Perhaps, in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Connecticut, people will finally start talking seriously about how to cope with the mentally disturbed. Liza Long, mother of 13-year-old boy who sometimes rages out of control, tells her story.
‘I am Adam Lanza’s mother’: A mom’s perspective on the mental illness conversation in America, on HuffingtonPost.com.
Dr. Liane Leedom recommended this story for Lovefraud readers.
Yes, they ALWAYS have more than one thing going on. ALWAYS. It’s never just ONE disorder.
Oxy, that bucket of cold water is the epiphany that probably saved your life. It’s not pleasant, but it’s necessary for survival.
Brightest blessings
Honestkindgiver,
That is IT…we are WAY too tolerant of all the abuse. We try to find an EXCUSE for what is causing the problem….drinks? Okay, if we can get him to stop drinking, all will be well. Bi-polar? get him in counseling and get him some medicine. All will be well. ADHD, more counseling and more medication. All will be well.
We finally realize that no matter WHAT WE DO, that all will NOT be well.
And as Truthy said, that bucket of cold water epiphany probably did save my life. I do believe if he HAD come home after his first 2 years in big boy prison iinstead of going to my husband’s niece’s house in Texas that it would have been ME instead of Jessica he killed. Because he would have broken the law and I WOULD have turned him in–and Jessica turned him in. That’s why he killed her.
She didn’t know what she was dealing with. She thought this “bad boy” she was dating really wasn’t all that bad, and it was exciting. She was young, inexperienced and ignorant, but she did NOT deserve to die because of it…but she did die because of it, because she didn’t know what a red flag was, much less how to spot one. It never occurred to he would actually KILL her.
It didn’t occur to me that he would actually KILL anyone either, and even after he DID kill someone, I “knew” he would never kill ME. LOL Til he sent someone else to do it because he was in prison and couldn’t do it himself. Seeing the truth, though, at least I have not been hiring an attorney to get him out of prison…where he WOULD have killed me.
OxD,
If I was jumping up and down trying to get that bucket of cold water to be noticed, do you believe it would sink in quicker or be ignored and make it actually take longer for you to “get it”? I feel sometimes like people who are trying to get someone else to “get it”, it almost prolongs them coming to the reality we were jumping up and down about because we hand P an excuse to use with that particular person. For instance “see, she’s crazy, look at her/him” or “they aren’t living in the word of forgiveness” my personal favorite………..NOT……..
Eralyn,
Yea that “forgiveness” carp—but forgiveness in MY book does not mean we restore TRUST to them if they have not proven they are remorseful by a change in behavior.
Yes, I did appear “crazy” and people don’t want to believe that someone will not, CAN NOT change and reform. I had a woman today ask me “well how do you KNOW he has not reformed”?
BECAUSE HE TRIED TO HAVE ME KILLED! How many people does he have to KILL to get it through your head he is a MONSTER?
OxD,
I would call her up and say “I thought about what you said and I let him know you believe and so I gave him your address and he’ll be coming to stay with you, ma’am when he get’s out. Thanks for letting me see the error of my ways.” 🙂
Eralyn, LOL Yea, great response! ROTFLMAO
Sometimes when people preach forgiveness with regard to spaths, I engage them in conversation to find out if they are qualified to give me advice or not (qualified: they have had a spath experience of their own).
So I ask them, “you seem to really have faith in this process of forgiveness. Could you please offer me some examples from your life of how this works for you, so that I may better understand?”
This is a neutral approach which — for me — has helped me remain open to learning from someone, who might just have something to teach me, rather than remaining on the defensive since I have been so royally abused, no one can possibly ever understand (that is hyperbole but sometimes I do get into that resentful and angry place, not a place I want to dwell).
So then, sit back and listen to what they say. if they offer an example which is just so pale in comparison to mine, I try to remain centered and open (truly and sincerely; not pretending!) and delve a little deeper: “Thank you for sharing that. It would help me understand better, if you can describe how your relationship with the person has changed, since you forgave them. What is different/better now, and how did the experience transform both of you?”
Sometimes if I can remain open, I find there is actually a valuable lesson or gift in there for me. Sometimes I do discover that the other person (bless them) does not have a clue what my experience is, and so I can appreciate better where they are coming from, even if they can’t appreciate where I’m coming from, and that is a lesson in itself. usually what happens is that I am able to release my frustrated and hurt feelings of having taken offense at their “cluelessness.”
I’ll give you a brief, real-life example from my life, maybe I’ve offered this before, it happened about 13 years ago as I was leaving my spath marriage. One of my cousins who had always had a wonderful marriage and had always told me over the years well-meaningly, “20years, you have to understand that marriage is HARD WORK. David and I work at our marriage EVERY DAY. you need to keep trying!!!”
So for the first time ever, instead of thinking to myself, “you know, she’s right. Of course marriage is not supposed to be easy! I do need to remember my vows and keep trying. I do need to forgive. I need to keep in mind that all of us married people go through this “hard work” and so I shouldn’t give up — it is supposed to be hard!”
So — like I said for the first time ever — this time it occurred to me to ask her some questions, and I said, “Barb, do you mind giving me an example of this ‘hard work’ you do with David?” and she very openly and gladly gave me an example of what she considered to be ‘hard work.’ My reaction was like the floor dropped out from under me. I had assumed that our ‘hard work’ was the same! All this time. She had a loving husband and her example was that one time, when they had first gotten married, he had pushed her to have sex but she was tired having been working 8 hours on her feet and just wanted a warm bath and bed, and thought he should realize this, and she said, “please don’t pressure me in this particular way — I’m just super tired right now” and he reacted by saying, “ohmigosh, I’m really sorry — I didn’t realize! I won’t do it this way again. We can figure it out together.” And he NEVER DID IT AGAIN. (I’m not going into personal details — it is just that they had a bit of some “hard work of marriage” right there — and it was so pale in comparison to me — especially the part about her husband obviously caring, getting it, being willing to use this opportunity to get to know his wife better, to improve the marriage, and never repeating the offensive behavior ever again. No “cycle of abuse” there!)
I was so floored that all that time I had thought the abuse by my husband (mostly verbal, emotional but also some physical and sexual) was NORMAL HARD WORK OF MARRIAGE and I was supposed to keep trying. I mean, I had never heard of abuse other than those low-life wife-beating types, and my profile didn’t fit. I had never defined it for myself that way.
That was the day I stopped trying. SO — I just mean — sometimes asking questions will bring surprising and helpful answers and lessons. My lesson that day was that not everyone’s experience is equivalent. It was not my job to enlighten my cousin, but she certainly enlightened me, without her meaning to or realizing what she did.
I subsequently learned that it was not my sole responsibility for my troubled marriage, not my sole responsibility to fix it, to be the one always taking the blame and doing all the “hard work.” I learned that I don’t have the ability to do that. (and no one does).
To this day, my cousin still has a loving marriage and still cannot grasp what I’ve been through and she is a bit judging of me for the divorce, and I can’t help her with that POV. How can she know? All she has ever known is her own loving marriage. But I love her, she taught me a great deal, without realizing.
20years, I hope that Donna makes your response into a posted article. Seriously.
Thank you for this and brightest blessings
Truthspeak, I’m glad you found it helpful! I learn so much here from all of you…