By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
What is hope? The word “hope” means a kind of “expectation of obtainment” and an emotional state of optimism, a trusting that what we want is going to come true. Here is how Wikipedia defines hope:
Hope is the emotional state, the opposite of which is despair, which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. It is the “feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best” or the act of “look[ing] forward to with desire and reasonable confidence” or “feel[ing] that something desired may happen”. Other definitions are “to cherish a desire with anticipation”; “to desire with expectation of obtainment”; or “to expect with confidence”. In the English language the word can be used as either a noun or a verb, although hope as a concept has a similar meaning in either use.
And here is how Webster’s dictionary defines hope:
intransitive verb:
1: to cherish a desire with anticipation <hopes for a promotion>
2 archaic : trusttransitive verb
1: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2: to expect with confidence : trust
So we work because we hope and trust that we will get paid on Friday. We work hard in school to get good grades because we hope our work will pay off with a degree that we trust will allow us to get a better job and make more money. We are nice to others and we hope they will be nice back to us. We teach our children honesty and kindness because we hope they will grow up to be happy successful adults. We do lots of things because we hope and trust that those actions will result in good results.
However, there are times we hope and trust and work hard, but those good results do not materialize. Sometimes no matter what we do, or how much we hope, there is no possibility that what we want to happen is actually going to happen. It is at that point that we must accept the reality that our hopes are in vain. The doctor gives you or a loved one a diagnosis that there a limited time to live. What are the choices? To accept the diagnosis and get affairs in order, or do like Steve McQueen did and look all over the world for some quack who promises a “cure” to your terminal disease.
Webster defines another, less hopeful aspect of “hope” as:
— hope against hope
: to hope without any basis for expecting fulfillment
Malignant hope
Many times it seems that in our relationships with psychopaths we seem to hold on to that “hope against hope” that the relationship will improve. We try first one thing and then another and the relationship does not improve, but we hold on tenaciously to that “hope against hope,” which I call “malignant hope.”
Why “malignant hope”? Well, being a former medical professional, I like those 50 cent words that medicine uses, but this particular 50 cent word is pretty well understood by the general public. “Malignant” means “toxic” or “cancerous,” and that is exactly what “hope against hope” is—it is malignant like a cancer, and it metastasizes to every part of the body and soul. It spreads like a cancer and it destroys like a cancer because it forever keeps our expectations from being met, yet we “keep on trying” because of that malignant hope.
Each time we “hope for” something and it fails to materialize we are disappointed in proportion to how much “hope” we had, and how important the result is.
When I buy a lotto ticket I know the odds are above 13 million to one that I will win. Of course I “hope” to win, but I don’t really “expect” to win ”¦ so I don’t base my payment of next month’s rent on me winning. If I don’t win, I am not devastated. I really didn’t have MUCH hope that I would win.
However, let’s take a ridiculous example, and say I bought a lotto and had a great deal of false hope, malignant hope, that I would win, even with the odds being against me. I just KNEW FOR SURE that my hope against hope was going to come true. I knew I would have enough money to buy a house, a new car, a boat, and to live the life I wanted to live. I had never won before, but I knew I would win this time because I wanted it so badly. I needed it. When I watched the lotto drawing I just knew I would win. What happens when I fail to win? My hopes and my dreams are shattered, my entire life shatters before me, because I based everything I wanted on something that had little if any chance of happening. My hope of winning the lotto had become a malignant hope.
Psychopaths and malignant hope
Unfortunately, there are times when our hopes do become malignant hopes. When we hope against hope that a psychopath will change, will stop lying to us, stop cheating on us, bring their paycheck home. It never happens, yet we keep hoping it will.
People said to me concerning my son, Patrick, “he’s your son, you can’t give up hope,” or “where there is life, there is hope.” Those people were well meaning I am sure, but what they were telling me to do was to hold on to that malignant hope. I held on to it long enough, I saw over and over that he was not going to change, yet I kept hoping that he would. I saw proof that he had not changed over and over. Yet I continued to hope. Each time I was shown evidence that he had not changed in how he behaved, I was wounded again.
Someone gave me a sign once and I hung it on my wall, little realizing just how prophetic it would become. The sign said, “I feel so much better since I gave up hope.”
