by AlohaTraveler
Today, July 3, is a significant day for me. On this day, three years ago, I left the Bad Man. Let’s take stock of that moment in time:
- Total cash = $700
- Debt = at least $16,000
- Job = None
- Place to live, bed to sleep in, a clue = No
- Plan = None
- Me = A total wreck.
Between May of 2005, when I moved in with the Bad Man, and May of 2007, I have moved 10 times. This includes one move back to the islands in September 2005 and then back to California again on November 29, 2005. My car has 7,200 nautical miles on it and it shows. It looks like it’s eating itself. Cars aren’t meant to go to sea and mine crossed the ocean three times between July 3, 2005 and November 29, 2005.
Below is the Reader’s Digest version of my trials and tribulations.
Movin’ movin’ movin’
- Moved in with the Bad Man for one last hurrah after having been apart for 4.5 months. What was I thinking?!
- The great escape: Moved out from Bad Man while he was at work.
- Moved from one friend to another.
- Moved back the the islands.
- Moved out of the hotel and into a condo.
- Moved back to California again.
- Moved in with my employer as a live-in nanny.
- Moved in with friends who took care of me for four months because I was a WRECK.
- Moved in with another friend after four months of rest, armed with a new plan. Finally.
- Moved in with my dear friends, Eric and Jen. This is where I live now and have been living for over a year.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
Between July 3, 2005 and May 2007, I landed and lost six jobs all for various reasons.
- North Shore Resort: Resigned and left Hawaii for a second time. Finally, a good choice.
- Internet start up: Business went under
- “Wellness” company: Fired by a narcissist
(Noticed right away that the boss reminded me of the Bad Man. Shortly before she gave me the ax, I was told that it was suspect that she had narcissistic personality disorder. Upon hearing this, I had a massive anxiety attack.) - Internet company: Not the right fit
- Live-in nanny: Not the right fit again
- County job: Contract ran out.
Where I am today
I have a place to call home and have been there for over a year now. Shortly after I moved in, my friends gave me an old dresser. It’s big and heavy and feels like an anchor, a welcome anchor. I unpacked my suitcases for the first time in nearly two years. That night, as I lay in bed, I stared at my “new” dresser and I cried. Since I have been here, life has finally started to stabilize for me.
My symptoms of PTSD have subsided. Occasionally, I have a strange choking, coughing sensation in my throat when I have a distressing thoughts but I don’t have anxiety attacks like I did before. I smile more. I laugh more. I sleep better. I don’t think about the Bad Man and worry if he really was the one and if it really was me that messed it all up. I fully embrace and accept that he is a pathological, not fixable, person and it has absolutely nothing to do with me.
I have two jobs now. I have been at the first one since November of last year. I have been at the second one since March of this year. They are both in the area of social services and are an extension of the county contract I did last year. I have applied for grad school for an MSW and I am waiting to hear if I have been accepted.
I have paid off over $11,000 of that original Maui debt. Keep in mind that since I have been home, I have been unemployed off and on for at least 10 months and have worked for long periods of time for just $10 an hour.
I have started to date. At times, it feels like stepping out on thin ice, but I am doing it. I have started to rejoin the activities I loved in the past, such as sailing and baking and LAUGHING!
The road leads to you
I believe we will recover at the rate equivalent to the degree that we are committed to telling ourselves the truth. Now that you are here at Lovefraud, the truth is available to you and right under your nose. Will you accept it? It’s up to you.
Whatever it is you have lost, you will eventually get one thing back if you keep trying. Life might not ever look like it did before you crossed paths with a pathological partner but if you are open, it can look better. And at the end of the road, you will find YOU, and… another road… and maybe an old dresser.
Sitting in my “Big Girl Panties” today
- Debts = under control.
- Jobs = more than one
- A safe place to live, warm bed, and a plan for my life = check!
- Me = a whole lot wiser and not a juicy pick anymore for a Bad Man.
