He was arrested at 9:14 am on May 21, 2003. It was a sunny, blue sky morning. The birds were fluttering and twittering in the trees. The river flowed lazily by, meandering through the forest, dappled with sunlight, sparkling, clear.
We were in hiding. Had been since February 26 when we’d fled the city we lived in 1,000 miles away, heading west, heading to the US, he’d said. “I’ve got money there,” he insisted. “I’ll just leave this mess to my lawyers to fix. No sense hanging around waiting for them to get it cleared up. I’ll let you go once I’m out of the country,” he promised.
Like all his promises, like everything he’d ever said and done, it was all a lie.
On that morning in May, the lies fell apart and he was exposed. Two police officers walked in and took him away. “Are you on drugs?” one of them asked me as I sat, rocking back and forth, back and forth in a chair watching the scene unfold, a quiet, low keen seeping from my mouth. I was catatonic. I was not on drugs.
They took him away and I sat surveying the mess around me, trying to make sense of the mess of my life.
I hadn’t heard of No Contact with the abuser, but I knew after months of no contact with family and friends, I had to make contact with someone beyond the narrow confines of my world with him. He was gone. I had to reach out for help.
I called my sister who lived an hour away from where we had been in hiding. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t yell or scream at me. She came and got me.
No Contact was the only possibility. He didn’t have my sister’s number and it was unlisted. He did keep calling the couple who owned the cabin where we’d been staying. They called my sister, she advised them not to give him my number. He called my mother. She hung up on him, even though she felt it was rude. “He’s the man who almost killed your daughter,” I told her. “It is not rude to hang up on him. It’s vital to my well-being.”
I didn’t want to think about him but at times, my mind betrayed me. I’d be walking down a street and hear a cell phone ringing and it would be his ring. My mind would leap to thoughts of him. What was he doing? What was he saying? What was he telling people about me?
I posted No Trespassing signs in my mind. When thoughts of him intruded, I’d mentally hold up a sign and send the thoughts back to where they’d come from, my fear, my shame, my guilt.
I knew that one day I’d have to go through the thoughts of him and examine them, but for now, I had to give myself time to grow stronger. For now, it didn’t matter that I had to rid myself of his presence in my mind. That would come later. At first, what mattered most was that I build emotional strength so that I could eventually deal with thinking about him without making myself sick.
In those first minutes and hours and days weeks and months away from him I focused my thinking on me. On what had happened inside of me. On what I had to do to become healthy again.
The police asked me for a statement about anything I knew about his illegal activities. I had to do the right thing to show myself, remind myself; I was capable of doing ”˜the right thing’.
I wrote it down. It hurt. I was scared. What would he do when he found out I had ”˜told’ on him?
I couldn’t let my mind go there. The monster of him in my head was bigger than the reality of him, out there. Out there he was in jail. I had to escape the prison of my mind trapped in thinking of him. I held up my No Trespassing sign.
Focus on doing the right thing, I told myself.
I kept writing.
To remind myself that I was so much more than that five year relationship, that my life was made up of so many other important things than just ”˜him’, I made a list of things I’d done in my life that I was proud of. Being a mother topped my list. “What kind of mother are you really”, the voice of self-denigration whispered. “You deserted your children.”
I posted STOP signs in my head. Whenever self-doubt, negative self-talk invaded, I held up my STOP sign and consciously reframed the negative into more loving words. “I am a courageous woman. Yes, I did something I never imagined I would ever do as a mother. I was very, very sick. And now, the poison is gone and I am healing. I can make amends. I am reclaiming my life. I am courageous and growing stronger every day.”
I kept adding to my list of things I’d done that I was proud of. In Grade five I raised $122.00 for a charity by walking 21 miles. I was an honor student. Got a scholarship. I ran the marathon. Wrote a play with a group of street teens and produced it.
My list reminded me that I was capable of living in the world beyond the narrow corridor of his abuse. It reminded me that I was a competent, caring human being.
