I wrote an article not long ago about settling on a name for the personality disorder that we spend our time here talking about. I suggested using “sociopath” as a general term for exploitative people. Many of us have taken to shortening this term to “spath.”
Well, a Lovefraud reader “Justdreamin” informs us that “spath” is taken. She saw it on a flower pot, and sent us the photos.
It turns out that “spath” is a shortened version of “spathiphyllum,” which is the botanical name for the peace lilly, a common houseplant.
We might have to come up with a new name. If I were a beautiful peace lily, I wouldn’t want to share a name with the nasty predators.
Kim,
I think Katy’s suggestion is a very good one, and DEPRESSION is like a lot of mental problems, it comes in various degrees. One of the common symptoms is just being “blah” not interested in things, low energy, all the way up to literally sitting like a zombie and won’t even swallow food someone else puts in their mouths, and everything in between.
I think you HAVE made remarkable progress since you came to LF a few years ago…at that time you were (like a lot of us) CRAZZZEEE, but you have made progress in your healing, in your ability to think rationally, etc.
Sure, you need to get a job and that is sort of a scary thing, especially in this economy…remember back when we (you and I) were talking about you looking for a job and you kinda sorta did there for a while but then you just sort of drifted off and stopped. Then you were having trouble with the SIL and you wanted your daughter to toss him on his ear, then she was going to leave with you, then she went back to him? All this drama has sort of side tracked you from the REAL issue of KIM TAKING CARE OF KIM.
Now, with your dtr going to have the new babies that she can’t afford to pay child care for either—that is NOT YOUR PROBLEM.
Your problem is TAKING CARE OF KIM….getting KIM a life INSTEAD OF TAKING CARE OF OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS.
Yes, there were some benefits (getting to be with your GKs) to what you were doing and it also gave you space to heal without having the stress of a “real” job, but now you are more able to DO a REAL job.l
I think you are also coming to the point of facing the fact that your daughter’s problems are NOT ALL related to the Dysfunctional SIL, just as I finally realized that my son C’s problems were not all with his P-Wife, HE CONTRIBUTED to the dysfunction as much as she did. Also, realizing that you cannot “save” her from the situation that she is in WILLINGLY for better or worse…but it is HER DRAMA not yours.
Being there in your little cottage with the cat and the TV doesn’t have to be LONELY, Kim, it can be a wonderful opportunity to spend this QUIET TIME with KIM. Turn off the TV so it doesn’t distract you from your spiritual learning or from TALKING TO KIM. Have a conversation with her….read and learn. Knowledge is power.
Get serious about getting to know what KIM is feeling and thinking. What KIM wants. If Kim is anxious, or feeling scared about meeting and trusting new people, reassure her that YOU will take care of her, you will comfort her, you will protect her, you will be wise for her.
The time I have been quiet, and had peace to feel my feelings and to think my thoughts, and even to FACE MY FEARS from a safe distance has been my healing salve Kim. I wish I could put my arms around you—I’ve come over the time we’ve both been on LF to feel so close to you, and to honor your spirit and your strength to over come so much, and to RESPECT your honesty and your working on the 12 steps. Because of that I want so much for you to find your happiness, and find your PEACE and find your security, my friend! ((((hugs)))) Love Oxy
Kim –
Well done! 2 days ago you weren’t sure how to email Donna and here you are today, posting a LINK of all things!!! (I think that you were secretly a major techo-head all along) x
one/joy –
All the talk of dog-bark-stop-collars made me think of something that might be easy to get hold of, cheap and potentially put YOU in control of the dog. You know those “dog whistles” – the really high-pitched ones that “only dogs can hear”? Dogs don’t LIKE how they sound so they are sometimes used in dog training. If you were to get one and blow hard on the whistle every time the dog barked, it might get the idea that it would be more comfortable to stay quiet.
Just a random thought. x
Morning Oxy! (to you)
And goodnight from me. It’s 1.10am here and I’m waaaayyyyy late for bed – again.
And all those requisitions for affidavits for the trial to write and send tomorrow too….. (Bad Aussiegirl)
Have a great day everybody else, while the likes of me are catching some zzzzzzzzzzzz’s
(which reminds me – again – has anyone heard from notcrazee?)
Thanks, Oxy.
Just want to clarify. I have two daughter. The one I lived with is not the same daughter that is pregnant with twins.
