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.
BTW, I should add that the family/friends hear my stories, they view me with sympathy for what I went through, and see me as traumatized beyond hope, that it has addled my brain somehow so that I am seeing things “differently,” yes, but differently in a mental illness kind of way, the paranoid nutjob way, or that I have “trust issues.”
Sigh.
I dwell inside of me, and I know that I have never been saner in my life.
Trauma does cause damage, but I am one tough cookie, and this has made me stronger, more compassionate, and more discerning.
Yes, so frustrating that they interpret me as damaged, just because I now see things differently from them.
I know that it is too upsetting for a person who is anchored in their worldview to consider alternate points of view that threaten that. This is an ego problem. I know this because I’ve been through this type of shattering more than once (NO FUN!) but on the other hand, I learned from going through the experience that it is just a transformation — it is not that YOU fall apart.
But I guess if a person has never gone through something like that, I need to remember how it felt to me, then they will put up such strong defenses to avoid these ego-shattering inconvenient truths.
It’s still lonely.
20Years
Your words are so poignant for me. Yes, you see things differently after an spath. I say, “My husband taught me things about the dregs of humanity that no one would ever want to know.”
I, too, feel So lonely. Even though LF exists, and TG it does, LF can highlight my lonliness as well.
I thought I met a friend on here. Only that friend decided to NEGATIVELY interpret my words of an opinion I posted and I got caught in that same trap as I had with my spath husband; I tried to explain my thinking, my thought process, my backstory… and it didn’t matter. She kept going from what I was very willing to be a open book about, and TELLING ME, DICTATING To me, what my mind was thinking. WIth her insistent words, I realized I did not have a new friend at all b/c a FRIEND would have listened to me and I felt a new level of lonliness and invalidation and I spiraled into new depression. (to be fair, I think my LF nemisis had something to do with that b/c my newly found friend was using the same language as my LF nemisis, and I feel confirmed in that b/c they are now good buddies). The good news is that b/c I survived my spath, I knew the path out of depression, but the lonliness remains. The knowledge that even a respected LF member gets to pronounce judgement on me, the same judgement that my spath did, that I don’t know my own thinking. Makes me sad to even think of it. And esp b/c it is Christmas, the time of connecting with others, it’s very hard for me b/c all I feel is how very alone I am.
This is just to validate your feelings, that I think I can understand those feelings. And to tell you, yes you DO think differently. But not b/c you are damaged. Rather, you are TRANSFORMED by FIRE. YOU KNOW things that others would rather not know, about the dregs of humanity. I don’t blame people for not wanting to know the horrors that I now know. And you are right, it’s still lonely. My advice is to focus on connecting through Love. I have found it is still lonely, but not as painful. Love is the only thing that matters.
May Peace and Joy Come to You,
Katy
Some parents who have INSURANCE THAT WILL PAY FOR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES are given “support” from the mental health community….like “Just give him this medication and all will be well” Well, what if he is 17 and REFUSES to take it, are you going to send 3 big men over to my house 3 times a day to poke it down his throat?
Well, just take him to counseling>…again, how are you going to make him participate?
Well just keep him away from street drugs? Yea, how are you gonna do that? Lock him in the basement in chains?
Well, yes, of course Mr and Mrs. Parent, I realize you have done all the above things as well as you can but you must TRY HARDER TO COMMUNICATE. Yea, LIKE WITH A ROCK!
I had a patient whose OPPOSITIONALLY DEFIANT TEENAGE DAUGHTER Bit her so severely I actually had to tack some of the bites partly closed though normally you don’t sew up human bites….and I got SQUAT from CPS, they told me that if the mother left the home (over a weekend) and left te 16 year old daughter there alone they would charge the mother…so I suggested until we could get something done with the law, that thhe mother park her car in the front yard,, LOCK THE DOORS and spend the sub zero weather there at least where the girl couldn’t get at her. Finally on Monday we got the law involved and the girl was put in juvy…what happened after that I do not know.
I know when patrick was first acting out, gun at school, stealling etc. that the counselor treated me like I was some kind of horrible parent and gave all kinds of sympathy to my poor mistreated 17 year old who had to put up with such a horrible mother. One how had made him clean house, wouldn’t let him roam the streets at night, wanted him to quit stealing and workk in school. BADDDDDD Mommie! Me!
Later when I worked at thhe inpatient psych facility mostly with teenagers who were on their way to being psychopaths or other personality disordered individuals, I saw the pain on the family’s faces when their daughter would hark one back and SPIT in their faces during “therapy.”
I dealt with the 12 year old 6’2″ rapist (x 3) who had NO remorse and no conscience and didn’t fear anything except over powering FORCE in the moment. No impulse control except the threat of being taken to the floor by 2-3 big mental health techs.
I saw the pain in the parents’ faces, and even though this was just after Patrick had killed Jessica, I realized there are parents with kids worse than mine. I also realized that the mental health profession is failing us all.