At first, I wanted to cry and cry and cry. At first, I did. And then I knew I had to build emotional muscle, to build my willpower. I gave myself a time limit for crying. It began with ten minutes on the hour, every hour. That was when I let myself cry. The other fifty minutes I had to do at least one constructive thing (Work on my resume. Phone about a job interview. Take a walk.) to take me one step further on my healing path. The ten minutes every hour became eight and then five and then only every two, then three, then four hours. Eventually, as I kept doing more and more things to take me on the healing path, I forgot to cry.
At first, I wanted to tell everyone my story. Talk about what he had done. How hurt I’d been. How confused and scared and lonely. At first, I thought everyone knew what I’d been through just by looking at me. Couldn’t they see the scars? Couldn’t they see my pain? I couldn’t understand how the world could be so normal. I needed to embrace its normalcy. I enforced No Contact in my speech. I could not talk of him. I could not tell the story again and again. The only time I had permission to talk about him and what had happened was when I went to an Alanon or Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting. There, with the safety of the 12-steps empowering me, I could speak up and give voice to my pain, my fear and my hope.
The greatest danger wasn’t contacting him. He was in jail. My greatest danger lay in thinking about him. In remembering those gentle moments where I had felt his ”˜love’ embrace me.
“It was never love,” I reminded myself. “Love doesn’t almost kill you.”
I kept working at No Contact in my mind. Good times or bad, thinking of him wasn’t healthy for me. I kept my No Trespassing signs posted. My STOP sign handy. Over time, it became easier. A cell phone ring wouldn’t startle me. My body wouldn’t jerk suddenly at the sound of a car backfiring, or a door slamming. I wouldn’t cry at every turn. Sit in silence immersed in sadness. Thoughts of suicide were arrested before they even saw the STOP sign in my mind. I was building my will to survive. My will to rejoice in living life fully every day.
In time, it became easier to live without the fear I would always be the abused woman I had become. In time, it became easier to live with the possibility of life beyond his abuse, beyond the lies he’d told me about who I was, what I could do, where I could go and who I could never be. It became easier to believe in me. It became easier to talk, about him, about what had happened, about what I’d done to betray myself and those I loved without falling into despair. It became easier to love myself, not as an abused woman, but as a woman who had the courage to face her fears, to turn up for herself and love herself, exactly the way she was. A woman capable and confident enough to let go of abuse and claim her right to live freely in her own skin.
I was an abused woman. Today, I continue to grow and heal, to love myself for all I’m worth and to give myself the space and time to let feelings flow through me without having to stop them.
Today, I give myself the grace of loving myself enough to know, I am okay. The things I did that hurt those I love, and me, are nothing compared to the things I do today to create a beautiful life all around me. I am not measured against what happened back then, my value is in what I do today to make a difference, in my life and the world around me.
Today, he was just a moment in time, a small segment of my life. He has no value in my life today. My value is in how I live, what I do, say, how I think and look at the world through eyes of love. Today, my value is in me.
Star,
I’m in a bad financial situation too. But we have to be like P’s sometimes, watch and wait for opportunities. The current housing/financial market isn’t good for selling so I’m just letting my house sit vacant and rot. Meanwhile I’m living at my parents (like a P would) and getting my shit together, trying to start a video business. talking to people, getting ideas. Hopefully I can get some income and when the market gets better I’ll be ready to sell the house or fix it or whatever.
Think about a hobby you might like to do to make extra money. Or ways to get more clients in the work you currently do. The lady who sold me the tripod does various kinds of bodywork, in addition to massage. Yoga, cranial sacral etc… I hate to think of you messing up your credit. Remember, both snakes and cats, will stalk. They lay patiently for the right opportunity. They are so still that it doesn’t appear that they are doing anything, but they are thinking, so that when the moment is right, they can move lightning fast.
Erin, I’ve lost long posts too. My computer is borrowed from a friend and has Windows 98 loaded (not good with today’s technology). Long story short, write your long posts on your word document. To copy and paste into the site highlight the word document and hit the copy icon in word … go into the LF site and use the machine language for pasting in the site (instead of using the icons for copy and paste in word) for paste is to click the control key and click on “v” for post. If you ever want to copy from a site without having the icon for copy … is to click on the control key and click on the “c” key.
