UPDATED FOR 2024. Editor’s note: The following post was submitted by the Lovefraud reader “Adelle.”
We often hear the saying, “If the shoe fits wear it.” We all know people are not referring to a shoe. In other words, if the description fits you, own up to it. If someone calls you a fool, and you think you are a fool, then wear that title! If someone calls you a hypocrite and you agree, wear it, you are a hypocrite.
But when this phrase is used, it isn’t usually given to you as an option. It is usually used as a weapon of accusation. With evil, with intent to hurt. For example, “Are you calling me a liar?” Response: “Well, if the shoe fits wear it.” The person hearing this phrase is usually on defense.
How many times have you been accused of something you didn’t want to receive? Accused of being a liar, a hypocrite, jealous, controlling and so on. You may have first thought, “I am not __________!” (YOU FILL IN THE BLANK.) You analyzed it because your accuser sounded convincing. “Well, maybe he/she is right, maybe I am controlling, abusive, jealous.”
When I first met my SP, one of the many lies he told me was that he was divorced and had one child. Far from the truth, which was: He was still married and had 3 children with the back then current wife (now divorced), this was his third marriage and he has a total of 7 or 8 kids, not all from these marriages.
As usual with SP’s, things weren’t making sense. Why did he never speak to this child or his ex in front of me? I started asking questions, looking for his ex on Facebook to confirm what he was saying. He was very private with his phone and I also questioned that.
I asked many questions and I asked in a kind manner. What did I get back? Accusations of being a jealous and controlling person!
If I asked anything, I was controlling, jealous, possessive and I was going against everything I preached. (I am a public speaker and I speak to girls about dating relationships.) No, I wasn’t! I had the right to ask; I was in a relationship with this person, or so I thought. After questioning myself many times, after things not making sense, I opted to end the relationship.
That was not about to happen, he wouldn’t have that.
I moved a total of 3 times trying to avoid the SP. He would never leave me alone, and I was always convinced that if I were the caring, compassionate person I claimed to be, then I would understand him and give him another chance.
If I spoke mean and ugly to him (which I did), I was told I was a mean and heartless woman!
The lies continued, porn on my laptop. I knew I hadn’t accessed it, but of course he denied he had. Once again, I was an accuser, a jealous, controlling woman! Many times I tried to end the relationship. I didn’t want to stick around and make sense out of nonsense! Then I was a “quitter;” I didn’t try hard enough!
I am not all those things HE called me! Those shoes don’t fit and I’m not going to wear them!
We’ve all worn uncomfortable shoes, shoes that didn’t fit, shoes that were given to us by our parents, by an ex dating partner. Shoes like, “You are never going to amount to anything!” Or, “You’re just like your mother.” Or, “You’re a jealous and controlling person.”
We walked around with these shoes for years in pain and in agony! We stumbled with those stupid shoes; we were crippled by those shoes that didn’t fit!
The beauty is that once we are out of this maze, we realize THEY are all the things they called us, those are their shoes. They don’t fit us and we don’t have to wear them.
I am a beautiful, giving, loving and trustworthy woman. These are my shoes and I wear them well! I now walk with a little pep in my step!
12 Seduction strategies from the Sociopath Playbook
Dear Aussie Girl,
Have you tried a drug called Lyrica? It might be the ticket for your pain. Sometimes it is like a “miracle” drug for Fibro pain. Check with your doctor and maybe it might help. I have friends with Fibro that have tried it very successfully.
Oxy –
Opinions here in Oz about Lyrica vary. Several people in my Fibro support group have tried it and have all had dreadful reactions to it. I opted not to try it because I knew that it could go one way or the other and I simply would not have coped with a bad reaction to it at the time I was diagnosed and was also up to my eyeballs in spathiness.
Some bad reactions include psychotic hallucinations (waking and sleeping) that are vivid, graphic, awful and difficult to erase from memory. I didn’t want to risk it. I have also read that many people swear that it’s the drug that stopped them from suiciding from the pain etc. of Fibro……different strokes I guess.
For me, the osteo-arthritic painkillers (6 a day) take the edge off the pain and I find that even when I don’t think I can move at all of a morning, if I FORCE myself to do it, once moving, I am mostly okay. If I stop to rest a while, I seize back up and then it’s back to the beginning but if I can keep going (at a sensible pace) then although I am tired and sore at day’s end, it’s not usually any worse than it would have been had I stayed in bed or sat in a chair all day (plus I feel more useful!)
I’m cycling to improve my overall fitness and to overcome depression by pumping those endorphins into me! I don’t take meds for the anxiety/depression, preferring to work it out of me in other ways. Not everyone with PTSD or anxiety or depression can travel this road but I find that I am able to manage.
