UPDATED FOR 2021. Just about all Lovefraud readers share the feeling of being shattered by the sociopath. You just can’t get your arms around the experience.
“How can someone who claims to love me be so cruel?”
“Do you mean he (she) never loved me? It was all a lie?”
“I never knew people like this existed!”
When you first begin to realize that you’ve been involved with someone who has a serious personality disorder, you may feel shattered by the sociopath, like you’ve lost your bearings in the world and you’re drifting.
You’ve had your heart broken before, but no previous relationship compared to this. Even if you’ve managed to get away from this toxic person, you feel lost. Your well-meaning friends and family are urging you to get over it, to put it behind you, but you can’t.
Why? Why is it so difficult to overcome the sociopathic experience?
I believe it’s because nobody talks about the fact that sociopaths live among us. It’s a giant, malevolent skeleton in humanity’s closet.
Society’s myths
All our lives, society bombards us with messages such as “everybody is basically the same,” “all men are created equal,” “we all just want to be loved,” and “there’s good in everyone.”
Read more: Explaining everyday sociopaths
We strive to follow the Golden Rule — “Treat others the way you want to be treated” — believing that if we’re good to people, they’ll be good to us in return.
As much as we would like these ideas to be universal, they are not. But no cultural institutions, such as schools, churches, or even women’s magazines, tells us that there are exceptions to all these truisms.
No one tells us that criminals and terrorists aren’t the only bad people in the world. No one tells us that our neighbors, co-workers, or fellow church members, who look just like us, may, in fact, be human predators.
So when we run into these human predators, we are totally unprepared.
The big contradiction
We don’t know about sociopaths — people who live their lives by exploiting others. Professionally, they may be diagnosed as antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, histrionic or psychopathic. The official estimates for the number of people who have these personality disorders average about 12% of the population.
For this segment of the population, all those feel-good messages we get from society simply don’t apply. These people are not the same as us. They do not just want to be loved. Deep down, there is no good inside.
World view
We all have a certain Weltanschauung, a word borrowed from German that means “world view.” We have ideas and beliefs about how the world works, the nature of things, and the nature of people.
After a lifetime of absorbing cultural messages such as “everyone deserves a chance” and “love can change everything,” these are the lenses through which we view the world. They are also the lenses through which we approach our relationships.
Then we are shattered by the sociopath.
Here’s why this betrayal is so devastating: It demolishes our world view. It contradicts everything we thought we knew and understood about the world and the people in it.
We learn, much to our horror, that our world view is not accurate. There is a certain percentage of the population — the sociopaths — for whom everything we thought we knew about humanity simply does not apply.
This is why we feel unhinged. Not only our heart is broken — our understanding of life is broken.
Wisdom
Along with emotional healing, therefore, recovery requires that we change our most fundamental beliefs.
Yes, for 88% of the population, everything we always thought remains true. But for the remaining 12%, we need to accept a new reality.
Sociopaths are totally different from the rest of us. They have no ability to love. They are motivated only by power and control.
Learn more: Start your recovery from emotional and psychological abuse
But now we know. We’ve know that although the majority of people are good and loving, some are not.
Having been shattered by the sociopath, we learned this lesson the hard way. Now we can approach the rest of our lives with the wisdom of a survivor.
Lovefraud originally posted this story on December 15, 2014.
Is Your Loved One Dysfunctional or a Sociopath?
Hi Donna, I was FULL of compassion for others; I had a spiritual practice that centered on compassion; and I was freaking duped. This has left me wary of my compassion. I don’t trust the part of me that believes in it or the magic of life.
How do I integrate the knowledge I have gained about spaths and naec; and have it be part of my ‘tool kit’ for life; instead of having it been the only tool?
5 years out and still in so much pain.
Best
One joy
Dear one/joy_step_at_a_time:
Please change your poster name, ha ha ha (just kidding).
I would like to respond to your inquiry directed to Donna, please, and I apologize in advance for butting in.
I’m a spiritual worker as well and have also struggled with the issue. My advice from that perspective would be to obtain further mental Distance from it, and tap the resources of certain (hardly all!) others, notably those related to the link I’ll post below.
