I write this column (using “he” throughout, for simplicity purposes) to suggest some useful ideas for vetting a prospective provider who does not come recommended through a reliable source (or through Donna Anderson’s growing new LoveFraud referral base).
How can you begin to assess a relatively unknown provider for his competence to address your experiences with a suspected sociopath specifically, exploiter in general, or otherwise personality-disturbed individual?
Let me start by suggesting that a provider who claims to be educated about sociopathy really isn’t if he lacks an equally fluent understanding of narcissistic and borderline personality disorder.
The reason I say this is that, under certain circumstances, all three disorders can look very much alike; but more importantly, if you are involved with someone who has any one of these disorders, you are at heightened risk of being personally violated and abused.
So, while they are distinct from each other (although common elements of narcissism and sociopathy remain intriguing), I’m suggesting that all three disorders greatly increase the probable, if not certain, occurrence of interpersonal violation.
In the course of this discussion, I’m going to assume that you may be involved with someone (or have been involved with someone) whom you suspect (or know) to be, for instance, sociopathic and/or abusive? Otherwise you wouldn’t be seeking assurances that a particular provider has knowledge and/or expertise of the disorder(s) in question.
I also make the assumption that LoveFraud members or visitors wanting to find a knowledgeable resource on sociopathy (who do not find assistance through Donna’s new referral resource) come with a nice advantage—by virtue of their involvement with LoveFraud, they are already extra knowledgeable on the subject. This equips them to be astute evaluators of a prospective resource.
So let’s get down to business.
You will need, no surprise, to ask questions; questions that can gauge the provider’s competency to appreciate the gravity of a situation in which a sociopathic (or some other exploitative dynamic) is, or has been, present.
And you will want good, expressive answers to your questions, not dismissive ones.
The first, vital task is to assess the provider’s receptivity to your interest in his clinical experience. This point needs emphasis: You are entitled to evaluate the provider’s clinical experience and expertise as it pertains to your circumstances.
I stress: You are completely, utterly entitled to assess the provider’s professional experience, skills, and interest on matters relevant to your personal circumstances and self-interest.
Remember, this is not about protecting the provider; it’s about protecting yourself.
As such, this speaks to a bigger issue: You are setting yourself up if you do not protect yourself, and so you protect yourself by owning your right to a completely respectful, receptive invitation to evaluate the provider’s scope of interest and competence with a given client population, or in a particular clinical area. Anything less than a genuine, undefensive invitation from the provider to proceed with your questions should immediately disqualify him from consideration.
So for instance, you might begin with something like, “You know, it’s very important to me, given my circumstances, to be working with someone I can feel confident has a really good knowledge of _________. Would you mind if I asked you several questions along those lines, for my own personal comfort?” (There are many ways to break the ice, this is just one example.)
Remember: A provider who fails, at this point, to invite you to proceed, undefensively, has disqualified himself. Thus, if he responds impatiently, arrogantly, angrily, curtly, condescendingly, as if offended or put-off, or in any other way inadequately, he is wrong for you. You must move on, because you deserve better.
Assuming you’ve gotten the proper encouragement to proceed, I offer below a list of questions (hardly comprehensive) which, depending on your circumstances, can elicit meaningful information. The idea (quite obviously) isn’t to ask all of these questions, but to pursue several that are most applicable to your situation.
This list is by no means complete; rather, it’s at best a starting point, if only to get your own wheels rolling to come up with even better questions! Note that some of the questions probe for knowledge, others for personal views and biases, and others for experience. The asterisked questions can sometimes elicit responses that will enable you to quickly eliminate potential resources.
· How familiar are you with sociopathy?
· How familiar are you with psychopathy?
· Do you distinguish sociopathy and psychopathy, or are we using these terms to mean the same thing?
· Do you distinguish antisocial personality disorder from sociopathy or psychopathy?
· How many cases have you worked involving sociopathy?
· Can I ask how you came to work with these individuals?
· What is your treatment philosophy regarding sociopathically disturbed individuals?
· I’m curious how you view sociopathy? I know that many people have different ideas about sociopaths. Can you tell me your view of what characterizes the sociopath?
· How do you distinguish, if at all, the sociopath from the narcissistic personality?
· What’s been your experience working with borderline personality disturbance?
· In your experience, what are similarities and differences between borderline, narcissistic and sociopathically disordered individuals?
· How much experience have you had working with abusive individuals?
