loving the self-absorbed

[Flo]

Dear Guest and HGuest,

Glad you like my idea about the scientific study.

The REALLY cool thing about it is this:  Not only is is practical in it quite immediate ability to disconnect you from your "hooked" state with your N's phoniness, BUT it also will help you identify those "hooks" that an N HAS which attract you in the first place!

Is it something about the way he walks?  Stands? Looks -- does he look lonely? Sad?  Does he have bedroom eyes?  Does he look at you real sexy?  What?  Something about his hairline?  Something about the clothes he wears?  (I really dug guys who wore wool plaid lumberjack jackets!)  Does he drive a car/van/truck?  Something about that make/model/color?  Something about the WAY he drives the car?  

Be VERY, VERY ANALYTICAL.  How does he hold his hands, wrists, elbows, neck, jaw, feet, torso, lips, teeth, as compared with other men?

Once you figure this out, you can use these very things to be what's called "aversion therapy" on yourself, so that when you see another guy coming who displays some of these things, even though will you likely feel the instant "thrill", you can then CLAMP DOWN on yourself and say, "DANGER!!!!"

This is what I have done.  It works better every time.   I still got trapped a LITTLE BIT, but I never got as thickly involved;I was able to disconnect in MINUTES or hours, rather than days or weeks  with guys like that!

Flo

[sslichterj]

Pandora: I just sent you another message on your post about therapy with your husband. After reading this thread I wanted to say one more thing. I think that the idea of trying to do all we can to make a relationship work with an N before deciding to leave, is part of the problem.

What, I think, needs to happen is getting nothing other than the fact that these people are really sick.  Like "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest" sick. There is nothing to understand about these people other than they may be "evil" as Scott Peck talks about in his book "The People of The Lie".

I realize I am on a mission here.  I want to tell everyone that these people are simply not like other people. And, there are not that many of them around, so it's not as if we will run into them everywhere we go and therefore must learn to live with them. No!  Do only one thing when you meet up with an N and that is leave, as fast as you can.

While I slept last night (the first night of sleeping since totally understanding what I have been fighting against for the last twenty years,) I had a dream that a snake was on my bed, trying to crawl underneath my covers.  When I woke up this morning the message I kept hearing in my head was "there is a snake in your bed".  Defines, I think, with such clarity the mindset of an N.  Quiet, sneaky, stealthy, and dangerous.

How to get over it.  There is nothing to get over. Keep telling yourself that. What there is to get over is being treated cruelly, unjustly and with malice.  Think of the snake, or whatever and just run.  Save your life.  Don't focus on trying to learn how to live with one because what you have learned will not help you with any other person on the face of the earth, unless of course, they are another N.

Do you have your running shoes on?  Good! Now grab your keys and go and don't look back.  Hugs.  Sally

[rosencrantz]

Indifference is a good starting point but Sally's right!  I think her post should be set up somewhere on a statue  with neon lights all around it!
 
They can't help it and YOU can't change it.
 
The idea is to get out while you've still got the courage, the energy and the will, cos the longer you stay, the less you'll have.
 
And then keep away.
R

[Sally (sslichterj)]

Rosencrantz: Thanks for your affirmation.  You defined such an important part of the damage that can happen with an N, and that is the part that the longer one stays, the more life, strength and courage is consumed by the N.  

I think part of their mission is to create submission on the other so that they can be assured of a constant supply from their victim. Oh, heaven just saying that sends chills down my back, because now I know how true that is.  And I especially know how true that was for me.  

I feel so lucky that I got out with my life and have time left to create something wonderful and nurturing for myself, and the poor child within who has also suffered a lifetime of abuse from N's.

Thanks again, and hugs. Sally