By Ox Drover
I remember when I first learned to ride a bicycle. Most of us remember the day we first took off the training wheels, because generally, we fell down a few times before we got it right and were pretty safe from falling. It took practice. I can’t remember many days before I was about twelve that I didn’t have at least one band-aid on at least one knee. Even with the continual road rash I usually had on my knees and elbows, it never even occurred to me to not keep on practicing or to give up on learning to ride the “big kid’s bike.”
The past couple of months have been rather stressful for me with some deadlines I was facing, some big decisions I had to make, and the usual anxiety that I face when making a big decision that will seriously impact my life. Once the decision is made, I can usually accept it and the consequences of that decision and say to myself, “I did the best I could with the information I had at the time.”
With the changes I have made in my life in the past couple of years due the trauma associated with the psychopaths in my life, I have developed some new ways of dealing with life situations. One of these new ways is to learn to set boundaries with everyone in my life, not just a few people who are on the fringes of my life. Sometimes, setting boundaries means that we have to enforce those boundaries at a pretty steep price. If someone, even someone we truly value and love, disrespects those boundaries and betrays us, we have to “man up” and enforce those boundaries. Sometimes that means keeping away from that person for some period of time, or possibly No Contact forever.
Establishing new habits
New habits that we form in our emotional lives post-psychopathic encounter are, I think, like those early days of trying to learn to ride the bike ”¦ we end up with quite a bit of road rash. Even when we get to where we are pretty good at riding the bike, sometimes we take on a trail or a hill that we are not quite equipped to handle that day and we crash.
Since my decision to sever relationships with not only the woman who gave me birth, but with my convict son, and many of the people I considered “friends” in my days before I started to turn my life around, I’ve had to stop each day and think before I made a decision. It wasn’t just “natural” to do these new habits, because I had decades of past habits that were done almost without a thought of what to do. Now that I have instituted some changes in the way I make decisions, and in what behaviors I will expect from others, I can’t let myself go back and fall into those old and dysfunctional habits.
After decades of smoking and failed attempts at quitting, I finally made up my mind to really quit this time, and I have done so. Still there are times when I am stressed or anxious that I want that cigarette. I have to stop and think about my new way of doing things, that doesn’t include smoking cigarettes. I can’t let myself “cheat” even once, and I haven’t. I can already see improvements in my health as a result. I no longer have a cough.
In the past couple of years, I have also gained some weight (even pre-smoking cessation) and I know it has been a case of using a high carb diet for stress relief, so rather than just eat when I feel the urge, I am watching what I eat, when I eat it, and the weight is slowly coming off. Rather than just cooking something, though, I have to stop and think about calories, fat content, fiber content, and getting enough fluids. I can’t just “forget” about what I am going to eat, I have to actually work at staying on a good, healthy, low calorie diet. It takes more effort than just slapping something on the table and eating until I can’t hold any more. Practice makes perfect.
Sticking with the program
Recently, I got a business e-mail from my birth mother, and she sent about half the information I needed to take care of business. I emailed her back asking for the rest of the information I needed and why I needed it. No answer. I e-mailed her again with more reasons for why I needed that information. No answer. I was irritated, and began to think that this was her way of trying to get me to call her or send my adopted son over to talk to her. It was so tempting to do either of those things, but I am committed to limited contact, which includes only e-mails about business that must have information conveyed from one of us to the other. At first I was really irritated, then angry and frustrated, but I had to practice my new skills in setting boundaries and in enforcing them, and still “get the job done.”
So, I figured out another way to get the information I needed and accomplish the job. It wasn’t my first inclination though, I had to work at it. Practice it. Keep my head about the new habits, and see the advantages in them. Just like the not smoking when I want a cigarette is beneficial to me and I can already see the benefits to myself, the very limited contact with people I can’t trust, even when business makes it necessary to my own well being, I must maintain those new improved habits and skills. Practice makes perfect.
