Articles from June 2012

How DARVO could prove which of us is telling the truth

DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.

DARVO stands for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender.

This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.  –Jennifer J. Freyd, What is DARVO?

While re-reading this article on Shrink4Men, I came upon a section which hit me as proof to my readers (who can read Tracy and Richard‘s bizarre, intimidating and remorseless e-mail to me in the “Now I’m Being Stalked” post, and how they’ve been trying to stalk and intimidate me online and off for the past few weeks) of which of us is telling the truth:

Of course, not everyone who denies wrong doing is engaging in DARVO. Many partners and exes of abusive women are accused of things they didn’t do or of things that never happened.

Naturally, when this happens, you deny the accusation and perhaps feel a little (or a lot) bewildered. How do you know if an individual’s denial is the truth or an instance of DARVO? Freyd (1997, pp. 23-24) proposes:

“It is important to distinguish types of denial, for an innocent person will probably deny a false accusation. Thus denial is not evidence of guilt. However, I propose that a certain kind of indignant self-righteousness, and overly stated denial, may in fact relate to guilt.

I hypothesize that if an accusation is true, and the accused person is abusive, the denial is more indignant, self-righteous and manipulative, as compared with denial in other cases.

Similarly, I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior.

This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of lawsuits, overt and covert attacks, on the whistle-blower’s credibility and so on.

The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. The attack will also likely focus on ad hominem instead of intellectual/evidential issues.

Finally, I propose that the offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. The more the offender is held accountable, the more wronged the offender claims to be.”

The original paper (“Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory” by Jennifer J. Freyd) goes on to say:

The offender accuses those who hold him accountable of perpetrating acts of defamation, false accusations, smearing, etc.  The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense.

BINGO!

More relevant stuff:

The divorce process triggers these fears and pushes all of their hot buttons, which explains why many escalate their controlling and abusive behaviors during a divorce.

Divorce represents a final loss of control and means that their flaws and faults might be exposed to friends, family, mental health professionals and the court system. Most Cluster Bs fight tooth and nail against having their abusive traits and other nasty qualities exposed.

Now that you’re no longer together, you know too much about her and, therefore, must be discredited and destroyed so that no one will suspect that she’s actually the one with the problems. This is her logic.

…3. High-conflict people feed off conflict and chaos. It gives them a buzz. For many, the only way they know how to relate to others is through aggression, blame and playing the victim. Once it ends, what does she have left? Nothing.

4. Oppositional withholding. This is more leftover baggage from your marriage. Many of these women are withholding partners. Meaning, if there’s something you really want, she doesn’t want you to have it.

The more you want something, no matter how insignificant and small, the more she finds reasons that you shouldn’t have it or actively obstructs you from getting it.

In this respect, these women are like oppositional, defiant toddlers. The more you want to wrap up the divorce; the more she digs in her heels and tries to delay it. –Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, Divorce and high conflict people: borderlines, narcissists, histrionics, sociopaths and other persuasive blamers

Sociopaths blame others for their bad behaviors and do not take personal responsibility for their actions. At their core, they are filled with rage, which is often split off and projected onto their victims.

Sociopaths have poor behavioral and emotional controls and can be impulsive. They often alternate rage and abuse with small expressions of love and approval to keep their victims under their control.

Sociopaths lack boundaries and do not care how their behavior affects others. They may become enraged and/or desperate when their victims try to enforce boundaries on their abusive behaviors. They have difficulty maintaining friendships, and, is it any wonder given how they treat others?

They typically end relationships and/or try destroying former friends who have seen behind their masks.

Some may have long-term friendships, but they either seem to be long-distance or friendships with incredibly damaged individuals with low self-esteem who admire the sociopath, i.e., sycophants. –Dr. Tara, Rethinking female sociopathy, part one

Do they do this on purpose?  The expert, Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, has some insight into how NPD’s/BPD’s think:

Basically, she doesn’t have a James Bond evil villain-esque plan for world domination; everyday is a battle to protect herself from being assaulted by the truth of what a damaged, flawed being she is.

These women create a distorted bubble of un-reality in which they are wonderful, misunderstood creatures who have to put up with lesser beings like you, me and everyone else on the planet.