Since there are no coincidences, my Belief is that this Tool is really the only one that you need. Like all Essential Tools it was harshly earned and suitable ONLY for the one for whom it was manufactured.
Now it must be held in a Hand that is capable of wielding it instead of smashing the thumb. It takes a long while to acquire that skill, and much practice. One achieved, that Tool will smash through EVERY obstacle in your life as well as many others’ around you, and they will call it a Miracle but you will know better.
Then, I hope you remember, and see in that process that NOT ALL receive the OPPORTUNITY to earn the Tool to begin with, much less the SKILL to use it, and thereby Understand more of the All.
Blessings and Love from N/C
http://www.edgarcayce.org/ps2/mysticism_evil_and_the_devil.html
What – not enough syllables for you? 🙂
I am slightly familiar with Cayce’s work. Not really my thing but I will read the link you have offered.
I love the strong metaphor, determination and clarity in your post; this may be the real gift for me. I’ll read it over and mull it over.
No, ha ha, it’s that I sucked off my underscore key with the vacuum cleaner.
I don’t even turn off the poor computer when I suck the keyboard with the Dyson, my IT friends are horrified! and the other day one of them was here when I spilled a sugared cup of coffee into the thing, and from his panicked reaction I figured out that NOT everybody feeds their keyboard a whole cup of coffee every Monday as I do.
Knock wood, my old HP laptop has no underscore key but seems to be pretty forgiving, huh? 🙂
Also I am an astrologer, and the Hand is a Chiron placement, I will bet it is strong in your chart as well as many “new age healers,” inspired by their own wounds to heal others.
one/joy (that’s all I can do, the nub is getting worn, sorry) after reading your response to Jenna, please let me say this about the link I sent to you as it probably is not the direction of your usual thought process and has some pretty obscure text.
Here is the seminal portion of the opening text imho:
“…as a result of rebellion against the flow of creation, the harmony of the original ideal that all life was to follow.”
The point of the author is that HEALTH is not pursued by all entities. Just the opposite: some entities engage in “a rebellion against the flow of creation.” The so-called Akashic Record that is inscribed with the actions taken in the exercise of our Free Will, describes the extent to which we rebel and/or do what we are supposed to.
So when you confront those who REBEL, do not let them keep you FROM HEALING yourself, as well as others. Quite the contrary! your strength will be improved by your recognition of some persons’ rebellion against the very Act of Bonding with Themselves and the Universe.
That is NOT YOUR FAULT nor can you necessarily HEAL THEM, that is my point. Having “grasped” this thorny nettle without flinching, YOU WILL WIELD THAT TOOL AGAIN! and find it only the more effective and strong.
“…as a result of rebellion against the flow of creation, the harmony of the original ideal that all life was to follow.”
This happens to be the story of the Genesis, too.
Ou Jenna23 – I had VERY detailed death ‘picked out’ for my spath. Once I visualized all the details, I was able to let go of the torturing, compulsive thoughts about wanting to kill the spath.
I needed a very detailed fantasy to help myself feel empowered. Another Lf member helped me with it. 🙂
Justice for me came in protecting myself from the spath; and watching her get outed online time and again. There was more I could do (vis a vis the Assistant DA) – but not without it being at great emotional cost. I could even do it now – but again – the pain of the journey is probably not worth the destination.
Joy, I think your decision is the right one.
As a longtime participant in the outskirts, even those with really meritorious claims and readily obtainable relief find it a total Pain all its own.
Over the course of decades, I have seen the System falter until finally it’s mainly IRS and USA in there, so yeah …. “cut your losses.” 🙂 ASSUMING they don’t get any worse, that is, there is A Point at which the camel’s back breaks and only you where it is. Can ya eeek out space for just ONE MORE STRAW? 🙂 or is that proverbial End of The Rope? as time goes by, the camel tends to get stronger and the rope gets longer, as these pages reveal, so best luck at it yourself! 🙂
Jenna,
You will recover, just maybe not as quickly as you’d like to. You are proactively doing many things to help yourself. It’s difficult to recognize how badly we have been injured because it doesn’t show up immediately physically like physical trauma. It took me years to recognize how deep and pervasive my and my minor son’s PTSD really was/is.