My new boundary setting and enforcement still doesn’t always feel “natural” and my immediate impulse is to respond with the old habits, but I know that they are not the best responses. Restraining my “natural impulse” and using my new and improved skills will benefit me in the long run. Practice makes perfect.
Some of my old habits and ways of responding are so deeply ingrained in my emotions that I’m not sure if the new ways of doing things will ever seem entirely “natural,” but it doesn’t make any difference to me, because I know that my new habits are much more productive, that I end up with less emotional “road rash.” I am riding with much more smoothness than I have in the past. I am getting my balance, even if I still feel a bit of trepidation from time to time about my skills at staying balanced, but if I don’t practice, I will never get it down!
Practice makes perfect!
Hey Oxy – congrats on the quitting smoking!
Been a non-smoker myself for 5 years now (!) and I continually tell me mom that the NC is like quitting smoking. Even one time back and I could be stuck again…
And why would I put myself through the torture of quitting again!!
Dear Myboys,
Thank you! I know how “easy” it is to quit, I’ve DONE IT A THOUSAND TIMES! LOL
And, yes, breaking NC is just like having that ONE cigarette, it sets you back in the “smokers’ section.”
I’ve had so many new habits to establish that it has been an on-going battle to keep all those “balls in the air” like a juggler, but most days I can keep the majority of them off the floor. In the past it was all I could do with BOTH HANDS to keep ONE ball off the floor, and all the while it seemed like I was in the middle of a batting cage with balls flying at me from all directions!
That’s the thing, when we are “not wanting a cigarette” (or something to eat in my case as well) it is “easy” to not smoke or not eat, but it is when we WANT that thing that we have a CHALLENGE to change our ways, when we are TEMPTED, if you will, we have the challenges to PRACTICE our new skills.
So I am continually practicing handling my stress and my days with more positive things than the OLD HABITS that I used to cope with that are NOT good for me. I am having to stop and think before I ACT. Whether it is reaching for a cigarette, or some food, or the telephone or computer, I have to stop and think and PRACTICE what is the healthier way to cope with a challenge. I will say it is getting a bit easier most days, but isn’t always “easy.”
Wonderful article! I am a fellow band-aid girl. I am TRYING to practice some new habits with “friends” that never call me. I have stopped calling them to say “hi” (it does not feel natural not to do it) and I want to stop trying to analyze why they don’t call, but I have not beed able to do that yet, I’m working on it.
Amen to the understanding that using new skills takes a while to come within comfort zone! You got that right.
There is a gulf between what we can know intellectually and emotionally and if it is true that our emotionaly wiring is faulty because of what we learned to tolerate as children, making us blind as adults, then we MUST rely on the learning skills of intellect first.
I do the right things by wrote not all from heart myself. On day 21 it feels good to know that I am overcoming myself emotionally without losing the ability to feel compassion for myself and gratitude for the support around me.
What helps is journalling. I’ve written reams of paper on my feelings which I can go back to later and see where the emotional misfires are taking place from a more objective moment.
What helps is taking time to HALT and know there is no life decision which may be made well if I am Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.
I found a diet that lets you eat unlimited amounts of vegetable soup which is quite good. It is cabbage, tomatoes,celery, onion in a french onion soup package base and I drink a lot of herbal tea brewed strong/unsweetened which has flavor but little impact.
What is paramount is doing the RIGHT thing over and over and over. I am determned not to self destruct even if that is inclined by my own internal story about being a victim which was wired in at early stage in my development because I lived with tolerating the intolerable. Emotional abandonment combined with abuse is formidable to overcome and I do not think it can be done without a deliberate thought process.
Don’t know if you all are familiar with ot or not, but for me a favorite anthem is Stan Roger’s song Mary Ellen Carter.
The chorus is about overcoming when adversity has dealt the final blow to rise again like a ship that was sunk to the bottom.
Now as great as it all sounds, its day 21. My heart is as broken my trust is as shattered and I’m as timid about going out in the world again as any ever was.
