UPDATED FOR 2024. Last week, Lovefraud posted a letter from “Cybil,” I did not choose this guy. Here’s more of her experience about “things people say.”
I’ll call this, “Things people say, part II.” This is the other one that bugs me: “You’re paranoid.” I always have a good 24 hours of self-doubt before I realize they’re the ones that are nuts, not me. I know a lot more about what crazy stuff is out there in the world than your average, never-tangled-with-a-sociopath human does.
I just went to a seminar of a national expert on how domestic violence leads to murder, especially for women. Over and over he said, “Trust your instinct.” He told the audience to take women seriously when they have these stories (like those on this blog) and that if she is a co-worker you should elevate these stories to security for everyone’s safety because it could easily become a workplace shooting.
Paranoid
But continually I have had people in my life say I am paranoid since my ex came into my life. HE used to tell me I was paranoid. Crazy. Hysterical. Depressed. I wasn’t. I was living in a psychological and physical war zone. People who survive sociopaths have survived wars. The people on the blog are war-buddies.
The funny part is watching how the people who told me I was paranoid act when their blinders fall off. Like my parents, every few weeks another blinder falls off. When the death threats came in, they were in shock and they never said, “You told us so,” but they started taking things a bit more seriously and realized that when they told me I was paranoid that he was going to kill me (Well, yes, he hit you, he lied to you, he had an arrest record, but he’d never kill you. He’d get in trouble. He’s not that stupid), they were wrong. The sad part is watching them go back into denial as the “living with death threats” thing starts to become routine.
A strange event happened the other day. I called the police. My parents say: You know that was just a random thing that happened. You’re paranoid.
Really?
Responsibility
I am going to start telling people in my life, you are not allowed to tell me I’m paranoid or that I chose this guy. Not only is it horribly deflating, it goes to the heart of what I am healing from and getting stronger by.
When people tell me “You chose him,” they are telling me I have to take more responsibility, but taking more than my share of responsibility for what happened is what kept me in the bad relationship longer than I should have been. Because I started to believe it was my fault, because he told me it was my fault. If I could just fix me, then maybe he wouldn’t have to get so crazy and mean. It took me several years of dangerous experimenting with every “me” I could be, to realize it wasn’t ME. Yeah, I don’t have a problem taking responsibility and I don’t need help taking more.
When people tell me “You’re paranoid,” they are really questioning my instinct and telling me not to listen to it. I am a year and a half out from living with an abuser and a gaslighter; I am largely over the hyper-alert period. I know what I feel. Doubting that was also what kept me in the bad place: Maybe he is telling the truth, maybe he did do that for my own good, maybe I am being too judgmental, maybe I should give him another chance. Not doubting my instinct to walk out that last time was what let me walk out!!!!
I’m not going back there. Not even in a mental sense.
Learn more: Beyond betrayal — how to recover from the trauma
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 27, 2010.
The sociopathic MO in three easy steps
I want to know what my meat DIED OF—in my case, with beef it is always “lead poisoning,” a big piece right between the eyes!
I don’t mind getting up close and personal with what I eat! In fact I like it that way. YUM!
Stop the whining ONE_STEP, just keep the sodiium under 1500 mg and before long anything that has any natural salt in it at all will start to taste like sea water! I was (guess I still am) a salt-a-holic if ever there was one, and I’m even getting to where I can taste a food that is not LOADED with salt and it is starting to actually taste good.
I made stew tonight out of the pot liquor of my roast and veggies and it had NO salt in it and the only salt I had was what was in the baking powder and the 1/2 tsp salt in the corn bread and I only ate 1 piece of that, so did fine and food actually had TASTE. So weaning off the salt takes a while but YOU CAN DO IT!!!!! I KNOW YOU CAN!!!
I’ve been thinking about the “first do no harm” part of the process and that is part of the medical oaths we take, to first do no harm….and not taking care of myself IS DOING HARM so I’ve bot to keep on keeping on just in that direction….then add to it by DOING GOOD.
So, “do no harm+”do good”=the “good life!”
One….don’t forget the spikey heal.
Pot liquor???? Easy there OXY D!
Pot liquor is what is left when you cook a roast, it is the meat juices and whatever vegetables and/or juice or water, herbs and spices etc. all mixed together. I don’t have even 1% fat on my meat so there is almost no fat on top of it when you chill it, and then I take a fork and pick of any tiny flecks of solidified fat on the top (maybe like 1/2 oz for 5 pounds of meat!)
Just the broth off the roasts is wonderful to drink a hot “cuppa”–yum!
Yea, SPIKEY 6 inch heels, would break my neck! LOL
Oxy & anyone else who needs to send mail from a far-away place –
I am more than happy to be a registered mail carrier for all of you. I can offer many postal locations throughout Western Australia, as I have family 2 hours drive south from here and friends an hour and a half’s drive in the opposite direction – also, I sometimes trot way out east of the capital. A circle of around 300+km (or close to 200 miles)
If anyone needs to take me up on the offer, please feel free to contact Donna for my email address. I would enjoy assisting with a back-spathing or twenty!
aussie’s back in da hauz!
oxy – it was my first salt craving. now, i have been eating food that contains salt – but adding no salt. that’s a start. i have to tell you i have no less that 5 different types of salt in my house at all times, in lovely cellars – and i dip my fingers into them – so, maybe my saltaholicism might be a wee bit more developed than yours. 🙂
but, no matter – i am making progress. if i can get my salt intake down to what it was about 4 years ago, i will be happy. my bp is high, for the first time in my life, so i need to look at all the ways i can to lower it. but i have to go one step at a time.