Actually I DO feel better since I gave up the malignant hope that my son would repent of his crimes, that he would change his attitude of entitlement.
It was only when I gave up that malignant hope that I ceased to be wounded and re-wounded by my son and the other people I had hoped would reciprocate my love and caring for them. I quit hoping they would change. It didn’t happen. It isn’t going to happen. I no longer hope or anticipate it will happen. I gave up the malignant hopes that I would win the “psychopathic lotto,” and the 13 million to one odds are not likely to be overcome just because I hope so much that they would be. People buy tickets and say, “Well, someone has to win, it could be me.” Well, I am no longer wasting my money or my hope on either the state lotto or the psychopathic lotto of malignant hope.
Oxy,
I needed to get my feelings out and let her know that I am done trying to reach out to her. “I” can’t handle the slaps in the face every time I try to reach out and help her.
She sent me a text yesterday saying that “Dad has sent a child support payment in and I want you to use MY portion of it to buy me contact lenses”. (I haven’t received a child support payment in 3 years!) So, she is crying the blues to her father now.
So, I decided NOT to answer any more texts from her. I’m tired of the back and forth.
First of all, I am NOT required to buy her contact lenses. She has glasses that are only a year old. She can make an appt and go to the eye doctor and get a new script and buy a pair of glasses.
She is working now…so if she wants the ‘luxury’ of expensive contacts…she can buy them herself. I am not obligated to buy her contacts, or food or anything. I have plenty of food in my house.
So, what is she going to do if I don’t support her while living out of my house against my permission? File neglect charges? Why didn’t her father send HER the money? …So that it gives HIM credit on the 40 thousand dollars he owes me???
I am getting SICK from this whole thing…physically. I am weak and achey and have an eye infection and I’m taking antibiotics still. I can’t deal with her anymore. IF contacts are so important for her to have…then why isn’t SHE buying them with her money from her job?
At this point, I have decided not to answer any more texts. If she wants to talk to me, she needs to come to my home and talk. I’m done with the game. She’s just plotting to set me up and I don’t care. Legally, I don’t have to support her if she runs away and is not living here.
She just wants her phone and contacts and a car. Why take a job that you can’t get to? Thats HER problem. If she was living home, she wouldn’t have to work…or she would have me to drive her to work if I chose to.
This whole thing is sickening. I need to stop communicating with her. Thats why I wrote her the letter and told her that she’s on her own. Unless she is living under my roof, I am not supporting her.
She should go to Florida and live with her Dad. Let him take care of her.
In the meantime, I need to look for another job because the subbing isn’t calling me enough. I still have a home and 2 children who need me.
I can’t let her break me down anymore.
Hens I like staying up with you, what are you talking about with adding “e” to the sign? I checked this entire thread and can’t find the story!
Curious minds want to know,
Athena
Athena,
here’s the post,
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2009/03/02/after-the-sociopath-how-do-we-heal-part-5-getting-angry/comment-page-23/#comment-154913
And onejoy commented about the nice Thives family…
😆
Tobe,
manipulative people know exactly which buttons to push on us. I’ll bet she doesn’t treat her dad, uncle, or the neighbor mom the way she treats you. Why? because they have DIFFERENT buttons.
Hide your buttons, show her different buttons. You can’t change her, you can only change how you will react to her. Those are your buttons and you CAN change them.
That’s why therapy for YOU is the best weapon against HER. A therapist can help you with your buttons.
Personally, I got rid of my buttons and just use zippers!
((hugs))
Skylar…
I am beginning to realize that she is doing exactly that. She has money to buy her own contacts, yet she is telling me “vision is a necessity”. She thinks that I owe her to support her. SHE left the house and her support, (a roof and food)is HERE. So, I am NOT giving her another dime or making any appts for her to the doctor. She never showed up for the last one!
Today I walked 4 miles already. I am going to build up my strength and carry on! Life is going quickly…and I am NOT wasting my days “mourning” over the loss of a spoiled brat.
I hope I can keep this mode.
Thanks for your support and I love the “zippers”.
Getting there.
2B,
I agree with Sky, therapy for YOU is your best option. Ii think this whole DRAMA rama is nothing more than that the TRIANGLE of “persecutor, rescuer, victim” with you and daughter opting for the different chairs on different days.
