On May 21, 2003 I was given the miracle of my life. The sociopath who had terrorized my existence for almost five years was arrested and I was set free from the web of his deceit.
Almost imperceptibly, healing began. Without his sinister presence, the FOG of his lies began to lift. Even though I was scared, and beaten down, I began to think and feel and take action for myself, not based on what he had told me was best or good for me, but based on what was best and healing and supportive of me. Without his insidious words stealing my peace of mind with every breath, I began to unravel the web of his deceit and find myself again. I began to make choices that loved me. Choices based on my thinking clearly about what I needed, not on the design of his constant weaving of lies and deceit.
One of the choices I made very early on in my recovery was to eliminate the possessive when thinking, writing or speaking of him. He was not, ”˜my’ P or S or N or even jerk. He was, ”˜the’ P or S or N or whatever I chose to call him, my favourite being, The Lie. That simple step of disconnecting from ”˜owning’ him in my language had a powerful impact. I no longer thought of him as ”˜mine’. He was depersonalized.
The choices we make in how we speak, think, write, or simply refer to the abuser have a powerful impact on how we stay connected in our minds to his abuse. In making him a noun, ”˜the P’ for example, I let go of my attachment to him. What ”˜the P’ did was not about me. It had everything to do with him. I could have called him, ”˜the sink’, ”˜the drain’, ”˜the toilet’ — it didn’t matter. As long as I didn’t call him, ‘my sink’ I wasn’t connected to what I called him. My connection was with me. I took ownership for what I did, thought, felt, said and let go of attaching myself to his name whenever I refered to him.
In erasing the possessive term from my language I was giving my psyche, and the world, a very clear message: I do not own him. He does not own me.
And that’s where the power of depersonalizing and dispossessing them of their connection to us plays out. For so long, when in that relationship, I believed he owned me. I believed he was omnipotent. I believed he knew everything I did, thought, felt, said. He knew whom I spoke to. He knew where I went. Even when he wasn’t beside me, he knew what I was thinking, doing, being. And he went to great lengths to convince me that was true.
It wasn’t.
But, as we all know, ‘truth’ doesn’t matter when we are in those relationships — it’s what he/she can get us to believe that makes the difference. What he told me was true is what counted. And, he told me he knew everything about me. He told me he had me followed. Pictures taken of me while I was unaware. He told me my phones were tapped. My house bugged. He told. I believed. In my belief he ”˜knew’, I relinquished my personal power and attached myself to the lie, he was all-powerful. He was omnipotent.
The tactics he used to convince me of his power and control are, sadly, all too common. We’ve all experienced them. We’ve all experienced the fear and confusion, the sense of utter helplessness, the overwhelming ennui that descends upon us as they manipulate and weave their web into our minds, our bodies, our spirits.
Unraveling their web, being committed to No Contact wherever possible and feasible, are two very important components of the healing path. Cutting the ties that bind in our language is also very important.
To cut the ties means to let go of the need to use the possessive. It means to claim our right to be the centre of our attention, without fear that they will overshadow our truth. It means letting go of our need to stay attached, by speaking of them as if they are ours, and embracing our freedom to make choices that with each day disconnect us from them, more and more.
We were possessed. It doesn’t mean we have to possess the evil one that possessed us.
It means, claiming our place under the sun. Bright. Shiny. Brilliant.
correction : guns being given to the surviving sibling my the MN parents.
should read:guns being given to the surviving sibling BY the MN parents.
skylar,
My husband was adopted. So my MIL & FIL are not my sons blood.
However I am starting to realize that my husband, my sons father might very well have been personality disordered himself.
I ALWAYS assumed all my husbands issues where because of his addictions.
BUT I have come to realize that I relate well to others involved with P/S/N in love relationships (not talking about children) because in reality thats what I lived when I was with my husband.
This has been a slow process for me. But it is all there.
His stuff isn’t there yet. Still here. He won’t tell me who he was going to stay with. As far as I know the cops intimidated him into waiting until he is 17 before he leaves. That could change at any moment….But for now he doesn’t want to go to juvie (the threat they used) he wants to go to California when he is 18. He has that grandness “playing in his head” and I don’t think he wants to mess up this plan…..To many of his ideas have fizzled out the past two days….And this was always his one and only GRAND plan. He has never followed through with anything before in his life. His ADHD leaves him without being able to focus on anything to long.
Yet this is one thing he has focused on the longest.
