Editor’s note: This artice was written by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “One/joy_step_at_a_time.”
I have been thinking a lot about Donna’s May 28 blog thread, If you feel an emotional void, the sociopath will step in, and the responses to it.
Tonight I took a long walk and sat down by the lake and thought about what the spath drew out in me. She showed me ”˜the gap.’ It’s humourous to me to type the phrase ”˜the gap.’ When I lived in Eastern Europe, I heard a phrase over the loud speakers at the train station, over and over again. I finally asked a friend the meaning of the phrase, and he told me it meant, ”˜mind the gap between the platform and the train.’
I haven’t minded the gap. I realize that the spath drew out two parts of my personality, and that these two parts of me, the three year old and my young adult self, can both look in on a part of me lost in the gap. I have often gone back and investigated ”˜the gap’ in my life. But, in the wake of the spath experience I see that it is still there, still in need of having light shone on it, and that I now have the opportunity to view it from two very different perspectives.
Damaged family life
There were brutal things that happened before this, but when I was eight, my mother had a horrific car accident, which put her in the hospital for a very long time, and damaged her body for life. It damaged our family life and left my sib and I to fend for ourselves as my father tried to maintain the family farm. We were terribly isolated in our small rural area. We had no family close by, and my parents wouldn’t allow us to go to live with our grandparents where we would have gotten the care and attention we needed.
The spath drew out these two strong parts of my personality — one part that existed before the gap, and one part that existed after the gap. During the gap my needs, first as a child, then as a teenager, were neglected. I did not have a role model for understanding feelings, nor a way to contextualize them. Life was like a dark dream — even when I was happy, there was so much pain.
When my mom finally came home from the hospital, broken and battered, she screamed in pain for hours on end. My poor little empathetic heart broke. I was not allowed to go to her, but would endure listening to her. I would not leave the house. I would stand under her bedroom and wait. I am not sure what I was waiting for — except the cessation of her pain. When she was finally able to get around, she was not a happy woman — she was riddled with pain and drugs. She was bad tempered and not able to cope with the life she was living. We should have left the farm at that point, so that she did not have to go back to work to support the damned thing — but my father is an n and she is supply, and he wanted to farm.
At the age of 13 I was asked to write an ”˜autobiography’ for one of my school classes. I had a wonderful teacher that year; someone who showed compassion and who really tried to reach me. I remember discussing my autobiography with her when she returned them to the class. I had written about my life to the age of 8 or 9, and then from 12 onwards. I had skipped the years in between as ”˜I didn’t remember’ them.
Abuse
I ‘woke up’ at 14, and immediately started to club myself to sleep with drugs. I was emotionally and sexually used by the young men in our area. I met the son of one of them last week, and it brought shame to the surface. I looked back on all the boys I knew from the age of 13 on, and there was a lot of usery. I didn’t know that these boys were using me and my friends. I didn’t know that my feelings were indicators that another’s behaviour was bad for me (how could I stay in my house if I KNEW that), and I was innocent. I had no idea what they were up to. Just as I didn’t know what the spath was up to — as I had never run into that before either, and no one protected me with knowledge. Innocence isn’t lost. It is torn from us. Pulled out our souls, leaving great rivers of raw wounded feelings.
My parents didn’t do much to help me understand life. They didn’t give me the emotional tools or the notion of boundaries that would help me to take care of myself and make my way in the world. They yelled at me, they ignored me, and they smacked me every now and then. Most of the significant events of my early life were met with an emotional frigidness that left me feeling shamed and alien. My mother was supply, and was set on my sib and I being supply, too. Dad was an n. I did my best to fit in, and when I couldn’t, I took drugs. Lots of them. I also participated in my own abuse at the hands of others — some who were too young and dysfunctional themselves to really be held accountable. And I learned to hurt myself in many ways: emotionally, mentally and with the choices (non-choices) I made.
