I'm going to just post the things I read that I'd like to share a comment about ...I can't recall who said what if that's ok, and I have to leave to catch a bus soon, so please forgive me for now acknowledging each poster here:
Can you think of a 'mantra' to use when you feel panicky? Like,
'What I am missing was not real. That relationship was not real. He lied to me and deceived me. He did it on purpose. He is not worth missing. Now I am free to find relationships that are real and goodness that is real and people who are truly worth caring for.'
Great idea and I've used this myself. X was "too good to be true" and turned out to BE just that! I try to remind myself of it when I start thinking about the "good" times we shared, boating, laughing, eating together...
This is what is so scary "HE DID IT ON PURPOSE". He knew exactly what he was doing and continued the abuse. He sent me a message once saying things were not simple in his life and a relationship with me would be abusive. And I stayed. I forgave. I took the bait and hung on for dear life.
This is still sometimes so hard for me to grasp. X was so sweet, kind, beautiful, and seemed to care about ME and treated me well monetarily too. She found out all she could about me, and then began gradually stripping me of my identity and strength. She also typed me a message online saying that "things will never be like they were." IN other words, she was actually ERASING me from her "databank" so she could 'move on to her destiny without BAGGAGE holding her back (I was the BAGGAGE).
Others will try to convince you that he really loved you, that he was doing the best he knew how.
He didn't and he wasn't and he knew it, and more importantly, you know it too.
Yes, exactly! Though to this day you would hear X tell you "I will always love her and she knows I love her and no matter what, I KNOW SHE LOVES ME!" (at one point, knowing that X knows I love her, was enough for me to feel secure. But now, knowing that she knows I love her, means NOTHING, because WHERE IS SHE? Is she still here trying to tell me that she got help and realizes that her entire family is messed up and needs help? Is she hear telling me that she went to therapy again and that I am right...she has NPD and BPD and other things? Nope, you know where she is? With Supply #3 and livin it UP I'm sure.
I don't know why some folks find it so hard to face those facts... perhaps because of a misunderstanding of what compassion is and how it works. Compassion has to rest on truth. It can't run on lies, even lies told with the kindest of intentions. It has to sit on bedrock.
AMEN SISTER!
Another thought. In AA and Al-Anon and ACOA meetings, they say, "You're as sick as your secrets." I think that's true but it's not all. I think "We're as sick as our lies to ourselves." After all, lying is almost always involved in protecting the secrets of a dysfunctional relationship or family. Lies and sick secrets go together.
YES...sick as your secrets and sick as your lies...be sure your sin will find you out, X...one day, we all reap what we sow, no matter how smart and pretty and spiritual we believe we are.
There's nothing as awesome as being embraced by the wind and kissed and washed clean by the rain!!!!!!!
I LOVED THIS! So true and I can almost feel a MIST on me as I read this and a gentle breeze like I feel sometimes when Mom prays over me.
I was the one who was cheated of years of my life, my health, my dignity, my spontanous self.
Yep but I've been gradually taking back who I am, whom GOD made me to be. Now, X would tell me "I"m so glad that you didn't let what happened between us totally make you think BAD of Father (God). It doesn't matter to me that you don't like me...I don't care what you think of ME...I just want you to always remember FATHER'S LOVE!" (hmmm, I somehow thought that a really GOOD way to SHOW Father's love to someone, would be to treat them KINDLY and to examine yourself as well as requesting that of another) My Bible tells me that if you do everything you can to be Spiritual, but you have NOT LOVE, you are NOTHING but a clanging gong or symbol...CLANG CLANG CLANG!
You said you thought of N, the wonderful things you shared together, you cried missing him
Can soooooooooooooo relate! X had some wonderful qualities too! What a sense of HUMOR sometimes...she was as witty and charming as she was beautiful! I loved her so much and yes, in some odd way, I do still miss her and probably would want to still give her a hug if I saw her, actually...Weird how our minds work, huh?
Then last night I dreamt about the aweful look on his face as he did some denigrating thing to me and I could see him gossipping to my friends about what an idiot I am. He was telling them how he had to put up with my psychotic behaviour.
Yes I remember how I felt when I was told by a mutual friend of X and mine, about how she was telling this person all the REAL feelings she had about me...how I was mentally slow and how I SHOCKED her when she saw me again in person, cause of how I looked and acted (Never mind the fact that I had told her I ran out of my Thyroid meds)...she and I BOTH believed I had mental issues, but the truth has recently come out, that I do not...I never was bipolar or ADD or anything like that, according to psychiatric tests...but I did have some PTSD at times in my life after having been abused.
I woke up furious. Thank god, this was a balancing dream meant to remind me of the real hell that went on rather than the beautiful fantasy I created of love.
Yeah...I'm still trying to keep things all in perspective too.