The emancipation would take 30-60 days once filed according to information I recieved. By that time he will be 17. And it will again take focus to follow through with. I’m not sure he cares about this enough to do it….ALTHOUGH he might need to, once he leaves because if he wants a drivers licence before his 18th B-day and that the only way he will get one. Also if he wants to sign up for utilities or an apartment if he gets kicked out of wherever he is planning to stay? I don’t think utility companys let 17 yr olds, unless emancipated.
He will cross that bridge when he comes to it, I guess.
witsend:
“BUT I have come to realize that I relate well to others involved with P/S/N in love relationships (not talking about children) because in reality thats what I lived when I was with my husband.”
This realization is so very important. Because until you make it, I have learned the hard way, you keep getting involved with S/N/Ps because you end up conditioned to their crazy personalities. I grew up with a malignant N mother, S father and conman brother (probably an S). By the age of 10 I was suicidal from their crazy-making behavior. After awhile I no longer had a clue what was reality and I didn’t even care what was reality — their insanity formed my definition of reality.
My history is replete with getting involved with manipulative, self-entitled, destructive personalities. After all, this was my conditioning. This was my reality. When I met S I was turning 50. I was a fully formed willing victim for him. And I tolerated everything he handed out and then some. To this day I am still astounded that I woke up enough from S’s trance to get him the hell out of my life and start restructuring my reality so it didn’t involve these toxic individuals.
It is so easy to gravitate back to these relationships because they are familiar and because they fill up the lonely spaces in our lives. However, I’ve gotten to the point that when one of the N/S/Ps from my life comes calling, I let the machine get it, and then I turn off the guilt, etc to make sure I don’t call them back. You let one back into your life, and the harm they cause to you make you let your guard down and let others back in. And the destruction they wreak in your life becomes an avalanche.
Nature or nurture? In your husband’s case — who knows? In your son’s case, it seems nature is at work. Point is, it doesn’t matter. At this stage of the game, it’s all about protecting you. Sounds like you are on the right path with dealing with your son. As for his demanding the money, seems to me that the 2 grand is his ticket to CA. He blows it now, how does he propose to get out there? That may be your leverage over him.
Matt,
Thanks for that validation. I have been reliving my past with my sons father, with my sons behavior in some ways….The only difference is with his father there was the addictions (to blame it on)
Reading here on LF so much of the really dark side of my marriage started surfacing……Stuff I couldn’t think about or dwell on after the suicide….
I mentioned before that I haven’t been in a relationship for over a decade…I was afraid because…
I have always known that I was a drunk magnet. Even in high school. My boyfriends already had alcohol issues. My father was an alcoholic so no shock there….You attract what you know.
However now I am even more afraid to put myself out there because it looks like I have alot more work to do on my healing journey.
As I have come to realize this and think back to what “Really” happened, even after he got sober….I see the underlying issues he had with a different perspective.
You nailed it on the head with the two grand….I am afraid if he spends it all when he is living with his friends, HE will not be able to go to California and end up BACK on my doorstop. After a few months.
dear witsend,
At some point if he wibnds up back at your door you either have to let him “back in” or you have to tell lhim GO AWAY. Either way it may be a “bad deal”—especially when they feel so entitled and vindictive.
Mine didn’t come back home after he got out of prison to “punish me”—LOL ROTFLMAO
So maybe you can convince him that if he comes back home after he leaves it is what you want so he will “punish” you by staying away! Or that some way you predict he will “fail” and come back home and you will be there waiting to pick him up. Mine would have DIED if he had to admit he HAD TO COME BACK HOME and had no other place to go.
So maybe as he leaves you might “predict” that he will fail on his own so he will SHOW YOU he doesn’t have to come crawling back. Like maybe as he leaves say “You’ll never make it on your own, you’ll have to come crawling back home on your knees.” Their own arrogance sometimes can be turned against them, especially when they are teenagers.
Or as my stepfather would have said, a bit of ‘reverse psychology” LOL
Hi Skylar and thanks for the advice 🙂
Should hopefully be over in a matter of weeks this time – the new lawyer is pretty onto it. And yes I have to pay him to leave unfortunately because I will be keeping the house and in my country the divorce system is a no fault one – however this also means that both partners get half of any proceeds in the divorce. So the house has appreciated (even beyond the borrowed reno money he spent behind my back and the money we sent to his family) so I have to give him half (after making allowances for what he has already had). It seems damned unfair to me but that is the system here and Iguess it is cheap at the price to get him out.
Once he goes this time it will be no contact – there is no other way forward. You are dead right about the lifetime of expectations with no expectations on them to reciprocate. I need some space to heal from this so despite whatever his feelings might be (if indeed there are any true feelings at all), Ii will be staying well away from him.
