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- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.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.
And another thing….. it is comforting for me to be among a group of people here who seem so intelligent and accomplished in so many ways…..knowing we have had similar dangerous and abusive experiences with these individuals. It’s not so much that misery loves company. it’s more like the company of even strangers is appreciated when we can relate and empathize with something that many human beings may never experience, at an emotional level that most people don’t understand……until it happens to them. At least we are surrounded here by other smart people who get it. We are not oblivious……at least not any more!!!
Aloha, it’s always luck with them isn’t it? Because they don’t take responsibility for anything.
One thing that sticks with me is that I have this visual of him talking to his neighbors (who used to be my neighbors and are the only people we have in common) telling them how wonderful life is with the x stripper who is 18 years younger. Telling them how low stress his life is now because she is not me and how horrible I made life for him and probably telling people that I was the cause of his heart attack. I see him telling people, when he loses or id forced to sell that house we built, how it’s my fault and hoe HE built this big house because of me….NOT. I don’t need a lot to live. He did it so his daughters had their own room and bathrooms when they come to visit because they would be upset if my kids were living there. (Keep in mind his daughters are adults living with boyfriends).
Then I get flashbacks of the drama with the daughters (CONSTANT)…. all his health problems from abusing steroids, losing his job. He can’t possibly enjoy life with a woman who can’t even support or care for her three children. And how do you respect a woman who leaves them alone at home so she can drive 4 hours to stay with him out of town? Plus her unemployed x con brother lives there with them. Now he can’t even support himself and he pays a lot in spousal support.
Do you think other people look at the big picture and see all of this or do you think they look at him and say poor D___, he has so much bad luck…..can they possibly hide it from others who are not so intimately involved with them? or are they also drawn into the lies and deceit?
I know it should all be insignificant to me at this point…..what do you think?
Hello Everybody – I just finished Women Who Love Psychopaths and highly recommend it. It really sums up, eloquently, everything that we talk about here. Every page I turned I kept thinking “Yes! Yes! Exactly!”
And the way the specifically lay out each step in the relationship with a sociopath is amazing. Everything resonated with me, and it’s written so clearly and eloquently that it now makes sense to me on a whole new level.
And it helps me to understand how women (and men) like us, who have many, many, positive traits get sucked in, and stay in.
I think, we, on this site, are very lucky to have found each other. This is not written about in the book – but I think it is always the case with the survivors of trauma, whether in childhood or adulthhood, those that know how to “reach out” and ask for help from the right people, are the ones most likely to recover. We call these folks “resilient” in the mental health field.
I think we, the LF tribe, are the “resilient” ones. We are the survivors. A lot of us don’t get out – or do get out, but never recover.
I’m so happy to be part of this group. I don’t think that all people who survive these relationships are better for it, in fact some die, and many get abused beyond repair.
But we will survive. We are resilient. And, I think, we are called upon to help others.
I understand that I am still in the discovery phase, still in the grieving phase, and still in the process of making sense of what happened, and most importantly, what happened to me, and inside me. The book is quite helpful in that regard.
And this site has been critical.
I know I will get better. The LF tribe, and this book, have allowed me to be patient and forgiving with myself. Thank God for all of you!
Dear KF,
What do the neighbors think? I bett’ya they DON’T THINK ABOUT IT. They probably politely listen to his rants but are probably bored to death by his constant downing of you.
Frankly, most people will listen, I think, to some recitation of drama, but mostly they just “DON’T GIVE A DAMN” (As Rhett Butler so aptly spoke)
I can remember when I was a kid worrying about wearing the same dress two days in the same week, because I was SURE people would notice. But you know, I began to realize you could almost wear the same outfit EVERY day of the week, because most people don’t pay attention to what you have on unless it is very loud or garish! PEOPLE DON’T NOTICE, and if they do, they don’t care.
I was raised with the phrase of TERROR “What would the neighbors think? Oh my gosh!!! That would be terrible if they knew about you doing ______(fill in the blank).”
“Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn!” and you know what, most of them don’t either. Sure they gossip, sure, they’re nosey for “juicy” stories….but with only a few exceptions they’ll be nice to me if I run into them at the store. But since they don’t “amount to anything” in my world, let’em have at it! If they’re talking about me, they are leaving some other poor smuck alone!
You be kind to yourself and KEEP FAITH!!! Or I’ll BOINK you “up side duh haid wid ma skillet, girlie!” LOL (((hugs))))
alohatraveler:
“I just think they are wired for cruelty. Bad Man did so many things that were so inappropriate. I don’t think they were accidental but I will say this, they were bizare and childish.”
I think this goes hand in hand with being short-sighted. If they did have the smarts to see the big picture, they would be smart enough to know that mentally abusing us would ultimately backfire on them or to put it another way, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
But, sociopaths lack impulse control. So, the venom that forms in their minds, spews from their mouths. And while they destroy us, they ultimately saboutage themselves.
S knew exactly what my achilles’ heel(s) were. I still flinch at the memory of some of the awful things he called me and accused me of. I still remember a friend, as the end was closing in with S, telling me “I haven’t seen that haunted look in your eyes since 9/11.”
And the things the S would say about others. He took great pride that at the age of 6 or 7 he figured out that his parents got married while his mother was pregnant with his oldest brother. He would laughingly recount how he told his oldest brother “At least I was wanted.”
The list of his grievances against mankind was endless. And everything that was wrong in his life was our fault.
Such deliberate cruelty. I’ve had to remind myself that everything he said about me was a projection of his worst fears and actions of himself.
Oxy,
You make me smile. I should have known what your response might have been based on one of your posts yesterday about being or rather not being humiliated by your mother in public.
It’s a little about what will they think? But it’s also like a power/control issue with him that if he can take all the things from me that are important (and he tried), then he wins…..well, HE CAN HAVE THEM AS FRIENDS. He wins….I guess???? LOLOLOL Gee let me think…hmmmmm big house and mortgage, no income, five new mouths to feed, an x stripper for a girlfriend, living a lie, poor health, trashy friends (in a nice neighborhood, mind you), adult daughters who cannot take care of themselves……..OK he can win !!!!!
Oxy, the skillet upside the head this morning must have helped!!! it’s the first i have felt like this in a long time.
Remember the old story a bout the guy who was going down the road and saw a man beating a mule with a club because it wouldn’t pull. He told the man to “Stop, you can’t beat them, you must treat them with KINDNESS.” The man beating the mule stopped beating it and said “OK, ifyou are so smart, you get the sob to get up and pull.”
The first man reached down and took the club that the mule’s owner had been beating him with and promptly struck the mule a good hard blow between the ears. The owner said, “Wait, I thought you said you had to treat him with kindness, why did you hit him?”
The first man said, “Welllll, FIRST YOU HAVE TO GET HIS ATTENTION, then you treat him with kindness!” LOL ROTFLMAO
Yep, I was just “getting your attention” LOL sometimes we (all of us I think) are so close to the trees that we can’t see the forest and we get into one of these pity parties, self blame and bashing, etc and it takes another EYE to see what we are doing. I have been fortunate to have my son D here through all this to sort of BOINK me if he thought I needed it to get unstuck.
I started out BOINKING my dear sweet Henry when he would self bash (oh, boy was he good at that) and it got to be a kind of joke amongst us here, a tradition if you will, and then people started to “borrow my skillet” from time to time and BOINK others who were stuck. So far as I know no one has been offended, we are or try to be anyway, careful who we BOINK and to not hurt anyone’s feelings for sure or to reinjure someone who is still raw and bleeding. So, if one of us BOINKS you from time to time, please understand it is done in love to “GET YOUR ATTENTION!” but with much much concern and love. ((((hugs))))) Glad it got your attention!!