He tried to destroy you and make you feel stupid to feed his sadism, power and control motives, and now you have to work to overcome feeling that way, even when you know that it is not true. You know you aren’t stupid, and he failed to destroy you. I think that those of us who did not have a positive loving supportive childhood have more difficulties as adults because there are some parts of ourselves that are weaker and some things lacking, not due to our own fault, but because we were not provided what we needed when our identities and selves were forming as we grew up. Spaths prey on people’s weaknesses and they exploit weaknesses. A good partner will support the other, help the other overcome, and protect their partner’s vulnerabilities.
It’s natural to wish the person who harmed you and who continues to desire to harm you, a slow and painful death. It seems like if the ex spath disappeared from this planet a lot of our problems would be solved. However, consider that even if the ex spath suffered and disappeared, it probably wouldn’t provide lasting satisfaction because we are nice people and just don’t enjoy suffering in general. The damage that they did to us, and the pain of betrayal and other harm the spath did to us, would remain. The effects of the smear campaign would continue, and people would feel sorry for the spath’s untimely painful death; and people wouldn’t understand any better what we went through either.
For those who are Christians, recall that Biblical wisdom says we don’t have to worry about revenge because God will take care of it for us (Romans 12:19).
Keep in mind that our ex Psychopaths want us to be thinking murderous thoughts about them. They want us to be evil like them, they try to bring us down to their level of existence. They want us to be focusing all our thoughts on them, and they don’t care so much if we’re ‘worshiping’ them or hating them, as long as we’re thinking of them. What they like least is for us to forget about them, recover and have a good life.
It is satisfying and helps us get through a bad time to have a few thoughts of the ex spath’s demise, but it’s not good for us to linger there too long. I found it helpful to read and learn about spath behavior; but also to read and learn about healthy relationships and positive interactions. Consider imagining what kind of behavior and attitude to look for in future friends and boyfriends, and how you will think, feel and act when you are recovered and healthy.
I listened to this relaxation and recovery audio which included suggestions for redirecting and reframing one’s thoughts, every evening right before I’d go to sleep for about a year. It helped me enormously. http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/guided-relaxation-for-repairing-the-aftermath-of-pathological-love-relationships
Survivors can trust again. We will learn to protect ourselves by waiting to give the resources of our time, love and commitment until we know another person better. We won’t assume that all people are good for us; we will reserve judgement until we’ve had a chance to observe the other person in a variety of situations; we know what red flags to watch for; and we will listen to and trust our intuition. We have learned that not everyone is a good person, that there are people who really are evil. A couple of generations ago that reality was widely accepted. These days the pervasive attitude is that everyone means well but people are just different, and that there are no absolute moral truths. The pressure not to ‘judge’ anyone else makes it easier for people out to exploit others to do so.
Dear AnnettePK (and all others!!)
I have a WOW moment to share and I want to be sure to credit and give ENORMOUS thanks to AnnettePK for providing an extremely valuable piece to my puzzle and probably a confusion that others have had as well.
Above is Annette’s recommended link to saferelationshipsmagazine.com. I clicked on it but there is a charge for the relaxation cd so out of curiosity, I clicked on “Listen to Relational Harm Reduction Shows”…Blog talk radio. I chose the show “Attachment and Bonding”. (if you don’t see it, right after “BlogTalkRadio is a menu bar, see threedot and threelines? Click on that and you will be about to chose, date is Jan30, 2014)
THIS “radio blog” explains SO MUCH! It explains why I felt such shame in wanting to attach, as if wanting to bond made me “needy” (which is what my ex said about me). It explains why it emotionally hurts so much to be involved with a socio/psycho (b/c being with a socio leads to inevitable harm, which is called a trauma bond, and the cognitive dissonance is so MINDBENDING!
WOW. WOW. WOW!
It is SO good to discover there’s really NOT something wrong with me, I just was misunderstanding about attachment and bonding. I think a lot of us are going through the same.