Free,
I do understand gaslighiting. I also understand feeling suicidal when with a pathological partner. I understand looking crazy. I understand feeling crazy. I understand being mind f—ed. I understand “ambient abuse.”
I don’t understand your way-to-go type remarks to Lilygirl. I am not some uninformed girlfriend that doesn’t get it. Her attack was very painful and upsetting.
I am really disappointed that this happened.
oh, my God.
Thank you so much. No one has said or done anything like this for me in so long.
No one has cared for me, or written a poem to help me, or understood in so long.
My emotions are mixed at this minute, for as much comfort as I feel right now as I sit here, I also feel a tremendous, deep sadness for how empty my life has been.
I didn’t realize I was this low. That in five years, probably more, no one has stopped to stand up for me. No one has reached down and pulled me up from the floor.
I had gotten used to being laughed at when I was down there.
How did I survive this?
Free, you and JaneSmith have done a kindness for me that I will never, ever forget. My son has two sweet aunts out there who have helped his mother keep going.
I have to go now, he is waiting for me to watch Godzilla with him, and I don’t want him to know I am crying.
You have no idea what you have done for me. Thank you so much. Words cannot capture what I am feeling right now, but please know that you both have made a difference in my life.
I just might be able to pack the picnic basket tomorrow. Someone cares about me and I am not crazy. That’s all I needed to know.
Dear Lilygirl,
Your attack, and it was an attack, was very upsetting to me. I do hope in the future, I will not be attacked for trying to help another LoveFraud reader. Your post put me into stunned silence for a few hours. The last time I felt that way was when I would read one of the numerous attacks from the Bad Man. His emails were so upsetting that I often didn’t eat for a few days and fell silent, trying to cope with his attacks on my character, my being, my spirit. Your post brought me back to that feeling. But thankfully, I am eating copious amounts of chocolate right now, so I guess I have come a long way. Or perhaps, I have just changed the way I cope with being attacked. :0)
I spend a long time thinking over and editing my posts. My only intention is to help another person that was abused in the manner that I do know quite well from experience. Your post was mean spirited and very upsetting to me and your intentions were very clear. Perhaps my intentions were not clear to you. If you took anything I said to be mean or condescending, I am very sorry about that. Please accept my apology. If you thought I was telling you to shut up, that is not what I meant. If you thought I was saying that I am doing this healing thing better, smarter, faster than you… that is not what I was saying. Often times, the intention and tone of an email or Blog Post can be misunderstood. I would never want to cause anyone pain.
This is a site for venting and learning. We learn from each other by sharing, each from our different stages of healing. I am long past the venting stage and can only speak from where I sit today.
You went to great length to describe how much more you had to over come than me and all without help. As far as I know, this is not a competition and I have never claimed to have had to overcome more than anyone else at LF. Mostly, I assume I have had less to overcome. By sharing my progress, I was hoping someone else who felt overwhelmed as I once did, would feel like they could climb back out of their personal black hole, however deep it may be. I didn’t receive the help I needed for quite awhile and no help at all from my family. I also received much misguided advice from friends including being called a “stalker” by one of my “friends” because she could not understand why I could not just let go and move on. This was when I continued to obsess on how I might stop him from hurting others. Since the Bad Man did have some stalking behavior, you can imagine how painful it was to have someone call me a stalker.
I do know how painful misguided advice can be but I do not feel that my intentions were either misguided nor were they ill intended. Nor was I trying to get you to shut up and not tell your story. If that is what you understood, perhaps I should have chosen my words more delicately.
When I write, I usually omit the juicy details of my story and try to boil things down to the essence. I had been working on a few things to send in to LF that did give some details but I will rethink that now. I wouldn’t want to put myself out there to be attacked by another reader. Thankfully, this kind of thing rarely happens but even so, when it does happen, even if it isn’t to me, it is very unsettling and disturbing.