Verbally abusing you and making you believe you’re a jerk is how she keeps her version of reality undisputed and household tyranny alive.

She may know that her behavior is hurtful, but doesn’t care. She feels justified because you “deserve” it for some imagined or minor affront to her ego. However, I wouldn’t say this is “premeditated” or even conscious. It’s instinctual survival behavior.

She has learned how to manipulate you, others, and her environment through trial and error, like a child who has discovered cause and effect.

…These women see the world in terms of rewards and punishments—much like a 5-year old.

Calling a NPD/BPD’s behavior “premeditated” gives her credit for a level of self-awareness I just don’t think she possesses.

Also like a 5-year old, these women are totally egocentric. They believe the world revolves around them, that everyone else is like them, and motivated by the same desires and fears.

As for her threatening divorce; you should be so lucky! Here’s the most crazy thing about these women; they do everything in their power to drive even the most patient, tolerant, and forgiving soul away, yet their greatest fear is abandonment.

Because of her egocentrism, if her greatest fear is abandonment, then you must also be deathly afraid of abandonment. —Is a Borderline or Narcissist Woman’s Emotionally Abusive Behavior Premeditated?

Also, “Narcissists/sociopaths do not feel remorse for their hurtful and/or criminal actions and believe that their targets deserve to be screwed” (Do Narcissists Feel Remorse?).

Also, why would I make up a story like this?  Why would I expose myself to the Net as emotionally vulnerable if it were all a lie?  Why would I tell all these personal things, exposing my gullibility and mistakes, for a lie?

I keep wanting to remove some things from my story, things I had only told my husband before this.  So I start thinking, “What if my family/friends read this,” but keep these things in because they’re a crucial part of the story.  Why would I expose myself like that for a lie?

And especially, what would be the purpose of lying about people, whose names I refuse to even reveal on the Net?  Why would I research narcissism, BPD (borderline personality disorder) and abuse in the first place, if not to try to figure out what the heck was going on here?

I might google abuse because of my college memoir stories of abuse, or to add something to my webpage about abuse, but why would I google it because of Richard and Tracy if there had been no abuse?

I never heard of BPD until I began googling about abusers during my grief, did not know much about narcissists, was not aware of the connection between NPD/BPD and abusers.

After I began to suspect BPD/NPD based on Tracy’s behavior, which fit the traits and behaviors I kept reading about, Todd told me that according to Richard, BPD is indeed in her family.  As the author of Narcissists Suck put it,

I am sure there are people who can justify leaving a relationship based on simply calling on incompatibility as justification. My blog isn’t for those people. They don’t need to read what I have to say.

In fact, this person is very unlikely to go to Google to type in some search in order to demystify what they’ve gone through or are going through. They have simply shrugged off the parasite and moved on. No damage done. The person you describe has likely never even seen my blog. —Calling Narcissists Evil

My Trip to Oz and Back is much like my own blogs, an account of two years spent by the writer with her girlfriend, which was actually a 50-page letter sent by the author to her ex-girlfriend.

That was in the late 90s, when the author had never heard of borderline personality disorder, so there had been no official diagnosis for her to point to.  But the more she learned about BPD, the more she knew her ex-girlfriend had it, so she posted this letter to help others who are dealing with someone with BPD.

It has been on the Web since 2003, and by November 2006 had received 53,000 hits.  As the author wrote on the main page,

Writing this was cathartic. It doubled as a form of therapy. I actually did send the letter; however, I doubt that it had much effect.  The more I learned about BPD, the more I realized that the likelihood of this person ever really understanding, was probably close to zero….

Why would I want to put such a personal document online?  There are several reasons. First, I wanted to give an accurate portrayal of what it is like to be in a relationship with a person with BPD. There are many books and websites on BPD, but relatively few from a significant other’s point of view.

Second, I am hoping that someone out there might read a bit and identify with it.  When one is in a difficult situation, sometimes just hearing about another person’s similar experience can be affirming–as in, “I’m not the only one.”

Finally, I consider myself a success story–see the final chapter, the epilogue.  My wish is to give hope to others.

Like me, the author changed names and identifying details.  This is to protect the guilty as well as the innocent.