Thank you Annette for this link. I would NEVER have learned this on my own. To realize my desire to bond, to attach, does not mean I am needy/dysfunctional after all? The relief, the weight off my soul, is Measurable.
I hope this 1 hr radio show about attachment/bonding helps others as much as it did me. We ALL deserve to feel FREE of shame and judgment! WOW O WOW O WOW!! Blessings to you AnnettePK!!
Annette, it’s me PILING ON!!! 🙂
And checkin’ in on ya Jenna, please drink hot chocolate or something fun, and hang in there — as time does heal as nothing else can.
That’s chill, what’s the rush?
Jenna, please note also, that your pain is EXTREME so yeah, no rush.
Part of the site’s value is in seeing what you (it’s hoped, anyway) were spared.
The EXTREME PAIN of realizing you PAID FOR IT ALL!!!!
OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not just raped but actually PAID TO BE!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, lemme into that cooped-up room too, it looks great. Under the blanket. With the light out. A cigarette in hand. No book. Just covers and pretend it never happened, that’s me on many days, lol. PS: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. 🙂
Jenna,
Makes perfect sense to me. It’s called NURTURING. You need to nurture yourself, you’ve had the emotional crap beat out of you.
WHen I first left my ex, I am ashamed to say that I was agoraphobic for a VERY VERY LONG time. That’s because I didn’t know about LoveFraud then. I was alone with all this trauma and everyone I knew thought was I was crazy B.
You have a very good group of people here who know, YOU are NOT the CRAZY one. We’ve all been on that path and everything you feel is NORMAL. It IS a process you have to move through, at your pace and time schedule, and if you need help, Donna is a great advisor.
All I say is, while you are cooped up, do kind things to you and for you. Whatever feels kind and good to you. Your soul NEEDS someone to be kind, and you are the best first person to do that. SOunds weird, but I actually had a soft huggie bear and I treated the bear as I wanted to be treated, with hugs and encouragement and songs, and hugged it when I slept. It was a start. One I needed because we go SO long without care that it is babysteps at first. Be gentle with you, as you would anyone who has been done the wrong that you have suffered.
Best,
NWHSOM
Not,
I am so very glad you found the Safe Relationships site helpful. I have read just about everything on it and listened to a few of the Blog Talk radio segments over the years, and it has helped me beyond measure.
I bought a couple of the products and found them worthwhile. The most helpful one thing that moved my recovery along and rebuilt my damaged soul was the Guided Relaxation for Repairing the Aftermath. It works to reverse the hypnotic control the spath has over victims by using the same relaxed state of mind to impart the truth and right information that helps us resist the spath’s control, and make good decisions to take care of ourselves. It is specifically designed to stop the process of intrusive thoughts (the cycle of rumination about what happened), and help the victim think clearly again.
I was incredibly damaged and incapacitated; there was a time I could not put two coherent thoughts together.
Beginning when the spath and I were still ‘together,’ I listened to it every night as I was going to sleep. Once I listened to it when he was in the bed next to me. I told him it was a relaxation audio, thought he would be angry about it, but it fit into his created fantasy of me being emotionally unstable I guess, and he didn’t object.
I listened to it for about a year daily, then tapered off, and I still listen to it occasionally for a ‘refresher.’
Not,
PS: Thank you for the well wishes. They are deeply appreciated.
Jenna – when we encounter completely new and different thinking in ourselves it can be very disorienting. But it is often appropriate as the circumstances which have led us to that form of thought were themselves disorienting. It may be a matter of what i would call ’emotional physics’: an equal force is needed to find equilibrium.