I stand by everything I said even if you did not understand the spirit in which I meant it. I knew I would regret the words “this is my own theory of course, which I realize I am cramming down everyone’s throat” as you seemed to have glommed onto it and slammed me with it repeatedly. I have never called anyone stupid, nor have I implied that anyone at LF is stupid. I don’t think we are stupid for missing the red flags. If you say there were absolutely no red flags for you and this just happened to you randomly, well, that seems to be your own theory that you are cramming down our throats. For me, if I go with this line of thinking, then my time with the Bad Man was wasted as this could just randomly happen to me again. That is a thought that I can’t bear.
I learned a lot about myself from my time with the Bad Man. I admit that my life was in crisis already and I was ripe for the picking. Many readers have admitted to the same thing; they were very vulnerable at the moment in which they were swept up by a Sociopath or other pathological partner. Since I have been through this experience, I have learned that abuse is very complex as are the mind games that go along with it. I am also aware of the stigmas that are present in society when people think of abused women. I no longer hold the same ideas about who an abused woman is. I know now that abused woman come from all walks of life, all levels of financial status, education levels, etc. I am not a weak person, nor are you, but I did have boundary issues.
I still believe that pathological people do not have a hard time laying it on thick in the beginning. It is part of the pathology. In fact, they have a gift for doing this in the beginning in a way beyond anything we have ever experienced and therefore, it sets that golden hook deep in us. The difference is that it is fake. It is not real niceness we are experiencing. It is a trap for us to fall into so they can torture us while we try to get another taste of that over the top feeling we had in the beginning. The reason I stand firm on this is that convincing ourselves that it is hard for them to “be nice” is a slippery slope where we can easily get caught in feeling sorry for them. And feeling sorry for them is a dangerous place to be because when we are feeling sorry for them, I believe it is hard to put our own well being in the forefront. I am a very compassionate person, believe it or not, but I realize now that I allowed the Bad Man to be abusive to me in the name of being compassionate and sensitive to him and his past, his needs, his wounds, etc….and I almost lost me.
Also, I know that simply “not opening a door” is not the whole solution. I meant that figuratively and not literally. Abuse of all kinds is very complex and it is an issue that I care deeply about. I also care deeply about the readers here.
Finally, we quite often tell new people that “No Contact” is key to getting out of the Fog and starting to clear out the junk that a pathological partner is pumping into our heads. It takes different people, different amounts of time to get to that point, but ultimately, they do need to get there. I don’t know if you have read the essay by the title: “No Contact” but it helped me very very much. I will continue to advocate No Contact Rule to anyone wavering in their resolve to leave, or struggling with the fear that they may go back, or really, anyone that ends up at LoveFraud. I think it is THE FOUNDATION of healing from a pathologically abusive partner. If you have any choice at all, going complete NO CONTACT is always the highest recommendation and…. it wasn’t my idea.
It was hard to decide if I should respond to your post or not. The only result I hope for is that you will understand my character better. I am currently working on some essays that talk about the healing we receive from sharing our stories. And please know that if it sounded as if I was saying I didn’t want to hear your story, that is not what I was saying. It is not my intention to stamp out anyone’s voice.
I do hope there will not be anymore break downs like this. I am not a boastful person but many people have thanked me for my direct, cut-to-the-chase style of writing. I also like to use humor and often make fun of myself and how I was acting back in the Bad Man days. After reading your post, I thought for a few hours about never posting any comments again because your post was very upsetting to me. I thought my days of being under attack were behind me.
I hope that you find whatever it is that you need and want from LoveFraud and that your get the healing effects of sharing and learning here that I have found so integral to my own healing. If what I have to say doesn’t help you, I am sure someone else with have something to say that will resonate with you.
With warmest Aloha,
Elise
P.S. Great post about Gas Lighting. That would make a good article. Sometimes there are gems that get lost in all these comments.
JaneSmith,
What a lovely poem. I was knocked out by that! In a good way!
This is sure to become a staple reading amongst victims of abusive relationships. I plan to have this with me as I go forward in my career.
