A projection of our feelings onto the disordered one...some thoughts...

This has been a pretty rough week for me. The phone calls have stopped, which frees up my brain from ruminating, making room for thought....

I see this over and over here, in so many posts...it's frustrating sometimes, but it's understandable....

It looks something like this

"when we broke up, I know he was hurt"

"I know he totally loved me in the beginning.."

"He treated me like shit, but I do know he loves the kids..."

"I know he feels hurt when I say something, it's all over his face and he tells me..."

These are just examples of the projections of normal feelings upon a very abnormal person.

I realized that with as frustrating as it is to read sometimes, it's natural for us to do this, because we DO feel. Of course we're going to project normal feelings of love, care, concern, hurt, onto our disordered ones.

But I can't stress this enough: The disordered one does NOT "feel" in those ways. They are envious, devious, manipulative, liars. Master projectors. Your luring was not REAL, it was a total fraud and completely manipulative.
Your devaluing and discard, was also a fraud, abusive and a lie. NOTHING OF WHAT HE SAID, BEGINNING TO END, is at all true.

They "feel" envy, hatred, rage, jealousy....and even then it is very, VERY shallow. Ever seen your disordered one rage and then five seconds later it's over? Ever have your disordered one have an argument with you and then pretend an hour later that it never happened? This is what it is with ANYTHING in the relationship. ANYTHING, from marathon sex, to marathon fighting.

The good news is that YOU can feel and are real.

The hardest part of recovery, as I'm discovering now, is that we must accept on every single level, that there are evil people in the world, and that there are people, disordered people WHO FEEL NOTHING, without CONSCIENCE.

If you cannot accept this truly, with all of your heart, the chances of running into and getting involved with another disordered one, will be very high.

Let someone earn your trust first by showing you with consistency over a long period of time that they can feel. Learn the signs, the traits, and PLEASE stop projecting normal feelings onto profoundly abnormal people. It will help you a lot in your healing journey.