Editor’s note: The following essay was submitted by Lovefraud reader “Presseject.” This is part two of his story. Part one was posted yesterday.
By Presseject
About two weeks after I confronted my S, there was a very dark day in which I was cut to pieces. I am okay now recalling it, but at that time, and for many weeks afterwards, it was like a knife in the heart. I would like to share a bit further with you the silver lining to this part of the story and how that relates to the good work you have done with the site. You see, it went like this:
I had my S visit and stay with me for my birthday weekend. He presented me with fun gifts and a card that included the words signed with “tons of love.” We had been dating for over six months at that point. (This included all the fun, spontaneous “impulsive” trips and arrangements including our visits to Miami, Key West, Palm Beach, Washington DC, New York City, Toronto, and London Ont.) But… while he was staying with me that last visit on my birthday, I happened to glance over at his laptop and saw a heading in his email program on a received email from what I thought was a dating website. So naturally I questioned it and I was told it was no one he knew, that sometimes he visited the site but wasn’t meeting anyone. A real nice birthday surprise!
After he went back, I found the site, having memorized the name of it in the email heading. To find his profile, I had to create one for myself. Once I did this, I saw he was very active at the site, logging in each day and the profile was marked as “looking for a relationship and/or one-on-one.” This left a sinking feeling in me. I thought we had a relationship, so again I needed to let him know it didn’t sit well with me. To do this though took even greater strength. I remember turning to God in prayer at that point to ask for that strength to find and face the truth, whatever it might be. And this was actually the beginning of my new relationship with God. Together with God’s help I knew I was going to get to the truth (I am still in this quest and I will continue this prayer) but little did I know it would turn my world inside out and leave me without the dream of love and feeling something others have described as being emotionally raped.
The day I after I spoke with him about my feelings about the site and his profile which he said calmly he’d “take into consideration,” he sent three typical friendly emails, pictures of himself with family, links to fun websites, nothing out of the ordinary. That evening though, he called and said it was over. He was going to try to find someone closer to where he lived possibly. He said he couldn’t explain me to his family although oddly, a few months prior, he had introduced me affectionately to each and every one of them! I was stunned and expressed my shock, especially after all the birthday gifts and words of love shared the week before. That sinking feeling was the Titanic going down then. To be discarded so quickly without much of a sound reason was baffling and horrible all at the same time.
Somehow I had the sense (when all seemed like chaos and NO sense) to google “personality disorder” along with the word “relationship” about a week after that. It led to the various sites on narcissism that seemed to give hints at what had just happened. (I learned to do searches excluding the words “Sam,” “Vaknin” and “Malignant” after a while). A close friend soon suggested the idea of a sociopath to me. (I still very much like the description one visitor has offered at Lovefraud of a “sociopath parading as a narcissist”) and it was the descriptions of a sociopath I found at Lovefraud that fit so well with my experience of the shock I had experienced of being “discarded.” But somehow, unlike many of the stories I had been reading, I hadn’t sensed that I had been completely “devalued.” (Discarded yes, but devalued?) That maybe my S was not such an S after all. (Later on I would read many entries in the site about those of us who are left wanting to still find hope in these kinds of situations, the appropriate and helpful reference to the Stockholm syndrome in particular). So I was, at that point, very hurt, very confused and still hopeful that love might still triumph. After all, I had never met someone so “nice” and fun to be with (at the beginning of course) and even after the hurt, it then still seemed worth “fixing.” (Part of me now thinks that having that kind sweet hope alive probably serves to help to cushion the extreme shock of what is plainly a hurtful and illogical abandonment.)
So I rose to the occasion, and again called on God to help back me up. It was at that two week time period after his “gotta go now” quick ending of our relationship that I sent one very kind and considerate email suggesting that perhaps that there had been a misunderstanding, that it seemed a shame to throw away all the fun and passionate friendship we had been enjoying so intently. In return, the next day, I received the most caustic, illogical, insulting and degrading note I have ever read from anyone. All I can say is THANK GOD I had found the Lovefraud.com site the week prior because as this horrible dark experience took such a sinister turn, I knew from reading your site enough to know that part of the equation, (the part that was missing) was the “devalued” part. I had been discarded the week before with not much of an explanation. And sure enough, I then had it in full force in front of me, the “devaluing” part, seething with vile and cold inequity.