Wow. Rarely do I enjoy poetry as much as I did that.
Thanks for sharing it with us Free and JaneSmith.
Free,
So many nights over the past five years I have awoken in a complete panic – in the middle of the night, all alone.
The impact of his abuse would hit me like a kick in the gut and this voice would say to me –
“Lilygirl, you are alone in the world. Everyone seems to know how to behave but you. There is something wrong with you and your thinking and your way of being.
You are an outcast and you deserve to be.
You are pathetic. Who in the world has NO ONE who cares about them?
If you died today, how long would it take for someone to find your body? If you were kidnapped, would anyone even care to look for you? You are disgusting and unworthy and wrong.”
Every night. Throughout the night. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I was so scared. I felt so scared I can’t even tell you. I felt so disgusting and unlovable.
Every time I would feel this way, I knew I wanted to die and stop being such a drain on the world. To stop hurting everyone around me with my crazy thinking and my reactions.
That my thoughts my feelings, everything about me was horrible and unlovable and disgusting.
And I felt all of this with a child depending on me. Me, the most disgusting person in the world, was solely responsible for a child. How terrifying.
I think Free, you know what that feels like. You know what kind of pressure that is. I think JaneSmith knows too. How low someone can get and still be alive.
I still don’t know how I am still sitting here today.
When I think back, it is only because a few months ago, I learned that the way I felt was normal.
My mixed emotions, my negative thoughts, my confusion, my despair, my suicidal thoughts. I had to learn it from people I never met. Only their books.
And I found this place. I reached out, and again, I was told I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t like everyone else here. I still wasn’t good enough. My thinking was nonsense.
‘Yes you have the Stockholm Syndrome – now that I have told you that GET OVER IT.”
No chance for even a few months to process it. I was supposed to be perfect IMMEDIATELY. I am not allowed time to recover from the Stockholm Syndrome, right?
Just when I thought I was safe, I was told again, this time by people who are SUPPOSED to understand, that I am abnormal. I am wrong. I am slow.
And the worst message? That I was somehow responsible for causing myself to be abused.
Then when I stood up for myself, I was wrong. Because I enforced my boundaries, I was attacking people.
Okay, so help me out here, should I or shouldn’t I have boundaries? Should I or shouldn’t I get angry if I am repeatedly told I am wrong in my thinking and that it is nonsense?
Nothing was an attack. It was self-defense that came after numerous attempts by me to ask people to let up on me, to tell them they were hurting me.
I left because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was feeling even MORE suicidal. These people are supposed to understand and you are making THEM mad at you Lilygirl. What the hell is wrong with you? Where ever you go, you are disgusting.
So I either had to live with that feeling or try to stand up for myself.
I ended up having to defend myself to people who I believed should have understood. Instead of concentrating on healing, I ended up again, defending myself and my thinking and my way of being.
Then when a few people tried to stick up for me, they were told not to cheer me on. That is exactly the same thing I endured with him.
“I don’t understand your way-to-go type remarks to Lilygirl”
Ouch. He did that to me too. Anyone who tried to stick up for me was intimidated into silence.
And pretty soon, no one did stick up for me.
Am I not worth someone sticking up for me? Maybe not. Maybe I am disgusting.
And now here I sit, all alone. Fighting to get the glue out of my brain. And still, I can’t seem to get permission to think on my own.
But my point is Free, that last night, when I would wake up during the night, I didn’t feel so much panic.
Even in that twilight sleep, (which is for me, when I do my clearest thinking for some reason) your words and JaneSmith’s poem were what I thought about.
“Lilygirl, someone out there named Free has gone through what you have. Someone out there understands and JaneSmith cared enough about you to post a beautiful poem that shows that people care about you.
People stuck up for you and as long as even one person sticks up for you, you are not alone.
Someone out there acknowledges how hard it has been for you to raise your son while you went through this. You are not alone. You are not crazy and you are going to be okay.”