Only when YOU can quit feeling like you “have to get your feelings out” and START ACTING LIKE A PARENT instead of a teenager, there may be hope for the relationship with your daughter. YOu are NOT modeling adult behavior to her.
I’m not sure if she is starting to show psychopathic behavior or not, but she is sure showing dysfunctional behavior with manipulation and button pushing as Sky mentioned. I can’t see that YOUR or her behavior has changed in any way since this whole thing started. It is still a shiat kicking contest of she said/she said “ah ain’t it awful” I suggest strongly that you read Dr. Eric Berne’s book “Games People Play:” it describes your situation with your daughter perfectly.
2b – as long as you are engaged with the minutia of the situation (father, plotting, contacts, car, uncle, etc.) you are STILL in the game. YOUR trump card is that ‘she can have anything she wants if she only comes home’. You are engaged in a battle of wills with her.
you are understandably angry and hurt, but using it to try to manipulate her isn’t going to work. use it to keep motivating yourself to take care of yourself. work on giving up the desire to control her or the situation. use that anger to free yourself.
((((((hear, hear hens))))
hens
My dear love. I so understand the feeling. I don’t want him. I never want to see him again. But in the back of my mind, I do want him to regret losing me. I want him to want me so I can tell him too little too late a.h. Do you and I share the same sentiment?
I do know the rain makes me nostalgic. Sounds like climatic leafing out is your nostalgic trigger?
Ignore this part if you’d rather just process your mood:
Dearest heart,
I notice things about myself. Like as much as I want that acknowledgement from him that I mattered after all, that he felt the loss of me, I notice I don’t think of him at all when I am enjoying the companionship of a gathering of friends, not one glimmer of a thought when I was sharing time with another. No desire, no regrets, no sadness, no memories of him intrude in my world at all when I am living, not just getting through my day, but living/enjoying quality of life. Even if I am just having tea/scones/british mystery… alone with myself, as long as I am engaged in LIVING QUALITY to my life, He’s not even a whisper in the back of my mind.
Please, I feel so sad that you set yourself up to not meet a new man. You are NOT old (I am nearly the same age and I am not old either.). I lived in a world of equal numbers of gay men and straight people, and older men were VERY likely to find a partner. YOU are SO desirable, you have that personality. The ONLY reason you aren’t with a new partner is b/c you won’t let it happen. You avoid. I understand the avoidance. You got burned. But stop staring at your four walls. Turn around. It’s the only way to see someone NEW and for them to see YOU.
With tender regard for you, and wanting MORE for you too.
Katy
Dear Hens,
For years I lived, yea, DECADES I lived in malignant hope —I hope this or that and then I will be happy. I kept hoping that Patrick would “straighten up and fly right” or that some other thing might happen…it didn’t, so I would pick a new hope, like hoping patrick would not get too long a sentence, and then hoping he would come home and I could enjoy good times with him (he was so fun before he started all this meanness) then hoping that my new BF would take away the pain I felt from my husband’s death.
Always HOPING even when I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.
I put too much of my happiness on someone else’s shoulders,, depended on THEM to provide my happiness. Didn’t get to know Oxy the way I should have, didn’t give her enough credit for being who she is.
I have “given up hope” that Patrick is going to grow a conscience, and truly I do not CARE or worry about his welfare any more. I admit that I do care about son C’s welfare….I don’t have any HOPE he is going to change either but I hate that he is going to continue his poor choices and never “get it” that they cause his problems. In general he hurts no one but himself though, but it’s his RIGHT to make his own choices. I can’t trust him, but I do love him, from a distance. Sometimes when I think about it I feel sad. But Sad is NOT a “bad” thing….just nothing that you want to stay in that emotion 24/7, and we don’t have to, we can CHOOSE to not feel sad all the time, or to focus on the parts of our lives that we wish were different.
You know my step dad taught me a lot that 18 months after he received his terminal diagnosis of cancer….they gave him 4 months to live but he LIVED for 18 months, he did not “die” for that time, he LIVED IT, ENJOYED it. Every minute of it!
NOne of us know if we even have tomorrow….so you know we need to ENJOY every minute of every day. We can choose to whine and cry 24/7 or we can choose to process some of the problems we’ve had and spent the rest of the time enjoying just the beauty of being P-free.