By Joyce Alexander RNP (Retired)
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer we are challenged to change ourselves.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I spent so much of my life trying to change others that it almost became a way of life for me. I was never very successful at changing others, but I never gave up trying. I have tenacity in great abundance and have succeeded in many endeavors, so I just knew if I kept on trying harder, trying different techniques, loved more, was more selfless and caring, that I could change the way others treated me. I could make them see just how much I loved them and was willing to sacrifice myself for them and they would treat me better because of that.
What I have come to understand, though, as I have started to heal from the wounds I allowed to be inflicted on me by those personality-disordered people in my life—people I loved very much, people I would have died for—is that the only person I can change is myself.
I had left my home, because my physical safety was no longer secure there, and was living in a recreational vehicle parked on some land by a lake that was owned by a friend. I felt very alone, lonely, wounded and destitute of all that mattered to me. During that time I had plenty of time for reflection, and it was also during that time that I found Lovefraud. I sat at my computer reading and weeping for 16 or more hours a day, and realized I was not alone in my pain, not alone in my woundedness, and that I wasn’t the only one in the world who was a smart, successful person who had come upon a situation I could not fix.
Man’s Search for Meaning
By chance I found Dr. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, which he had written after his years in a Nazi concentration camp, during which time he lost everything and everyone in this world which had meaning to him, except his very life. The book was not only about the horrors that he experienced and saw, but about his and other’s emotional responses to this horror. He realized that there was nothing he could do about his situation, but find meaning in the most awful of events. He saw that some people in the camps just gave up and sat down and died, and that others became cruel and bitter, and still others found meaning and altruism in helping their fellow prisoners.
Compared to what Dr. Frankl had lost, I had actually lost very little, as I had enough to eat, no one was beating me, etc., and I began to feel guilty for being in so much pain, but then I read his explanation of how pain “works” in us. He explained that pain acts like a “gas.” If you put a small bit of a gas into an empty container, the gas expands to fill the container completely, or if you put in a large amount of gas into a small container it compresses and still fills the container completely. So my pain was just as “total” as his was, it filled me entirely. I had no reason to feel guilty for being in such emotional pain. Like Dr. Frankl, though, I had no way to change the people who were hurting me. I had no control over what they did. No matter how nice Dr. Frankl would have been to his captors, they would still not have loved him or been compassionate to him or caring.
Out of my control
I realized that the situation with others is, and always has been, out of my control. My ideas that if I just treated others well, did loving things to and for them, that they would love me back were totally false. Not only did I not have the power to control others’ behavior or thinking, my own idea that I could do so was keeping me from taking care of myself.
Fortunately, unlike Dr. Frankl, I had the option of getting away from those who would have harmed me. I could run away. It was only when my very life was threatened that I finally did run away, literally in the middle of the night. Sometimes it takes a hard “wake up call” to get us to see that we cannot change others, that we do not have the power to make someone love us, no matter how well we treat them, or what we give them, or what we do for them.
As a mother, I thought that if I were good to my children, and taught them “right from wrong,” that they would respect me and adhere to these principles of doing good. In effect, they would develop a “moral compass” and have empathy and compassion. The truth is, though, that everyone has a choice about how they think, what they feel and what they choose to do. Other than brute force, none of us can “control” another person’s behavior, and no one can control another’s thinking except by “trauma bonding” or “brainwashing.” So instead of controlling, I ended up being controlled, being manipulated, and used by the people I loved.
Starting to heal
About the time I read Dr. Frankl’s book, and started reading Lovefraud, I also started to heal. I started to realize that as painful as it was to realize that those I loved, truly loved, and wanted to love me, did not love me, which was proven by the way they treated me. I started to redefine even the word “love” as an action verb, not a noun. I started to see that I could not control anyone else’s thinking or behavior, but that I deserved to be treated as well as I treated others.
Knowledge truly is power! Knowing that we cannot change them, accepting that we cannot change them, and then changing our responses to their behavior is our salvation. Starting with “No Contact,” which gets us out of their emotional influence long enough that we can start to think rationally and logically rather than emotionally, we begin to heal. We start to change our own thinking and our own behaviors. We learn to set boundaries for what we will tolerate and allow, not only with the psychopaths and how they treat us, but for how we treat ourselves. We realize that we deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. We deserve to have compassion for ourselves, rather than waste it on those who will not change. We can’t change the world, we can’t change others, but we can and must change ourselves.
ElizabethBennett
I hear you on being well. I have been blessed without being sick for a long time since moving from my old moldy place, but I feel like I may be getting a little something.
She must have heard what I said. Now she has her TV jacked up really loud. She is very non confrontational. If she gets upset about something she won’t talk about it or approach it, she just does annoying things. I’m sure she’s embarrassed if she heard me, but ya know what, sometimes the truth hurts.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
lizzy -she isn’t non-confrontational, she’s passive aggressive. ick.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
…you should see my n dad pout! master pouter…who needs a hoover when one has that bottom lip dragging about the house!