I cannot remember the last time I felt so comforted. I can’t remember the last time I could fall back to sleep so easily. I can’t believe I could stop clinching my teeth for a moment and take a rest from this feeling of impending death.
The last thing I want is to cause anyone trouble. I am asking again for those of you who do not understand or agree with me to just leave me alone.
Otherwise, you are working to convince me that my existence here, my thinking, my way of being, is disrupting the harmony of life on this blog. That my way of being HURTS people.
That people want me away from here because just my way of being is nonsense. That what I have to say is nonsense and that people here should ignore me and not cheer me on.
Just the message I DO NOT need to hear right now. It is EXACTLY what he told me.
When I feel that message in my gut, I will defend myself.
When I ask people to let up on me and to just VALIDATE how I feel as being okay – and they don’t and continue to cram things down my throat –
I will defend myself and point out the inconsistencies in what is said here. Kathy Krajco taught me to do that, and it works for me. I have a right to defend myself when people try to define my thinking and my existence.
Thank you Free, for caring enough about me to stand up for me. I am sorry if I have caused you any pain or problems here. Your kindness and support has made a huge difference for me and my son.
I have boundaries and I will use them. I am walking too thin of a line to be any other way.
…These people, however, after offering their wisdom and advice, should then be able and willing to step back and allow you to guide your own life. If they can do that, they may become a positive part of your support system.
If they can’t it may be a warning sign of too much external control….
From “It’s My Life Now” by Meg Kennedy Dugan:
“It’s possible you had some friends and family members who believe that they are going to be the ones to rescue you.
They probably felt they were your only real supporters because they told you exactly what you should and should not do to fix the problem.
They were free with their advice and always seemed to know what was best for you.
These people probably had your welfare at heart. They believed if you ‘didn’t know what was good for you,’ they would help you understand.
They felt they knew what was wrong or right and they would guide you in the best direction.
Unfortunately, without realizing it, they may have become just what you DID NOT NEED: people trying to control your life.
Now that you are out of your relationship and in charge of your life, your contacts with this group might be strained.
They may still want to control you. It probably feels controlling if they are telling you what you should be doing or feeling.
These judgemental comments may undermine your confidence to make decisions that are best for you and take charge of your life.
Everyone at times may get a bit too ‘pushy’ with a friend they believe is in trouble or in pain. All of us may try to guide that person to a better situation.
It often makes sense for people who are having a difficult time to take the insights and opinions of those they trust into consideration.
These people, however after offering their wisdom and advice, should then be able and willing to step back and allow you to guide your own life. If they can do that, they may become a positive part of your support system.
If they can’t it may be a warning sign of too much external control.
Dear lilygirl,
I see so much of me in what you post. So many seem to think it’s just mind over matter, but when the heart is involved, it takes lots of time to just get over something. If I had someone of my own to share with and if I just belonged to someone, I could move forward more.
I had a major meltdown last night when I kept realizing I’m at a point in my life and I have no one. Oh, I could take up with some disrespecting someone, but I have standards. I wanted to go through life with the ones I started with. I gave my husband everything I had and he threw it all back in my face. I watched helplessly while he did so willingly for others and I and his children came last. He can’t see that.
I’ve been at this healing process for a long time and I don’t know if I’ll ever totally be healed. There’s just nothing much to look forward to anymore. My kids are all in other parts and money, time and distance prevents me from seeing them. So I have to content myself with a visit maybe once a year. What kind of life is that? Nothing to look forward to anymore other than another day of work. I’m grateful for the strength to do that, but being a sharing kind of person and knowing so many just want to use someone like me, limits my choices.
I sometimes wonder if I have boundaries or if my heart is so hardened from my experience that I just can’t and won’t let anyone in. I’m afraid to let go and even enjoy sex again, because of what comes after. I think I’m turning into a shrew and I’m just going to wither away and die a lonely old woman because I’m afraid to share again. And just when I think I have it together, something triggers a memory and I look around me, and I remember what caused the happenings that have left me alone.