It’s the most baffling part of Richard and Tracy threatening a lawsuit, because I never used and never intend to use their real names in these blogs–and anything I would tell my priest about this, would be the truth, and not in any way actionable.

Joyful Alive Woman also wrote about her abusive, narcissist, female former friend.

In searching the Net for other people who have been threatened and accused of lying/defamation for telling the truth about abuse, I found this by Christina Enevoldsen:

When I was in my early forties, I stood before a group of people and named my father as my abuser.

It felt good to let go of the secret, but when I went to bed that night, I felt horrible guilt for “betraying” my dad. I heard a little girl’s voice tell me that I was going to get in trouble.

I knew that was a voice from the past and assured myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but deep down, I believed I deserved to be punished for telling.

I didn’t know what the “punishment” might be until I got a letter from my mom. For years, she’d accepted that I’d been sexually abused, but when I uncovered my father as my primary abuser, she accused me of lying:

Christina-
I am writing to inform you that your malicious slander of your father has not gone unnoticed. You have built an entire world out of your fantasy. In dreaming up your sexual abuse you have maligned your father’s character and deeply hurt his heart and mine. Your lies shall surely catch up with you.

I want you to know that if you have any plans of writing a book, we will sue you and anyone who has anything to do with it. Your defamation of your father’s character will stop. You will not enjoy one penny from any book published about this gross lie.

And I should let you know that we filed some of your inflammatory statements about your father and me, along with your threat against me, with the Mesa Police Dept.

And I will always be your mother whether you recognize me or not as such.
Your mother-
Mary Schamer —I Blamed Myself for my Abuse Since I Didn’t Tell

Comment #30 on this blog post, by “PS,” reads:

The letter from your mother was chilling… and reminded me so much of the threatening email I got from my brother several years ago.

This after he’d spent the better part of a year cyberstalking and harassing me when I confronted him and my parents over the abuse (my parents knew and did nothing to help me, in fact my mother labeled it “normal experimentation” and tried to convince me “all families fool around”), and after I told the rest of the family (who never responded and, from what I heard, sided with them, so they’re no different than any other abusive family structure).

He told me in his email he was going to contact a lawyer to “seek remedy” and accused *me* of being the one harassing him, told me that my letter was a “poison pen” and essentially called me a liar, among other things.

I turned the tables on him at the advice of two attorneys and called the police on him. They said they couldn’t pursue charges as he lived in another state, but they were willing to call him and tell him to stop contacting me.

I don’t know what they told him, but they must have scared him good, because the most he was able to muster was “I’ll stop bothering her if she stops harassing me.” Outside of when he notified me – politely – that our grandfather died two years ago, I haven’t heard hide nor hair since.

I read more of Christina’s story:

My next stage in disclosure was speaking to a group of about forty people, many of whom knew my father. I wasn’t sure what their reaction would be, but I felt ready to share it, no matter their response.

I had enough of a support system, within myself and with others, so I was secure and didn’t need anything from them. I just wanted the opportunity to share the truth. They were overwhelmingly supportive.

I was validated by the group, but when I went home that night I heard a little girl’s voice in my head saying, “You told,” in an accusing tone. I recognized that the little girl was the little girl inside of me.

She was the one who was warned not to tell. She was the one who was afraid and felt threatened.

But as my adult self, I wasn’t under my father’s power anymore and he couldn’t do anything to hurt me. So I comforted myself with that and validated my progress—and continued to tell.

After that, I published the story of my abuse history online. I wanted it to be public. I wanted the whole world to see it.

I wasn’t afraid of my dad finding out. I wanted my parents to read what I wrote. I wanted them to know I was talking about it. I felt empowered and strong. —How Do I Disclose My Abuse?

I believed that there was a rule that I was allowed to share a bad experience with one or two people at the most and then I had to stop talking about it or I was “just being a victim”. Yet I was compelled to keep talking about it even with the internal accusations and the guilt that it caused.

I was warned that “dwelling” on things doesn’t serve any purpose—that it would just make me feel worse.

But I was already depressed and it wasn’t from talking about my abuse. I was depressed because my trauma and the feelings that went with it were locked up inside of me.