In my case I wanted to stop obsessing and having the fantasy nailed (so to speak) helped me to do so. One of the other powerful resources was the resource I found her in the people of lf. We used to have ‘Friday Night’ parties – we would get really dark and silly. And when I was full of rage the only people who could stand with me and witness and not need to try to shut it down for their own emotional comfort were some lf members (well – with the exception of the spathy ones…). And then there was spath-chasing on lf. Trolls would show up from time to time. Some lasted one post before being outed and others we never seen by the admins (but were by members). Nonetheless lf members had ways of grey rocking them – which was often silly but deadly serious. The first time a troll showed up it triggered me horribly. The it became a game of ‘spot the troll’ for me; an finally I found trolls boring and when some of the more insidious ones hung around I would go off blog for a while. I moved from panic to ‘dealing with’ trolls, to just not being here to be triggered. This is an arc of behaviour change that is part of healing.
these people stir emotions we didn’t know we had; we must face these emotions or be controlled by them. The emotions change and we have to work with some really uncomfortable ones at different times in our healing. Many of us wonder at times if are not a bit spathy ourselves. My fear about that dropped away when I realized that I couldn’t ‘pull off’ dark and evil.
So, that leaves me here: with knowledge deep in my spirit of the evil man can be; understanding that there isn’t good in everyone, and yet not knowing who it IS in; and feeling separate from those who don’t hold this knowledge, nor the wisdom I have gleaned from it thus far.
I got ill during the time of the spath and remain ill. If this wasn’t the case I may have processed so much more about the spath experience – but i haven’t had the time and energy to do so. I could really make use of a good psychologist. There is still so much to unravel and discover about who I am now.
I hope the road you take is not overly encumbered by the ideas that you ‘should’ or ‘ought’- but is made clear by looking plainly at what you truly feel/ say/do, and what you want for yourself. And may you be blessed with the internal and external resources you need to enable you to do so.
Joy, you said:
So, that leaves me here: with knowledge deep in my spirit of the evil man can be; understanding that there isn’t good in everyone, and yet not knowing who it IS in; and feeling separate from those who don’t hold this knowledge, nor the wisdom I have gleaned from it thus far.
Only ONE THING IS IMPORTANT. TO HAVE GOODNESS IN YOURSELF. PERIOD.
Not sure what “If” is?
But you sound much younger than me.
Please don’t be offended! ha as I have grown into a Happy Crone, however trolls live under bridges and not out in the Open as people on this site do generally, in their lives as well as in correspondence I have been SO IMPRESSED at how SMART PEOPLE ARE and how INSIGHTFUL their perspectives — so “at your age” I would have been positively impressed …
although your EXPERIENCE has been so negative.
Cuz that is HOW we acquire the Tool, is it not? whether playing whatevertf If is OR REAL LIFE?!
Dude those Games are merely to teach you the real thing. And the general point of it all, is to decide which one of these two things is more important and whether you care or not they are intact when you Finish:
1. Yourself
2. Those people or ideas, countries or beliefs, that you’re committed to instead of #1.
In REAL life, it is HARD to see the troll, and EASY to be deluded in the name of Love. That is one of the cards you get at the Beginning and why “prior generations” read Shakespeare, lol. YES it’s boring and NO we have no idea what they are actually SAYING (if anything much)! but rather, we get the point that Life requires an intentional PLOT or the actors just end up staring out at the stage while the audience left long before.
USE the Gift of Life and your Dream Will Come True!!
Blue Fairy is my Real Name.
ha ha, sorry if you missed it when I posted it before…
I visited a retirement home to attend a senior citizen party (not mine!!) and some dear lady of about 99 came up to me JUST BEAMING WITH JOY ABOUT HER LIFE! I was 54 at the time and she said:
Oh HONEY!!! You’re so pretty, and YOU CAN’T BE MORE THAN SIXTY!! And since then I have had SUCH a wonderful life!!
Ha ha ha, I should send it to Reader’s Digest. 🙂 She was SO CUTE you wanted to squeeze her with a hug so you could get it into a GLASS, ha ha. She really WAS swinging! — one could only imagine what sort of Harold and Maude existence that pretty lady was having, or way better than that even, she was probably the beloved secret lover of Harrison Ford.
Also Jenna — I was writing to respond to Joy! but is always good to hear from you, and you do not sound as If my confusion about what If is, is a way weird one? hope not, lol.
I mean, I am out of STEP with culture yeah! but not THAT bad, I hope.
OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I HAVE JUST FIGURED OUT THAT WHAT MY EYES HAVE SEEN AS “IF” IS THE SHORT VERSION OF LOVE FRAUD!!!!!