His heartless letter was filled with twisted statements about my body that he thought revolted him (odd, since throughout the entire six months I was told over and over how desirable I was!) The rest of it was illogical too, the reasoning seemed childish, trivial and hurtful. But it set me free actually. I had prayed to God for strength and understanding. I had found this, God had indeed helped me to find the tools of understanding and knowledge through your site from experts and through the words of other survivors you have helped. Through reading your site, I was somewhat “protected” when this insane letter was received having been somewhat warned about how a sociopath might behave. It was the most startling realization, painful of course yet on the other hand, all the “pieces” of the puzzle now fit. I really can’t imagine how much worse the pain would have been without the good information I had found at Lovefruad.com. Thank you again for being there! Although it was one of the most damaging emotional things I have ever experienced, Lovefraud has been a real part of the silver lining in getting through this storm. The other part I guess is me… I did the hard part of walking through this and caring for myself enough to get my sanity back.
I can tell you this much too; as others have noted here, friends, ministers, group therapy and other places I have turned to did not quite provide the kind of human compassionate understanding I needed to help me through this over the last three months. I was going through days in which I was strong with my new understandings. Other days I was left trying to find even a shred of what my heart had been or felt like. I knew “no contact” was the only option even though I would still get urges to write and send things (new feelings of forgiveness, anger, or needing justice still surface from time to time.) Learning these kinds of individuals cannot change was also helpful. Over time, the hurt I experienced was less and less about my personal shortcomings (through his hurtful words that I had mistakenly held up against myself only adding fuel to his fire he started). Lovefraud helped initially for me to learn some basics about the behaviors (how to identify a sociopath, etc) \and then went even further to help me regain myself again, to learn this could be the start of a whole new positive change for me and my approach to relationships (which I also learned has been punctuated by somewhat similar encounters although nothing as awful as this last one). I am resolved now to keep seeking the truth in others and in myself. I won’t be so quick to be attracted to those with effortless charm and fearless impulsiveness or selfish motives, no matter how “successful” they might be in other areas of their lives. I have learned about my old pattern of picking out this kind of “successful” person from a crowd. I have learned about my own impulsiveness and (controlling) need to be a caretaker to someone emotionally unavailable. It can work in the short run but not for anything more substantial… like love.
That is where I am heading now, towards love, a shared love, and with luck I will find this. Lovefraud has helped and this is why I have taken time to write here, to express continued gratefulness for all those who make this site so helpful. My words are here for God too, as a prayer to share with Him my gratefulness during this recovery period, for His help and the strength he has given me to rise above the chaos with new insights and compassion for myself. To experience how I am able to take responsibility too for my own welfare, to be an active and (still) loving part in this process. God answered my prayer and I believe He will also answer others who ask and pray. (A higher power can do this, however you come to see this and whatever names you choose to use for it)…
To go one step further, my words here are also a prayer for those that are also, at this very moment, trying hard through very difficult times to find their own understanding and strength. I hope you find it and I hope you are also able to set yourself free from all that is cruel, careless and hurtful. (Please read all you can about this kind of disorder, it really helps to get past the hurt from being left in the dark.) We each have this power within us, it is up to each of us to find it and put it to good use!
And, Oxy.. I love animals.. but if a horse almost bit off my boob, he’d be seeing the backside of me in a hurry.
Dear Kat,
I think that MANY of “Us” get part of our “self esteem” from BEING NEEDED. That may be the thing that is the common denominator with us. The common denominator for “Them” is NO CONSCIENCE, and maybe the one for “us” is TO BE NEEDED and APPRECIATED.
I notice there are an “out of proportion” (apparently) number of people here in the “helping professions” and maybe that’s why we choose to work “helping” people.
