Gaslighting: "You can't be degraded since you don't have feelings"

[donatella]

Well..here’s me after more than a week of silent treatment, harassment, intimidation and then, all of a sudden…flat calm, as if nothing had happened. I found myself in the eye of the storm, being offered an unsolicited snack and coffee, some fruit, general conversation, because, as he put it, I couldn’t help being an unfeeling piece of shit, since I am autistic – according to him. That same evening all hell broke loose again and I had experienced the whole cycle of hoovering, degrading and discarding within 24 hours. I also briefly felt the Stockholm syndrome kicking in, but was forewarned and recognized it for what it was. “I would have beaten you to death if it weren’t for you being autistic”. Oh, so you’re a psychiatrist now, are you? “Well, if you keep denying your autism I will kill you, and then I’ll kill myself, since I ‘ve gor nothing to live for anyway”. “Look, it’s all here, I’ve been suffering all these years cos you’re autistic in a bad way! I don’t have to feel bad about myself treating you like that cos your autistic, see? You don’t feel anything. You have no feelings!” So much for twisted logic…
He’s going to play the autism/Not my fault card, and it’s just as well I recorded the lot, including his threats not to let me sleep at night so I’ll lose my job, and to scratch every mirror in the house with “ADD” and “autist”.
I’m seeing a lawyer on Tuesday and Thursday I have an appointment with the local police.
Just another instance of gaslighting, his insisting that I am autistic, and he gets furious because I won’t be drawn out.

Thank you for providing me with the certainty that it’s not me, but him. It keeps me going.

Love, Donatella

• This topic was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by donatella. Reason: Typo

[josef219]

You must get an order of protection. You do not need this man in your life! You deserve better! I like something I read in The Fifth Agreement, your world is your kingdom, YOU decide who gets to come in and who gets banished! First order of business is to banish this loser!
Stay strong!

[donatella]

Thanks Josef219, you are so right, and he’s on his way out. Except he’s hanging on, not wanting to let me go. I described what happened and how he drove me out of the house in an other post here, and how I put the police onto him. Since he got wind of that he’s been going full cycle, from abusive to pity ploy, from downright blackmail to threatening suicide, from pleas to start all over again to promises he’ll drag me down with him. This weeekend alone I received a total of over 350 texts and emails from him. I’ve sent them on to the police. Mind you, when he goes pathetic, I’m so glad that I’ve read up on it, because he’s tapping my empathy then. I feel more about him losing his home than he’s ever done for me. After terrorizing me out of my home he had the gall to text me: “Why do you want to evict me? How can you be so mean?” I mean, really…but it’s a war of nerves, and it’s damned tiring trying to stay one step ahead all the time, and me working, while he can spend the whole day plotting and scheming how best to get at me. Grieving will have to wait for now, I can’t afford to, not yet. So I remain hypervigilant, a condition most of us victims will recognize. Waiting for my copy of the marriage licence from the US, can take trwo more weeks, hopefully things can speed up a bit then. Hopefully the judge will decide in my favour and grant me the right of the house, even though my ex has nowhere to go. Would I turn him out? Yes. But it breaks my heart, in spite of everything. And that’s where the danger lies, in feeling pity for someone without mercy. Whenever I get to feel that way, I think of how he treated me, and even play back a recording of his abusive rants. It helps me to overcome my empathic feelings.
But I’m very very tired, and I wish I could just relax for a bit. But not yet, not yet..time will come.

Stay strong, stay safe,

Donatella

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