I SWEAR I DID NOT GET THIS, HA HA, IT HAS BEEN A VERY VERY VERY LONG YEAR, AND THAT IS MY ONLY EXCUSE.
I HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A BOARD GAME THAT I HAD MISSED, JUST LIKE THE MANY ONES THAT MY KIDS PLAY AND MOVIES THAT WIN ACADEMY AWARDS WHILE EVEN THE PRESENTERS ARE NOT UNIFORMLY FAMILIAR. And I don’t mean to just me either, I am talking about NOBODY IN THE ROOM having any idea who those people are, lol.
Apologies to you Joy! however the Spirit remains.
Please all, forgive me for seeing IF where LF was instead. Not surprising though, right?! 🙂
He is out on this Saturday night
riding in his Porsche or hanging in his million plus mansion with another girl
(only one of many he juggles at once) getting sex and playing her for a fool.
Uh Jenna — that would drive anyone nutz. It’s not you. Just remember, it will not last.
Ha ha, you have just reminded me of a years-ago dream.
I was dating a man who was openly non-exclusive with me. I was very much younger and this was “back in the day” when we were into the “free sex and love” thing, which worked great for them!! and not so great for us, right?? We were having to pretend we honestly did not care about that other lady’s bathrobe hanging on the hook, and were to be SPONTANEOUS!! meaning, they didn’t have to call first but we would be available anyway. (How did we get talked into that?? I don’t remember.)
Anyway, we all complained about the other women, cried at friends’ weddings figuring we’d never get a ring, and otherwise showed that Free Love wasn’t REALLY ok with us, we were actually just trying to get them to propose while claiming we didn’t give a crap.
When I complained, he would uniformly say and I quote, “Don’t Hassle Me.”
In my dream, he was having SEX WITH MY MOTHER!! and when I came in and busted them, guess what he said?
Right. 🙂
I haven’t remembered that dream in a long while, and someday all this will seem like a dream to you too. I promise.
What you write is profound, about free love, and being told to ‘stop hassling’ when you ask him to be accountable. It all really makes a case for old fashioned values with respect to relationships.
He wanted a threesome with your daughter!?!?!?!?!?
Consider that he probably used hypnotic techniques on you. This is a three part article about how spaths use hypnosis on their victims.
http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/am-i-under-his-spell
http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/am-i-under-his-spell-part-ii-2
http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/am-i-under-his-spell-part-iii-2
He sounds about to get arrested.
That is WAY too many people to involve so keep your distance, Jen.
Jenna,
How long did you know him before he ‘dated’ you? Have you ever checked to see if he has a criminal record, and whether he is a registered sex offender in any state?
You already know he is a sexual addict, pervert, and offender, but it might be useful to find out if he has ever been caught and successfully prosecuted.
jenna23
The reason why is because you are a person who actually has FEELINGS. Your brain has been hijacked by trauma. It takes time for the chemicals of trauma to stop pouring into your brain, and for the brain to relax.
The reason he is able to “move on” is because he is incapable of NORMAL human feelings. NORMAL people can’t do what he did, we aren’t wired to be that level of cold calloused and unfeeling.
I say, from my experience, FOR THE MOMENT, it SEEMS he got away with rape/abuse. But time is not done with him yet. This part evolves… as does your healing.
I think you have horrible prosecutors!!! and am so very sorry, you did the right thing to report it and I hope that at least there’s a record of your complaint. 🙁
Still, looked at rationally, that behavior is so perverse and universally unnerving, that somebody is going to bust him for it, is my bet.
Back “in my day” we worried about unexpected pregnancy but today’s sex life is much more hazardous to one’s physical safety, and generally the Word is Out on that fact.
Aw Jenna 🙁 I’m so sorry. As it happens, I participate in that system too, and it is not very rewarding either….Justice is an elusive thing especially if you have to pay an attorney for it.
But STILL!! Somebody is Counting, Count on That!
Jenna,
Women and children should be protected, and someone should stand up for you. It helped me feel better when my adult step son offered to teach the ex a lesson (really in jest, but I appreciated his loyalty to me), and when the ex’s son actually apologized (once on the phone and once in an email) for his father. That touched me.