I do know that “being needed” when I was doing things for my folks made me feel “good” ego wise. I was taking care of my step father when he had cancer and I WANTED to, it wasn’t a burden for me because I loved him, but it DID make me feel good when the would say “Babe, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
In thinking about those 18 months that I cared for him, almost 24/7 the first 4 months while he did a couple of chemo treatments and was SOO sick, then after he stopped the chemo and wasn’t so sick, I was still there daily but not 24/7, then when various complications seemed to set in all at once I was there again. But I have NOTHING but good memories about those 18 months. We had a special bonding time together, and I saw wonderful aspects of his sense of humor that I had never seen before. We even laughed about the fact that a man who had been very “quiet” all his life suddenly became a chatter box the last 18 months of his life.
We got a chance to do our grieving together, BEFORE he died, and had wonderful hospice nurses, etc. His faith in God and his great personality and his caring heart all shone through during that time. Yes, I got a LOT of emotional satisfaction and ego strokes during that time, as well. I WAS needed, and I was GLAD to step up to the plate because I loved him.
Maybe though at least SOME of our satisfaction etc. could be from “helping” people so they will be “grateful” to us and care for and love us because we “helped” them.
Enabling can creep in there too. With enabling, we take over a responsibility for someone’s welfare instead of “helping” them by doing only the things they can’t do for themselves. Sometimes too, people will “take advantage” of your helping out in a crisis, sort of like the girl with the two horses. I didn’t know her but I did casually know her adoptive mother (just from seeing her in the community and she was a former patient at my clinic when I had one here in the community) and since the fences were down on her farm, I agreed, as a “good neighbor” to take her two horses in temporarily.
Then, however, as I became more acquainted with the family and the “girl” who owned the horses, and saw the dynamics of the situation I realized what was going on–and I think that family puts the “FUN” back in family DYS-____CTION. LOL
Plus, the younger of the two horses at age 3 does not even know how to lead, and is vicious because she has always gotten away with scaring people by threats. The girl doesn’t know how to “tame” or “train” a horse either. It’s just a bad situation, and I won’t have ANY animal on this place that is “bigger AND meaner” than I am. It just can’t be BOTH bigger and meaner. LOL A 1000 pounds of any animal that is TRYING to hurt you is not a good idea for anyone.
At first I was going to help her train the animal to stand tied and lead, but then I got t thinking, “I’m 61 years old, and I am going to be breaking horses for someone else just to “be nice” and help out? Wait a minute, this is MY PROBLEM HOW?”
Then I began to think logically. 1) They are not my horses, so what is the benefit to me? 2) what is the RISK of getting seriously hurt? 3) If a person owns an animal they can’t control, doesn’t have the money to feed it (they are NOT cheap) doesn’t have the money to pay the vet bill she has already run up from injuries to the animals from the storm, doesn’t get along with her mother anyway and they fight over the horses, this is MY PROBLEM HOW?
So I FINALLY realized that the horses being here for a short time while she found other facilities was a “nice gesture on my part to help out a neighbor” but that keeping them here because she can’t afford to find and pay for a pasture is ENABLING this girll to hang on to horses that she, by her ignornace and poverty can’t afford, so the horses are actually suffering hunger unless I or my pasture renters feed them.
What had STARTED out as “helping” had TURNED INTO “enabling” if I let the horses stay and the owner was NOT motivated to take care of her horses herself—which is the proper thing for her to do. Getting the horses a new home was (to me) the obvious answer. If you can’t afford to feed an animal and take care of it, pay your vet bills, etc. you “find it a new home” or put it down. What would have been accomplished if I had NOT told her to move the horses? I would have either had to watch them poorly cared for and under fed or I would have had to feed them myself. NOPE. Not in the cards.
I know all that seems a LOT of thinking about a “small” problem, but it is a GIANT STEP for me to actually sit and THINK about the differences between helping and enabling.