I work at seeing the truth in action to overcome any hope of finding good in the words that were nothing but lies from hello to goodbye.
I work to overcome the desire to find another strong shoulder to carry me and to see the monster for what it truly is even if my imagination is on overdrive to make a story where there could be a happy ending- We all want and strive to be happy. At some point in it all, that was where we thought we were.
Happy is hard to let go of. Fear is hard to release. And when its time to crawl out from under the covers to go through a days work and meet the needs of other people in our lives its often a concious decision.
But one which bears repeating over and over and over.
I keep repeating- Freedom is worth the cost. Freedom is worth the cost. Even if its hard, keep going. Even if keeping going means all you can do is repeat this to yourself. Even if what you can do is come here and be present instead of doing what you would have done.
It all counts.
So thanks to you all for being here too and for the stories that over end over and over again inspire me to keep on keeping on.
I hope mine gives something back.
OxDrover,
I wish there were practice sessions with “normal” people acting as an N/P/S/A in order to practice our responses . . . . especially to verbal assaults.
There is really no chance to practice, when the only opportunity is, in fact, with your N/S/P/A. And because of NC . . (or Limited Contact) . . that seldom happens.
Dear Silvermoon and Sarah,
Yea it would be nice if we could “role play” and practice before we needed to “perform” but unfortunately, “life is tough, she gives the test first, and THEN the lesson” (don’t know who said that But I found it written in my late husband’s papers.)
Yea, we got the TEST FIRST, and now we are learningn the lesson. We are having to let go of the things that made us FLUNK that test, our old ways of thinking and acting, and now we must stop and THINK before we act—each and every time we interact with others, and especially if we are being triggered to RESPOND to the P, we have to STOP, LOOK at what is going on, and LISTEN TO OUR INTELLECTUAL brain and not let our EMOTIONS DICTATE how we respond, or would have responded in the past.
Sometimes that means NOT pickinig up the phone and calling the S-path-hole back and telling them off! Oh, but HOW WE WANT TO. How satisfying we Think it would FEEL, but we KNOW in our intellelct that even telling the jerk off FEEDS them attention and attention is what they want.
Sure, when they don’t get the attention they want, they start upping the ante, and keep on and it is sooooooo hard to stay NC. If they would just leave us alone it would be all right, we think. Then we start to excuse and make reasons, and justify calling them, and we have to say to our emotional side “look, sister, sit down, shut up, because calling him will only make it hurt worse.”
Sometimes we “blow it” and pick up that phone or text, and then when it blows up in our face like an “underware bomb” we have to go back and sit our “emotional side” down and say, “SEE, I told you so, now get with the NC”
But I will almost guarentee that there are none or very few of us here if we’ve had long relationship with a psychopath who have also not had others in our lives that are NOT HEALTHY relationships.
We also need to start to set boundaries for these other relationships, maybe that are not quite as “bad” as the one with the P, but we have to start to believe that EVERYONE in our lives that is close to us must treat us with respect and consideration. So we have some of these folks to “practice” on as well.
I found that there were a LOT of people in my life that I “walked on egg shells” around, very careful not to “offend” them even when they were mistreating and disrespecting me.
I had to learn to step up to the plate and say “I do not appreciate you treating me X way. Please do not do that” and if they continued to disrespect me, I had to tell them to get their “walking papers”—and of course these people also got angry at me. They had treated me this way a long time and expected it to go on. When I stood up and set boundaries, they were suprised, first of all, and offfended I would protect myself. Well, toooooo bad.
I had a “close friend” that I knew for years stole from me, and I finally confronted her—caught in the act. I set a boundary after crying for days about it. You are NOT to come to my farm unless I am HOME—not my son, or my husband, but ME.
She violated that. I caught her. I set another boundary. CALL before you come to my house.
She violated that. “CALL 24 hours in advance” She violated that. I caught her, she hasn’t been back since.
