and charismatic. But I didn’t get blind sided or robbed behind my back like many readers. He was fairly abusive and inappropriate in the first few weeks though he used all of the customary word games and mind tricks. Still, I find it a little embarrassing to admit that I put up with way too much right from the get-go. Looking back, in what context would name calling ever be okay?
Reality Checks
Bad Man wasn’t all flowers and charming words. I got flowers. I got love notes. But for the most part, the list below describes him best. I wrote this list for myself to use as a means of staying in touch with reality when I felt my heart softening again for him. When I had those moments, I went to my list to remind myself of the destructive, abusive, nightmare that he truly was. Now, I find it amusing how well I was describing a narcissist or a borderline without the understanding I have now of personality disorders.
A second paper I found contained the transcription of his last four text messages to me before I called my cell phone carrier and asked the operator to cut the line. I will never forget the tears of relief as I watched the lights go out on my cell phone. At the top of the page of verbal venom, I wrote, “Words to remember you by.” These messages were hateful, vicious, twisted, and untrue. Every six months or so, I run across these two papers. They don’t really hurt me now. Each time I read them, I see more clearly the pathology driving the Bad Man. For some reason, I save these pages. I haven’t included the text messages in this article because they are very personal attacks on me and no one would benefit from reading them. I certainly didn’t. Still, I save them because reading those hateful messages makes it totally clear that I made the right choice in leaving him and eventually going No Contact.
To Stay on Track, Be Honest with Yourself
I have a gentle suggestion for anyone that is still struggling with that feeling of wanting the pathological abuser/exploiter back. Create your own list using words that describe what happened to you like this:
Bad Man/Woman = constant liar, cheater, infantile, fraudulent, etc.
Use the words that ring most true for you. Then tuck away your list in a place where you can access it whenever you feel yourself getting off track. Or, if you are really struggling, post it on the bathroom mirror or keep it in your purse for instant reality checks! Read it over and over, as often as you need. Use the list to replace those moments of longing.
My list helped me many times in the early days. Whenever I run across the list, I read it through. It reminds me to be thankful for my life for what it is, and what it isn’t, today.
Here is my list.
Introducing… the Bad Man
Controlling
Manipulative
Hypocritical
Attacks me
Judges me
Does not see himself
Isolates me
Name calling
Spin Doctor
Secret Abuser
Advises and “counsels” me on “anger issues” but does not control his own anger
Self Righteous
Inflated Super Ego
Cheap
Selfish
Petty
Twisted
Omits the truth
Manipulates people
Inappropriate
No boundaries
Uses People
E-mail bombs
Possessive
Scares Me
Emotional Abuse
Mind F***
Perverted
Gee, I wonder why I don’t miss him. NOT!
The Truth, a Lesson, and Peace
Imagine if the Bad Man’s personal dating profile was the list above. He doesn’t sound very appealing does he? This, of course, is not how he describes himself. That is why it is important to write down the truth. I wrote my list in one of those raw, painful moments, standing on the edge of “the Fog” as we say. My list is me, speaking to… me. It is the rope I clung to whenever I started to dangle over that black hole again.
The list is the TRUTH.
In the days when I still missed him, it was all about the fantasy of the Bad Man, the great seducer. Today, I am learning to pay more attention to what I see and not so much to what people say. This is fundamental to restoring faith in myself because I let myself down. I need to trust myself to assess a situation and trust what I see (ie.: intimidation, blame shifting, hypocrisy, etc.). I need to stand up for me when life calls for it. No one should be able to talk me out of my instincts to protect myself and my spirit. That was far too easy in the past. This was one of the lessons I needed to learn.
If you chose to do an exercises like my list, it may bring up a lot of pain but ultimately, it is meant to bring you clarity and eventually peace. When I look at this list today, I feel peaceful knowing that I left this man in the dust. There was no other choice.
ErinBrock: Oh wow, I had no idea so many people were reading my past posts. I really am trying hard. I guess I am a survivor of many things. I’ve lasted this long, and I’m still going! I hope to see you around more too. I’ve read some of your posts and you are SUPER smart. *huggles* ^_^
Louise: *thumbs up* Woo Woo! Yeah! 😛
Lizzy: I’m starting to think you all are getting paid to call me awesome! ^_^ I’ve made so many buddies today. I think I might be friends with almost every regular poster here. I NEVER expected that. Like I said before, I feel good here. Everybody understands. ^_^
Hi Louise: Happy to hear you are well and doing alright.