Also glad I made you smile. A good belly laugh and a few smiles is good for us all. I know for myself, I tend to be too serious too much of the time, but my sons and I also do a great deal of BELLY LAUGHING and rolling on the floor, snorting and choking laughing, and lots of hugging, LOTS OF HUGS. Lots of “I love yous” and good conversation. My sons are so smart and so literate and we debate various words, meanings, philosophies, and all kinds of interesting things, just like I used to do with my husband. Today we couldn’t remember the word for when snow evaporates directly into the atmosphere. Solid to vapor without stopping in the middle into a liquid. There’s a word for it and we can’t remember it. Son D laughed that son C and I used the words “hyper-colloidal solution” when refering to how mayonaise is made but we couldn’t think oif the other word. “Drain Bramage” we both replied! LOL
So I guess I will be silly for most of the rest of the day. it is too stinking cold to go outside unless you have to. 10 degrees.
oxy,
it sounds as though you have a lot of good family stuff going on despite all the pain you have dealt with. I’m happy aboit that.
feel free to boink me when necessary. I’m quite coachable. acctually it remids me of a scence from the movie Madea’s Family Reunion, which is hysterical, where Madea is telling a young abused woman how to hit her abuser with a skillet. I love that scene.
I actually have a date tonight at the art museum. sounds refreshing to me. We will see.
Ox, I thought you livd in the South?…..its 28 here in VA today. that’s way too cold for me.
JaneSmith…..I love your mantras. That is what is so hard for me now…..trying to understand alcohol is a disease and that my husband is going to meetings, is trying so hard, does seem so determined, so optimistic….and yet, trying again means accepting that he hid his drinking from me, deceived me, etc. and I was so DONE with accepting any poor treatment of me for ANY reason…..and I’ve made it clear I WILL divorce him if he lies about drinking again, but it is so hard to be comfortable with forgiving the past after working so hard to get to mantras like yours.
Dear Justabout healted,
BEcause you forgive him, does not mean you have to TRUST him completely. Look in the Bible at the story of Joseph. He was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers (some who were intending to kill him, only one of them was going to release him but was not in time) during his time in Egypt, he was unjustly put into prison for attempted rape that was fabricated against him by his owner’s wife. While in prison for years he helped out others but they forgot him when they were realeased. Years went by, he went from a boy to a man, and during that time he suffered more injustice, but one day he got his chance to interpret the pharoah’s dream and he did. He was promoted to the second highest position in the land, second only to the king.
The 7 years of good crops went on then the 7 of starvation started and lo and behold, his brothers show up to buy grain and stand before him, not recognizing him.
He had forgiven them long ago, knowing that this was all part of God’s plan to save the world, BUT he did NOT immediately say “oh wonderful, hey guys, it’s me, Joseph, your brother.”
Joseph had FORGIVEN them but he did NOT trust them. He tested them to see what kind of men they had become in the meantime. Were they the same jealous greedy hateful men that had sold him into slavery what, 20 years ago? Or were they repentent and sorry for what they had done, not only to him, but the pain they had caused their father and the grief by pretending he was dead, torn by a lion or other wild animal?
ONLY when Joseph was sure that they were repentent, really and genuinely sorry for their past behavior did he reveal himself and start to trust them.
The BEST indicator of future behavior is past behavior. It does not mean that NO ONE CHANGES, but it means that FEW PEOPLE really change and they have to WORK HARD AT IT.
Your husband MAY CHANGE and he may not, but forgiving him means only that you get the BITTERNESS out of your heart, but it does’t mean you trust him until HE PROVES HE IS TRUSTWORTHY.
I forgive my son and my mother, but I don’t trust either of them, and I never will be able to.
YOU don’t have to accept poor treatment any more. That is a boundary. You DON’T have to accept lies, hateful treatment, or anything else. He must know that you are SERIOUS about this and that ONE lie and he is out the door. A lie means that he does not respect you and without respect you can’t trust him ever again. Without trust, there is no relationship.
I think you are very brave to give him even one more chance, but if he does cross the boundaries, then it means the relationship will (1) go on with him crossing your boundaries and you giving in OR (2) He out the door and you are free from his abuse. Your choice at that point.
The only other option is for him to quit drinking and lying etc and he finally earns back your trust, a piece at a time, but the boundaries still stay in place, NO MORE ABUSE.
Good luck (((hugs))))