Lessons after the sociopath: Real love is easy

When I was studying the effects of stress when I was in college for my BS in nursing, I became very interested in this, and continued to read and learn more about the subject on my own. I became aware of the effects of stress in my life at various times under various circumstances—sometimes under my control, sometimes not.

Of course medical science has advanced a long way in the years since I first became aware of stress effects, so I have tried to keep up some with the advancements—someone said once though that “trying to learn and keep up with medical knowledge is like trying to drink from a fire hose, no matter how thirsty you are or how fast you swallow, most of it gets by you” and that is quite true.

After the trauma of my husband’s death, the effects of stress were more than I had ever EVER experienced. I couldn’t READ. I couldn’t write down a telephone number—It was so bad I had to write down numbers one number at a time, with each one told me separately, then I would write it, then the next number in the phone number.

Even 2 years later I could only do 5 or 6 forward and NONE backwards—this was a huge change, as a “parlor” trick I used to do was recite 100 numbers in a row read to me, and do them backwards, forwards or any combination there of, skipping numbers, or whatever was asked. I became so worried about my mental competency that I actually stressed myself more worrying!

I’ve always had a terrible time remembering names of people I knew a long time ago, My facial memory was perfect, but my name memory was terrible. Always was. My husband used to purposely and jokingly embarrass me when I would be talking to someone he knew I knew but knew I would NOT remember their name so he would approach and then say to me, “Oxy, introduce me to your friend.” After me threatening to cut off his toes if he ever did that to me again, knowing I didn’t know their name, he stopped his joking! ha ha but my lack of memory of names was the “family joke”–in fact once I forgot my mom’s name when I went to introduce her to someone whose name I DID remember.

But my total lack of recall –even episodes of amnesia for short periods of time–scared the heck out of me, but of course was the effects of the PTSD from the airplane crash. But yet, I expected to pull my husband out of that awful accident and keep my composure the same way I would have expected me to keep my composure if it had been a stranger that I was pulling out of a fiery crash.

My expectations of myself to “be logical” and to be “professional” and to be “Mr. Spock” and not have emotions, and for sure as heck NOT ADMIT IT IF I DID, even under the most traumatic of circumstances, I think made it all worse than it even had to be.

In the four years since my husband’s death, there have been further traumas, and then there was the X-BF-P episode and then the year long “P-experience” with my P-son and the Trojan Horse P trying to kill me, so all in all, though I still have some short-term and some longer-term memory problems, I am aware of these, more accepting of them being there, but at the same time, realizing that I am not A NUT CASE per se, and that I won’t let people use that memory deficit as a way to GASLIGHT ME. After I had mentioned that to my P-son in one of my letters to him, and told him how it bothered and concerned me, he used that “But mom, you just don’t remember such and such…” to gaslight me. He used it as “proof” to others that I had a BRAIN TUMOR…I’m soooo glad they let him attend medical school while he has been in prison, lo these many years! Talk about rehabilitation! LOL Reading that letter he wrote to my Mom and the ones he wrote to the Trojan Horse-P “Diagnosing” my BRAIN TUMOR as the ONLY possible explanation of why I had “suddenly turned on him” actually made me LAUGH OUT LOUD!

The Ps use our NORMAL stress-related deficits of good judgment and KEEP US STRESSED as a tactic in their MANIPULATION. We, on the other hand, may NOT be AWARE of our reactions being so “far out” because we ARE stressed. Knowing that you are stressed and reacting in a stressed way is not something that you can “self diagnose” easily UNDER STRESS. I KNEW I wasn’t “acting right” and my “memory” was poor, and YET I couldn’t DO the things I needed to do to GET AWAY from the very thing that was stressing me.

It was only in EXTREMIS of FEAR, when they pushed me to the point I did realize my VERY LIFE was in danger, that I actually did the REASONABLE thing and FLED. Even then it took several months for me to come to the conclusion that I NEEDED and MUST RUN or DIE.

I have always considered myself a “can do” person who can still function under trying conditions and do well, who is “tough” and doesn’t give up easily when confronted with obstacles, and those very qualities that make me a GREAT PERSON were the ones that were turned against me by their manipulations. My own expectations of “super human” strength and competency were part of my own down fall into the pits the Ps dug for me.

I see so much of myself in each of you, with your strengths and kindness which is twisted by the psychopaths to enable them to USE you more effectively, and for longer times. I could make a list of the good qualities I see in each of you that were TWISTED and molded into something to use AGAINST you.

This thread is SO RIGHT ON, because REAL LOVE is NOT PAINFUL. Looking back over my 40 years of friendship and 20 years of marriage to my husband–we had our differences in personality, ways of looking at some things, etc etc and we had some “lively debates” over these things, but I NEVER ONCE in all those 40 years thought for one moment that he didn’t have my best interests at heart, or that he was being deceptive, or mean. I KNEW HE LOVED ME. The highest compliment that I guess was ever paid to me was one of his employees who worked for him the last 3-4 years of his life said to me one time, “Do you have ANY IDEA how much that man loves you?” Considering that my husband was not one to bare his emotions to his employees or male friends, or even most female friends, I can sit here today and say totally and completely, that “Yes, I DID KNOW and DO KNOW how very much he loved me” because it was NEVER EVER PAINFUL, even in the midst of our most “lively debate” or when he, like most engineers, was being his most insensitive or obtuse, I still KNEW he loved me, and in the end even the most “lively of our debates” never came between us, we came to a consensus at some point. LOL