Once the spath is dead (or in jail) and I can relax a little more, I would be willing to give Lyrica a go if my pain is still yukky. Who knows? I might be one of those for whom it IS the miracle drug. I just couldn’t afford to risk the possible side-effects while everything else in my life was so topsy-turvey 🙂
Aussiegirl, if you find something that works for the fibro, please let us know. I have a young friend who is only 17 who has it and is suicidal over the pain. I wish I could offer him any advice. I will mention the Lyrica. I’m sorry you are suffering so much. Fibromyalgia is actually labeled as a “syndrome” and not a disease because doctors don’t really know what it is or what causes it. A “syndrome” is simply a collection of symptoms.
I went to a workshop years ago to learn a massage technique called “Muscle Release Technique”. It is supposed to be very effective for fibromyalgia patients. The inventor is Michael Young from Evergreen, CO. He might have a website. I have had the opportunity to use some of the techniques with fibromyalgia patients with very good results. But in my experience as a cmt, any kind of massage helps the condition. Have you tried massage?
Another technique I learned at another massage workshop for fibromyalgia involves standing in an ice cold shower for a full minute and a half to two minutes. The reason for this is that with fibromyalgia, the body is constantly in fight or flight response, so there is a constant pouring of the stress hormone, cortisol, into the bloodstream and keeping the person in a state of stress. Shocking the body with ice cold water temporarily resolves the flight-or-fight reaction. It gives it something to react against, so it peaks and then resolves itself. This is how I learned it.
Star, Ice massages are also helpful for muscle pain….painful at the time but work really well in the end.
Oxy, extreme temperatures tend to block neurotransmitters for pain. The way I learned it is that the neurotransmitters for temperature work faster than those for pain, so it temporarily blocks out the pain. That is why massage therapist always recommend hot tubs or ice. But the cold shower has a different m.o. It has something to do with resetting the hormonal release of cortisol by tricking the body into thinking there’s been a trauma to react to. The body can then react and it’s over, so the adrenals can stop producing the hormone. Does that make sense? In f.m. patients, it’s as if they are constantly in a state of anticipation of trauma. The cold shower creates the trauma. The body can react to it, and then go back to normal.
I had a friend who thought her problem was fibro. It all fit. But it turned out to be a COMBINED food sensitivity to dairy, high fructose corn syrup, and gluten. Food allergies are difficult b/c there is a delay. And in her case, it wasn’t just one food, it was the slowing of digestion that came from gluten AND the dairy allergy (not lactate intolerance but allergy to casein… which is why goat milk and taking eyzymes did not help her.), AND the toxin of corn syrup.) She was literally POISONING her immune system and when all her lumph nodes would react and swell and she gained fluid retention, kidney problems, ulcers, intestinal inflammation, mega pain followed.
Just telling you in case such a scenario might make a dif as it did for my friend, who went from house/bed bound to triathete.
Yea, I see what I think you are saying, Star….I also found out that if you lie in a hot tub for a bout 20 minutes and then take a COLD shower it does something that causes very deep relaxation. I am not sure why (though I have some ideas) but I used to be totally amazed at the guys in Aspen rolling in the snow after a hot tub, but wow, it is great. I actually finally tried it and it was absolutely wonderful…sometimes now I will get into a very hot bath, lie down and relax, and then stand up and hit a cold shower and it does the same thing. It is very relaxing. I had a massage therapist once at a spa in Hot Springs National Park here in Arkansas who put me into a very hot mineral bath, then laid me down on a lounge chair and put iced wash cloths on my face for a while then gave me the massage. It was absolutely wonderful.
stargazer
are you saying that in times of great stress, a cold shower might shock the body to STOP overproducing cortisol? but if the cold stimulates shock, wouldn’t that instigate cortisol?
help me out with what I am missing in my thinking?
Star and Aussie,
from my experience, fibro is a swelling of the muscle fibers due to toxicity. In my case, it was poisoning. But it can also be due to so many other things, like gluten intolerance or food allergies.
When I was being poisoned, I used magnesium and it helped ALOT, but not completely. Then I added the amino L-carnitine. That helped even more. Then I found that CoQ10 was also helpful. Then HMB. Together these supplements in large quantities did the trick.
The magnesium worked, in part because it causes diarhea. Whatever you have in your intestine that is making you sick, makes a quick exit. (sorry to be so graphic again) The other supplements are used by body builders to increase the efficiency of the mitochondria. The cells burn more efficienctly and less toxins accumulate, therefore less swelling occurs within the muscle tissue.
You can research each of those.
Lastly, check out DLPA. An amino acid that does help with pain in some people. It increases the endorphins in the brain.
Oxy
Your description about your massage treatment makes me think the universe is encouraging me towards a getaway that was recently an inspiration!!
I have done a similar thing at the Turkish baths in Harrogate. Hot sauna rooms, then cool mineral pools. Sheer heaven.