It also helped me to see that many times in the past I have gone from a HELPING DEED OR IMPULSE into an ENABLING MODE, sort of IN SMALL STEPS. What started out as my desire to ASSIST or HELP someone in a “bad situation” but before long, I was taking over RESPONSIBILITY for them or their problems—ENABLING them to depend on me, and with all the usual results that come from ENABLING vs being a helpful person. I did “Get” something out of it—I felt good to be so “helpful” but before long the “something” I got from the ENABLING part was frustration that they would NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEMSELVES and kept on wanting MORE MORE MORE enabling. At that point, I was frustrated, angry, etc. at being “put in a situation”—actually, it is like with the Ps, at first things are rosy, but then turn nasty and angry—so now, I am IRKED at this girl, and she is probably thinking to herself what a bitch I am for making her move her horses when she really doesn’t have the money to rent some pasture.
I’ve sat and mused, applying this “new knowledge” about my self, my “helping” motivations vs. my “enabling” behaviors and I’ve seen a PATTERN there. It starts off with the motivation to “help” and ends up in “enabling” or somewhere in between and I end up feeling BAD, or even guilty for setting a boundary. EVEN A REASONABLE and nice boundary.
James was talking about (in another thread I think) about a woman he knew with some small children, she stayed with the P father of her children though she was not receiving support for the children or herself, and James was giving her money from time to time for food for the children.
I also see a pattern here. I have children (horses) and I can’t afford to feed them because of ________, and I want to get you to pity me and them and you feed them so I don’t have to. I won’t do what is best for my children (horses) but I want you to take responsibility to feed them so I don’t have to. If you don’t assume this responsibility my kids (horses) will go hungry and YOU WILL FEEL BAD because you didn’t feed them.
Is that BLACKMAIL or what? So, James is caught in the middle, if he doesn’t give her money for the food for the kids, the kids are hungry and James feels guilty. I am caught in the middle cause if the horses are not cared for I feel guilty.
But in both cases, we are “being worked” over by our own guilty feelings and our empathy for the children/horses.
The little Terrier dog I have had since January this year is because it’s previous owner, divorced from a P, was unable to care for it properly and afford shots and vets so she asked me to take the dog because I knew and liked the dog. THAT is a responsible pet owner. She couldn’t afford to feed and care for it, so she found it another home that WOULD take the dog and care for it well.
Unfortunately, due to several factors, the two horses are not worth anything, and even finding them a “rescue” home will be difficult due to their poor quality and dispositions. But, IT’S NOT MY PROBLEM and I won’t assume responsibility for it.
And, I am working on NOT feeling guilty about it either. I do admit if you have empathy for others, and critters as well, it is at least for me, difficult not to want to MAKE IT MY PROBLEM.
PS–I just went on to a “co-dependent” web site and I think I “qualify” to “be there”—I read and read their posts, and it seems for that reading at least that almost everyone there was involved with a P—they were doing the same thing we are “supporting” each other to GET OUT and STAY OUT of that relationship. They didn’t “call” their dysfunctional others “Ps or Ss) but essentially that seems to be what they are.
I know that lots of people who are in abusive relationships don’t like to “label” themselves as “co-dependent” but I think that much of MY THINKING AND BEHAVIOR was based on that, so I am going to take a giant leap here and label myself CO-DEPENDENT. Head nodding here with a sort of “ah ha” moment.
I also think that in order to fully heal I need to keep on focusing on changing myself, but at the same time, I think the KNOWLEDGE OF THE Ps is also essential as well. How to spot them and what they are. I think if I focus only on myself, without knowledge of how “they” are, I will have done only half the job, and also the reverse, if I focus ONLY on “them” and not on myself, I still will have done only half the job. I think it needs to be BOTH focusing on them AND myself. Maybe I have answered my own questions about what “we” have in common. I also realize that just like “P-isms” have levels of dysfunction and some are more violent than others, maybe some of “us” (victims) are more co=dependent than others in our behavior and/or thinking.
Setting boundaries though, helps “us” (victims) stop being available for them (the Ps) and NC is the ultimate boundary. I think I will be doing a lot of reading on Co-dependency. Learning that “fine line” between being a “helper” and an “enabler” is my next “self improvement” project. I think I am off to a “good start” with boundaries, but at the same time, I need to do some more work.