It is the younger one who has so many problems, but who is trying to control them via pregnancy. I’m beginning to see some unhealthy narcissism in her, as well. What better supply is there than children? She teaches second grade, too.
So she has lots of little lives to influence. (She is an excellent teacher.) I just think she is a little obsessed with having a lot of kids looking up to her.
Anyway…I have to get on track, and heal my life. I’ve been at a stand still for a long time.
Thanks for your advice and friendship, Oxy. It means so much.
Kim,
Thank you very much for the link.
Doing deep work can be exhausting. Sometimes I’d be resistant and that meant I was getting close to something and needed to push through the resistance. Other times it was a sign I needed to back off and rest a while, do other things, (like ride a bike, as you mentioned) and go back to it in a few weeks. Inner work is life-changing and IMO the insights and breakthroughs are worth the stress it can cause. Stress included both depression and anxiety during the time I was working on it at that level. It was hard to function at times, the realizations of how I’d betrayed myself, for example, were overwhelming.
Trauma takes a long time to heal from, especially childhood trauma. The link you posted has much good information about that, and about trauma in general, and how to understand it. I was helped a great deal by Jungian based therapy–specifically psychosynthesis, which, ironically, was my ex spaths field, he did his phd dissertation on Roberto Assagioli.
I don’t think we’re ever so damaged we can’t recover. The spath stated many times he intended to leave me “with so much baggage you’ll never be able to be in another relationship ever again.” Screw that. We can recover, the spirit wants to be whole. We just have to do the hard work on our end to make that connection with ourselves, or re-connection, a reality.
Since the ex’s suicide last summer I’ve been paralyzed and still am in many ways, unable to move forward, struggling to keep my head above water. When I opened the link and began reading the article I thought, oh no, can’t go there…but that’s exactly where I need to go now. If I give in to this “feels better to do nothing” state I will stay here indefinately. Thanks again, Kim, you’ve helped me a lot today. Best wishes on your journey back to yourself. Opening the door even a little is a huge step forward.
CAmom, I haven’t finished reading it yet. I have read and studied quite a bit of Jungian concepts, so am familiar with most of what he’s talking about. Have read a bit on Shaminism, and like the way the author moves in and out of various traditions, myths and metaphors. I like his use of symbols and such. But it is pretty deep and complex, not LIGHT reading, so I’m still muddleing through it.
I’m so glad that it helped you. I’m doing this healing work without the benefit of a therapist and am wondering if that’s a good idea.
I’m not in touch enough with myself to know when I should push myself through resistance, or if I should back off and rest.
Thanks for letting me know you got something out of the link.
I’m sending you white light. 🙂
Kim, okay, please clarify—which one were you living with? Which one is married to the baqd guy SIL? Which one are you taking care of the kids for? (I thought you were taking care of the kids for the “teacher” and living with (previously) the one with the bad guy husband, your SIL that you were encouraging her to leave and she went back to. Forgive the CRS. LOL
What ever it is, I think you are doing well to get out of CARE TAKING for others—and to FOCUS on you. There are times I think it is appropriate for us to care take others in our family and our friends but there are times we have to back off and TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES first and let them take care of their own drama.
Even when it is APPROPRIATE care taking, I think like me taking care of my step father when he had cancer, we need to be WELL AWARE that we can’t give EVERY ounce of strength to anyone else under any situation and survive ourselves for very long.
YOU need some “adult” company and you need a LIFE. You are right there. Personally I think the fact that you are BECOMING AWARE of your loneliness and your NEED FOR A LIFE is a BIG STEP FORWARD. Sometimes we aren’t even AWARE of what we need so there isn’t any way to go about getting it. Becoming AWARE is a GOOD THING. Hearing the inner voice, say “Kim, you need a life” is GREAT!!!!!! Too many times we don’t listen to that inner voice because we are SO BUSY CARE TAKING OTHERS to even notice that we are hungry or thirsty or have any other NEED. Care taking others can be a distraction for us because it is easier than listening to some things that may be scary from the “inner dialog.” I’ve sure been there when that scary voice was telling me “you’re a fat, wrinkled old lady and no one will ever love you again” ANYTHING was better than listening to that voice, and I thought some how that the P-BF was going to save me from what that voice was telling me.