It’s not justice, it’s a blessing. You are so much better off and safer in your room feeling real feelings based on reality, than you would be interacting with a sociopath based on exploitation and lies. I would much rather be where you are doing what you are doing, than be with the sociopath. If you weren’t sad and depressed for awhile after what he chose to do to you, there would be something wrong with you.
You don’t feel indifferent because you bond, you love, you keep your commitments. It will take time for your emotions and your heart to catch up with what your intellect knows.
Spaths don’t respect their victims; they despise us because they think we are weak and fools. They are wrong.
I think it is a lot of progress because of your hard work to recover that you have moved from feeling suicidal to feeling bitter. That is good progress. You are doing everything you can for yourself, by arranging for counseling. You care about yourself, you respect yourself, you have a lot going for you: You! Consider trying to be patient with the pace of your recovery, and congratulate yourself for the excellent job you are doing.
Annette wrote a very good response Jenna,
I had a hard time with the justice thing. I do not believe there is such a thing as justice. But there is, as Annette writes, something better.
My ex nearly murdered me. I was restrained for a time and was beaten. I knew when that line was crossed that my death was imminent. I got away by a fluke of luck, a truck driver showed up in a place he was not expected to be (dead end, private country road), and as a witness. I filed a police report. In the report, the officer said I was hysterical and mentally unstable. The truth is yes, at that time I was. I didn’t understand why others thought that was bizarre considering what had been done to me. The DA declined to file charges. The Law applies only to certain people. I was worth LESS than human.
It took a long time for me to find myself again and not live in paranoid terror (it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get ya!). I learned to re-define the meaning of life, to let go of Justice for something better.
I am writing this to tell you that I do understand jenna23. It’s hard. DAMN hard. But Annette is right. Your EX did not get what he wanted. And YOU LIVE. You don’t pretend. You know REALITY. We aren’t weak. We were conned by master con artists. Spaths can sucker punch us, but when we get up, we can be something they will NEVER be. Caring, decent, humans of dignity and honor. You ARE progressing, even if you don’t quite see it yet. The LAW may not give us legal justice, but there are other ways that the universe gives us better, gives us validation,and rewards us for being NOT LIKE THEM.
Yes, I agree totally with what Not said, and especially with the word you chose yourself: Trance.
In fact, I thought Jenna’s word was a really apt description of my OWN state.
Please know, I stayed there for thirty years and so your WORD for it was appreciated! mine having been Illusion, Deception and Attack — while TRANCE is really a better choice — and during it I was raped.
The fact I got a bill for this was just the icing on the cake, it was the Trance that did me in, and I woke up as Poor as Old Mother Hubbard with the poor dog going hungry again and looking at me with sad eyes yet.
So thanks, Jenna. 🙂 A great word for my own experience at this. Hey, I can cast a chart. Does that make it any easier to understand WHY?!!! Isn’t the whole Point of Life to do BETTER? and SUCCEED? in this experience, like another male poster recently joining in …. I have learned the answer is NO!!!!
Cramming that info into my Brain has changed everything about the way that I thought, and so my heart has totally gone out to that guy — “Joy” is how I remember his poster name, it’s hoped you know who I mean.
Please let me clarify since I can’t Edit and sure don’t want to create any Illusions myself:
Despite the mis-wording in that post, I am a WOMAN, lol. 🙂
However, please let me remind you that I am a woman who cuts men off without even knowing about it, so if your confidence is low in me, I don’t blame you for it one bit. 🙂
Marijuana and chocolate.
I’ll be even more explicit, Jenna.
You should speak with your MD or physical therapist or something, about whatever you are using for pain relief for your injuries. If that substance is opiate-related then you can expect your poor brain to be even more unhappy as it struggles to find Reality out there — some drugs are VERY TOXIC and also please read this:
TO SOME PEOPLE MARIJUANA IS TOXIC TOO!!! so DISCUSS WITH YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE YOU TRY ANYTHING and in the meanwhile, ACCEPT that you need help with this and not further flogging of that poor DAMAGED BRAIN OF YOURS.