I know it’s difficult to forget them. I have broken up with “IT” five times and the first four times I didn’t do so good avoiding all the whine and ploys….the fifth time was a charm, I do believe.
I know what it feels like Louise. BUT: don’t forget how it felt being in the middle of all that drama! Don’t forget to make your mental lists: good moments v. bad ones; keep it on hand so you can look at it; FREQUENTLY.
When you find yourself wanting to climb back in bed, in the morning, or in the middle of the day, because you are so bewildered that all you want to do is climb under the covers, pull them over your head and ball your SOUL out….
DONT.
FORCE YOURSELF to dry your tears and find EVERY avoidance behavior you can muster to divert your attention and thoughts. It’s hard at first but if you take ‘baby steps’ like I had to, at first. I was pretty much isolated the past five years and have had no friends left or that survived my ‘blank times’, I call them. My entire everything was centered around “IT” and I cannot adequately express the degree with which I had been emotionally and mentally ‘captive’.
I know that sounds ‘whiney’ and ‘so victim’ and I don’t mean it to sound that way but let’s call it what it is: criminal emotional and psychological control. Intentionally and will fully with knowledge. I used to say: “I feel so bad for him….he is so sick…” and make allowance after allowance. Always overlooking and forgiving. NO!
There is no excuse for the blatant disregard nor lack of humanly respect; is there? I mean, truly. Even if these people ARE sick, are we suppose to overlook and forgive into our own infinity?
When they left us or we have decided to leave them, that’s really the way it goes because they become so unacceptable, there is no way we can LIVE with that and still be true to ourselves. THEY MAKE US LEAVE THEM and they do it on purpose because they are finished with us.
MY x sp said it when he said this:
“I have no further use for you so you can just stop talking to me now if you wish.”
And, that’s pretty much the truth, actually. Not because we have done anything necessarily ‘wrong’ but because we have outlived our usefulness to them. Like wearing out a pair of shoes or throwing out a ‘holey sock’ (Batman!) 😉
THE ONLY THING THAT HAS WORKED FOR ME is a constant, conscious battle, Louise. It’s a moment to moment process. It is MAKING your thoughts go elsewhere. Some shrinks would say that is ‘avoidance behavior’ – well, DUH….if a person EVER uses ‘avoidance behavior’ positively in life, NOW IS THE MOMENT. There is no way UNDER all this; no way OVER IT; no way AROUND it so FORGET IT.
Forgetting it is a process that we must train ourselves to do. Sometimes moment to moment.
When the tears come and you swell up inside and feel like you are going to sob yourself into a pile of ocean, you remember this: WOULD THEY BE DOING THIS FOR YOU? HAVE THEY EVER DONE THIS FOR YOU? THINK ABOUT ALL THOSE MEAN AND UGLY AND ROTTEN PHSYCO things they have done to you and you tell yourself: “HELL NO, I AM BETTER THAN THIS.”
Take a step…do something all for YOU! Just one little thing to start with. Then do another only longer the next time. It’s a gentle process Louise. You take it a step at a time. It isn’t going to happen over night. Be gentle with yourself. YOU are the ONLY ONE who can control your own thoughts. YOU control the space around you and the space inside you.
They don’t deserve that spot.
I AM going to pass away IN PEACE and that PEACE does NOT include sp. He has been cast away to the very hell he was unleashed from and my mind is starting to cement that gate shut. It takes time. And it takes more strength than I can impart to you. You will have many setbacks and feel like contacting sp but don’t ever break that NC. That NC is your salvation and your time to put this back together for YOU.
You know you have been touched by a sp (a true sp) when they hit, leave and take your thoughts and mental and physical health with you when they leave and you always thought you were more intelligent than this. To allow someone to do these things to you because you LOVED THEM?! hahahahaha
Think about that; they aren’t worth it.
They don’t deserve to have us around.
Let them make their own choices as we must make ours.
Just because they are ‘sick’ does not mean we must give up ourselves and our breath for them. Build that wall around your heart, where thoughts of them are concerned. If you are faithful meditating and convincing yourself of the truths…
You will begin to see the light shining again – something we haven’t seen in a while; hmmm? Once you start seeing that light…keep going with it. It is getting easier and easier for me.