20years,
you described the trauma very well. It is a transformation that creates a chasm between us and the ones who haven’t experienced it. I think, too, that the spaths KNOW this and intended it. Their intent is to isolate us. I think it’s because they, themselves, have no connection to humanity, so they want us to feel the same: alone. They thought we would hide in shame and go off to commit suicide.
Fortunately, they did not count on the internet to connect us to each other. We found each other and we truly are kindred spirits.
I wrote a blog article about the metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly being very much like the transformation we are going through. I think that right now we are still in the chrysalis stage, hanging upside down, seeing the world from a new perspective. This stage is not without its dangers. We are still transforming and things can go wrong. Finally, breaking out from the chrysalis, has to be done alone. The butterfly needs to push against the shell. This pushing forces fluids from it’s abdomen into the wings and gives them strength. Without this action, the butterfly will never fly.
Here’s a funny cartoon that reminds me of our transformation.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/ctr/lowres/ctrn37l.jpg
I have a friend I have known for 45 years (imagine!) and she loves and cares about me. She tried hard to understand when I went through my divorce from my spath husband, and I love her for trying. But she couldn’t understand. So we drifted a bit. She didn’t understand the experience of trauma.
But then she suddenly lost her husband and found herself widowed. Trauma. We have been able to reconnect and share better, not that I would ever wish widowhood on anyone, especially sudden widowhood in a happy marriage. But she understands trauma now. I don’t have to try to explain anymore. Even though our experiences are different, she no longer judges me.
She didn’t understand before, either, how hard it is to be a single parent. Now she finds herself in that “club.”
Anyway, this is all very hard. The loneliness part. You are right, Katy — thank you for reminding me that Love is the only thing that matters.
And I liked your cartoon, Skylar — thanks. 🙂
Oxy, I know that the recent events have been triggering. I am being triggered, too, by some aspects of all of this I haven’t quite figured out yet. I know that we will be OK. 🙂
20 years “triggered by some aspects of all this” Please clarify WHAT aspects of WHAT triggers? My situation? Your situation?
Yea, odd things trigger us at the oddest of times. I am so anxious to get this letter writing campaign over with and to quit worrying about the “essay contest” part of it all. I finally got my own letter written and will not change it again. My attorney said it is THE best protest letter he has ever read so I have to take that as his approval and that it is a good one.
I’m anxious to just turn the results over to God and my lawyer and to quit trying to think of who else I might persuade to write a letter. For those people who doon’t know the full story, it is stressful for me to have to explain it to them, for those who DO know the story, the FEW people (“friends”?) I EXPECTED to write letters who REFUSED to blew me backwards like a land mine. I am anxious each time I ask someone to write. I’m tired of the anxiety. The triggers.
Next week I am going to the DA and sheriff in my local county who know about thhe Trojan HOrse and ask if THEY will write protest letters. Can’t go to the judge because he is also my egg donor’s attorney! LOL I think it is a legal conflict of interest to allow a judge to have private legal clients but here the judge job is only part time so that is what we get. IN-JUSTICE.
Great cartoon, Sky, how about THIS ONE
http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=ctrn9
20Years
I wrote to validate your feelings of lonliness, and to share my bigger perspective… that even on LF, other posters can be invalidating and cruel (where lonliness can feel ever most sharp). Dominating posters can excuse themselves as entitled to be dominating, they forget their humanity b/c as wounded people, they see their particular circumstances and pain and can be numbed to the suffering of others. They get wrapped up in their opinion as being right, in dominating, in making declarative conclusions, that Listening to the travails of others become second place to themselves.
The fact is, while most times people step up and try to be helpful, LF does not Guarantee validation. It is, however, a place where SOMEONE will have experienced the same as you did, even if they aren’t posting, YOUR story will touch them. AND if anyone experiences being targeted like I have been and feels overwhelmed by it, gently remove yourself from the interactions, but continue reading. I was fortunate to have done MUCH interspection and healing before I found LoveFraud. If I had come here when I was in my worst emotional state, the attacks by my nemisis and the invalidation by my new “friend” would have totally devasted an already basketcase Me. I would have expected better from those who had experienced an spath. I would have given that nemesis too much power, the power to condemn. I don’t know what that would have done to my emotional state, when I escaped from my abuser, I was pretty fragile.
It’s a good lesson for ALL of us. We should give NO ONE the power to TELL YOU what you think or what you should feel. No matter how new or how fragile we are, REMEMBER….the first person to love, to show gentle grace, to have compassion for, to nurture and find ways to be kind…. is ourselves.
😆
Oxy, a little humor goes a long way to dispel anxiety.
Too bad that I couldn’t see the “lack of empathy” in my spath when I first met him.
In the end, he saw lack of empathy in me. He said, “You have no EMPATHY!!” LOL! projection at its finest.
Katydid,
It does not matter if someone on LF “likey” you or not. Your view stilll counts! Lots of views and opinions..all up for review. NO ONE has the right to say what is OK and not OK….other than writing that letter for Oxy…I’m done with LF. God Bless you.