As I started to see some benefit from talking about my abuse, I started to question the limited talking “rule”. —Why Do I Talk About My Childhood Abuse Over and Over?

Patty:  When I first read a survivor’s story from a book, I cried for days. I was so relieved to know that I was not the only one. Her abuse was different, but the trauma from the abuse was the same as mine.

Even though I didn’t know her and never spoke to her, I felt so close to her. As I continued to read about her abuse, I grew stronger. I was no longer alone.

For a period of time the only books I read were stories about survivors; I didn’t want to read about healing.  I wanted to become a part of a group of survivors. There were no survivor groups where I lived and there were no computers at the time, so the only connection I had was with the survivors who so graciously shared their stories.

It was life changing for me. I continue to read survivors stories because it continuously brings me into the circle.

Jennifer:  I wasn’t able to admit that I was a victim of sexual abuse until I started reading other people’s stories. They described the same types of things that happened to me as a kid. The only difference was that they had a label to define their experiences.

I had always thought of it as “stuff that happened”, stuff that I didn’t think about, let alone talk about. It never occurred to me until then to attach the word abuse to my memories. If I hadn’t read the accounts of other survivors, I would most likely still be in denial today.

I am so grateful to all the brave men and women that have opened up and shared their stories. They have paved the road for me and future generations to tell our stories and begin the healing process. —Why Do I Need to Tell?

I felt like poison was being spewed at me but at the same time, I was surprised how calm and rational I was able to remain. I refused to accept the abuse and told them as much.

I was able to stand up for myself in a way that I never could have before I began to heal. I could see that what they were doing to me wasn’t my problem.

I didn’t ask for it or deserve it. I was just the current target but, they soon discovered, no longer an easy one.

As difficult as it is to realize that some people can no longer be in my life, if they can’t give me the basic respect that I deserve as a human being—they don’t belong there.

I am the first to admit that I still have a long way to go. I have breakthroughs and setbacks.

In times like these I can see that I have made progress and it feels good. I am no longer powerless. I am exposing the lies for what they are and in the process, reclaiming my self-worth.

I didn’t deserve to be abused then and I don’t deserve to be abused now. I am worth just as much as anyone else and that knowledge gives me the power to reclaim my life. –Penny Smith, Standing Up for Myself: Reclaiming My Self-Worth

Post by Prozac Blogger:
Major Breakthrough: Exposing the Truth

I will NOT be silent.

The emotional abuser will play up the “pathos” in an attempt to garner sympathy, all the while, continuing to (cyber)stalk his ex, making jokes about things he could do to upset her, and invading her personal space and boundaries …

(almost all the Cyberpaths we have exposed have gone to their target’s personal sites, boards on which they post, etc. saying they were “just protecting THEMSELVES against their Target’s relentless abuse. Turnabout!! and projection, readers.

Prime Example: Campbell filing a frivolous lawsuit against his victim that was thrown out!)

Like physical abusers, emotional abusers will often stalk their former partners. The stalker’s objective is often to control her through cultivating fear rather than making direct or specific threats, or confronting her.

This is a subtle form of terrorism, because abuse victims are often very emotionally (if not physically) afraid of their abusers once they wake up. ….

People who ARE capable of genuinely loving you in a healthy and safe way, DON’T WANT TO HURT YOU, and do not DELIBERATELY DO THINGS TO HURT YOU.

They don’t play on your insecurities and they don’t wage psychological warfare on you. They don’t blame YOU for all the relationship problems, and they don’t fabricate problems just so you can be the scapegoat. –Natalie P., Emotional Abusers–The Heart of Cyberpaths

This post from the Whispers of God blog goes into the issue of how to tell when someone is falsely accused of abuse.  In her context, she’s talking about child abuse/molestation.  But I can imagine this applies to those accused of bullying as well, such as the psychological and verbal abuse I was put through by Richard and Tracy.

Richard would be the one who claimed to love me like a sister, that I was “very dear” to him, but I have accused him of being a party to the bullying, of even threatening Jeff in June/July 2010, of manipulating and using me in 2007 and then betraying me in 2010, letting Tracy believe I was guilty when he knew I was innocent.  Also, Tracy claimed to Jeff on 7/1/10 that they “valued” our friendship.