· Can you tell me a little about the history of your interest, and experience working, with abusive personalities?
· *How effective and appropriate, in your experience, are anger management referrals for abusive personalities?
· How much interest, and experience, have you had working with victims of abuse?
· What is your view of what constitutes abuse in a relationship?
· What are your goals in working with someone who is in, or has been damaged by, an abusive relationship?
· *Are there circumstances where someone might be driven, legitimately, to abuse someone else?
· Do you mind if I ask you whose work or writings on abusive relationships and abusive personalities has most influenced your views?
· Do you mind if I ask you whose work on the subject of psychopathy (or sociopathy) has most influenced your ideas?
· *Are you familiar with Robert Hare’s work?
· *Have you successfully treated sociopaths?
· My partner, if you meet him, will tell you that I’m a sociopath”¦how will you know which of us, if either, is the sociopath?
· Are you familiar with any psychological instruments that assess for psychopathy, and if so, do you use them?
· *Under what conditions, if any, would you be hesitant to do couples therapy?
· What goals do you have, generally, when working with a borderline personality?
· What goals do you have, generally, when working with a narcissistic personality?
· What is your understanding of the central feature(s) of sociopathy?
· What is your understanding of the central feature(s) of the narcissist?
· Would you be willing to read something I’d give you if I felt it could help you understand the precidament/situation/personality I’m dealing with?
· When you believe you are dealing clinically with a sociopathic individual, what is your clinical goal?
The answers to your questions
As I’ve strongly suggested, the provider’s responses, first of all, should convey interest in, and respect for, your questions. Your first assessment, then, is less of the provider’s expertise and knowledge, than his or her attitude to your questions.
As a matter of fact, a primary purpose of your questions is to assess the attitude of the provider. In other words, if the provider isn’t temperamentally suited to appreciate the complexity of your concerns, he or she can have all the knowledge in the world and be pretty much worthless.
You’ll want honest answers. Genuine answers. Not pretenses to expertise where there isn’t any. You’ll want a provider who is willing to say, “That’s an interesting question. I might even need to think about that a bit more.”
I offer randomly some rough examples (from countless possibilities) of what might be deemed encouraging responses to some of these questions:
“To be honest, no”¦I haven’t worked with what I’d call a high volume of ________; but I do feel comfortable with my understanding of this clinical issue, and I’d like to be of help to you.”
“I consider myself to be clinically literate on this subject, but I’m happy to become even more enlightened and would welcome anything you have to share with me to get me up to speed.”
“I wouldn’t say that I have a particular interest working with _______, but I do like working with and helping those who have been victimized by ________(s).”
“I suppose I’d regard ______as a very central feature of _______. Also ______.”
“I don’t really make a distinction between antisocial personality and the sociopath? As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even aware of such a distinction? But I’m curious about that? Am I missing something?”
“I’ve worked a great deal with victims of abuse and enjoy working with this client population.”
“I’m not familiar with that issue, to be honest” (depending on the circumstances, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a disqualification).
“I can’t say that I’ve had great success working with narcissistic personalities”¦but I’ll work with anyone who voluntarily seeks my help genuinely.”
“I’m not sure if I satisfied you with my response?”
These hypothetical replies have in common a thoughtful, humble, curious quality. The confident provider will feel relaxed, undefensive, and unpressured to produce brilliant, comprehensive answers beyond his or her scope of expertise.
At the same time, you are looking for evidence of expertise that will leave you feeling comfortable that this is someone who can effectively, sensitively advocate for your interests.
Some responses, as noted, can quickly reveal a provider’s serious limitations.
For instance, the response to the question, Have you successfully treated any sociopaths?, “Yes”¦I’ve worked with many sociopaths and treated several very successfully,” is a great time-saver. You just say, “Thanks very much, I’ve really appreciated your time,” and then have a good laugh on your way out.
That’s because true sociopathy, as the LoveFraud community well knows, is a refractory
condition, unamenable to meaningful modification.
Regarding the Hare question: in cases where a provider claims to be experienced with the subject of sociopathy, I might find it dubious (although not necessarily instantly disqualifying) that he or she would have no knowledge of Robert Hare, who is such a notable figure in psychopathy research.
Similarly, the response to the question, Under what conditions would you be hesitant to do couples therapy?, “Umm”¦.I can’t really think of any?,” would suggest a potentially serious defect in the provider’s clinical knowledge and/or judgement. That’s because couples therapy is ill-advised under several circumstances, among them when serious abuse is occuring in a relationship, or when one or both partners is sociopathically oriented. (And naturally, non-genuine motivation to work on the relationship would be another contraindication.)
