Lovefraud recently heard from Janine in Florida. Here is what she wrote:
In May it will be two years since I realized my ex-husband was a sociopath and every day I deal with the psychological nightmare that he has given me. I try so hard not to think about the destruction he has done to me…but every day it is there. Destroyed period.
How can one put this behind them?? Yes I have moved on with my life but every day in my mind what he did to me is there and will be in my brain forever. I have been told to forgive him and I do in a way because I realize how sick he is but it is still there!
Taken, abused, used, destroyed as a woman, as a human being and of course him shoving everything down my throat. Defaming my character, slandering me and doing his best to destroy my life. That is the hardest part, the man I helped the most in my life to live his dreams became my nightmare…I will carry this with me until my dying day.
Sociopaths charm their way into our lives, destroy us, and then leave. They go on their merry ways, and we are left with emotional train wrecks. Anger, shock, betrayal, disbelief, disappointment, sadness, shame, fear, grief, hatred, rage—all adding up to incredible pain. What are we to do with it?
I believe we must allow ourselves to feel it.
Facing the Fire
In 1993, I attended a workshop given by John Lee, author of Facing the Fire: Experiencing and Expressing Anger Appropriately. Lee talks about anger as a physical sensation that gets stuck in the body. Many of us walk around carrying decades of anger—childhood anger at our parents, anger from adolescent taunts, anger from previous husbands or wives. Unless we do something about it, the anger of the past stays there, affecting our present.
Anger builds into rage. Rage builds into numbness.
John Lee’s book offers techniques for dealing with our anger. Many of us try to intellectualize our anger away. This doesn’t work. Anger is a physical emotion that needs to be physically released. The idea is to do it without hurting other people or domestic animals. Lee suggests pounding pillows, twisting towels, stomping on the ground and breaking old cups and saucers into trash cans. We have to keep doing it until we experience a release.
To learn more on these ideas, read an interview with John Lee.
Experiencing the pain
When I finally learned that my ex-husband was a con man, that he had fathered a child with another woman during our marriage, that the $227,000 he took from me was gone, I had extreme anger—and all of those other negative emotions—adding up to incredible pain.
Luckily, I had employed John Lee’s techniques before—I tried them all, and found that punching pillows worked best for me. I also had a therapist who guided me in experiencing my pain. Because that is what needed to happen.
The pain had to come out, and the way to do it was physically. This meant punching pillows until I collapsed. It meant crying—deep, loud wails. It meant telling my ex-husband, emphatically, exactly how I felt—even though he wasn’t there to hear it.
Make no mistake, this is not pretty. It is best done in privacy, or with a skilled therapist. And it takes a long time, because there are layers and layers of pain—you dig one out, and another one surfaces.
But it works. I can honestly say that the pain is gone—not only the pain of the sociopath, but the pain I was carrying around beforehand that enabled me to fall for his lies.
I have recovered. I am happily remarried to a wonderful man. And I am peaceful.
I am stuck in that revenge mode and I really do want out. My friends do not know I am still harbouring this enormous resentment for what he took from me. I gave my heart and soul to this man. And, he then used that against me. He was quick to announce to everyone that I am “crazy” therefore anything I have to say about him or the breakup is discounted. He actually has his folks and friends believing I made up all those things about him. I did betray all of his confidences when I found out he’d been cheating on me the whole time we were together. He was very creative in his “cheating” and I didn’t find out until out of the blue and many months later, I got a call from a man. Imagine my shock. He was bisexual. Why did this man call me? He called to tell me so that I could….get this…move on. In other words he thought I’d be so grateful to hear that he was indeed scum, that I’d run fast and never look back. This man was just a down-low buddy on a one time deal. He got my name from one of his “gay” buddies that is married to one of my former co-workers. Apparrently my ex upset one of the gay guys by making some remark about picking up a fag at the local park. Do not call a gay guy a fag. The guy involved is also a cross dresser and loves to tantalize “straight” men and get them to participate in “gay” activities while allowing them to consider themselves straight. If you cross a gay guy by mocking them, they have a network so thick that there’s no escaping there revenge. When I approached my ex about being bisexual, he said: “I like all things sexual.” I told him he frightened me with that statement. Where does that line begin and end? What else do I need to know about? The deception is so deep with these sociopaths, that once you start unraveling it all, you get physically ill and numb. I just kept saying, No, it is not true. That is not him. But, soon the evidence and my blindness to his words of love imploded in a very nasty scene. Anyone in the path got to hear about this lying, cheating, perverted sexual addict. I could go on for years with what I uncovered. Since we lived an hour apart, he was really having a field day while we were apart. Man, was he good. It’s just so unbelievable. I feel I am done ever having another relationship. I cannot be or feel sexual. I get physically ill in the presence of most men. When you think you have known someone your whole life and you find out it was all a “lie”, it just rocks you to the bottom. I’m now agoraphobic and don’t leave my house except as absolutely essential. This has cost me all my friendships and family as they say, “move on, the guy is a jerk. don’t give him any more of your time.” Easier said than done.
Being gay myself, I must say that the “F” word is exactly as bad as the “N” word, and people should view it that way period.
I must also say, that there are bad gay people just as there are bad straight people.
One of the major reasons gay people need respect is so men (and women) can come out of the closet and not be ashamed and marry women (or men) to pretend they are “normal.”
Scorned, someone should never keep secrets from you like this man did. Making you out to be a liar is abominable. It is bad enough to have lived a lie with you, but to reverse the blame and place it on you is disgusting.
If it’s any consolation, I would like to say that on the flip side, there are also good gay men just as much as there are good straight men.
You were burned bad, but if you want to have a relationship with a decent straight guy, well, there are some out there. Some of them have posted on this site, it seems — to prove my point!
