Editor’s note: Lovefraud honors all religious and spiritual beliefs. However, we’ve heard of many sociopaths who twist the teachings of the Bible in order to keep victims from escaping exploitation.
A reader sent the following letter in order to encourage those who are in this situation—knowing they are being abused, but being told that Scripture says they should put up with it. The reader has no affiliation with the organizations posting the material; she just thought the links were helpful.
For those individuals who are of the Christian faith (and / or of any faith) and who have, also unfortunately found themselves ”¨exposed to either sociopaths / the supporters-of-sociopaths ”¨(within their very own family or spiritual setting or, as is very ”¨often the case, both) the following links may be of some ”¨help in discovering and receiving Biblical “support” in ”¨being able to acknowledge the God-given FACT that ”¨”tolerating a sociopath’s abuse” is very simply ”¦
1) NOT part of a Christians’ “bearing one’s cross”;
2) NOT something that a Christian MUST simply ”¨”just forgive and forget” in order to have God ”¨also “forgive and forget” their own wrongs;
3) NOT merely a part of a Christians’ spiritual ”¨OBLIGATION to “turn their other cheek” (70 x 7)
4) NOT a part of “loving or ‘blessing’ one’s enemies”;
5) NOT something that in anyway “glorifies” or “honors” God, ”¨nor is it in anyway a type of “obedience” to the commandments ”¨left by God to all of mankind, nor does it follow along the ”¨lines of the “will” that God has planned for one’s life.
God has a GOOD will and plan for everyone’s life and God both can and will help people to escape, overcome, heal and even, somehow, also ”¨be able to learn from the abusive experiences that you have survived.
GOD HAS THE POWER AND THE WILL to, somehow or another, use ”¨these past experiences to “transform” a person (despite all the abuse) ”¨into becoming the very best person that they can become (to themselves”¨ and to others) and can actually somehow miraculously also use these ”¨experiences to work out all together for the GOOD within their own ”¨life (Romans 8:28; Jeremiah29:11; 3 John 1:2) and in the lives of others.
Should I offer forgiveness without repentance?
Should forgiveness be unconditional?
No forgiveness for the unrepentant
Selective Amnesia: “I have no idea what I did wrong!”
Forgiveness—does it matter if the abuser is a born-again Christian?
Oh gee Geminigirl, you are such a help!!!!!
I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through….for sooo many years!
Spaths do try to kill our spirits don’t they? What is it about “honor thy father and thy mother”? They’ve shot that one to pieces huh?
I am doing much better today….one day at a time here. Just aggravates me that she continues to email her brother and post on Facebook her updates. I guess that is her way of letting me know how glorious her life is…..yeah, whatever.
She has the “other” side of the family fooled and has for years. In fact, they’ve enabled her to the point they look stupid. Guess they think they’ll get brownie points from her and will get so see the grandchildren as a result.
Makes me sick! I ignore the whole crowd. They can have her.
Dear Oxy,
I believe, with all my heart & soul, that benzos & pain meds exist for a reason and it’s called “quality of life.”
I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (cfs) and Fibromyalgia (both dx 1998) and Interstitial Cystisis (IC) (dx 2000) generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) PTSD, and 35 year history of severe panic attacks and agoraphobia. And a bad back. All of those since abt 1975-1976 to the present.
I can’t tolerate any SSRI’s at all & have tried. Many people with CFS or Fibro can’t tolerate SSRI’s or even older tricyclics like elavil–i could tolerate a build up to therapuetic dose of elavil, dr. thought it might help with neuropathic pain (the IC) but it did not, and i was always sleepy but couldn’t quite sleep.
Some people with cfs/fibro (like me and apparently one step)are so sensitive to ssri’s they can not tolerate them at all….some in cfs community have special liquid mini-doses and can sometimes tolerate those, but they are not at therapeutic level…do it more to satisy dr’s insistence on ssris, not for any benefit.
So in order to function i take vicodin daily as needed, xanax daily as needed…and have for many years. i think one thing the medical community needs to be aware of is this: a person with panic disorder does *not* want to feel out of control. We don’t want to feel “high” at all.
I had a hysterectomy and gall bladder surgery (both at same time) in 1996. The dr and nurses told me that when i came to in recovery room i’d have a morphine pump IV thing i could squeeze. I came to in horrible pain, squeezed the pump once, felt “high” and never used it again.
After 4 days in hospital, with no pain killers, not even tylenol, they wanted to send me home with huge amount (to me) of heavy duty pain killers. I said no. Went home, took nothing.
This caused some problems when friends asked for advice when faced with their own hysterectomies. I said, “no big deal, don’t worry, i didn’t even need pain meds.” Every one of my friends did take pain meds and did use morphine pump.
But shows how much i hate not being in control of myself…i do not have unusual pain tolerance–just didn’t want to feel like that…
don’t drink & never have for the same reason.