As WOG says, if someone you loved accused you of abusing her, and you knew you were innocent, you would be desperate to talk to her and sort things out, would be visibly shaken.

Yet I have received absolutely no such communication from Richard, only an e-mail from him and/or Tracy accusing me of defamation, ridiculing my pain, expressing no remorse whatsoever, and even showing no remorse over Richard’s criminal conviction.

WOG, too, is being threatened with a libel suit for speaking out about how she’s been abused, and you can read about this in her various posts.

Disclaimer: References to Shrink4Men were made before I knew anything about MRAs. I just thought they were against abuse; I didn’t know about the sexism. Use at your own risk.

The Difficulties and Rewards of Breaking Ties with Narcissists

(This is one of my most popular posts.)

Here’s a good post by One Angry Daughter, on reasons to go no-contact with a narcissist: Why a “Healthy” Relationship with a Narcissist is Not Possible

Her reasons are so true.  I have learned in my own life, dealing recently with two people with Cluster Bs (narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, high-conflict personality disorders), that they do not change, do not accept responsibility, will just keep blaming you for everything wrong if you stick around.

I felt guilty for so long for cutting these Cluster Bs out of my life, often wondering if I did the right thing–

–but as I discovered a couple of years later, they were still blaming me for everything wrong, still justifying their own Cluster B rages and abuses, still crossing my boundaries of insisting that I be treated with respect and kindness.

While a layman can’t make an official diagnosis, a layman still has to deal with the behaviors of abusers, whether the abusers ever get diagnosed with Cluster B or not.

And if all the behaviors are there, the abuser must be treated as if they were officially diagnosed: In other words, cut them out of your life and don’t look back, without feeling guilty.

An official diagnosis only gives an official stamp on the behaviors of this person; it does not create them.  An undiagnosed Cluster B is still a Cluster B, still causes destruction, and his victims need to act as if he had been diagnosed.

Or to put it another way, an abuser is an abuser no matter what’s driving his actions.

As Shrink4Men’s Tara J. Palmatier puts it in the comments here:

Diagnosing an individual with a personality disorder can be difficult for several reasons:

1) PD’d individuals tend to lie/minimize/blame others/portray themselves as victims to therapists. They can be very proficient at playing the sweet, injured party and as such, are able to fool a lot of people, even well-trained therapists.

2) They often refuse to acknowledge their problems, blame others and drop out of therapy once the therapist starts to recognize the real issues and tries to make the PD’s behavior the focus of treatment.

3) Many therapists, even when they strongly suspect/believe the individual has a PD, do not give them the diagnosis for a variety of reasons.

This video, “NPD and BPD” by [email protected], on the differences between NPD (narcissism) and BPD (borderline), makes Tracy sound more narcissistic than borderline.

It even goes into breaking the BPD’s rules without knowing what they are–which sounds very familiar.

It also says that when you break up, the BPD is more likely to try to get you to reconsider, while the NPD is more likely to say “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” (Tracy’s reaction).

Many of my clients and participants on Shrink4Men comment on the overlap of narcissistic and borderline behaviors in their wives, girlfriends, exes, parents, and siblings, etc. This is because narcissism is very frequently present in individuals with BPD. –Dr. Tara, The New Face of Borderline

I had my own experiences and the testimonies of Richard and Todd to go by before, saw how well they fit in with all the traits of Cluster B.

But now I have proof because Richard and Tracy began stalking and trying to intimidate me, sent me an e-mail which made it glaringly obvious that they are both Cluster Bs, no doubt left about it.

I did the right thing in cutting these people off, sized them up correctly.  If I had stuck around instead of ending the relationship with them, they would just have continued their abusive behaviors, and sucked my soul away.

I see clearly that I lost nothing of value, that Richard was no true friend.  Now, without them–and knowing that I was correct about them and did the right thing–I can go on with life, much happier without them.

Because of the psychological “spell” which narcissists put you under, you begin to think you can’t live without them.  Maybe they are your lover, your mother, your best friend, or some other such relationship which you feel you can’t break off.