The spath and the gap
It was great to move out of home and BREATHE. I started to feel the beauty in the world that existed outside the dark dream and repression in my family. But I carried on making ill-informed choices. And all of these hurts and abuses piled up. They lead me to the other strong part of my personality — the woman who wants to run, the woman who would fight fist-to-cuffs, the woman who cries like a warrior on the outside and who holds a river of pain on the inside. I didn’t truly meet her until I was duped by the spath.
The ”˜gap’ is the person who bridges these two strong parts of my personality. I don’t know what to do for this part of me, for this part of my past, but I need to shine some light in that frozen dark dream space. It seems to be thawing, yet again, as I look in from the eyes of the child and the eyes of the warrior. The spath once called me a ”˜magnificent creature’. It was a deep compliment to me. She saw both this warrior and this child. She called the warrior out. The fake boy (child) she made up needed to be cared for. I need to care for myself, but I learned early and repeatedly to care for others — even if all I could do was stand frozen in the face of their suffering. I wasn’t taught autonomy — I am lucky that it is natural to my character, but I still have to fight all of the time to develop it and retain it. The spath got me to care for the fake boy — instead of myself. But in the end I have learned that I want to take care of myself at the expense of taking care of others. My eyes have been opened to what my family members are, and what they would still take from me if I allowed them to. It has been a hard, harsh lesson.
one/joy: thank you for this. You said a lot of intriguing things, getting me thinking. I don’t have much to say at the moment…. going within to ponder a bit. 🙂
One steppers,
That’s a good analogy about the “gap”. It’s another opening for the spath to come in and try to fill to be the savior we think we need. You didn’t need someone to save you though, you saved yourself.
I do believe the spaths can be very insiteful, it’s part of being a prediator, they need to know their prey. Her insite into your warrior spirit and the little girl who just wanted to be loved, gave her all sorts of ammunition to manupulate you.
The spaths do all of this naturally, they are natures horrible mistake and to make up for all their emptiness, use their preditory insticts on us. It’s like breathing to them. Like you said, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, we have the last laugh after all.
Hopeforjoy,
“they are natures horrible mistake”
I like that. Like the runt of the litter.
Onestep,
Dysfunctional family is my middle name. Any light shining will be greatly appreciated. Like you, there are things that I experienced that I have not looked at for a long, long time. It’s painful and it makes me angry when I try to work out WTF happened. So I leave it ….back there in my past life.
Inevitably I look for reasons why I was targeted. Oh yes there are the obvious ones. I can see them now. But I was told about ten years ago to draw a line under it and move on. I was told I was an angry person. You know, it worked to a certain extent. But my search for why I am the person I am always comes back to wondering how the hell did I get here
Sorry I’m sort of rambling. I think in some ways I just believe my parents did the best they could under the circumstances. They were Fu***d up in their turn, to quote Philip Larkin. I have tried to keep the lid on something that needs to be looked at and …I don’t know!! Acceptance comes after examination, perhaps. And I’ve never really scrutinised myself thoroughly maybe.
You have had the courage to take your past and look at it and write about it openly.
That takes guts my friend.
Your story and how you tell it moves me, one/joy, thank-you. I hope there is a Part Two.
I know the kind of wounding you are talking about with slight differences. I grew up having a mother who was in and out of the hospital and a father who was stressed and mean and wanted me to be invisible and quiet and have zero needs because he had enough to deal with, “cld I give him some peace and quiet for pete’s sake.” It was my mom who was the Narcissist, though, something I only discovered after my exspath bf experience that is now almost 2 years ago. My mom is: a narcissist, a devout Christian, handicapped. Imagine! Diabolical. I wasn’t physically abused as you were and I’m sorry that you experienced that on top of everything else. I can relate to the profound loneliness of being a child who lives in such an atmosphere, the kind of profound loneliness you never quite shake. When my mother was home in between hospital stays, I had to mother her, get her in and out of bed, dress her, take her to the bathroom. This started when I was 8 so she got to train me nice and early on how to do every little thing for her and then anyone and everyone else who stepped up and professed a need. The spath experience changed everything.