Where’s Henry Tonight? Henry, I just thought of something, while you are blogging … turn your speakers on and download gotradio or another freebie site … then load your favorite music … listening to music that you like – not thinking, just enjoying.
Peace.
Hi everyone,
I am new to this site and am so grateful that it exists. I was with my ex-P (ex-fiancee) for almost 3 years. The last time I spoke to him was 3 weeks ago, so everything is still very much fresh in my mind. After “a huge discovery”), I told him that I never wanted to see or talk to him again. I haven’t heard or seen him since and I’d like to keep it that way. I figured he was already on to the next victim. Before finding “Love Fraud”, I was so confused, depressed and angry. Now I feel like I have a wealth of knowledge about Ps. Don’t get me wrong, I am far from being “over it” but am learning that every day will get better, especially with God, my family and friends. For now, I am just trying to take one day at a time and put one foot in front of the other. I plan to write “my” story on this site when the time is right. Right now, I need to concentrate on ME and heal. Thank you again to everyone on this site, who has shared their stories, feelings and support. God bless all of you.
Wini – A free site is Launchcast Radio – I listen to meditation music or just anything I am in the mood for. I have stopped listening too (the you done me wrong songs) _ for months I cried with Whitney Houston’s It Hurt’s So Bad and waiting to exhale is another tear jerker. And george michael has some good spath song’s…lol Wini I am getting over this – 5 month’s no contact… I still question myself alot [did i love him?] or [not]…It was just the classic sociopath senario – he mirrored me, became my fantasy, abused me, disrespected me..used me up and left me an emotional wreck. And I have moved past the tuffest part of the pain. Yeah I still have time’s that set me back. But just getting on with living and [time] is the best advice to anybody. Mostly I am still humiliated and embarrassed that I put up with him so long. Oxy has been a great source of help as so many of you have. And I did get to meet Perky when I was in Co. that was very special too me. It is difficult for me to leave this website – I have friend’s here. The encounter with the spath has forced me to [deal] with some issue’s. And I do feel connected with the universe again, you call it God – I just know something bigger than all of us is looking down on us – someone or something has a plan – ! I think when we are involved in such a chaotic relationship our brain’s get addicted to the anxiety and drama. It has been so difficult for me to just relax and be calm and by myself. But I am enjoying that again. I have [my] home back (the one I offered to him) I have my space back (hi is not in it anymore) and I have my identity back (the one he tryed to posess) . All in All – Henry is doing well. And when I have a bad day or night or his memory slip’s into my thought’s (too much) I come here – and you all understand—–peace
Hey heartoheart.. stick around and welcome to the site.
Henry, I understand that same strange question (did I love him?) As this whole experience is fading, I feel less and less inclined to answer that one. You see, all it takes is a few moments to also remember how awful I was treated at the end and then the point is lost. Those memories get played around over and over so it’s pretty confusing. (being “in love” and then being spit out. It is clearly and painfully illogical. The human heart is can bear much, but this is truly the limit, it is also the limit for the mind to even try to fully comprehend this too). So, just like you and others here, I come back here for the small dose of reality I need to keep a perspective. Sometimes just a few words is all need, sometimes, like tonight, I need to read many posts and feel lucky I can also express my thoughts here in a post. My hypervigilence has really subsided, a few weeks have passed and I am sleeping better now. I feel I have gained part of myself back too. It is slow and there are set backs here and there. But I keep reminding myself to stay determined. And it is working. Here is to all of us for taking back our lives!
heartoheart,
Welcome to LF. I’m sorry about your experience but so thankful you figured it out now. You are right on in taking care of yourself first. When you feel ready, please share your story. We all learn from each other in such amazing ways here. You’ve got great support from the folks on this site. One thing we all realize coming here is that we’re not alone. We can get through this together.
God Bless
to clarify… a few weeks has passed since the hypervigilence subsided. That lasted nearly two months. (It was awful too, and I hated not sleeping well plus all the nightmares…) I am now four months with NC… and going strong!