Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
Charlie, gentle hugs to you. Skylar is spot-on about becoming involved in a support group. The healing that you will experience is phenomenal.
When the exspath first left, I was an absolute basket case and I wanted to “talk” to him to sort things out. Well, previous experiences and this site reiterated “No Contact” in my mind – it was the only thing that really kicked in at the time. And, it also helped me (odd though it may sound) that he filed for a restraining order against me. I did NOT want to be arrested for THAT, of all things. So, I haven’t made an attempt to contact him. Good thing, too.
The time that I have not spoken to him (he called once to demand money from ME! LMAO) has given me terrible insight that is Truth. I don’t like it, one dammed bit, because the Truth is that he pulled a long scam over a decade and that there is no legal remedy for what he’s done.
Thanks to this site, it’s going to be okay. Thanks to counseling therapy, I finally realized that it wasn’t necessarily me missing the “red flags” because he was so effective in his double life. YOU will find your feet on your own healing path, Charlie. In fact, you’re already beginning to take those awkward baby steps! You KNOW that something just isn’t right, but you’re reaching out for help to sort it all out! KEEP REACHING!!! Keep putting your hand out, Charlie! There are people around you that will help you when you stumble.
Brightest healing blessings to you.
@panther – thanks, I thought it good to have a positive name. Makes me feel better lol 🙂
My ex is playing the “your the only one who stood by me” with his newe-ish girlfriend. I know because I am friends with her sister, because she was afraid for her sister. I was appauled but not surprised. I am the evil bitch who keeps him from his child and takes his money and calls him a wife beater. We’ll he is a wife beater, and worse. Yeah I take his money it is called child support. and as to him seeing his daughter, at this point no I woouldn’t let him see her and here is why…I have lived in the same place since I left him. He has known he had visitiation since I got the restraining order (which was much nicer than the divorce decree) and he hasn’t seen her since June 2005. She has no idea who he is, and I wouldn’t allow him to mess with her head the way he did mine. I was with him for two and a half years. I stayed through substance abuse, cronic unemplyment, starvation, beatings, rape and humiliation. I drew the line at him trying to take my child and give her to one of his mistresses because the bitch wanted my daughter. I stood by his spath ass and all it got me was abused, mentally damaged and socially cripple.
I have been away from him for years, and my PTSD has remitted. I am still unable to trust. I don’t even trust my family. I am always suspicious of everyone, with 2 exceptions; a friend and her boyfriend. They both have hstories of being abused. I guess it is a starting point.
charlie
stay in here and study. life got much better for my wife once she quit worrying about him. then she ratted him out for breaking the parole depts. no contact. the parole officer assured her that by breaking it he was doing it to himself. funny, getting thrown back in prison just seemed to make him feel more important.
I think you’ll win. it just wont feel like it till you realize he has NO CONSCIENCE.
watch his actions, look at the things he’s done. words are cheap.
rgc
oh charlie,
it will probably require at least a few months of nc before your life starts feeling more normal.
rgc
Darwinism
I just read your response posted above. Yes. You answered one of my many questions. I too was told about all the women who screwed him over. That was when we were”friends” I asked him, “What is wrong with all these women?” that was before I knew he was a P. it should have been a red flag for me…. major pity play. At one point he told me, “please don’t hurt me”. This from a man who has hurt every women he targets. Lately i am remembering more and more signs of deceit and manipulation. Is this normal after six months?
I do not know what to say at this point, other than finding this site, all this information, and people that describe the very hell, I have been and are living. May have very well saved my life. 10 hours ago, I was preparing to end it, and leave my remains on her door step. Hoping that gesture may provoke some real compassion or acknowledgement of the truth. And wishing as I may that it would legitimately touch her, I am all the more a broken victim as I know she would utilize it for what ever attention, sympathy or compassion, she could reap from the event.
I do not have the strength to recall my story at this point, and even though within the last 3 days, iv had my first lot of absolute proof of her deceptions or enough of any sort of feeling towards me, that she wouldn’t burn me to avoid being exposed in the smallest way, I am still struggling to accept it for what it is, and just exist in a world of total loss, humiliation, denial, betrail and confusion, regardless of how many blatantly obvious signs, there has been.
I am basically homeless and destitute at this point. On top of all the soul destroying realities, the depression it has brought me, has taken away my ability to even hold down a menial job, nevermind the fulfilling and well paying career I enjoyed, just 18 months ago.
There’s aspects of my Ex that do not seem to be repeated by others here, things that confuse me, an still gave me hope that she wasn’t totally lost to her monster, but as I say I have only been reading for a short time, but it is the 1st time anything has made sense, and I’m not the only 1 that has been pushed to the point where they are all alone, and the whole world, blindly believes her creation and are all seemingly nothing more than pawns.
I know I have a life changing/establishing journey infront of me, including managing to be a father to our 1 yr old. But for the very 1st time it isn’t just me!
((Jason))
no it’s not just you. So very sorry you are feeling the pain of the spath attack. Yes, it will be painful for a while. What helped me was focusing on learning, learning, learning and more learning. Somehow it seems to help relieve the pain. Maybe because it pulls you out of cognitive dissonance.
Go to the library and find books on narcissism or psychopathy. Focus on YOU and taking care of you for now. Please don’t worry about your child right now because you can’t save him/her without putting on your own oxygen mask first. Without information, you can’t help the child, all that will happen is that she will use your child against you.
Read here too. The people here have wisdom that can help you. You are NOT alone.
Thank you skylar.
This has been a very twisted sad 2 years for me, I’m not actualy sure how well she fits perfectly in this category, so I’m am reading as fast as I can. I actualy think she may be alot more complicated than this, alot of the manipulative tactics these people use seem to be the obvious 1s to employ, but my ex seems smarter, I am just so confused by it all, that half the time I’m still crawling to her to appolagise and beg forgiveness, for all the torture, pain and loss of the “dream” she was goin though, Having to watch me destroy what was left of myself, after she not only Deconstructed me to nothing, then discarded me, but villified me publicly in the worst, nastiest and fabricated ways, and was recieving all the attention, support and sympathy for having been conned by this apparant monster. The more she would dump on my, the lower I got, the bigger the guilt trips she would lay. Now she has a restraining order against me, to back up her official version, including i dont exist in her world anymore, but secretly has been pulling me back in, and we have been having a secret relationship, up untill a few days ago when her new boyfriend, who obviously she recieved me about, found out. So inorder to not be exposed, she called the police an Iv just left jail, after being charged with breaching it. That’s how weak And desperate I have becum hoping it isn’t the way it so Blaltintly is. Now I have to have no contact, which includes my son.
Jason,
ok, it’s alright for now. you need time anyway. so use that NC time to work on YOU. Use this to your advantage. nobody can accuse you of neglecting your son if you can’t have contact.
Right now NC is what you really really really need. Only NC can help you withdraw from the craziness. And reading and learning is the next most important thing. Some of my favorite books are: “Why is it always about you?” by Sandy Hotchkiss.
“The mask of sanity” (a download) by Hervey Cleckley. and “The sociopath next door” by Martha Stout.
These books are so popular right now (who knew!!) that there may be a waiting list at the library! That’s because these creatures ARE everywhere. Thank your lucky stars you aren’t that way and that you found out about them. Then move forward with your life.