This sentence choked me up: “Most of the significant events of my early life were met with an emotional frigidness that left me feeling shamed and alien.” You know what that strange and almost exquisitely painful feeling is like? Thank God. It’s a feeling that is similiar to Skylar’s “being slimed” but yet different – maybe it falls under the same umbrella, or the feelings are sisters and brothers to each other.
re “I wonder what is in the gap? It must be something very special for you to hide it even from yourself”: what a positive response and challenge! This comment, a few other comments, and your post made me start humming Madonna’s “Live to Tell.” These few lyrics are why: “the truth is never hard to find, YOU’VE KEPT IT HIDDEN WELL / hope I live to tell the secret I knew then / will I ever have the chance again?” and your concerns regarding light “I know where beauty lives / I’ve seen it once, I know the warmth she gives / that LIGHT that you could never see / it shines inside, you can’t take that from me.” I love this song. Anyway, the truth can be found, it won’t remain hidden, and the light is in you – have you tried shining it inside/out?
I don’t post often because I get myself too worked up but I read faithfully and appreciate everybody’s words (incl the little squabbles).
(including the little squabbles) thanks for the chuckle…
Hi Parallelogram,
A while back you asked me to write about slime.
At the time, I hadn’t made the connection that slime is about shame. Then I did some research and realized that shame often goes unfelt because it’s so difficult to admit. That’s when I realized that I had renamed the feeling “slime” because it was easier for me to relate to and to accept as a feeling.
There is a special quality about slime that’s different from shame, though. I think that slime is what is felt in the moment of shame transfer from observing psychopathic behavior. In other words, when I felt shame that belongs to someone else. For example, I might feel ashamed to be seen naked but I would feel slimed to see a stranger naked.
Anyway, you inspired me to write an article about it.
The article is here: http://bit.ly/IbiG3R
It’s called Apocalypse of the Psychopath because the etymology of the word shame is “to hide” and the etymology of the word apocalypse is “to unveil”. When you unveil the psychopath you find hidden shame.
I can also relate to feeling shamed and alien for having emotions in my family. We easily expressed animosity but love and tenderness were shameful things. Can you imagine how perverted that is? But I see now why that would be. Love and tenderness leave you vulnerable, animosity makes you feared. In a family controlled by a narcissist father, my mother learned never to show love and that’s what I learned.
parallelogram –
thank you so much for your post. writing an article on lf bring a huge gift – i get to hear the ideas of other’s and understand more about this spath experience and my own personal journey. i’d recommend it to anyone. this ‘gap’ piece has been on my mind, so to write about it and listen to other people’s ideas is so rich and feels so loving.
that magic number ‘8’. maybe that’s why I don’t like it! i don’t like 5&3 either… My mom was disabled from the car crash. Now she has dementia. i drove past her house tonight (work car rental) and cried because i can’t just go see her, ’cause she lives with the fucktard, my father. My mom had a lot to deal with, but she also came from a highly dysfunctional background. I can only imagine what she may have been like if she didn’t marry an n. i have cried for my mother most of my life…wanted her to have just an inch more happiness and joy. i tried very hard to do the same things you did for your dad. but, now she is demented, all chance of an inch more of real happiness is gone, and i am putting myself first. i miss her so much.
i did shine the light inside out – when i used to meditate all day. that was just before i met my n ex, and before the spath. it was the first time i felt right in my life in a very long time.
thank you for the song. i will look it up on youtube.
yep, skylar’s got some really good questions!
brothers and sisters: shamed + alien and slimed. twins from a marriage of a spath and an n.
((((stongawoman)))) – i so relate to your quandry, uncertainty, and frustration. i have taken the lid off so many times and fished around and found tiny fragments of ‘maybe’, and never have had a sense of really knowing, examining and accepting. it’s more like just stirring the damn pot!
i am really glad all this is floating around again. wish i wasn’t in such a pressure cooker at my jobs, as I would like to spend more time with it.
i drew lines under things too. did help – but that stuff doesn’t really go away. just need a spath to point to it. i came out of the spath experience more enraged than ever in my life. i have developed some very unkind traits in the wake of the experience, and the PTSD…oy, the PTSD!
but it will get better over time. it IS getting better over time. i know i have to accept myself just as i am now. it’s the only way i am going to find out who i really am (especially after the spath) and who i could be.
