By AlohaTraveler
It took me a long time to clearly define that what the Bad Man was doing to me was… bad. Plain and simple, it was bad for me. Never mind if he was working through pain, never mind if he had suffered many losses or had an unfortunate childhood. Never mind. He’s a grown man. He was treating me in a way that I can only define as very bad for me no matter what his issues were. Really, it was unacceptable but at the time, I did not have clear boundaries as to what kind of treatment I would accept for myself before I would draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!”
There were lots of excuses he made up and to be honest, there were lots of excuses I made up to try to explain his erratic behavior and his consistent emotional battering of me. Early on, I told myself, “He lost his ministry. He lost his marriage and his five children. He lost his boat. Who am I to judge him? I don’t know what that would be like.” I thought he was a person in a lot of pain. I had a lot of pain too and so I thought that our meeting was designed by God. I am embarrassed to admit that but I really did think this was some kind of divine meeting. We were the same astrological sign (yes, another excuse!) and we had had our hearts broken and had many losses in the years leading up to our divine meeting. So, I was very gentle with him while he emotionally battered and tortured me. I tried to understand where he was coming from. I looked for the “1 percent truth” in the terrible things he was saying about me because I was so open and willing to work on myself. I accepted that maybe I didn’t really see myself as I was, and so his “coaching,” no matter how cruelly it was administered, I took in.
But this is all beside the point. I wanted to explain why I say “Bad Man.” I am not trying to be cutesy here. I started saying “The Bad Man” before I found LoveFraud. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him but more than that, I didn’t want to hear his name pass through my lips ever again. His name was once something that stirred me and I said it lovingly, but I didn’t want to hear it anymore. One of my friends started calling him “Captain Whack-a-doo” and “Emotional Black Hole. ” “Captain” won’t fit for most of you but feel free to use the EBH if you like. Hehe.
Bad Man sticks for me because I don’t know for sure what he is. But I do know for sure that he was so bad to me and bad for me. I like this term now because so many of us want to solve the mystery. We want to know the exact diagnosis, but why? What difference will it make? If your Bad Man was like mine, you were being abused. Who wants to be abused for any reason? Not me. I don’t know for sure if Bad Man qualifies as a sociopath but I know for sure he is pathologically disordered and that’s enough for me. I understand this fully now.
Many LoveFraud readers have struggled with this question. There are also the readers who look for loop holes. What I would encourage you all to do is ask yourself this question, “Is this man/woman good for me?” I think we know the answer to that. Over the years, I have dated men that were not a good match for me. I have dated men that were not that good to me because, well, they just weren’t that into me! (Get the book by the way, it’s a great one.)
But only the Bad Man was truly bad for my spirit and my emotional well being. Whatever his problem is, he clearly was not good for me. When I was with him, I was hurting all the time. Or I was stressing, anxious, angry, emotionally battered, sleepless, etc. I argued with him in my head all the time, because I never won any arguments in person. I was exhausted from constantly defending my choice of words, my past, my present, my future, myself. ALL THE TIME! I was just so tired. That doesn’t sound very good, does it?
If you are struggling to find the right answer, I understand how powerful that drive is but what if you let it go by simply admitting this person was not good for me.
I am pretty satisfied with my diagnosis. The Bad Man was bad for me. I am not a psychiatrist. I will never get to administer the PCL-R (though I would love to hear the results). Even if I don’t know the final answer, I do know that he was not good for me and my life is so much better having let him go and moved on. It can be such a long climb out of that emotional black hole. I learned a lot from hitting that bottom but I never want to go there again.
It’s been over three and half years since I left the Bad Man. I feel peaceful knowing that nothing like that will ever happen to me again. Now, I can spot a disaster like him from a mile away. If I see one coming, I could fight him off with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. Better yet, I would just turn my back and let him walk on by.
Aloha. Mahalo. By a strange coincidence, the business trip that took me out of the house and away from the S/P, took me to Hawaii. As the minutes ticked away, my own brain started to normalize, and I came to sense the horror I had been living with. I remember breaking down and sobbing on a boat in the clear, brilliant water after I had just experienced the thrill of swimming with dolphins.