Further, a provider who suggests that, yes, a referral for anger management is probably the best intervention you can offer an abusive personality betrays a likely ignorance of the dynamics of the abuser, who has much more than merely an anger problem.
And it’s self-evident that a provider who can find a basis to justify abuse under any circumstance is probably confusing abuse with, perhaps, self-defense—a failure of understanding that ought to send you running for the hills.
Bear in mind there is no one right way to answer many of these questions; in many cases, there are multiple good (and good-enough) answers which also allow for differences in clinical approaches and orientations.
I offer below additional examples (also random, hypothetical) of the kinds of responses that might reflect a reassuring level of clinical expertise:
“What do I see as the central feature of sociopathy? I see the sociopath as someone who is extremely, chronically manipulative and deceptive. Someone who lacks empathy in a very gross way for the victims of his or her exploitation.”
“I see what you mean”¦.you can have a borderline personality disorder doing something, say, really vengeful that might look very sociopathic, but the motive for the aggression would be different. The borderline personality might be motivated by rage, panic, or desperation over, say, abandonment issues, whereas the sociopath? He or she may be movitated by”¦the impulse?”¦pure greed”¦or even the fun of it?”
“If I have good reason to believe I’m dealing with a sociopath, my main goal becomes evaluating his or her risk to others”¦depending, of course, on the circumstances of the referral and case.”
“If I’m working with someone with borderline personality, I’m looking to help that individual, among other things, learn how to better regulate his or her emotions, which may be very dysregulated and for that reason a source of much distress.”
“If I’m working with a narcissistic personality disorder, I’m looking, over time, to help that individual, if possible, examine his demands and expectations of others—his inflated sense of entitlement—more thoughtfully; and also examine the ways that he routinely handles, or mishandles, his disappointment in others.”
“When I’m working with abusive individuals my goal is to confront their excuses and rationalizations for their violating behaviors.”
“When I’m working with victims of abuse I may have several goals, including safety concerns; also exploring how the client finds herself in an abusive relationship, and the factors that make it difficult for her (or him) to leave that relationship.”
“How will I know which of you is the sociopath? I think in any clinical situation, you rely on a number of factors in formulating possible diagnoses, including your instincts, your experience of the individuals, the client’s history (as furnished by the client and others), other relevant, available, supporting documentation; and any adjunctive testing and evaluations that can narrow down, if necessary, a suspected diagnosis more accurately? And so there’s no guarantee that I’ll get it right, but I’m pretty confident of my chances.”
In sum, you’ll want assurances that the provider, at a minimum, can recognize the central aspects of sociopathy (or the disorder in question); he or she should appreciate the futility of pursuing treatment with the sociopath, especially in a private practice setting; but most importantly, the provider should be able to convey a good clinical grasp of, and history of work with, abusive personalities and their victims.
You will know, intuitively, whether the provider’s responses indicate an adequate level of thoughtfulness and knowledge.
And remember, your initial assessment doesn’t end when you choose to begin a working relationship with a particular provider, anymore than you cease evaluating the individual with whom you enter a personal relationship. Your evaluation should be ongoing, and your continued investment in the relationship, whether with a professional resource, or intimate partner, should be based on a continuing evaluation of him or her as worthy of your time and trust.
You can say at any point along the way, This person is not right for me. Just because I sized this person/provider up initially (with necessarily incomplete information) as worth my initial investment, doesn’t mean I can’t modify my assessment of him or her at any time, thanks to my making good use of additional, more complete information!
I hope this offers some guidance for conceptualizing an approach to the evaluation of a relatively unknown prospective provider. I am glad to continue this discussion based on feedback.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
I think there are different schools of therapist. Some are directive, and offer advice. Others reflect, and wont tell you what to do. Directive therapy is better suited to crisis management, and tends to be shorter term.
Matt, sounds like you have an ‘analyst’, in every sense of the word.
Grant, you wrote:
So the work I have needed to do, is to strengthen my own boundaries, clarify my expectations, jettison my old fashioned romantic beliefs, expect the worst instead of the best, and learn to internalize evidence the first time around.
And you did your therapy on your own.