But it isn’t true.  It may hurt for a time, just like cutting off a diseased limb, but eventually it will get better, life will return to you.

For example, I felt forced to cut my best friend out of my life, only to discover later that his character was not what I thought it was, because of a horrible, violent act he committed (choking his daughter to unconsciousness) and was convicted of after the friendship breakup–

–and the lack of remorse he showed for this act, in the e-mail he and/or Tracy wrote to me.  The truth of his character was forced to my notice.

My husband Jeff says Richard is afraid of me because I know about this and so many other things he’s said and done, and that he wants to keep me under his thumb.

Not only am I much happier not dealing with his wife’s constant dramas, but I am now making friends with a person who has many of the traits I so admired in my former best friend–but none of the narcissism.

This is a fellow parishioner who has the piety and zeal of a convert while being cradle Orthodox, and knows about our faith’s theologies and oddities such as the toll house controversy, is someone I can talk to about such things.

He posts quotes from various saints on Facebook.  He listed Goth music in his Facebook “likes.”  But he is against getting too concerned about outward form such as headscarves and pews.

He’s shown no signs of extremist politics; he posts about religion, not politics, on Facebook; he voted the same way I did the other day.  As far as I can tell, he has no violent past, and eschews violence.

Through him I’m also making new friends who interest and amuse me, who want to convert to Orthodoxy, so we can relate to each other.  I feel my zeal for God returning.

It’s almost as if God is telling me, Don’t worry, I really am here, I just needed to get this false friend out of the way so you could make much better friends–and reconnect with your true, old friends.

I go to parties or get-togethers with old friends, meet up with my old roommie, and it’s fun.  People are free to be themselves; nobody judges me harshly for being a shy, quiet person with little oddities.

One friend will flirt shamelessly with me, and his wife and my husband just laugh at the silliness of it all.

My old roommie does social work and is a liberal; she can relate to my outrage over child abuse.

Another old friend is a preacher, but also a liberal with a huge heart, and very silly at times; he’s fun to chat with on Facebook.  I can tell him I just watched a Muppet movie, and thought of him.

Another old friend told me he used to be passionately in love with me back in high school but never had the courage to say anything.

I’ve comforted someone who was dealing with an abusive marriage.  I’ve connected with a cousin (by marriage) who went through a painful breakup with a narcissistic girlfriend at the same time I went through this painful friendship breakup, and who has Asperger’s, so we relate to each other in many ways.

For a while, Hubby and I went to SCA dance classes in the neighboring barony, before they moved on to fighter classes instead.

We’ve traveled.  My husband found a new, fun group with which to play D&D.

My husband finally found a good-paying job, with health benefits, right here in town.  I’ve been making friends with other parents at my child’s school.

Though for a long time it seemed like I could not go on without my former best friend, like I just wanted my life to end, I’ve slowly been breaking free of his narcissistic hold over me.

Which is good, because recent events have shown me that he is a full-blown narcissist, not a true friend at all, not capable of being the kind of friend I once thought he was.

Here is a blog post written by a guy who used blogging to realize what really happened during his relationship with his probably borderline ex, and get over her.  He’d been so beaten down by her that it took this step for him to remember the truth.  Some quotes:

Finally, one thing that this exercise also helped me with was confronting false nostalgia.  “Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe I was really to blame after all.”

When those thoughts come into your head (and even now, they still do for me, occasionally), go back and read the story you’ve written. Remember, this is your narrative – not hers.  Things were that bad.

You’ll remember that pretty quickly—and you’ll never want to let yourself fall into that trap ever again.  Write it out.  And remember: You get to….

As I write this, I’m approaching 2 years of no contact with the ex. I am by no means “all better.”  I don’t know if I ever will be. But if I’m not “all” better, I’m at least better than I was two years ago at this time.

I hope this post and other posts I contribute will be more like postcards from the voyage. I want to say “the voyage back to wholeness,” but that would be an assumption.

It may seem impossible now, but you must cut off that Cluster B, regain your own memories of what happened, research Cluster Bs, learn how to reject the abuser’s words and cuts at you (such as Tracy’s rages at me) as mere sewer sludge to be washed off.