I don’t want pretense. I played house for 30+ years and just can’t live like that anymore. I understand where you are coming from. You spoke so eloquently about the needs and demands of the heart and just what happens when one is let down. It makes one feel so unlovable. I believed that of myself for more years than I can count. If the person you are with says they love you, but treats you like they hate you, which one should you go with? The actions. If someone loves you they want the best for you. I’ve not known that. I keep asking God why He moved everyone away from me and left me all alone. What did I do to deserve nothing? Yes I have truth and I needed that, but everything I set my heart on and what I wanted to do in life, is gone.
It’s like there’s been a horrible death, but the key players are still alive and I’m the one who died. I’m watching from the afterlife. They all have their life and the life they wanted and I helped them get what they want, and I was left holding the bag. I wasn’t on the same page. We weren’t even in the same book.
Weekends are the worst for me. That’s when everyone would come together and now there is no one. Knowing how my husband feels made a sham of my whole life. I’ve wished so often that I could get all my affairs in order then just ask God to take me now. I don’t want to leave loose ends for my children to tie up and I want to get that order in my life, but I will be glad when my time is up. This isn’t anything I thought it would be.
Some people have fortitude to move on faster. For some reason I don’t have that. My heart is so heavy at times I think it will fall out of my chest. I’m between a rock and hard place. Many think I should just go right back to my husband and live a married life. I can’t make anyone understand he isn’t a husband. He’s not a man. I’m not believed as they all know him but no one ever took the time to know me. So I get thrown away and he looks like the victim. Which is what he wants. He wants everyone’s pity. But there’s nothing wrong with him other than his messed up mind, which he refuses to acknowledge.
But I’m just here to vent today. I have to make a run to the house and that just dredges up my past. How can I ever just forget and move on when I’m constantly reminded of it? It’s not just a matter of forgetting. I just don’t have that capacity. Someday or I guess I’ll die trying.
Lilygirl,
I had decided not to respond to your attack. Actually, I had missed part of it and was referring to the bottom part of your post. I don’t know how I missed reading it all the first time through.
First off let me say that you “read more into” my post that upset you, by far, than was intended. I was NOT, I repeat NOT attacking you or calling you stupid or anything of such nature.
I realize you are in pain. You are NOT crazy. Go back and look at some of my earlier posts to you and you will see I said that. I do not think you are crazy or stupid at all, and I see and feel that you are in a great deal of pain. Any words I have blogged on here are intended to HELP not harm people, to support them.
If my blog hurt you or made you feel bad it was not my intention, never was my intention and I do not take your pain lightly. Believe me I have been involved in gaslighting and every form of abuse from physical to emotional to having my life threatened so that I had to flee my home for six months until the Ps were arrested.
Pain, according to Dr. Viktor Frankl, who spent years in a Nazi prison camp, is like a gas, it fills the entire space in a container. It doesn’t matter if your pain is “worse”” than mine, or mine “worse” than yours, EACH of us is COMPLETELY filled by the pain the psychopaths inflicted on us.
I realize that your attack on me and on Aloha is anger radiating from your pain. After I went back and re-read your ENTIRE post (and that was my “bad” for skimming a post as I did not see the attack on us part at first).
Let me tell you a little story, if my little dog were to get hit by a car, and say he was lying there on the road and I ran out to him concerned with helping him, and I reached to pick him up, and in his pain, fear, etc. he reached around and bit me. Do you think I would “blame” the dog for biting me? Of course not, because I knew that he was in pain, and fearful, and just reacted to me trying to help him in a negative way.
After reading your post, though it surprised me at the accusations and the wording, I realized that you are in pain and you struck out and “bit” us, but I do not hold it against you. I am totally sorry if you misinterpreted what I said to you and it made it worse for you.
I do not want to have stress on this blog, or for anyone to misunderstand me. However, that said, I do not think it was a good thing for you to strike out, even in your pain, but I do understand it and I do not hold it against you in any way.