Peace.
Rosa,
You know when I began my quest for help awile back I was thinking much the same as what you mentioned in your post.
It all made so much sense. Especially since it all presented itself so suddenly during puberty. And also because of the trama that he had experienced at such a young age.
I felt that there was a window of time. He was so young, this could be turned around, with some counselling, some effective parenting, getting the school on board, etc. It just all seemed possible.
But now a little more than a year and a half later as much as I would LIKE to believe that his behavior is ODD and he is just filled with hostility and anger and can still be “reached”, MOST days I don’t believe this anymore.
There are a FEW things that still fill me with hope. (on a good day) He HASN’T been arrested for anything yet….He still goes to school even though he doesn’t perform in school. But these are SMALL rays of hope when I consider that he does SEEM to have a “fear” of the law but he is arrogant enough to also believe that he is above the law so all that means is he is careful in what he does to not get caught.
Most days I see this progressing within him at such a fast pace that I can barely keep up. AND I for sure can’t seem to parent him effectively, REGARDLESS of what I do.
We took a class over the summer called “Parenting with Love & Limits. And this class was all about putting the “positives” back into parenting the troubled teenager.
And my son has this feeling of supiority and entitelment and so this was all just lost on him right from the start. A contract is drawn between parent and teenager. For VERY little input the teen would get positive consequences on a daily basis. And it was progressive contract, so on a weekly basis even a better positive consequence and then monthly and so on……
Of course there were also negative consequenses when the teen did not hold up their end. All he did was manipulate as he always does.
I BELIEVE WITH my ENTIRE heart and soul that my sons problems do have something to do with the trama he faced with his fathers suicide. I think it is IMPOSSIBLE for this to not have had a HUGE impact on him emotionally and developement wise. However the entire time he was in counselling this was never touched on. His counsellor avoided it. And instead almost every session was about school and grades and my sons vision for the future. (without an education) My son actually played that counsellor like a fiddle. And the real problem lies in the fact that he knows he did.
He lied and he lied some more and was never confronted by the counsellor. By the time I realized all of this was creating more harm than it was doing any good, my son was done with counselling. He wouldn’t go anymore. (I was thinking about him seeing a different counsellor)
My son has also “played” the counsellor for “at risk” (failing) kids at his school. He had her convinced that his “home life” was so terrible at home that he needed to get away. I believe that she must have thought that I was some kind of drug addict or some very neglectful parent. However, during this time I was also calling her 2 or 3 times a week and I was very emotional at this time and concerned for his well being (end of last school year) And I think she read into my emotions and this was conflicting with the “story” he was giving her. I think she was very conflicted on what was really going on. She found this program that was through the national guard. A 7 month program where he would be away from home.
One day by chance, he happened to be in her office when I to called her. She told him I was on the phone and put me on speaker phone. He had been in the “middle” of one of his stories of how we had made this deal, yadda, yadda, yadda, and I hadn’t held up my end of the deal, and he of course did. So she told him to TELL ME on speaker phone how that made him feel. Well me son froze and didn’t say a word because he was caught red handed in a lie. she asked me if I knew what he was refering to and I told her what I thought he had been talking to her about.
He had a MAJOR melt down in her office and went out screaming and yelling and told her to take her national guard program and you know what with it pretty much….
In other words he showed his dr jekle, mr hide…I could almost FEEL her reaction. And she was almost speechless, when she got on the phone with me after he had witnessed his transformation right before her eyes.
He works TOTALLY without emotion, with people, he is very calm, cool and collected, matter of fact, yet he tries to draw out others emotions. He IS very good. If he is talking, he is lying. But people don’t always see that.