But you know, getting a LIFE can be scary, but it can also be EXCITING and fun, an ADVENTURE! Going to a place you’ve never been before and seeing all the things there are to see and experience!
Kim, I think we can do deep work on our own (that’s just my opinion, nothing professional about it in any way) if we pace ourselves and “poke around in there” to see what feels tender, what feels safe…prodding and exploring a bit the tender parts, retreating to the safe if it gets overwhelming. For me, what helped (and I’m counting on it still!) is opening a dialogue with my higher self, trusting that my higher self knows what’s best. So while I don’t trust myself to know how to navigate my own healing, and I’m not in touch with myself either, I do believe our higher selves have our backs, if that makes sense. And that our higher selves (or souls/spiritual selves) actively wish for our well-being and know how to get us there. I’ve never been in a 12 step program but really like the saying, “let go and let God” which I think is a 12 step slogan. To me it means to trust that our inner “divinity” for lack of a better word, will guide us, and more than that, again, that the inner divinity actively wishes for our healing and health, and that we are our own worst enemies.
There are some really good guided imagery tapes and CDs on the market, those can really help a lot…I had a huge breakthrough doing guided imagery with a therapist, then worked on that on my own–inner directed imagery. I’d sometimes go into painful parts of my past and re-experience those times, then allow that white light to heal those. And I think “allow” may be the key word here—it’s back to letting go and letting God (or our higher self, etc) lead us to where it wants us to be, whole and in touch with the Creator.
Sorry if this sounds like new agey mumble-jumble, I don’t mean it to. Just feeling the inherent lack of language when describing inner states of being 🙂
Claudia,
i felt the obsession, too. I really liked my psychopath at the beginning. But it’s not possible to join in life stability and a psychopath because their specialty is precisely only to give the certainty of the uncertainty.
Towards the end i really felt he was dangerous because i had nightmares. So i decided i should not meet him anymore, so i didn’t go to Greece with him as he had planned, because i already knew i was not going to keep him and i think he knew it too, so i had nightmares in which i died drown. No thanks 😀
CA Mom and Kim,
I think our healing journey is as much a spiritual one as a mental or emotional one–Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” is the thing that really put me on the spiritual road. That man lost the ULTIMATE LOSS by being in the Nazi prison camps for years, and yet he FOUND MEANING in that suffering not only for himself but for others that he observed there.
“The same sun that hardens the clay, melts the wax” is a saying I have heard all my life, and it actually means that the same conditions that will get one result in one object, get a completely different one in another object. So part of the thing is —not how hot the sun is, but are we wax or clay?
So do we give up, or do we stand and fight? Do we cut and run, and live to fight another day or do we take a stand and fight to the death? What does our inner voice tell us is the wisest thing to do.
Where does our moral compass point? I have always enjoyed reading stories of “life and death” decisions, like 5 men in a life boat for 93 days—at one point they drew straws to see who would sacrifice his life so that his body could become food for the others, and who would execute him….because if they did not do this, they would all die. 2 of the men did live to be rescued. This happened in 1819 on the boats with the men of the Whale ship Essex. It has happened at other times as well.
In the Nazi prison camps and the Japanese prison camps, and at Andersonville and on Devil’s Island….how people survive under those circumstances…and some people have moral compasses and come out, and some their moral compasses won’t allow them to survive because they can’t bring themselves to eat the flesh of a friend.
I often wonder I think how I would behave under these extreme circumstances…fortunately, most of us will never be tested like this. We know how psychopaths would behave, they would take advantage of anyone weaker than themselves. They would use whatever resources were available for themselves.
A prime example I think is look at how some people behaved during Katrina–looting and raping in gangs, and look at how the Japanese people are behaving during the horrible conditions they are enduring patiently and helping each other. Yet, during WWII, they as a country committed unspeakably horrible war crimes against innocent prisoners and civilians….and I doubt not that some of our psychopathic troops have also done some pretty horrible things during wars. War and prisons lend themselves as opportunities for the psychopaths to vent their spleens on victims that can’t fight back. Psychopaths also seem to seek jobs with power such as cops, military, lawyers, politicians, etc.
We can’t leave this world alive, so we have to live on the same planet, the same street etc as these psychopaths but most of the time we don’t have to live in the same house with them. We can distance ourselves as much as possible to keep ourselves as safe as possible.