After having SOBBED the MOST of the past 3-4 years and escaping institutionalization and his trying to MURDER ME, for NO REASON, and after surviving a very massive heart attack, recently , I can say that I am starting to see a way out for me. Irregardless of the continued stalking and threats against me. Irregardless of what he does. He has no control nor power over me any longer. I have my own life and now it’s all what “I” make it. If I need police protection to achieve this, then I guess that’s what I need and it’s what I have.
I am in the fight of my life, Louise.
I REFUSE TO LET HIM HAVE MY BREATH & THOUGHTS.
I refuse to die in that chaos and evilness and ugliness.
I just flat out refuse. Some divine intervention spared my life from death and I at least owe THAT some respect which is something the sp and I have differing morals about.
I hope this helps you Louise.
I came from being a person who after almost five years of mind control, and not being able to function normally, to the person who is reaching out and talking to you right now. But the process of recovery for me has been about 4 years but I have ‘other issues’ other than sp. More nightmares than I even care to really touch or look at, most times. I am just grateful that I have left that non functioning portion of my ‘captivity’ behind me now and I started this journey from sp in January, 2011. It was a New Years resolution I made to myself:
to muster the courage and the fiber and the strength to put all this vileness and disrespectfulness and blatant evilness BEHIND me. I promised myself I was not going to live one more year the way I have lived the rest. I just wasn’t. HE wasn’t going to change…so “I” changed.
Change is hard….especially when they have destroyed everything we have ever believed in. It wasn’t “US” that changed…we never changed at all. We were or have been reacting to the change that has taken place IN THEM.
This has never been about ‘us’…you and me…
It has always been all about THEM.
Stop and think about that strong person you were before sp came along and be that person again. We will never be the same again, if we only REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE in THEIR SHOW and start participating in OUR OWN, Lovey! xxoo
Everyone enjoy Sunday….
Make yourself do one simple thing all for yourself and let the stress and worries melt away….screw it…it is what it is…
mwah!
DUPED
My thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooo much for being here; every single one of you. It is a BLESSED thing to have a place to be understood and to find solace amidst the turmoil through common ground.
I am happy that if we have to come through this crappy time in our lives that we can be amongst each other: people who understand; truly….
Sleep well my Friends…
I am grateful for the ‘lean’…
xxoo
DUPED
Near,
You’re an inspiration! So much so I keep coming back to read your posts and figure out how to not be such a bitch!
You are SO stable despite what has happened to you in your life. It is no less than amazing and a great example to all of us. At the same time you are able to share yourself with others with an infinite wisdom that I’ve not seen in someone so young.
YOU are very blessed!
If some are genetically predisposed to pathology of some sort, you were genetically predisposed to a God given good, positive nature, and an example from your mother of good environmental judgment.
You bless this blog.
I’m learning so much from your humility, combined with good, positive nature.
LL
Near…
No, not super smart…….just an average woman. But like you my dear……a super survivor! 🙂
Those of us who choose to learn about ourselves and ‘how’ we got ‘here’, will choose to continue learning and making it through the rough patches life offers.
If we don’t learn we don’t grow. And life will continue to throw us the same shiat we didn’t get the first time around!
Keep sponging it all up…..you really are going places!!!!!
🙂
((((((((((((( Louise )))))))))))))))))))
I feel so much for you…..
EB is right in many ways. I’m learning about this too. While ruminating can be good if there is some way to make sense of what happened to you by your spath, and learning more about youreslf, but at the same time, there is also such thing as spending too much time in your head about it. There is a balance. I’ve not found it yet, but I see where it’s important. It is possible to think about something TOO MUCH!
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life analyzing spaths. I’ve spent most of my life living and dealing with them. There is enough fall out because of it.
I think if you can do that without it affecting you and without triggers, more power to you.
BUt it’s not for me. I need to figure out what drew me to my spath, what my triggers are, understand them and myself and also have the balance of something for myself that is anything but spathdom.
I want more for myself than dwelling on PD’s. with all the education with experience, I don’t want to anymore. I know all i need to know about THEM, now I just need to learn about me.
Ruminating about spaths too much can create more triggers.
that’s not helpful to anyone and I’ve learned about that.
If you can, try to focus on what you want to do with your life and make it happen. I know it’s really hard. But it’s better than wallowing in it all the time and if you have too much time on your hands, you’ll think about it more and more…….