It’s interesting how many people here made a conscious decision to do this alone. I did too, and though I can come up with some half-baked reasons, the real reason is that I was in full control mode. I didn’t want anyone else messing with me. I knew what I needed to accomplish and basically what was in my way — though I probably couldn’t have articulated it as well as your list of objectives. I didn’t want any therapist’s diagnosis or idea of appropriate treatment derailing me.
I’d be curious to know more about the other DIY people’s experience.
I know that I got zero support from the people around me. Initially, the friendly noise was that I should just get over it and move on. But as I progressed, it became harder for them to understand what I was doing, and there was a lot of resistance to my “I know what I’m doing” statements.
One friend, a Buddhist I’ve mentioned before on Lovefraud, seemed mostly unfazed by my process. He wrote encouraging letters (which I REALLY appreciated), and occasionally made a helpful comment.
But as I went along, and tried to describe what I was doing to new people, some of them were kind of awe-stricken that I was doing it on my own. Like attempting to change some fundamental characteristics of my personality is something you need a professional to guide you through. To tell the truth, I was impressed with myself too, because it was ambitious, but I was more impressed that I thought of it than that I was doing it.
Someone on this thread talked about saving your explanations for people who are going through something like the same thing. It sounds like a good idea, but this was the ONLY thing I was doing for a while. I really didn’t have anything else to talk about.
I don’t know if that makes me sound a little obsessive (I probably am), but I was in pain, I wanted to get to the source of that pain, I knew that I was responsible for getting involved with this man and not getting out of it, and I regarded it as evidence of serious dysfunction in my workings. My attitude was that every morning I got up and picked up the hammer and chisel, and I worked on it until I fell asleep at night.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Stephen Johnson’s Characterological Transformation: The Hard Work Miracle was helpful to me. So was a book called “The Path.” I nibbled on the Sedona Method, the Emotional Freedom Technique and a few other things, but they struck me as being more about bypassing or neutralizing feelings. I wanted to hold onto my feelings until I was finished learning from them. My feelings were all I had to go on.
Well, that and my memories. I’d be curious if anyone else here found their relationship memories to be absolutely Technicolor compared to most other memories. Even while it was going on, I could see that I was accumulating memories that were long and detailed (compared with my usual “postcard” style of remembering).
Finally, the way I worked on it was writing. I think by writing. I wrote letters. I wrote out the story a few times. I wrote poems. I reproduced dialogue out of memory. I wrote revenge fantasies. I wrote love letters. I wrote whatever seemed to be needing to come out of my head.
And in doing all that, I began to study the feelings and let them talk to me. At some point I reached a threatening and seemingly protected layer than I knew was related to childhood abuse issues, and I went to a therapist for the single purpose of getting into them safely. When I finished that, I went back to my own process.
I’ve asked a lot of questions here, but I think the one that most piques my curiosity is whether the DIY group had a clear sense of what they were doing. Grant did. I did. It was maybe more clear than anything I’ve ever done in my life, though I’m not sure how I knew.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Just a little more on that final question about knowing what we were doing.
I’m not an organized person. I have a high ability to concentrate, but I have never been able to hold onto an intention for long. I used to joke about an “organic” organizational approach, which was basically addressing the most urgent thing demanding my attention. If I don’t have someone working for me who handles the bills and the household maintenance, they don’t get done, until something urgent makes it necessary. (And I was like this before I figured out how to make decent money.)
But this process felt like like I had locomotive engine inside of me, moving me down a track. I didn’t have a choice about doing this or something else. And I didn’t have to think about what I was supposed to be doing. I learned certain processing techniques, but for the most part I felt like they were there waiting for me to figure out how to do it.
I have never experienced anything like it in my life. An early decision I made to “figure out what was wrong with me and fix it” was like giving a license to some part of me that was waiting for permission. And we were off and running.
I never stopped researching and learning through the process, but it was more to give myself language and concepts to complete certain stages. Not to move the process along. It had its own momentum.
I’ve never talked about this before, but I’ve gotten responses here on Lovefraud to other things I’ve never talked about before.
So I would really be interested in knowing if this sounds at all like your experience?
KH: I want to comment on memories, feelings, and “The Sedona Method.”
Eager for help with the overwhelming issues and waves of uncontrollable emotions, and without any therapist to help me (having had a devastating brush with a so-called expert) I browsed B&N on a regular basis, following trails that led me down various paths to greater understanding. I was fascinated by the potential for neurofeedback as a technique to get into a more healthy brain state. Through serendipity, I found someone who had been in practice, doing neurofeedback for a number of years.