I have learned (the hard way) not to react to his behaviors. I try to stay cool calm and collected now when I have to deal with him. And he doesn’t argue with me much anymore as I rarely allow myself to get “reeled” into that. (although I do on occasion fail) More than not, I don’t go there. I NEVER allow myself an emotional response as I did in the past. I don’t allow him to see be emotionally upset, or even let him see my anger if he has pulled a fast one. I have tried to have a complete opposite reaction of what he might expect from me.
However I still can’t seem to parent him effectively because he doesn’t have any “currency” anything he cares about such as most kids do.
At this point in time it is not the outward behavior that troubles me the most. It is the fact that he just doesn’t care. He is very detatched, even from his peers. He feels supior to everyone. He finds a way around everything.
He always manages to feel like he is “one upping” everyone and everything in his life and it is pretty much true.
He has now “graduated” to emotional blackmail. He told me that he would set the house on fire if I had anything to do with him loosing his job (by telling his boss that he is failing in school) His job seems to be (for now) the only thing he cares about because money = power to him. The problem is that I believe that he is more than capable of following through with this threat. In other words I think it is possible that he would do this. He plays with matches up in his room all the time…Flicking them (lit) accross the room. He also takes his deodarant spray and light matches to see the whoosh of the flame…..
At this point if my house burned down I wouldn’t know if it was accidental (him playing with matches when he is boerd) or him setting the fire on purpose. THAT gives you an insite of how manipulative he can be.
Is it a coincidence that I found out recently that he plays with matches like this? I don’t think so. I think it is his way of taunting me. But the “stakes” are getting higher.
How do you effectively parent a kid llike this?
Erin: when the blog bandwidth is overloaded it pitches us off. When we lose the post it’s unstable and just ditches us.
Blueskies,
Well I think that with the progress that you have made with your family FAR over rides the margaritas and the call you made on Sat. night.
Making any progress with family members where there is the disfunctional “history” always present in the background, is monumental!
Good for you….It is also a kind of validation to you that all your work on dealing with these family issues is worth it. The old no pain, no gain, holds especially true I think when it comes to family. You have to “muddle” through alot of pain, to create any difference when it comes to these old hurts that involve family. Because usually when family gets together everyone takes on their old family “positions” and when you are trying to change your position in the family structure by changing YOU, that usually is NOT met with alot of positive reinforcement by other members in the family.
You go girl!
Witsend,
I was on a different blog and posted a question about why some men are women haters. Here is what one man posted:
Men who look upon women as inferior to themselves are usually the product of one of two classic, familiar environments:
The men I described earlier spent their formative years occupying the bottom of the social pecking order. Women have no interest in them, are often overtly mean to them, and other men treat them like trash. It is not unusual for women to give the victim the impression that they’re enjoying his suffering at the hands of their sadistic boyfriends. George Sodini didn’t hate women because they rejected him. He hated them because somewhere in his past were women who openly favored the kind of men who abused him and made his life miserable. I’ve always wondered if Ted Bundy’s past involved such a woman.
The second group of woman haters is raised to believe that they are the best there is, that women exist to serve their needs (their mothers often promote this behavior), and that they can do no wrong. Popular athletes fit this role quite well. Obviously, not all of these guys are athletes, but since athletes get a lot of media attention it stands out when one of them is abusive.
I know my xP is in the second group. Here is what I replied to that post:
DA,
when I read your words a light went off in my head.
His mother raised 6 boys and complained that she did all the work on the farm while his father only brought home the paycheck and fell asleep o the recliner when he got home. She would get out a razor and soap and shave him while he slept because he wouldn’t even do that for himself.
She has told me that she likes a clean shaven man, so she did it herself just like she did everything else.
His father also cheated on her but she never told the boys, she told me. Either way, the kids must have noticed the lack of respect.
She was a slave to 6 rowdy boys and an abusive, selfish, lazy man.
That explains so much.
Perhaps your good intentions of protecting your son, backfired. Too much protection became a way of getting out of touch with reality. The reality of not being entitled, omnipotent, above the law and forever young.
At this point, I don’t know what the answer is except a good dose of reality. Show him what a strong woman who lives in the real world is capable of. DO NOTHING FOR HIM. LET REALITY HIT THE FAN, NO MATTER WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES. Indulge YOURSELF in front of him. Offer none to him.