You did NOT run your OWN neck over with a truck and thinking that way is a BAD RESULT. It will hurt and so, you do.
That does not mean you are “doing this to yourself,” but rather that YOUR BRAIN IS TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF IT and THERE IS NOBODY ELSE TO BLAME!! SO IT MUST BE YOU!!!!
Yup, the anti depressants are not working FOR YOU.
The problem with “drugs” generally, is that they work differently for everyone.
I know that my ex’s problem is NOT alcohol, for instance, but what it does to him chemically is something I can smell — like ether! — a MIX in his blood, maybe his liver, maybe his brain, who the heck knows or cares? but it RELEASES THE MONSTER and so I am much more afraid when he drinks.
Which is from 6:00 AM until 5:59 AM, Monday through Sunday, and by my count from around 1998 to date. Not that I knew that you understand? or anything from 1982 when it began to 1998 when he started drinking…
cuz Drinking is not his Problem.
It’s that CHEMISTRY of his, WHATEVER it is, and WHOMEVER he is, if you know what I mean.
Actually Jenna, your brain can accept that it’s your fault, WAY easier than that it’s his and Accountability is not.
It is legal here for medicinal purposes and seems effective for PTSD.
It is not necessary to be Stoned.
Just Stabilized enough to get dressed.
DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL or use ANY OTHER DRUGS NOT PRESCRIBED.
YES, it IS overwhelming.
It’s my suggestion you disregard family members and friends, and schedule an appointment with your MD’s office on Monday morning sharp. Tell them the pain is unbearable and you cannot take it ANYMORE.
Since that is the simple, plain Truth and you CANNOT control pain on your own. If we could do that, why bother getting an epidural during labor, or a shot at the DDS either?
It’s not true that you have to live with this way, so if your MD is not responsive…
…you know what I’m gonna say next, right?
GET ANOTHER MD, that person sounds like a nut too.
It is not true that everybody is nuts, but it ALSO is not true that you can’t trust yourself to figure out who is, by how they respond to your complaints. Actually you CAN! and your brain is asking you to do that JOB so it can SLEEP one of these nights or days, or even for a few minutes at a stoplight.
Jenna,
3 years later, I am still recognizing ways and how deeply I was damaged. I like the tornado analogy.
Even when I didn’t feel like it and it was really difficult to get going, I always felt better when I pushed myself to do a few things, even just get up and get dressed.
Most others won’t understand. I didn’t really expect them to, because I know I would not have understood before I personally experienced spath abuse.
I never have taken antidepressants so I don’t know about them, but I intuit that unless they are some kind of magic, a person is not going to enjoy sale shopping after being severely physically and emotionally abused, raped and humiliated by someone in a relationship that is supposed to be love based.
I wouldn’t expect a person traumatized by any kind of loss, like a death of a loved one, to be out dancing and shopping as though nothing happened. Having been widowed before the spath abuse, my experience was that my good husband’s death did not damage me as the psychopath did.
You can choose to do some enjoyable things while you are in recovery, but consider not generating more negative emotions by expecting yourself to forget the horror.
The way you feel is why it is not acceptable to lie and cheat, and why romantic relationships work best when they are monogamous and caring.
A good counselor familiar with psychopathic abuse and PTSD probably has some tools to help you.
I can only offer some things I did on my own for myself.
Be patient with yourself. Try not to have expectations for an instant recovery. If you were physically injured with broken bones and burns, you wouldn’t be impatient with not being able to get up and be healed immediately. PTSD is as real as broken bones.
Try to push yourself to do a little at a time. Pick out one thing to do, like take a walk, do some dishes, fold some clothes, whatever you have to do, and try to accomplish one task. Then take a rest in the refuge of your room, and when you’re ready try to accomplish something else.
In the same way, try to read something or watch something that has nothing to do with the spath experience. Don’t think of it for a short while.
You may know some things that help you feel better. Congratulate your self for whatever you are able to accomplish. Don’t be hard on yourself.
I did next to nothing for about 3 years. You may be more motivated than I to recover faster.