But heck, there are also people that don’t want relationships for whatever reason. I just wanted to give you a shout out of support.
I rented a “lovefraud” movie — 1949’s “The Heiress” with Olivia DeHaviland and Montgomery Clift. People on this site should check it out. It’s another one of those eerily relevent movies that have been made. In this case from an 1881 story by Henry James.
I’ve found with all the other recovery techniques we use, watching films that show us psychos and users have been experienced by many others of us throughout history, gives me even more of a recovery boost.
It’s a great flick.
WOW ok I have read your piece here and my tears burst out at those last sentences. The idea that there truly is hope that the pain will truly be gone?WOW. I feel like things will be better, but I did not have hope that this will ever leave my soul.
I also have a question to anyone who reads this. To who do you tell this. Are there people who tell this openly to any person who wants to know? Or do people select good friends only for it ( like i have done so far). Im very much afraid to be judged ( experienced that too); that people think youre stupid for falling for it….Im a bt torn cause it had such a groundbreaking impact on me its weird to act towards some people like it was no big deal.
Maria,
I wrote a post addressing that topic as well:
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2008/09/08/how-to-talk-to-friends-and-family-about-sociopaths/
Dear MariaLisa,
Some people on here have NO OTHER place to release this than Love Fraud. Many of our friends and family taht are otherwise good, loving, supportive people do not realize how we feel used and abused and don’t know this isn’t a “normal” break up where we can “just get over it”—I would suggest that you use LoveFraud as your validation or lbetter yet, find a therpaist that does get it and go there. Just don’t hold it in.
As far a being afraid of “being judged”—most of us I thinnk have “been there.” At some point you must stop caring whether others validate you or not, YOU KNOW YOUR PAIN IS REAL. You don’t need anyone except yourself to validate that, and that is a good turning point. In the meantime, members of love fraud can validate it. Good luck. Keep on reading and learning about yourself—at first it is about THEM, but eventually becomes “about us.”
DONNA
Haha: why am I so retarded that I dont find these articles/posts myself? THANK YOU!!!
Oxdrover
Yes youre right. Actually I have been seeing a therapist. Although I think she is great she actually tells me to stop being obsessed about it and not feed into it. She says I experienced enough pain, that its enough now….Easier said than done Id say.
But you are right; the whole point which we should learn is we dont need the validation for pain that is SO damn real. Still baffles me to see how I do it again: ask for permission to feel hurt. Crazy right? I suppose as a woman ( and empathic one at least) you tend to look for validation so much. It feels like a force of nature. Thank you Oxy for the reminder.
Maria,
Your questions about who to discuss the S issues with- personally for me, because of what I have been thru (married
to a SEVERE N/P and have son who is a P)- I am super guarded about who I tell my “war stories” to. I dont elaborate at all about my “feelings” IF I am questioned about why I divorced- If I choose to say anything at all, I just state some facts -no emotions involved. Think clinical- dr. style answers.
This keeps people from judging me or thinking I’m just crazy! lol
Talking to the uneducated about sociopathy is like saying you see flying saucers and were beamed up into an alien ship!!!
However, I have been blessed to be able to reach out to others, which by the way I feel is one reason I went thru this ( to love and support those who are searching for answers).
I have given this site, along with what I know about S to others who are involved with one and are reeling from the horror of it all.Some have said that It has helped save their sanity.
I always give them some bible scriptures that has been my lifeline as well.- also what the Bible says about wicked people who are filled with lies with intent to do evil – to stay away from them.
I tell family members and those I am close to in hopes that they too will learn the signs. But NEVER anyone who I sense has a hardened spirit that would only use my words to mock or discourage me.
Use your knowledge to love and protect others- Dont give the other ones a “rock to throw at you”!!! xoxo
MariaLisa,
I tell everyone. total strangers, family and friends of the N, everyone. Yep.
That’s how I found out what it was. I was telling a stranger – a guy who was trying to pick up on me – about my recent breakup. I told him that my ex was such a liar and never loved me, emotionally abusive and also wouldn’t let go. He told me that I was talking about a malignant narcissist. From that comment, everything began to become clear. So I’ve read many, many books on narcissism. It’s all I do. I just read about personality disorders and personality development. Now when I tell people, I can tell them with some authority about these “creatures”. Do you know what they invariably say? They say, “Oh, I know exactly what you mean. I know someone just like that.” Or if it happens to be someone who knows my ex-P, they begin to make the connections with some of his strange behaviors and begin to understand the root of it. I always explain that it is a case of emotionally arrested development. I tell them, that he is emotionally only 1 year old. I explain that the root of this is from the narcissism that we all experience in our infancy which is a survival mechanism given to us by God. From there we are supposed to build our grown up self, but some don’t and the result is pathological envy and shame, lack of empathy, a sense of entitlement, illusions of grandeur, and a sense of omnipotence. I guess, in a way, when I talk to others about it, I don’t really discuss my feelings but dwell more on the psychological profile. It doesn’t matter though because the people all tell me that they imagine that I will have trust issues from now on. They get the fact that this person violated me psychologically and that there is a huge trauma involved.
Dear Maria,
Believe it or not I have been on this blog for over 2 years and I have (though I have tried to) read all the articles in the back archives, I have MISSED SEVERAL and this was one of them. There are HUNDREDS of articles here, and reading them all (I tried to do it in order of their posting) you still miss some. and every once in a while someone comes back and brings up an old one I haven’t read or posted on. Plus, though, sometimes it is good to re-read them because if you are like me, it is difficult to take in so much knowledge and retain it all. thanks for brining this one up.
‘
You are NOT RETARDED!!! LOL