By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) It's recently been pretty trying around our little “hole in the woods.” A dog we loved dearly “disappeared” out of the yard, and we've been able to find neither “hide nor hair” of him, dead or alive. Not knowing what happened to him is sort of disturbing, but we are dealing with the thought that he got close to the road and someone picked him up, or that the plentiful packs of coyotes that circle our yard got him. He was brave enough (and dumb enough) to attack them if they came into his territory. Whatever happened to him, he is gone, and at this point not likely to return. His silly little ways are greatly missed, even by the other animals in the house. …
12 steps of recovery from love fraud
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader called “Adelade.” Her previous posts are "When life ain't fair" and “This is the time for me to learn who I am.” Having grown up in a dysfunctional alcoholic environment, I spent just about 35 years involved in one “program” or another, and I was able to strongly identify with my “inner child” after one particularly grueling session with my counseling therapist. I could clearly see how my emotional development had been abruptly arrested during my childhood, and that I had developed into an adult whose every decision and action had been based upon the need for acceptance, validation, appreciation, and approval. Fear of “dys …
A Book Is Born
This week it's a change of subject and a shorter post, because this week I am absolutely delighted to announce that my book “I'm Still Standing” will be published by Mainstream/Random House on 5th July! These are incredibly exciting times, and I am bursting with pride and anticipation that my story is being told. It's a bit nerve-wracking as well, I must say, as I feel somewhat vulnerable putting my ”˜whole self' out there to the world. It's been a fascinating process getting to this stage, and I'm surprised by the number of times I've already been asked the question “How long did it take you to write?” Well, the simple response to that is over four decades. Yes, it's taken a lifetime for …
Taking back our power
By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) Each one of us has more power than we generally perceive we do. Some people, in fact, do not recognize that they have any power over either what happens to them, or to how they react to what happens to them. Yet, we are totally powerful people; we have total power over what goes on inside us. Recognizing that I am a powerful person with ultimate control over my emotions and actions is a heady feeling, and a scary feeling too. It is heady because it gives us a feeling that we can control ourselves, but it is scary because we also realize that there is no one else who can save us if we fail to exercise that power fully or competently. When we were …
Life Is Like A Box Of Chocolates
Funny, don't you think, how every now and again life seems to work in perfect synchronicity? For the past couple of weeks I've written about my experiences of thoughts creating reality — and I've loved reading all your follow-up comments, thank you. It seems this has been/remains a weighty subject for many of us here! I had been wondering how to continue the exploration — and as if by magic, the solution appeared all by itself. Here's what happened”¦ Last Friday was probably the most important day in my son's life so far. It was the day he was due to interview for a place at his chosen university in Bordeaux, about two hours drive from where we live. His meeting was booked for 8am, so in t …
Taking care of our own needs first
By Joyce Alexander, RNP, (retired) There have been some discussions on Lovefraud lately about people not taking care of themselves, “until X happens, then I'm going to go to the doctor.” This got me to thinking about how important it is for us to put ourselves first. The very person who has always “put others first” (me) because that is what a “good person does” would feel very guilty if I spent money on myself, even for things I needed. I would send money to my son Patrick in prison for commissary money when I had to do without things I needed or wanted, because I felt guilty if I didn't send him money. Eating to feed his children You may have heard me tell this story before and I'm …
Being, Accepting and Letting Go
After much contemplation, I decided I'd like to continue along the theme of last week's post since the sense of ”˜thoughts becoming things' seems to be becoming even more important to me at the moment. And from the energetic conversation threads from last week it appears to be quite an emotive subject for people here as well! The picture I've chosen this week is the classic “Hag or Beautiful Young Woman” illustration that shows there can be two very different sides to the same situation, depending on our perception. I often use it to remind myself, when I'm having a “Hag” of a day, to change my perspective and seek out the “Beautiful Young Woman—¦. She's always there somewhere”¦ ;- …
Comparing our losses to the losses of others
By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) One of the things I have heard from victims of psychopaths here at Lovefraud, seemingly over and over, is that people compare their losses to my losses and Donna's losses and Dr. Liane Leedom's losses, etc. and think that their losses don't “count” because they haven't lost X, Y, or Z and we did. They seem to think that because I lost a child, or Liane lost her medical practice, or Donna lost a quarter of a million dollars, that they are not entitled to feel as injured as we were/are. The people expressing this somehow seem to have “survivor's guilt” about feeling so devastated when their losses were somehow “less.” Or they feel that we are somehow “sup …
Learning To Trust Again
Well — what a week it's been! Last Wednesday I received the all-clear from my biopsy, and what a massive relief it was”¦ So massive that I hadn't fully understood how much I had been stressing over the whole episode. Yes, I know, it's only natural to feel anxious over the potential of discovering a life-threatening illness, but I hadn't appreciated just how much I'd been holding in, boxing off, pushing away so that I could deal with life on a day-to-day basis. It took a good couple of days for the good news to sink in, and since then I've felt more ”˜alive' and full of beans than I have done for a long time. It's only now that I'm feeling lighter and brighter, that I realize just how tense …
The Red Flags of dysfunction
Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) After reading Donna's newest book on the 10 Red Flags of spotting psychopaths, I got to thinking that there are Red Flags in our own lives that we should also take notice of and avoid. When we first start the “journey toward healing,” and I do think it is a journey, not a destination, we have to learn the things about ourselves that we need to change in order to live a healthy life, one free of psychopaths and other abusers. Our journey started out in learning the behavior of the psychopaths and abusers so we could spot these people who will not change their bad behavior, but it ends up being learning about ourselves, and how our own behavior contributed t …