SOMETHING THAT HAUNTS ME

This is so true, NLB. I wish this is something parents would teach their children, and even schools their students. Our culture is pretty forgiving of you as long as you are extremely good looking, photogenic and look great in AVI format :( You can be a disgusting narcissistic vacuum and go really far in our culture. Our culture celebrates and deifies surface looks. Our children are spoon fed this from birth just by having the TV on :( So yes, one of my greatest lessons in all this is to not base my judgment of a person upon how they appear to be. I want to see a person under stress, experiencing adversity, to see how they REALLY are. THAT tells me the true mettle of a person. How they act when things are going badly for them. Your example of what seemed to be a "perfectly charming gentleman" brings up a thread posted by Allthatglitters a month or two ago, about the subject of "charm" and "charisma", and how that is actually a giant red flag. NOT something to run to, but something to run from :(

Thank you so much for your post. It was so brave of you to express this, own this, write it out. This helped me because it's exactly where my mind is today. I'm sorry he did that to you, I can't believe how careless these men can be with a human heart. With a woman. I think karma will have him by the neck one day, with no tough-guy belt on to protect himself and nowhere to run. I almost wish I could be there to see it. =/

This morning, I keep finding myself looking for reassurance by comtemplating his potential "happiness". Right now I'm at that stage where it hurts SO much and thinking about him happy in his future (reference point: me, just supply from his past) hurts like bloody hell. This disorder, and the fact that they see people as just extensions of themselves- objects- is so difficult for me to accept as reality. And now it's part of my reality. Even as I try to reconcile with it and start putting it behind me, it's tormenting me. It messes with my head, it plays on every one of my emotions, spiking and twisting and knotting it's way through me. As I begin the withdrawal process, again, I'm bracing myself for this inner storm. I know I'm feeling this way partially because I'm still carrying the mirrored fragments of his angst too. It's a lot to sort out. No wonder people feel like they've been through hell and back on a high-speed rollercoaster after having broken free from one of these relationships. Feeling objectified by him is one of the worst parts of dealing with it all. It's like an anvil sitting in my stomach. Strapped to it is all of my unresolved anger, my feelings of rejection, fear, shame, guilt, loss, sadness, tension, confusion, longing, grief, Pain Pain Pain. It's like...how on earth will I get this out of me? When it was all fake, and he never loved me? And I will never know his honest feelings and never find any kind of closure. Not from/with him at least. I know I have to purge the weight of the anvil for myself. Gently. Patiently. Sometimes I love him. Sometimes I hate him. Right now I feel like I hate him and I hope he's miserable today, I hope he has a feeling in his stomach like an anvil too, and I really hope his future will be boring and unfulfilling and unsatisfactory and filled with angst and longing for things he'll never have. Damn, that sounds so bitter. I'm not sure if I mean that. I actually don't think I do. But I'm still pissed about his new, old friend. After his wife divorced him, he sought out an old college friend and reconnected with her. He put a lot of energy into doing so, took several trips to the state she lives in within the first year of his wife tossing him out. I just found out too that a few months ago, his business trip to Hawaii had actually been with her. She's almost 60 years old, she's almost 100 lbs overweight, she's not the least bit attractive, she was in a terrible car accident a few years ago and is always on powerful narcotics for the pain. I'm not sure what her financial situation is but I imagine she got a settlement and is doing alright. Maybe even quite well. So, of course this hurts. Not because I'm jealous of her. I've spoken to her, she's cool. I like me so I don't feel envious. Not exactly. But he honed in on working to secure that immediately after his wife left him, so she's obviously important to him- ouch. I guess she gets the new role of "Saint" that the somatic Narcs need. And I suppose he'll try and nail that down so he can go about securing another "Whore" to screw and abuse. This was me. Ouch =( This stuff is so intensely painful for me, I'm really struggling today, thinking about her and how messed up this is, trying hard to be strong. I know these are normal feelings to be having. In any relationship, we bond with that other person and somewhat incorporate them into ourselves, our life- thus our identity. So it hurts thinking of that someone moving on and being okay without us. Because it feels like they still have part of us and vice versa. The really painful part here is, again, accepting that I was not a person to him but an admirer of him. That really screws with the whole identity-bonding thing. It makes me feel like he took parts of me that he didn't even want anyway and then after, just threw them aside like they were nothing. It's a sick feeling that I get stuck on now. It sort of reminds me of a crap experience I had while moving into my very first apartment. I was 17, it was not on the best side of town. I had my car parked in the lot and was carrying boxes one by one up to my second-floor unit. I was only gone for a couple minutes between carrying each one up and my hands were full...so I hadn't worried about locking my doors. But of course some asshole helped himself to one of my boxes while I was out of sight. When I was finished and finally had them all inside, I realized it and was pretty upset. It sucks to be robbed anyway, but the part that stung was the particular box he/she chose. Not my box of towels, not my silverware and bedding, not my kitchen crap but the box that had my baby book. And my father's baby book as well, my mom had just given it to me. This box had all of my photo albums, trinkets from childhood like my ballerina jewelry box with my yorkie's baby teeth in it. It had contained my favorite stuffed animals (the only ones I'd kept) and my very first doll. Molly. My mom had made her by hand. I was sick. This stuff was so precious to me and gone, forever. I knew I would never get it back. I also knew that upon opening it, the theif was probably disappointed and just chucked it all into the nearest dumpster. All of my sacred memories, trashed like they were nothing. My heart hurt thinking about my memories sitting in trash. It took me years to not tear up about it. It still makes my stomach turn. This is sort of how it felt when he broke my heart. Only more personal, more cruel, more deep and probably more scarring. As shitty as it is though, I'm determined to not let this rob me of myself. I don't want this to change who I am. I'm sure it'll change how I look at things but he can't have any more of me than I let him take, right? He's not going to turn me into someone obsessed with locked doors. Yes I'll lock them, but I'm not going to let the locking stop me from moving. I know that sounds super cheesey but I'm worried about it. =( I can't allow that to happen. That, he doesn't get to take from me.

"what they do to their victims is who they are". That is the statement I needed to hear. This goes for the emotional abuse too. For some reason I keep thinking I am special (in the bad way) meaning that he only does bad things to me. My xN I think is ASPD with a dash of N. And he has moments of complete honesty and once said to me " I have done so many bad things". I thought he was talking about all the bad things he has done to me which are pretty darn horrific and he said "No CluelessUntilNow, these are very bad things that have nothing to do with you." I am thinking to myself good Lord that is a scary freakin thought.

I know exactly how you feel. My Nh was always extremely abusive. When he went to prison he swore on God Almighty that he was a changed man and that he felt so bad about the abuse he did to me and that he would never abuse me again if I just stayed with him. He said that he would show me how he changed. Well let me tell you when he came home he gradually started the emotional and verbal abuse then BAM! The physical abuse started again. One day he choked me so hard that his hand and finger prints were left as a mark around my neck. the look in his eyes told me that if he could have gotten away with murdering me he would have done it. I use to worry about who he is with but now i don't give a f**k because I actually feel sorry for her. My NH could not change after spending many years in prison and If I had called the police he would have went back to prison for life but see he still took that chance and choked me and that was only one episode. If a normal person knew that if he did one more violent thing he would go to prison for life I would like to think that he or she would do whatever to get help for their abusive behavior but a psychopath does not care. He will continue to abuse his lovers but he will run into the one who is not afraid to call the police and then he will pay the piper! I am just happy to be away from his abuse and to be alive! He is so sick and crazy it is hard for me to believe that i loved someone like this.