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
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!
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?
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!
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.