The price of Monster love is steep.

[seastorm]

I have been reading a book called "Stalking the Soul". It is very good. She talks about emotional rape and how narcissists do this systematically with  people they get  close to. The only way for them to feel happy is to crush the one they 'love". For them loving is synonymous with destroying.  She describes this as two people drowning and the only thing for an N to do is use the others head to keep above water.
She goes on to say that emotional rape is as bad as physical rape and yet society does not recognize this. The symptoms and PTSD that result are very similar. Without dealing with the pain and the loss there is no healing and yet society colludes with the offender in making this very difficult by minimizing what happened and subtly ( or not so subtly) blaming the victim ie. You must have done something to bring it on. Why did you pick that guy? Why didnt you leave.

She talks about how Ns paralyse their partners who have been trying harder as the N withdraws affection and asks for more and more until the paralysed partner is like a zombie.

Her message is to have a lot of compassion for anyone who has gone through this kind of rape of the soul. And for victims to realize that it is not their fault in any way. As someone who is taking a long time to get over or heal from a devastating experience with an N, I need to hear this kind of message on a daily basis. There are people who thrive on power over others and cant love. The thrill for them is to destroy someone who loves them and they pretend to love.

Every morning I wake up and my head is filled with incidents that happened with exN and I start the climb out of sadness and despair. It is much easier now but these thoughts still assault me. I will put another piece of the puzzle together and "follow the lies".  I let myself cry and just feel the void I feel inside.  Then I mobilize and do something positive. Slowly I am building a life. It is not quite there though and I am so fearful of rejection and have a really hard time trusting. My mind is mush and it is hard to remember things or do housework. If I try to hard to forget I start to get physical symptoms. Like my back seizes up or I cant sleep.

So I joined a quartet and sing twice a week. We sound pretty good and laugh a lot and have a potluck. I paint with a friend and that is good. My latest is a picture of an old woman who has two chickens that live in the wall of her house. I love chickens. I painted that into the picture. Sounds weird but then how do you describe something creative. I am laughing every day now.

Now I know that a relationship has to be reciprocal. Value for value. Don't blame myself if someone does not love me because that is dangerous territory. Instead, realize that I dont want to be with someone who does not love. There may even be something good that comes of all this. It has taken four years to get to a place of faith and hope again. The price of monster love is steep.


Sea storm

[river]

   Every morning I wake up and my head is filled with incidents that happened with exN and I start the climb out of sadness and despair. It is much easier now but these thoughts still assault me. I will put another piece of the puzzle together and "follow the lies".  I let myself cry and just feel the void I feel inside.  Then I mobilize and do something positive. Slowly I am building a life. It is not quite there though and I am so fearful of rejection and have a really hard time trusting. My mind is mush and it is hard to remember things or do housework.   

I totally identify with this.  and this part is so important for me .........."If I try to hard to forget I start to get physical symptoms. Like my back seizes up or I cant sleep."................. Its for this reason that for so long, I have been partly paralysed, trapped in thought, needing to disentangle myself thought by thought in my head, thinking thro incidnets obsessively trying to reach some sort of liberating clarity, which I dont always.  But its for just the reason you say, to keep the rest of me free of it, ie an attempt to stop in invading and effecting the rest of me. 

Herman Melville said:

....that all earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea.           

[Hopalong]

What a fantastic thing to read:

Don't blame myself if someone does not love me because that is dangerous territory. Instead, realize that I dont want to be with someone who does not love

Bravo, Seastorm.

You're sailing into more peaceful waters.

love
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Rooting for you, Sea Storm.  Keep climbing out of that pit.  It's hard, hard work, but I think staying down there is harder still.  Thinking of you.

Twoapenny xx

[Logy]

Seastorm,  

Bravo.  Hops had your quote.  It said everything.  You got it!

Logy

[Nonameanymore]

Thanks for sharing the info you found Seastorm and wishing you good luck with your journey to serenity and love.
I admire your strength coming to the realisation that a relationship has to be reciprocal.
I am far, far away from realising it for myself.

P