The IC is so painful, oxy, that without vicodin i would not be sitting here at my computer, i would be in bed all the time doing lamaze breathing. A urologist wanted to feel that pain, so had symptoms induced. think he made it 10 minutes before begging for relief. Lab rats will chew through their own stomachs to get to bladder when given IC symptoms.
there is no moral reason for not prescribing meds that will and do enable a person to have a better quality of life. and if i am addicted, so be it. if i no longer need a med, i will stop it, following protocol. i would love to not need any meds at all. not even the ones i take for SVT.
many in medical profession, including one of my sisters who is four year RN, MS in nursing, licensed midwife, family nurse practitioner and clinician for 30+ years is totally opposed to my use of vicodin and xanax. To the point where she can’t help but preach to me….I believe if she had this pain she would change her mind…(or have to quit working–which she wouldn’t want to do). I function fine on these meds…the underlying illnesses are compromising, not the meds. I have, but have never used, methadone and oxycontin/oxycodone. If the pain ever gets that bad, i will break a pill in half and try it. I’m glad i have them in case the pain ever becomes completely intolerable for an extended period of time. Fibro can and does act up to the point of feeling like my bones are broken in pelvis, knees and ankles. I can’t walk, even to bathroom. The methadone is to be used for that level of pain, but i have always waited it out and crawled to the bathroom. But someday that pain may come and not go, and having strong pain meds at home makes me feel less anxious.
I think dr’s should allow those of us with pain-related health problems (like cfs/fibro/ic/bad backs/etc) to have stronger pain meds for use as needed. Same with antibiotics. i get sinus infections which don’t present as sinus infections (typical for cfs) and need antibiotics. i have some here and self-treat if i can’t get to a dr, or dr doesn’t believe i have sinus infection…i am aware of serious downside of over-using antibiotics and don’t do that…
Two good friends in spain are MD’s. Both are kind of blown away by US doctors reluctance to prescribe pain meds or anxiety meds. If i didn’t have vicodin or xanax, i would be totally housebound, most likely bedbound. What kind of life is that? And why the fear of addiction? i have never done any “drug seeking” in my life. Never thought, well, if 1 pill is good, 2 must be better, because all i want is enough relief to be able to function. That’s it. Even with pain med, am always in pain. And xanax allows me to leave the house.
The addiction is bad thinking is appropriate if a dr is convinced patient is a drug addict. But who can tell, really, when someone comes in with “subjective” pain…i am blessed to have a dr who told me, “if you get addicted, you get addicted. the main thing is to keep you functional.”
So, my 2 cents here!
CAmom
Dear CA Mom,
I am not dismissive of Fibromyalgia, I was also diagnosed with it in 1989, and it’s a biatch to manage some days.
There are a great deal of different opinions on managing chronic pain and thank goodness that now pain is considered a “vital sign” just like heart rate when you are in a clinic for anything.
I am not of the school, about “let the patient be in pain and not medicate for it,” even if the pain medication does “addict” them. (acctually if it is given for needed pain relief it is a body habituation, and is not called an addiction. An addiction is when it is taken for recreational use.) However, having worked with the spinal cord injuries in which there is a GREAT DEAL of pain (sometimes of the level of child birth!) these patients must have SUFFICIENT pain management, and yet still remain out of a coma. LOL
My point in my advice to One Step is that SHE might have gone in to this NEW PROVIDER and appeared to be “drug seeking”—she had never seen this man before and she refused the SSRIs (those are two of the things that a provider might see as “drug seeking”)
The fact that you have a doctor that knows you and your history is wonderful. One-step’s doctor didn’t know her, so could very well have perceived she was drug seeking. Going to a never-before-seen provider (usually without previous medical records) and wanting pain meds or benzos is a BIG RED FLAG for providers and most providers, not knowing this patient would be cautious about providing these drugs.
Pain meds and Benzos have some use in some patients at some times, to be determined, I think, by a medical provider who KNOWS YOU and KNOWS YOUR PROBLEM. There are good and valid reasons though to not pass them out like M & Ms.
I have several friends with SEVERE spinal cord injuries who are on some heavy meds for plain and for anxiety. One has a morphine pump. I’m not anti-medication for pain or anxiety, but my conversation with One-step was to advise HER on first looking for alternative medications that might work, and if she did need Benzos from her provider then he would be more assured that she was not just another “drug seeking” patient.
But I was careful and cautiouis ,as any provider should be I think, about Rx-ing medications that are frequently abused to patients I did not know who had no medical records from another prescriber documenting the reasons they were given, and for how long and in what dose.
Dear Oxy,
Thanks for clarifying…I had to change doctor’s recently & brought all my prescription bottles with me to new dr. The new dr cut both the vicodin and xanax down by one-third. At the next appt we talked abt it and she returned to dosage the other dr had me at. It’s just really scary to be so in pain and have so much anxiety and know there are meds that would help…I just want to be as functional as possible.
I can imagine onestep might have problems getting initial dx and adequate meds she might need as a first time patient. I have been prescribed SSRIs so many times, every time a new one came out dr wanted me to try….and i had to remind him of what happens every time i try one…my newish dr seems to understand that.