I stand by the things I said, and I stand by the advice that Aloha said. If you don’t agree with that, that is perfectly fine. I don’t agree with a lot of things said here, but I think everyone has a right to RESPECTFULLY say what they believe. That is the best thing about this blog is the respect that is shown to each of us by all the others. It is VERY seldom that there is a cross word typed on this list and that is the way it should be. I respect your right to hold any opinion you have, and I respect the rights of others to hold their opinions whether I agree or disagree with them, I would never say anything angry to them.
I hope you realize that neither Aloha nor I were trying to hurt you in any way, and I know that I had no intention of hurting or putting you down in any way. Whether you believe me or not, I have been just as angry and just as hurt as you are by the psychopath and I was only sharing what you had said that 12 other professionals had said to you already. BE ASSURED that NO ONE here on this blog is insensitive to your pain, or what you have been through, and NO ONE is trying to get you to deny that pain, everyone here I guarantee is trying to help you and support you, and that includes both me and Aloha.
I know that everyone here has had pain of their own, and therefore understands that you are in pain. We may not know exactly how you feel, but we have a pretty good idea, because we have felt the same way. It is just like a woman who had had a child understands the pain of labor in another woman. We have had a common experience, and therefore we can relate to that common experience.
Please believe me when I say I am sorry for any increase in your pain, or any misunderstanding you may have had of my post, making you feel bad was NOT my intention. Peace.
Apt/mngr –
If it is any comfort at all, know that I am alone too. Weekends are the worst for me too.
What you said: I think I’m turning into a shrew and I’m just going to wither away and die a lonely old woman because I’m afraid to share again. And just when I think I have it together, something triggers a memory and I look around me, and I remember what caused the happenings that have left me alone.
Me too. I think it is normal to feel like we won’t be the same person again, but many people here say that it is possible. So I will trust in that.
But for now, I will realize that I am still in this lousy process, this lonely, forsaken place. And I will continue to look for supportive messages that tell me this is all a NORMAL part of the process.
Kubler Ross cites the stages of grief. They says this is normal. The book I quoted above It’s My Life Now, says it is normal. Other women who have been through this say it is normal. Lundy Bancroft says it is normal.
Kathy Krajco was my hero. She said this is normal. She died in April, very alone. Her family was full of Narcissists.
Just across the street from her abusive sister. She had her little dog and her tennis. She wrote and stayed strong. In her last post on her blog, she warned people about the dangers of the Internet.
She took her loneliness and her pain and she made lemonade out of it.
Anna Valerious (Narcissists Suck blog) has cut off most of the people in her life. She helps to empower others.
The way I see it, I am very lonely. So therefore I almost get somewhat desperate for human contact. VERY NORMAL to want human contact – it is not weakness (monkeys die if they cannot touch each other – they die from lack of contact with their own kind) so this longing is VERY NORMAL.
But because I am SO alone in the world, I tend to welcome everyone in – anyone who wants in gets in.
The trouble is, with such a low admission price, the rif raff gets in too – and I end up having to kick them out.
So sometimes it seems to me that I kick a lot more out than are in. And I start to wonder about being a shrew.
When I feel like a shrew, I read positive messages that remind me – this is NORMAL and it will pass.
I’ve read many times that if you think you might be a shrew and you worry about being a shrew, it means you are not a shrew.
Hope that’s right.
For me, reading the books It’s My Life Now and When Bad Things Happen to Good People and the companion book Overcoming Life’s Difficulties by Kushner have been great comfort to me. I recommend them. (At least you’ll have something to do in the sun in your backyard on the weekends.)
Maybe hang a hummingbird feeder. 1 part sugar to 4 parts water for the liquid. I know I get a huge lift when I see one at my feeder. Stupid little things make me feel less alone in the world and connect me.
I got a book on ‘tracking’ and I like to use it around my yard to identify where little animals have been or are living.