Witsend … I can relate to your concern about him showing up at your doorstep when all the money is gone! That is what I am worried about too!
I know now all communications are manipulations – I have become exquisitely mindful of noticing the subtle feelings I get when I am being squeezed and it is amazing how often it occurs – literally every few minutes and a minumum of a few times a day. I always experienced it as just an uncomfortable sense of compression on my spirit =- now I am more specific in recognising it.
‘He just gave an ambiguous response to hook me further, annoy me and make me get involved by asking questions. I asked him how he was feeling and he gave no response – completely ignored it. Later he is wandering the house like he is depressed but denies anything is wrong.’
I now clearly see how damaging these little incidents are when they happen so frequently to me. He is incapable of interacting like a healthy and self aware person. I see from just observing with some knowledge that this relationship could never work. I wish I had started this practice of mindfulness a long time ago – instead I was analysing myself and trying to fix my own problems.
Hi. Its me again. I am not in a place to follow the posts so I have to just take a leap and jump in–hoping for some understanding.
Before the big revealing of my husband’s true character 3 years ago I was a loving, empathic and understanding woman. I now feel that she is locked inside and coated by an impregnable shell.
The only way I can describe my nine month experience is that he tried to erase my identity and program me with a new identity and history to fit his narcisstic needs. It was sickening. I was an object. I was to be just a sex toy or slave. Nothing more. I was ran just like a business or cult. A fundraiser for his needs. It felt like a workplace rather than a relationship.
He also revealed that he has a penchant for young children–calling me by my daughter’s names. Saying that he loved me sexually. Very confusing. I think he is also gay too.
The more I fought it the more he tortured me. He gained pleasure from this experience. He also terrorized me. Under the pressure I felt my pysche splitting.
I find it difficult to reconcile what I thought was a loving, intimate union with a kind considerate man and this. It was very sudden.
The catalyst I think for the change is that I caught him in a situation with another woman that I thought needed an explanation. I told him that if he felt that we had ran our course as us, then I would have no problem in letting him go. These things happen. I would have been sad–but I know I would have got over it. I never got the explanation. I got the above.
My impression is that this was a planned attack. He had a hidden life. Revealed to me in shock after shock. He’s just a small scale joiner–but in this world he was a wealthy business man. With me as the business. I always was aware that he couldn’t spell and I still went to university even so. It didn’t change my love for him–nor did I flaunt what I learned.
What he showed suddenly was an extreme high intelligence. Not the man I knew.
He was perverted and everything I held sacred was destroyed by him. I have lost my solid value system and my beliefs. Also most of my precious memories.
Yes he did try to destroy me and I don’t know why. I was a serene, calm loving person. Held nothing but his best interests in mind.
It was like he hated me. He seemed to have multiple personalities. I couldn’t keep up and he seemed to speak in a foreign language. I was still stuck in a place trying to understand and being emotionally numb I couldn’t get around the fact that I was being severely abused. It was like hell.
When I got him out I was down to 5 1/2 stone and god knows when I had eaten last. I didn’t even know how to go to the toilet I was so disconnected from myself. My whole head was numb. I was just a shell.
At the end I think that he had lost sight of me as being human and just wanted to kill me.
I was suicidal for a while–but this has past.
This is the story I told my psychiatrist. She has written me off as being psychotic. It does sound a bit far fetched. But I warned her that it would be. In my view if I was mad–would I have the capability of understanding that what I have to tell sounds bizarre. Unbelievable.
The last time I left my husband I felt that I had escaped from prison. This time it felt like a concentration camp.
And yes–I stared at true evil.
So do I get believed here. And if I am. Does anyone know of anysteps I can take to go forward.
I just want myself back.
Littlewhitehorse.xxxxx You WILL get yourself back, infact, you will get a BETTER self back than you ever thought existed.
BUT its going to take TIME.
It will sometimes be painful, and sometimes you’ll wonder if you’ll ever ‘come out of the other end’ of what you are going through, but it WONT be wasted time, and you WILL get through it.
You’ll get through it by putting one foot infront of another. Every day a small (even miniscule!) positive step.
Everyday you’ll learn something new and as long as you keep moving forward, thoughtfully and mindfully, even when you are in tears and exhausted and feel like you cant, you will heal and heal and heal from this hideous experience.xxx
If you commit to it, to taking responsibility to proactively move YOURSELF forward, a little every day, you will learn and understand more, first about what happend and the S/P’s or Narc’s disorder, and then about YOU, who YOU are, what YOURE all about. How AMAZING you are!
you will soon start to ‘look back’ and see that even though you felt like you were’nt moving at all you have come far, maybe look forward and see that you still have a way to go, but then eventually, and it will take as long as it takes(not wasted time remember!), you will step out of this and away and on with YOUR WONDERFUL LIFE.