Eventually, you will get to the point where you can say to your bully/abuser, as Sarah did to the Goblin King, “You have no power over me!”

I can now laugh at Tracy and Richard trying to call me crazy, knowing that I’m actually quite sane and that life is again good.

The comments in this blog post (May 3, 2009 post) by One Angry Daughter are very reassuring; one poster wrote,

Angry, I love this blog, you, the whole concept of blogging to “get back” at selfish people anonymously, get it out of your system.

Sometimes I just tell people in your situation, You gotta’ blog, get support on the web, there are people in your EXACT situation. And here you are, doing it.

But maybe there’s a direct way to get to them, too, a therapeutic approach for all of the fam. I just started reading so if that’s impossible, don’t get angry 🙂 at me. Just sayin, people can change, it can take a while, no doubt.

OAD writes in “My Man” (Update: probably in the comments, which are not archived) the reason for her blog–and it’s the same as mine:

I think venting about NM (narcissistic mother) is a good thing, but perhaps look for a different outlet for that venting besides DH (dear husband).

A journal, blog or one of the DONM (Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers) message boards are a great place to get it all out. I started this blog to spare my DH and my friends. I know they are supportive, but I think the topic gets old and there comes a point to move on.

Your Abusive Female Friend or Relative–What to do about it by Joyful Alive Woman: This link sounds very much like Tracy.

From Ben Leichtling’s Stop Toxic, Bullying, Abusive Pseudo-Friends:

Toxic, righteous, controlling, bullying, abusive pseudo-friends usually don’t change.  The relief and freedom you feel when you clear them out of your environment tells you that it was worth the effort.  You’ve reclaimed your spirit and your life.

Book Review: Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe–Part 2

Part 1

Around p. 435: Madame Montoni has met her fate, not by Montoni’s direct hand but indirectly, as she languished from illness in the east turret.  And now her estates have passed on to Emily, making her the next target.

After advising her aunt to give up the estates for the sake of her own life, now that she has the estates herself, she won’t take her own advice: She hopes the estates will be a source of income for herself and her beloved, Valancourt.

But this means that Montoni withdraws his protection from her, while the castle is full of various rough characters, mercenaries who fight battles for whoever sponsors them.  The Italian political system is chaotic at this time, so battles aren’t just a matter for the state.  The state turns a blind eye to sponsors of the mercenaries, as long as they don’t cause too much trouble.

The thought of Valancourt keeps her going through all this, as she deals with terror, apparent phantoms frightening the guards, a siege, and having to run from men who keep trying to grab her in the hallways while the others carouse.

Before the siege she’s sent away to a peasant’s cottage in the countryside, a haven where she makes friends with the teenaged daughter.  But she’s kept under constant guard and finally brought back to the castle again, back to dread.

As I said, the thought of Valancourt keeps her going.  But she has no idea that while she’s shut up in the castle, his fellow comrades-in-arms have lured him into gaming and various other entertainments to get his mind off things.

The funny bit is Annette, Madame Montoni’s servant, a talkative, sweet and dimwitted girl who attends her needs while informing her of the latest castle gossip.  Annette’s informant is Ludovico, a charming household servant who has taken a fancy toward her.

The funniest part is that every time there is some danger in the castle, Emily finds Annette locked up in some obscure room, and Annette tells her that Ludovico put her there to keep her safe.  And now, finally, Emily has met Ludovico, who promises to help her escape.

On page 464, after Emily has escaped the castle, we go to the villa belonging to Count De Villefort, a villa which he has just inherited and by which Emily was freaked out on her travels with her father.  We leave Emily for quite some time to read about new characters, including a Blanche who is much like Emily, and to read endless pages of description of the villa and surrounding landscape.

I suppose the readers of the time loved this sort of thing, especially since they had no photographs or videos, and travel took much more time and was far more wearing on a body than it is in our modern world.

But I find the description to be overwhelming: I have trouble holding the pictures in my head for long, so it becomes more a series of unconnected images which I’m constantly changing through a great deal of effort and re-reading, rather than the full panorama which I’m sure was intended.

Oftentimes I’ll just skip over something because I’m tired of reading the same paragraph over and over for the past 10 minutes.  So I do hope the action will soon pick up again.