He explained that in his experience he found that a client/patient first had to accept that it was possible to change the brain. Without that first step, the brain-training was unlikely to be as effective. Although other techniques might work, he liked to recommend the Sedona Method. I went through the CD series (the book doesn’t as effectively guide you through the process) and found that I could practice noticing the emotions, and then “releasing.” Rather than bypassing the emotions, those were markers for places where I was “stuck.” I could go into the emotion, acknowledge it, and then “release.’
From a “brainwave” perspective, I believe that our emotions and intuition (higher understanding? higher self?) operate along the same bandwidth. Dreams in the alpha and high theta range tend to be in color and more movie-like. I came to believe that stuck emotions were like garbage sacks of old stuff clogging up the hallways that our intuition uses to bring in new information. (Think of the brainwaves as both transmitters and receivers. When we’re in the emotion, we’re broadcasting; when we’ve released that emotion, we’re free to receive.)
I understand from the literature that EMDR is a technique that raises those stuck memories out of our primitive brain and brings them up (into the beta frequency of awareness?) so that we can address them with our rational cognition, and therefore disrupt the hold they have on our subconscious — producing the startle reflex, overall anxiety, etc., etc.
I think that by writing, you were also allowing those memories a pathway from repression into your conscious awareness, and that this was the technique you used to “release.”
Hale Dwoskin (Sedona Method) recommends using the releasing technique to make decisions, for example. To look at an issue, and feel the feelings that come up — positive, negative, positive, negative — until you can look at the issue without an emotional charge and simply make the decision. If I want to rush out to talk to someone and I have an emotional charge that I don’t understand, then I’m already blocking clear communication with that person.
The “postcard” memories are more likely not loaded with the emotional charge, so they don’t have the full-color, movie-like quality.
Do you ever receive understanding through symbols? Archetypal or logo-like images, probably black-and-white? Those, by my understanding, are in the slower frequencies, and more likely to be intuitive accessing of “source” information.
How am I doing with this process? I think I’ve held onto my sanity by using a variety of these techniques. I have not done neurofeedback, but I gained a lot by my study.
KH: On the thread following “How do we heal?” you commented to another person: “If you want to correct this situation, anger is probably not your friend.”
From your non-emotional, third-party position, you could see the situation more clearly and offer good advice. I see this as an example of an instance when the “release” technique could be used to clear away the clouding emotion so that the person in trauma could get centered again and give herself her own “third-party perspective.”
Rune, I understand what you’re saying, and why that might be a good thing. A very good thing.
There are healing techniques that are based on “as if” processes. Act “as if” something, and if you have success, that success may trickle down to change the belief system that caused you to become locked in a less successful behavior.
So doing this might actually have a healing effect, or counteract the sense of being out of control.
And if it enables her to navigate the process of questioning this police report and getting it changed without losing control, well that would be a great thing.
Come to think of it, if I had used one of those techniques just to manage my feelings for eight hours a day, I might have been able to keep working through those early recovery years.
But I don’t know. It’s still a cosmetic process, or would have been for me. And the work would still be waiting to be done. I know a lot of people who live like that, trying to control their feelings long enough to make a living. It does it’s own damage.
Kathleen and others,
Count me as another do-it-yourself-er. My tools were journals–page after page after page of extremely in-depth work. Childhood memories, present-tense symptoms…the words just poured out of me. Emotions, too. I had many an early morning or a late night of solitary blubbering, and a few instances of full-on howl-at-the-moon kind of psychic pain. Not a lot of anger, though, because I’ve never had any trouble expressing that–in the words of the S/P, “I could rant and rave like no one he’d ever seen.” What I was not able to express verbally, I acknowledged in quite a few death-and-dismemberment dreams. Mostly though, I just got through the sadness and the mourning at the loss of everything–every memory, every dream, every belief.
I’d say the first year or so was just getting a written record of what was actually happening. I used it to self-validate, when some of my ex’s antics defied rational explanation. I learned soon enough that if I did not record in minute detail some of his actions, then later I would doubt my own sanity. So I always had “my notebooks” to reassure me that I did indeed see and hear what I saw and heard.
Then it was on to the study of psychopathy–matching the descriptions to what I had experienced and deciding “Yes, this is it.” I read everything from “The Mask of Sanity” to true crime books. The Interlibrary Loan librarian got tired of me ordering yet another book about psychopaths!