Someone I trust has said to me that when we are in touch with that greater Consciousness, we are having an “oceanic experience.” I remember floating on my belly, my breath gurgling out as I breathed through the snorkel, and watching as delicate silvery crescents drifted upward to become the whistling, chirping, laughing dolphins that still haunt my dreams. And I remember, as I lay in the water, hearing the somber deep tone of a whale who was a mile or more away.
That experience taught me lessons I am still processing. Among them, I learned something about how we communicate, through vibration, over long distances. I could say that is what we are doing right now on our LF site.
I am so depleted, but somehow each day, each hour, each minute brings enough to get me through. Today someone sent me a slew of those emais that are too funny to even talk about. Next time I get an email from that person, I’m going to pee before I open it! Funny is OK. It’s one of the tools we have for survival. My survival has been threatened by this predator on every level — I do not exaggerate.
Thank you for your quick and heartfelt response. I don’t mean to undermine your message. Perhaps there are others who have faced something like my situation. I know that we support each other, sometimes simply by believing each other’s story.
Thank you, Wini. I know. But if I’d been in N.O. during Katrina, people would understand better what has happened to my life. This is like a concussion — no one can see the brain damage because there’s no blood, there’s no obvious cause. But the devastation is profound.
Dear Rune,
You are correct, “because there is no blood” people do not see the devestation, the terrible injury. Even if people who were in NO or in a war, plane crash, or whatever the trauma was, the injury is not visually apparent, but IT IS THERE!!!
If you have a cast on your leg, people can SEE that your leg is broken, or if you are bent over with arthritis and are elderly, people can SEE you are disabled, but with INVISIBLE injuries, the empathy, the sympathy, the compassion just isn’t there many times from others, even our friends and family.
I think that people can imagine a broken leg and the injury from a burn, but the invisible inuury is so invisible it is “non-existent.” Not being “strong” and “just getting over it” is a sign of something being wrong with US….it seems anyway.
Noo one would think of telling you to “just get over” a broken leg, or large burns, but somehow “they” expect you to “just get over” the injury from the psychopath. The expectations from others that we should “just move on” invalidates our injury and wounds us again. It devalues our feelings and our reality of knowing that we are gravely injured.
Yes, funny does help—((((hugs)))))
Rune: How ironic you correlate your experience with Katrina! When Sept 11 occured, I thought to myself … now the world is on the same horror page I’ve been on for the last few years. I was referring to my bosses terrorzing my entire being. I had no clue my EX was the same monster.
What an easy target they (my bosses) made me for the likes of my EX. Go figure. I have to separate (or were they) bloodsucking situations going on at the same time … What are the chances of this.
To this day, I believe my Ex was a ringer for my bosses. How can I have my bosses, their cronies, the union, personnel, Affirmative Action, my attorneys (two separate incidences) my fiance) all going on at the same time doing me under. There is no one in the world that will tell me this was all a coincidence!
Oxy Sweetie, are you still on-line? Hi if you are.
Thank you, Oxy & Wini. That we can simply understand this helps me. We give each other the reality check.
Now, what do we do with the rest of our lives? I suspect I’ll be healing for a long time. I need some positive distractions to remind me that life is also NOW! and to gently tug me away from this abyss.
Rune,
Thanks for the reminded… life is now.
I n eeded this reminder today.
Rune: I know I look for only the positives of life instead of trying to correct any of the negatives. It’s the focus on positives that keeps me going. I liked what one of the guys wrote a month ago … that if he ever meets someone again that needs help … he’s going to find out what they’ve done to resolve their own problems first. If they are at least trying (and it’s a constructive try) … then he’ll think about helping them. If they aren’t even trying, he knows that they are a con artist and will stay clear.
No big dramatic steps … just small steps towards the light.
Peace.
Oh, and Rune, I do ask people about what they think of spirituality. If someone thinks this subject is a farce … I stay clear from them too.
I know our horrific experiences have lifted us up a wrung of the ladder we hadn’t a clue existed. I know others who have never dealt or acknowledged the likes of our EXs haven’t a clue to what we’ve endured and would never understand how any of us survived.
Peace.
Hey Buddy … how are you? Good to see you haven’t forgotten us.
Peace.