Good one Hope for Joy!!
I sure do (remember) Skylar, and thank YOU for remembering and sending the link – the article is impressive and I read it last night and printed it today. I’m going to reread a few times and then comment because there are so many things that caught my attention. I will comment on the 180 Rule page so as not to derail discussion on this beautiful post. This shame/slime stuff is so interesting to me and it’s part of my vernacular now. I’m constantly pointing and crying “slime” now when I see it – even when I`m watching tv. I can’t tell you how many times I get that “kick” when reading something you wrote (“kick” is good). You get nuances and I suspect you won’t stop until you get the exact essence of a matter; your viewpoints are thrilling to read. And re your article, btw…you had me at “Apocalypse of the Psychopath.”
One/Joy (one for sorrow, two for joy?), I understand. I’ve cried the same tears on behalf of a parent for what might have been. Crying about that particular subject, the tears come from way far down, holy, like you’re crying about something that goes back to the beginning of time and you are just you, one person who wishes everybody would just get the love they deserve. This is love. My dad wasn’t kind and he turned into an unloving shadow but he had much to deal with concerning my mom but so often he displayed a part of himself that was so amazing I wld wish that he had never met my mom and had been with someone who could have been his equal. He cld have been so awesome and happy, I’d think, and then cry about THAT for an hour (I am working on not indulging myself in this way.) Unfortunately, my dad would do that crummy thing where he’d be cruel but then afterwards he’d think about what he did and he’d know he hurt you so he’d be very quiet for a day or two, tender, speaking in a softer pitiful voice when he had to talk to me, and then try to do something nice. Often he’d knock on my bedroom door and ask if I wanted to get a slurpee or ice-cream. This was the signal that he was remorseful and he wanted things to go back to normal. He still does this (but I don’t live at home) and after the spath, I don’t have contact with him either because, while he may feel remorseful, he still does it and it still makes me curl into a ball and cry. I was not allowed to talk about anything regarding my feelings and I always knew it was because he didn’t want to face his shame, which is what he’d have to face if I started talking. I allowed it b/c I loved him; I still love him but I don’t allow it anymore. I disgusted myself every time I took it with a closed mouth smile. I’ve been hurt in my life, deeply, and I didn’t turn into an asshole and take it out on innocent people and he didn’t have to either, the end.
Sorry to ramble but I shared that to say that your tears for your mother must be even saltier because she is “innocent” if I read your words correctly, and you feel helpless to be there for her. I’m sorry for your sadness. I do hope you write a part 2 or part 3 – you’re on an interesting path right now and I can’t wait to read what happens next and wish you strength through it. I’m happy to read that in the midst of the pain you are taking care of yourself first. Think of yourself and how hard it is to live through this – some people don’t do it because it’s too hard (your mom? I cldn’t say, but I’ll say like my dad) and other people suffered as a result, incl themselves. It’s harder, it’s so freakin’ hard, right? The circumstances may suck but never forget that they had the choice as to what they would do about it; it is not your responsibility or obligation to fix it, even though you can’t bear what they are going through. You’re doing that hard thing and breaking the cycle that began probably way before your mothers dysfunctional family…blessings. // Oh, of course you know about the inside/out shining thing because of your meditating! Ok, shine on again, then, you… diamond. Re your inner warrior. Have you read “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes? I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again probably – I’m nuts about it and everything Clarissa Pinkola Estes (except the Mother Mary as guiding light stuff). It might be your cup of tea.
p.s. hens: some of us still don’t know how to stick up for ourselves with clarity and dignity and these squabbles are instructive like you wouldn’t believe. I was so glad someone mentioned the multiple daily postings by some people – I’ve been wanting to mention that myself because…holy cow, THANK-YOU! Like I said, I’m an infrequent poster b/c it takes a lot out of me and I don’t know how some of you do it. All I know is I’m grateful.