The third year seemed to be the year of coming together, when I became able to see the larger patterns and needs in my own nature, and decide to correct them.
All along I relied on dreams, and my own ability to interpret those dreams. Recorded them, studied them, re-read my interpretations, and most of all, HEEDED them. I found that my own subconscious, or intuition, or higher self, never steered me wrong.
A couple of times I relied on prescription anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. But not for long, because I did not want to become dependent on ANYTHING that came from any organized power structure. I concentrated on natural things, physical labor, ANYTHING that gave me a sense of safety. If I found that people or things fed my anxieties, I got rid of them. Conversely, people or things that soothed me, I allowed in my mostly-solitary world.
Like so many of you, I came to understand that one of my biggest vulnerabilities was my childlike need to be “taken care of.” So many of us were abused children…and so many abused children adapt by becoming “parentalized.” That was why when I met someone who was FINALLY “more than me,” who was willing to “take care of” me, I willingly gave up what I considered the unpleasant parts of life (the money, the bills, etc.). Of course I discovered that was I gave up was ultimately my autonomy.
Frankly, I found professional counselors and doctors less than useless. Many assumed a superior “there-there, little lady” demeanor as they assured me that psychopaths were as rare as hen’s teeth. Not one person with a “Dr.” in front of his or her name could say he or she had ever known one single S/P. The couselors, although well-meaning, seemed stuck in some sort of freshman-year survey-course world of recovery buzzwords and false cheeriness. I know they meant well, but the P experience demands more than lists of “codependency symptoms” or “adult child of alcoholic traits.” It’s a bigger, badder thing, and it requires a bigger, badder understanding.
These days I find that I have re-started the process as I assimilate the knowledge that he harmed my children in ways I never dreamed of. I truly don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive myself for not seeing, not knowing. But I work on it, and I try to discern some meaning from so much suffering.
Sometimes I wish I COULD become bitter and cynical, but that does not seem to be my nature or my fate. I am hardened somewhat from what I was before–I care for myself where once I did not. And I feel for others much, much less than I did before. With these new things called “boundaries,” I find that I feel so much less for others because my “self” is not all gummed up and confused with those others. Now, with some genuine regard for myself, I don’t get as upset, anxious, needy, emotional. It is a more peaceful existence, and after the life I have led, I welcome peace and quiet.
Although my life itself is easier (no crisis-a-day, and now enough money to live adequately), I find that I still miss my “old” self. I liked her better than who I am today. She was kinder and gentler. And she trusted. New Me trusts almost no one. Old Me was what society and religion said a good woman was supposed to be. She was a romantic. She was selfless. She was GOOD. But she’s gone and now I must accept that.
The new me stands up for herself, stutters and stammers much less, despises societal expectations and wants to overthrow patriarchy. The new me can be quite the bitch. The new me is not afraid of anything, because the new me has looked into the abyss and then hocked a big loogie at it. I am no longer GOOD, but I am BETTER.
Goodnight, LF tribe. Towanda! Onward!
Thank you, Tood, that was amazing.
I miss my girlish self too. But I think I’m not quite done coming back to center. We learn to be tough and boundaried and self-caring. And then I think, we settle down in the middle, when we can “give it up for a moment” because we want to share something, and then slip right back to boundaryville on oiled ball bearings.
The other thing I’m finding now is this new kind of compassion. I really feel for other people now in a new way. It used to be associated with some imperative to do something in order to be a good person. Now it’s not. Oddly, it makes me feel more acutely, when I realize my own limitations to fix things. The world is full of suffering as well as beauty. Now I try to figure out what I can do about it, but not because I have to, because I want to.
I didn’t use dreams, but I came to view my life as a dream to be interpreted. In particular, I began to interpret the important characters in my life as avatars of forces or conflicts in me.
Otherwise, we have the same experience, and it’s amazing to read your writing.
Tood,
I am not the same either, just hoping the new me is safer. I journaled a lot over the last year so that I could reference myself when doubting my sanity. Interestingly I had several chilling dreams about my S that I recorded. The most recent one, very recent, was part of what inspired me to stop contact this last time. I was sitting on my bed with the S and my 3 year old son (they have actually never met, instinct). He was touching my son, molesting him, and I was doing nothing to stop it. I woke up hysterical, sweating, sobbing. My subconscious was trying to jolt me I think.