Why was I so afraid to confront her directly? Because to upset a “friend” and make them “feel bad” was something I had been trained to NOT do from childhood. It took a lot of “tries” with this person in particular, PRACTICE as it were, until I am sooo glad now that this person is no longer part of my life. At the time each of the things occured, I was SOOO upset and soooo STILL trying to find a way we could still be “friends’—hell, we had NEVER BEEN FRIENDS, I was her supply! I had loved her but she had NEVER loved me.
The excuses I made for her, she has OCD, she is stressed, etc etc……well, it is NOT my responsibility to let her steal from me because she has “anxiety” and “kleptomania” and is a “hoarder” of things she steals. THAT IS HER PROBLEM.
So we can find other people besides the P to practice on. My guess is there are others in our lives that we should practice boundary setting on. Maybe not people who steal from you, but people who do other things that are disrespectful to you.
I found that though I “thinned out my rolodex” of a lot of pseudo-friends, the fewer but closer friends I have who are respectful and good to me, those friends are still there and I am not all the time upset by having to deal with the disrespect of the other ones.
There are some folks, like a “drama queen” who is married to a man my sons and I love very much, but we can’t stand being around her. I keep her at an EMOTIONAL distance from me, and when we see her because we also want to visit with him, I just let the things and drama she tries to portray go in one ear and out the other, and it actually doens’t bother me to be around her for a few hours. If her “drama” does get tiresome though, I say something like, “Hey, let’s talk about something nice or pleasant” and change the subject.
Shabbychic,
I just wanted to respond to your comment above. It is weird how much all of us have in common.
I have let go of three friends post Bad Man. There is C who was often available and the “friend” that I most often socialized with… but I always felt emotionally violated by this person… all the way back since college. I let this friendship go and I instantly felt an increase in my peace and an improvement in my mental health. This person was always calling me uptight while violating my personal boundaries.
Then there is K that I have known since grade school. One day I realized that she does not answer when I call nor has she returned a call in more than 6 months (and this dynamic has been going on for years). So, I dropped by unannounced to retrieve the last items she stored for me in her garage when I moved to Maui. She greeted me as if everything was normal…”Hey! How’s it going? What’s new?” I looked at her blankly and then I said, “We’re done here.” I took my stuff and left. I felt a little upset when I left and I felt like I had acted immaturely but it was really hurting me the way she was ignoring me. So, haven’t really looked back.
And last but not least, there is S. Flake-city! Typically returns calls once every 6 months. Helped her get a job offer at my place of employment which she declined. She called me at least 5 times asking for the number of the HR person to follow up with… and I gave it to her. GOOD GRIEF! I am busy!!!! Handle your stuff! I have coached her on resumes, helped her with practice interviews. This is stuff I do with teenagers I work with. I do not want to do this for a grown woman. I am over the flake factor. OVER IT! This friendship was tiring, and unsatisfying!
I have been pretty lonely, I will admit. I isolate a lot. But, I don’t stress over these three “friendships” anymore.
I am joining a group of Domestic Violence Survivors. The first meeting I will attend is next week. I am hoping that I will bring something to the group. Maybe I will make a new friend. Maybe not. But, I haven’t really regretted letting these old friendships go.
They were chronically disappointing.
So here’s to sitting on the couch with popcorn every friday night. HAHA! I don’t care! I get more enjoyment out of LoveFraud than I did with these “friends.”
Have a great day.
Sarah999,
Over time, I have learned to react or respond slower to people. As you continue to educate yourself by using LF and whatever else you may read, you will detect when something is off.
Red flags for me are:
When someone is attacking my character (I know I am an okay person so that gets my attention and my radar goes off.)
