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.
Ox Drover
Darwin’s Mom,
Your point about the “change our selves” is well taken, and I meant that we have to change what WE ALLOW OTHERS TO DO TO US and how they are allowed to treat us.
We must stop making excuses for them (like your tourist did) and like I did in HOLDING ON TO FALSE HOPE THAT THE PSYCHOPATHS WOULD CHANGE if I would ONLY be better to them, be nicer, etc.
And actually, I did ALLOW my ethics to slip some because of my association with the psychopaths, but NO MORE!
“Evil companions corrupt good morals” the Bible says, and that is true. If we hang around with people who are liars, dishonest, immoral, it will rub off on us. It is only when we refuse to associate with EVIL companions and keep ourselves pointing in the right direction with our own MORAL COMPASS that we can live a healthy and functional life.
myheart
After exspath, I have made a rule, that I will not tolerate any bully in my life, whether it is my childre, parents or siblings. I know my limitations now to give, and love, and have patience. I have learned to say “No” now, because when we do a lot in the name of sleflessness, and give a lot , others expect more and more. I heard this thing from my firends and family, how can do so much, we can’t even do 10%, and I used to feel very proud. But my unhappiness become bigger, since nobody wanted to resiporcate, when I needed help…. So one big lesson for me, know my limitations, know my own value and don’t let others exploit me.
darwinsmom
Yup, my ethics slipped too. I acted as the verification of some of his claims. And I excused lots of his behavior on the coke or being drunk, or latin background, or coming from a poor country with lots of criminality and violence the town was not giving him a chance to get on the right path…
It’s all bull… his family was Nica middle class, the rest of his family were nothing like him, other Nica men also surfers had jobs and weren’t the party animals he was; his dealing was for his own habbit, not the money; and the town was right not to give him another chance anymore.
He was the last person I made excuses for
slimone
Oxy,
I have to run off to work, so no time to expound…..but wanted to say how much I appreciate what you have written. It is a timely reminder for me to let go, once again, any notion that I can change another.
Thank-you for how much time and love you put into LF. I speak for myself, and probably others, that I could not have come so far without your generous wisdom.
Slim
Ox Drover
Slimone,
I hope you had a great day at work! You are entirely welcome, but the thinking and mental processes in writing an article I think actually help ME as much or more than it helps others. That is why I am still here at LF after 4+ years! Healing is a PROCESS, not a point on the map we reach and then it is “done.” We learn more each day, we become stronger when we lift “mental and emotional weights” just like a weigh lifter becomes stronger by exercises, so do we. If we just “sit down” we will lose our strength just as even the best conditioned weight lifter would if they sat down in a chair and didn’t continue to exercise and condition themselves.
So keep on working and strengthening yourself and growing! In reaching out to help others, you make yourself stronger as well. (((hugs))) and God bless.
superkid10
Ox you wrote a great article. We are all “N”s, I think, when we think we can change the spath’s behavior. A little bit of “N” is in all of us.
And, normally, I think we CAN influence behavior. If we say to a normal human being, “hey, it hurts when you do that” they will stop doing whatever it was. So in those circumstances we CAN influence behavior, because their hearts are pure.
But if you say, “hey it hurts when you do that” to an SPATH, their hearts are evil, and they won’t stop.
So part of it is recognizing what is true, and what is CORE, about an individual, and recognizing that WHO THEY ARE won’t change. What they DO might change a LITTLE.
Oxy I am so thankful that you are still here, still in recovery, like I am. Every day you’re working at it, and I see that to be true, and I appreciate having a sister, a friend, who is rowing along side of me (and who bonks me on the head when need be).
Superkid
Ox Drover
Dear Superkid,
Thank you! I appreciate the SISTERHOOD and brotherhood of us all here at LF. That is what makes this site so great! I know that people come here and stay around a while and then get busy with “real life” and I’m busy with real life too (though retired I do have more time than most folks who are having to work for a living) but I can’t get by without my LF fix! I learn so much every day! I feel the strength from my cyber FAMILY here!
I’m so glad that YOU are part of it! (((hugs)))
Distressed Grandmother
This article sounds like I wrote it myself this is exactly what I done all my life. Working hard tying to change my daughter in hopes to gain her respect. What a waste of 37 years. It is hard to except that you can be that fooled by someone you loved very much.It is heart breaking to face such loses after so many years of hard work and wasted time. To totally wake up and not know who your daughter really is is very heart breaking. I am in great thought all the time wondering did she change that much or was I i that deniable. I do feel better though with little to no contact with her know. I almost feel free of her control.
Ox Drover
Dear Distressed Grandmother,
The less contact we have with them the better we start to feel. I know it MUST be difficult since you love her children and want contact with them, I can’t even begin to imagine how painful and frustrating that must be. I feel for you and others who must co-parent with them or continue contact with them because of children, knowing that they only hurt those children as well.
You are in my prayers for your peace. For me it is a daily battle to keep reminding myself that I can’t change them, only myself and my reaction to them. (((hugs)))) and God bless.
Distressed Grandmother
Oxy
I have the same struggles every day. Except what you can not change even if people are hurting badly
((( hugs to you to)))) and god bless.