ElizabethBennett
I guess you’re right there too. It’s so funny too because personality #1 is so hard-ass, tough as nail, bitchy, sarcastic, all made up, dressed to the nines, and “cross me and I’ll squash you like a bug”. But at the same time she will not talk about an issue that’s got her pissed. She just cuts up instead. THen you have personality #2(the one I fell for) with beautiful sad lonely puppy dog eyes that say I’m so vulnerable please take care of me. Saturday was entertaining. I saw her go from personality #2 to personality #1 in about an hour. All I gotta say is that if I had to flip back and forth between two totally different personalities, I would be extremely exhausted and stressed. Better her than me.
ElizabethBennett
onestep-LOL to your previous comment about N father. Mine won’t let me play with his dog. His dog LOVES me, but it is HIS dog and won’t even let my stepmom hardly play with him. It was so sad when I was there, the dog would keep coming over to me to jump on me and play, and dad would scream at him and grab him and yank over next to him. The poor dog would start slowly creeping over to me on his stomach, thinking that he wouldn’t get caught and my dad would start all over again. He does not want his dog to like me.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
oh lizzy, that poor pup! your dad is a moron.
ElizabethBennett
Yes he is-for that anyway. My dad did display some nasty N traits while I was there. He started to be my entertainment-just like little missy next door. He can be evil when he wants to be.
Stargazer
Hey guys, I just got back from my free therapist (I got approved for 6 more sessions through my work EAP program.) She just learned this new technique – I can’t think of the name of it. But it’s really REALLY effective in clearing issues. I feel really different coming out of the session tonight. When I find out the name of it, I’ll let you know. I was really surprised at how well it worked in spite of my resistance.
ElizabethBennett
Star-hey girl, good for you. Feeling different is good and I know all about that these days.
Stargazer
I totally understand about narcissistic parents.
My parents, particularly my mother and stepfather, were a complete waste to society. There is really nothing good they have ever done for anyone. I can understand why I repressed so much anger when I was young. If I’d been able to feel it, I probably would have murdered them. Who knows how my life would have turned out then? My mother was a career nurse. She sat around and smoked, never exercised or took care of herself, never mind her kids. She was so self-absorbed, she would sit at the dining room table in the morning before work smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee in a flimsy nightie with her feet propped up on the table having imaginary conversations. I could see her cigarette moving in her hand as she was “talking” to someone. She would pick me up from school and have imaginary conversations with someone while she was driving. I remember only once she actually asked me about my day (I was in kindergarten). I remember telling her something that happened with a boy at school. Though it seemed very serious to me at the time, she laughed at it and went back to her imaginary conversations. I learned early on that she was NOT the person to go to with any of my troubles. There were two times growing up with her that I was able to go to her with something I was worried about and she helped me – both were situationally related and not emotional issues. I remember those two times very vividly because they were the ONLY times in 16 years of living with her that she ever helped me with anything.
She was also very dirty and neglectful of her surroundings. She would throw her used tampon applicators in a drawer in the bathroom. Guess who was in charge of cleaning it up? My sister and I were basically the house slaves. If we didn’t do our job right, including if we accidentally left a light switch on, we’d get beat till we were black and blue with a thick leather belt, sometimes with the metal end.
Whatever was going on with us – whether it be my stepfather’s brutal abuse, or just the awkwardness of growing up and being rejected by boys, etc. – we kept it all to ourselves because no one cared. We never even confided in each other. My sister and I lived in our own little worlds. We were never able to bond with each other.
When I got older, the only time my mother noticed me was when I was caught making out with a boy – she would laugh and humiliate me about it. My sister watched and learned. She never had friends or went out on any dates. When she was 16, she had an affair with her 26-year-old boss who was just using her for sex. It was the only way she knew to feel love from a man. I’m sure it was a very difficult and lonely time for her. She had no friends and could have used a sympathetic ear. Instead, when my parents found out, she got the humiliation and verbal abuse of my parents calling her a whore. I was so shocked at my sister’s behavior (being older than her and still being a virgin), I didn’t know how to respond. To my shame, I probably took my parents’ side, and my sister was never able to trust me after that. I don’t blame her, even though I’ve apologized many times over.
I begged my mother over and over throughout the years to please leave my abusive stepfather. She was college educated and had a good job. She didn’t need him. I’d tell her how sick he was, and she agreed with me. But since he only abused us and never her, it apparently wasn’t a serious enough situation for her. She stayed with him till the day he died at 70. Then, suddenly she missed her children and wanted them in her life. Too bad, so sad! She will never have a relationship with us. We don’t even have a relationship with each other. And the tragic thing is I don’t think she notices the difference. She has a boyfriend and some people to hang with. As long as she is not lonely, she probably doesn’t care if we live or die.
So yeah, I could write a book on narcissistic parents.