In fact, I recently set a boundary with a student in my Grad Cohort. I noticed with this student that every time I make a comment, she has to shoot it down, attack it, be hugely offended… blah blah. I don’t seem to be affecting anyone else in the class that way so… I have imposed a silent boundary. I moved seats to the other side of the class and I no longer try to interact with her for any reason. The last time she attacked me was when I suggested that we all walk to our cars together because the parking garage we are using this semester is not in a good part of town. She shot that down like I was a total idiot. Fine. Go ahead and walk alone at night with the gangs and prostitutes. whatever. Good luck to ya sister! I saw a girl that I know for a fact is prostituting right by the parking garage. This fellow student couldn’t wrap her head around this because she thinks that prostitutes always look like in the movies. Again… good luck to you lady!
Here’s the thing. I spent last semester defending myself against her stupid attacks. I kept trying to start over. I kept trying to show her that I was an okay person. I kept calm when she made her snide remarks and shot down my comments like I was a complete moron. I even gave her a fresh start at the beginning of this semester.. and then it kept happening… no matter what I said… ATTACK!
She’s a nut job. Not me. But it did take some practice to note what was going on.
Now I sit peacefully on the other side of the room. :O)
I learned that boundaries do not always need to be spoken. I put mine and I am much more comfortable now in class.
Aloha!
Dear Aloha,
TOWANDA FOR YOU BABE!!!! As I have thinned out my rolodex as Matt and I discussed, I have gotten down to a few really good FRIENDS, true friends, and some nice casual acquaintences that I enjoy doing things with. WOW! Not having the drama or the subtle put downs etc or the people who come around ONLY when they need something in my life is GREAT.
I still hear from the “drama queen” because she HAS NO FRIENDS and she so wants someone to bitch and gritch to about how unfair everyone is to her, but I’m learning to set boundaries on how long and when I let her bitch and gritch at me, and 2/3 of the time I don’t even answer the phone. You know how BAD cell service is out here in the boondocks! LOL
But I do love her husband, and so does my son, and we want to be able to see him from time to time, so I put up with a bit of it from the queen, in order to keep a relationship with him, but not much, AND I HAVE DISCONNECTED from her emotionally, so she doesn’t really irritate me like she used to, and I can SET and STAND BY boundaries.
I dumped off a 23 year “friendship” last year in March because I realized he was not honest and up front with me and had become rather greedy in some minor, very minor, stuff, we traded in the way of favors and stuff….I don’t regret it at all. No DRAMA there any more, don’t miss him at all.
I think we need to reexamine all our relationships and cut out the unhealthy ones, not just with the psychopaths. Not every un-healthy relationship is psychopathic but they are toxic to our peace and tranquility in SOME WAY and when our gut starts to tell us there is something wrong, I think like Aloha we need to listen.
However, I think the PAIN AND DRAMA of our P relationships sometimes overpowers our thinking about things and we don’t see the smaller less-toxic but still toxic problems with other relationships. I think as we get healthier we become more PICKY about relationships, so when we are able to have the peace and tranquility to even HEAR our gut about these others, and we listen, we see that they are not PRODUCTIVE relationships at all and we need to leave them behind and move on. Either in a quiet way of just slipping away, or sometimes in a way that gives CLOSURE to that relationship depending on how WE feel about it.
Aloha, glad you are joining the DV suvivors group and I KNOW that you will have a lot of good things to share with them, and I think it is a great idea!!!!! You are one SUPER WOMAN, GF! and we here at LF know that.
Folks talking about the tidal wave missing Hawaii today and wishing their Ps were on the beach and your Bad Man living there made me think of an old joke about “emergency” routes for various groups of people. I think if a tidal wave was gonna hit we should broadcast that “all Ps take the Route to the beach” if there was such a tidal wave coming in. LOL
Aloha, I think I posted over your last post, Aloha, and I think your assessment of that girl in class is a good one and your silent boundaries are GREAT! For whatever reason, she seems to be threatened by your competency and has to have a target to make herself seem better. Funny thing is, I think others pick up on this too, so I think your way of handling it is SUPER!
GOOD JOB! And good job with the stopping the “second-second and third “second chances” for these creeps! (((hugs)))