And I like the distinction between addiction and habituated…I am habituated, but have no interest in using anything recreationally. I don’t like what the meds are probably doing to my liver…so far, ok. But wish there were less toxic meds to take that would work.
I hope for a cure for cfs & fibro & IC…do you know abt IC? I had no idea what it was, sudden onset, and did feel like labor in acute stage (good thing I did natural childbirth–the lamaze breathing did help–but very weird to be pushing 50 and doing lamaze lol)
sorry you have fibro also. it sucks. i have a horse i’m trying to train and with all these illnesses it’s been uneven…sometimes i can ride for a while, other times i can only handle 5-10 minutes, and pay for it for weeks.
Agree that it would be big red flag to see new patient who is asking for benzos and/or pain meds. It’s a hard call to make. But hope she gets whatever she needs to be able to carry on and hopefully not be disabled by anxiety or pain.
I worked for years for immigration atty. Some clts were total red flags for marriage fraud —like 23 year old guy from India married to 55 year old US citizen–red flags all over the place–but once in awhile those were legitimate marriages.
(and if atty had a reputation for accepting marriage fraud cases he could lose his license–so stakes were high)
Thanks again, Oxy, I see where you are coming from, and that’s good advice for onestep. And *very* glad to hear pain is considered a vital sign now.
When our rural health clinics opened (we opened 7 and I was the initial Advanced Practice Nurse in each and worked 2 of them for several years each) immediately the flow of drug seekers marched through the office! We pretty well got those weeded out, and every once in a while one would come along, new to the area, or live 40-50 miles away and come to our clinic which meant, usually, they had “used up” all the doctors offices and clinics in a 50 mile radius of their home.
We also had the “I want to pay my $7 co-pay and get the day off work, so I can go fishing, “my stomach hurt last night” people from the local factory. I learned to stop that chit too, by NOT accompdating a walk in in less than 3 hours, and I usually did a full exam including a rectal exam—gotta check out that butt for possiblity of blood in the stool if your belly hurt last night, if they claimed to be sick at their stomach about to throw up, I gave them an injection that first of all the medication burned like heck (I would rather puke than have it) and made them so sleepy they had to call their wives to come drive them home. Twice of that treatment and they stopped doing this routine. LOL My supervising physician told me jokingly I was a “passive aggressive biatch” LOL but I said, ” Maybe so, but Hey, I CURED their stomach problems didn’t I?”
Hi Oxy – the cognitive dude is in my medical team (i have seen him a few times over a few months), and i have been with them for about a year – so he has access to my medical records, including the ones that document the horrendous SSRI experiences. I also have fibro and manage this quite well. and I DO have a cache of morphine, for extreme pain.
the point is, i have had to deal with doctors and health care professionals for a long time now for chronic illnesses and i handle myself well with these folks. this isn’t theory about how i may be perceived and how doctors use protocol, it is my life – and honestly, this guy has put me at risk. in general, if doctors don’t listen (which the cognitive dude definitely doesn’t) to their patients, they can’t treat them appropriately. And THIS is the issue, he doesn’t.
I literally stumbled on this site today… the pseudo-spiritual sociopath has been out of my life for 8 years now, but he’s in prison, and I’m still “looking over my shoulder”. Blessings to all for these resources and helpful comments. It’s healing time! (ala “Hammer Time”)
Jennie514, Glad that you found us here on LF. There is a wealth of info here and you can check out the archives for just about anything you want to read about. My x s-path also pretended to be spiritual- big time. He had the whole church singing his praises-giving him credit for things he didnt do, and believing he was someone he was not. He even became employed, with a very undeserved high salary by one of the deacons. He ended up using the company computers for his porn addiction and ended up fired. His words never matched his actions. Almost made me turn against my own faith, not beleiving any one was “real” until Gods word revealed to me that absolutely there are sheeps in wolves clothing, false prophets, and those that hurry to do evil. We are to be set apart from doers of evil, and we are to be salt and light.
Please feel free to tell more of your story, we are here for you.. xoxo
Dear One-step,
Yea, there are THOSE doctors, and Witty had one with her son, who Dx the kid as Bi-polar, gave him some Rx and then when the kid REFUSED to take the med, told HER TO JUST MAKE HIM. LOL-ROTFLMAO! Yea, stand on his lower lip and shove it down the throat of a 16 yr old kid who refuses. I guess rub his throat like a dog to get him to swallow.
There are some practitioners who WILL NOT LISTEN—soooo, back to square one. Sorry I couldn’t be of any help.
Jennie:
Welcome to LF…..I’m sure you’ll find so very much info here.
I’m glad your away and he’s been locked up…..it’s time to heal and figure it all out girlfriend…..and most of all begin the journey to YOU!
You’ll find stories you can relate to here, articles you connect to and the validation we don’t get in the ‘real’ world.
Stick around and read, read, read!!!