Things get crazy in your head when that happens.
It’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned lately.
Keep pushing forward, Chica.
It will happen. Promise
LL
(((Louise))) how long has it been since the you ended things with him?
I want you to know that it really doesn’t do any good to run away-at least it didn’t for me. I was in a place where I was in severe shock emotionally-it was actually way worse than when I was raped years ago. I felt outside of my body and I had just withdrawn from the police academy and lost my apartment and had to move in with my crazy aunt who was addicted to narcotics. I couldn’t find a job for about a month but was intent on running away. I knew I would crumble if I saw him in town, especially if her was with her. I had to get away as soon as possible.
I took a contract in the Dallas area and it was cancelled after two days and I was stuck in that temp apartment for 3 months. I couldn’t function on a basic human level. I did nothing but sob my guts out for all three months and watch Will and Grace reruns while laying in the dark and ate junk food. That was all I could do to survive. If I ever could meet the actress who played Karen Walker on that show, I would tell her that she saved my life that summer.
My point is-stay as busy as you can so that you don’t spend too much time thinking about him or the relationship. I was making myself crazy because I had always thrown myself into work before when I had heartache and then there was nothing to throw myself into.
It will get easier but I didn’t even find this site until a year after he broke up with me and I was still a mess. I remember one night ErinB posting to me for a long time and me getting the guts to throw out the rest of his stuff that I had. I had a set of scrubs and two shirts that I gave him that looked so great on him. I was still sleeping in his clothes at a year out. Finally this year on the second year anniversary of the breakup, I threw out the bedding that we had on the bed. His cats had ripped holes in the silk with their claws but it was a beautiful blanket and I had also spent so much time wrapped up in it with him that I couldn’t get rid of it. I bought gorgeous Ralph Lauren bedding when I was making a ton of money before I got fired, and threw that old blanket out. It was a big deal for me.
YOu are so going to get through this. See if there is volunteer work that you can do-it could help take your mind off it. I just signed up to volunteer in the homicide division of my police dept to help with stuff in the cold case area. Find something that you can do. I keep thinking about you all the time because of all the people on here, I think your relationship was most like mine. We spent a lot of time before talking about how our two men were very similar.
You’re going to be OK girl. You can make it through all this and you can talk to me anytime you want!
Lesson Learned: Yay! You came back, I like your posts too. I clicked on it right away when I saw it on the sidebar. Hey, you aren’t a bitch! Stop that talk! ^_^
Wow, I didn’t even think I was that stable until I came here, but now I think so. I was just so used to fighting through everything. Everything happened so quickly and there was barely time to rest. Although, I’ve always thought it all made me wise beyond my years. I was able to meet so many people and learn so many things while at the hospital. To enjoy the small things in life. ^_^
Maybe Liane Leedom will feel better too after seeing me turn out this way even after my dad left a turd in the gene pool. Code red! There is a turd in the punch bowl! 😛
Oh, and I understand not wanting to stick around here talking about these spaths all day. It does create a bad mood for some people. But you know what, I’ve realized something important today. I like sharing all this stuff, and I like to learn about everyone here. It keepa me going with a good mood. I like to make everyone here laugh. So I’ll stay a while, even if spaths still infest the conversation.
I don’t care about arguing definitions or some of the other stuff here. I just want to learn about stuff that actually matters and can be put to use. I just want to help others feel a little better, even for a little. So I understand if some don’t want to stick around, but I do. ^_^
You know, I remember most of my doctors mentioning my manners and how different I was from the other children in the hospital. We even had some X-ray techs and IV specialists comment on how great my relationship was with my mom and most kids did not talk openly like we did. They mentioned my positive attitude would always make their day. They always liked coming to see me. I also made the other kids in the play room feel better. So that’s what I want to do here. Make others feel better.
ErinBrock: Yeah, I think almost all of us here are super survivors of some sort. I’ve already learned so much here. I’m definitely trying to go places! I think many of us are starting to get it and move on. ^_^
Near,
You are healthier in heart and soul than you can imagine.
I think YOU SHOULD stay and keep posting.
you help so many, and you helped me too.
But there is a life I need to go get now.
Maybe your posts encouraged and inspired it.
For that, I am forever grateful.
You’re a blessed addition and a breath of fresh air to the blog.
LL