I can tell a chipmunk’s poop from a gray squirrel’s poop. My son thinks it’s way cool. It’s all about connection. Even if I can’t see the little animals, I see signs that they are there.
I am happy to have found some support here. And to make a pretty pathetic confession, the support I have here is ALL I have. I am afraid that I am a leper who is destined to be an outcast her whole life.
Today there was a knock on my door. Strangers. They wanted to talk to me about global warming they said. Hmmm. I’m concerned about global warming. So I listened for a few minutes.
Turns out they wanted to talk to me about the Bible, and their interpretation of it.
Hmmm.
I got angry. The shrew was back.
I told them that they had no right coming into my life, onto my property and pretend to talk about global warming when in reality they wanted to talk about the Bible.
I told them they were hypocrites and used the Bible and God to tell lies. I told them God appreciates people who don’t lie to others.
I told them if they wanted to talk about the Bible – they have an obligation to GOD to be honest and say that’s what they want as soon as they knock on my door.
They were church-goin folks. The women were in nice dresses and hats. The men in button down shirts.
But here they were, trying to pull a con on me and my brain. Global warming? Nope.
But because they invaded my life and imposed their con on me and I got angry and pointed out what they were doing, from a distance, I am a shrew, throwing them off my property.
These good, church goin folks in hats, I threw them off my property. I am sure they called me a shrew. Maybe I am. Maybe I attack people. I don’t know. It is something I may need to watch. Then again, maybe I am living MY reality and I’m not used to these new wings.
Good or bad, that is a result of what has happened to me. I hope I am not a shrew. It does not mean it is a true fear, but it is the fear I am dealing with right now. Tomorrow there may be a different one.
Even if you don’t read the books, take a look at them on Amazon and read the comments about them. Keep telling yourself that this is temporary. It is real, yes. But it is temporary.
Write these little ditties on a piece of paper and hang them on your fridge:
“Just when the caterpiller thought the world had ended, it became a butterfly.”
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
“There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.”
Free –
This is going to sound funny – when I grow up I want to be just like you…
Honestly, no matter what happens, if I love again, if I laugh, if I have a million people around me, it doesn’t matter.
If I can be one tenth of the kind and compassionate woman you are, and have the instincts to say such healing words and provide such uplifitng support, then this will have been worth it.
You are my heroine. My Joan of Arc who says God doesn’t make shit.
I think I am in the reading stage now where I had to try to understand what was happening so I could rely on my own reality.
I want to understand how someone can be so successful, so charismatic, so kind and so loving and at the same time be a vicious monster who wants to control me so he can keep me with him while he doesn’t have any obligation to treat me like I matter in this world.
I had never had that experience in my life. I thought bad guys all wore black and if they were bad they were ALL bad. Getting the message that they can do loving things and abuse you from one minute to the next was the biggest hurdle.
Then as I gathered information, I stuck it down in my cheek like a chipmunk and held onto it for the dark days.
When he would do something, I would pull out a bit of information stored away in my cheek and say hey, look, he’s doing that thing I read about in the book….
The trouble is, I read way too many books that did not help. In fact, they hurt. They kept me hooked. They kept me feeling like I could change his behavior by changing MY behavior.
So many irresponsible authors who think they are helping, but indeed, end up hurting.
Someday I vow to go back to every book that I wasted money on and post a warning to people on Amazon. I wish someone had done that for me, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
I cannot and will not EVER accept responsibility for one speck of what has happened to me. If I believe my boundaries were too week when I met him and I was too stupid to see red flags, then I will keep the blame on me.
I cannot and will not live with that.
Free, will you spend a few minutes and tell me a bit about what happened to you? How long have you been away from him? Did he try to get you back? Have you been able to date? Are you a shrew? (just kidding)
You have pulled me up from the floor and onto my knees and with your help, I am up on my feet. I will always keep you in my prayers and thoughts.
You are not crazy either. They wanted our minds because they saw how strong and valuable they are.