I really hope you have time and get to read “The Art of Selfishness.” I think you would really benefit from it.
Sky and KH,
I would seriously like to get more bodywork/massage training, but it’s soooo expensive. I need to find a way so I can improve at my chosen craft. I could probably also sell art pieces if I have the initial expenditures for the supplies. My wheels are turning. Life is too short to be on this hamster wheel of an office job that I can’t stand. KH, I do agree that all these money issues are indeed ISSUES and I’ve dealt with them my whole life. So many issues, so little time. 😉 I’started out my young adult life being in the hole due to student loans, dental work (the legacy my abusive parents left me) and my stepfather having stolen from my bank account. I worked hard as a teenager and used my money for clothes, a car, and living expenses, as my parents never helped with anything, not even when I was in college. In the middle of grad school, I used up my student loan money allotment and had to drop out, even though I was working to support myself. I could never afford to go back. Six months later, my student loans defaulted and I ended up filing bankruptcy at age 30. I have tried and tried but have never quite been able to overcome that legacy of poverty. I made a lot of money when I was a stripper briefly, and that money is what helped me become a homeowner. Then the market crashed so my asset became a liability. So here I am at square one again. I make enough to support myself and the animals and nothing more really. I did manage to rebuild my credit, but when I move to CA, I will have to do a short sale or foreclosure, which will wreck my credit again. I would give anything if I had family I could stay with while I saved money for school.
Sky, sounds like you’re doing exactly what you need to be doing right now. I hope your video business propers! I had someone recommend a book of short stories to me called Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing. Apparently there’s a story of a woman going through a very painful break-up. She befriends a herpetologist and he teaches her about snakes and other reptiles. She learns from the reptiles how to survive, herself. I can’t wait to read it. It reminded me of what you said about acting like a P. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being selfish when the situation calls for it. I know what I want to do. I just don’t know how to get the money to support it without another horrible soul sucking job.
SC, my boas hardly know who I am. LOL
EB, yes I escaped the sexual abuse from my stepfather, but I didn’t escape the traumatic beatings and constant verbal/emotional abuse. 🙁
I’m sorry I didn’t have time to read everyone else’s posts. I’ll try later tonight.
Hugs to all of you! I have therapy and then a massage client. I thought I might catch the new Michael Moore film later. (If anyone here tells me they think he’s a P, I will leave the site and never come back! ha ha)
Skylar,
well those reasons makes sense….
I just don’t think that my son falls into either of those categorys.
I didn’t really raise my younger son differently than I raised my older son as far as my parenting. Other than the fact that what worked with my older son didn’t WORK with the younger one. I have tried to change my parenting effectiveness as I saw “this wasn’t working” when I saw that this was just getting nowhere.
I have read that when raising the “at risk” child many of the common things parents do, don’t work. However when he was young and I was raising 2 kids, I didn’t REALIZE that I was raising an at risk child to begin with. So the “rules” weren’t any different for him growing up.
I have been told by a male friend of mine that he was awful to his parents for many years. He said he was that way because he was jealous of his older brother. He says now that there really wasn’t any justifiable reason…His parents didn’t treat his brother any better BUT in his eyes his brother could do everything better than he could ever accomplish. So he stopped trying and shut down and just became the problem child, and created havoc within his family, well into his mid 20’s. However he still went to college, (partied but passed) etc….Got a great job, but had major ISSUES with women and relationships. Even after he stopped drinking.
I have contemplated this into my situation as well. Maybe he is jealous of his brother. ANYTHING is possible.
All I know is that whatever the problem is…..At this point, whatever I did or didn’t do right, it is HERE in full force and it is a BIG problem. And if there was a “window” of time where this could be addressed and help could have made a difference it is now on the down slide.
I just don’t see how I can make any impact any more on him other than negative. My instinct tells me to pay attention what is going on very carefully but to interact less with him, so that is what I have been doing. My interactions are also more generic.