This is a PROCESS (possibly one of the biggest and most important of your life so expect a tough ride at times, but dont give up), give yourself TIME. Give yourself SPACE. Keep coming here to post or vent or ask questions whenever you need to, because thats what we are HERE FOR.
YOU will get through, we ALL will!xxxx
I suggest first steps of:
ALLOWING yourself to go through this.
BELIEVING yourself (WE believe you, but you dont NEED anyone to believe what happened to you, you KNOW you opened a door to ‘hades’ here, validation from yourself is ENOUGH!)
Distancing yourself from people or situations that are toxic for you, even if its ‘just for now’. (its hard to judge who’s good or bad for you when you are in such a hard place, but its okay just to trust your gut and how you feel RIGHT NOW, if you eventually feel comfortable with things or people you are not comfortable with right now, they will STILL be there)
Creating a peaceful place for yourself in your home.
LOTS of rest (yes sleep!Sleep for days if you need to!)
Eat food that is good for you, that you love you NEED good fuel to get through this. You NEED to nurture and nourish yourself.
Read as much as you can here and find books or material that deals with the issues that are relevant to YOUR situation (I for example eventually found that a root of a lot of my pain was caused by my upbringing, and was ‘exposed’ by the Sociopath, so looking at that helped me more than I can say x)
MUCH, MUCH LOVE Blue:)xxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Littlewhitehorse,
I suggest to anyone new here that you go back through the archived articles and read ALL the articles for insight. (on the old articles) just read the articles at first, not necessarily the comments.
You mentioned him maybe being bisexual, that is a common thing, they are just sexual, not specific, they will “screw anything” because it is all about THEM. There is even an article about that.
There is SO MUCH information here that will answer most if not all your questions with the articles. There are articles about THEM, and articles about US. READ READ READ because KNOWLEGE=POWER and you will regain your own power that you gave to him for that period of time. TAKE IT BACK!
Also the “be good to yourself” and eat right, sleep/rest and don’t push yourself or stress yourself out with unnecessary things. PUT YOURSELF FIRST! Glad you are here, this is a healing place. (((hugs)))) and God bless.
Blueskies. Thank you so much for replying. After three years of numbness and still in confusion I really badly needed validated.
My psychiatrist does not believe me and a lawyer I asked to help remove his car from my home which he parked outside daily for 8 hours for one and half years after he left, said I was just a neurotic woman.
My psychiatrist thought nothing of it. Thinks it is normal although friends and family validated me and could see it was controlling.
I was being stalked. which has not helped in my healing. I have been on the run emotionally with fear for two years with no signs of it easing up.
The impression I got is that he knew exactly what he was doing and who he was looking for in me. It started off with him saying ‘I found you’. The change was immediate. I was vulnerable after a bullying episode–probably another P and I asked him for help to sort it.
As said–it seemed that he had multiple personalities. At one point I felt that I was in the middle surrounded by different types of abusers, the changes in him were so swift. Crazy huh.
I was mind raped, soul raped and emotionally raped.
Just a background in case you haven’t been able to read my last post. I have been married for 22 years. For the first 15 I was abused. I left my home with my three children and got another and declared myself bankrupt. This saved my life as I was not financially entangled with him. I vowed never to tie myself up that way again ever wiith someone. This saved my life.
I took him back and I went into counselling and learned a lot. He went into counselling and we both went to marriage guidance. From then on we lived an idyllic family life. We just seemed to grow together and I thought that he was my best friend, lover and mate.
This is where something that you said stood out. Mindfulness and thoughtfulness. Thats exactly what I used to deprogram my responses to his controlling the last time. But then it was commands and responses to punishment. Silent treament and saying things happened when they didn’t. Namecalling. It resulted me in having a breakdown. Counselling soon set me straight on his abuse.
I learned to challenge him on these and it faded out of existence.
It took a long time to heal but I did. I had totally forgotten about him.
This time was different. This was not the slow process as before to make me a slave. This was like a cult. Trying to program my personality.
He called me food.
He walks about as his kind calm, caring self and no one else would believe me so I don’t even try. I tried to tell my mum–she does believe parts of it but when I tried to explain this I knew that she wavered in the psychiatrists diagnosis as a psychotic episode.
Also Blueskies–also hard to believe. Is that I saw his evil. It was blank–black eyed and souless. It wasn’t human.
It’s like he came back–but by God–truly showing what he was.
Will I ever get over it.
Can anyone relate?