Around p. 530: Now that Emily is safely home and has sent for Valancourt, it seems everything should now come together with a happy ending.  But no.

For one thing, there are more than 100 pages left, so unless this turns out like Tolkien’s Return of the King, there should be more plot left.  For another, she discovers that Valancourt has gotten involved in gambling, shady characters from the gambling underworld–and a woman.

She demonstrates that even the dumper–whether in romance or friendship–may seem heartless to the dumpee, but actually be full of grief herself.  She feels she has no choice, as anyone would have to feel, who still loves the person they are breaking off a romance or friendship with.  Otherwise why do it?

Naturally, he is upset; naturally, he tries his best to change her mind.  If a dumpee doesn’t do this, you have to wonder if they truly cared in the first place, and “respecting her wishes” from the outset rather than at least trying to change her mind would seem almost insulting.  But finally he understands why she’s doing it, and leaves her alone with her grief.

This poor girl hasn’t been happy in ages: First her mother dies, then her father dies, then Valancourt is taken from her when they were supposed to get married, then she has to spend months in a gloomy and terrifying castle, and now she loses Valancourt again, but this time for his own sins instead of somebody else’s.

Which is probably why Jane Austen was so ready to parody the book in Northanger Abbey.  The book’s notes have already pointed out two scenes which were parodied in “Northanger”; I’m anxious to re-read those scenes, but have to be patient, because all must be done in the proper order.

The ending of Udolpho takes many pages as more twists and turns keep coming about.  But finally everything is tied up, all the mysteries of Udolpho and elsewhere are explained, misleading information is cleared up, and Emily ends up with her One True Love ™.

And yes, there are plenty more poems and commas, so never fear the lack.  And plenty more faintings by Emily or Blanche, her new friend.

It’s about time Emily got a friend.  Other than chatty servants and nuns, she had no friends through most of the book.

Annette the chatty maidservant could be called a friend, except that Emily kept having to assert her superiority by telling Annette to stop falling for superstitious nonsense, and to get to the point already woman.

Though of course, Emily would never do this meanly, but always with the utmost kindness and grace.

In the last two paragraphs, we discover that there is a moral to the story:

O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!

Well, considering that in real life this often does not happen, and that this is just a novel, it’s hard to say it has shewn or proven any such thing.

And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it–the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.

Oh, geez, there’s a moral to the story!  It couldn’t have just been for fun: It had to “teach” us something.

…Though, yes, come to think of it, I did read it the first time after a breakup from a boyfriend…

and the second time after a breakup from a best friend…

so it did in fact beguile me during many hours of sorrow…

and maybe it did sort of teach me to sustain it….

Oh, bugger all, it has successfully conveyed its moral to me.

These 672 pages have been enjoyable over the past 6 months, re-reading a book I first read in the winter or early spring of 1992.  Back then it was a very old copy, found in the college library, actually two little red hardback volumes, now one big paperback by Oxford World’s Classics.

I look forward to seeing (again, after many years) how Jane Austen skewers them in “Northanger Abbey.”  Well, that is, after I first read the 20-page introduction by the editor.  I didn’t want to read that until after reading the book….

[1/2/11]

Book Review: Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe–Part 1

Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe; review posted to my Facebook friends between July 2010 and January 2011, in the first throes of my grief over my ex-best friend:

p. 5: Ann Radcliffe loves talking about the “sublime” in her works. I just read the word twice in the same paragraph. It brings to mind this video from college:

Nearing p. 100: It amazes me how, lately, the books I’m reading keep matching my mood.  I read the last chapters of “Gone With the Wind” on the night of a terrible e-mail argument with my former best friend.  I apologized and we tried to patch things up, but it left a pall over the evening, and the next few days as well.

(Incidentally, in an attempt to finally fix things and restore our friendship to the kind and sweet way it used to be, several days later I sent an e-mail–which, unfortunately, got taken wildly out of context and misunderstood, and left me vilified and the friendship in shambles, much like Shirley Sherrod without the later apologies.)

At the same time, in between e-mails that evening, I was reading about Scarlett’s devastating last night before Rhett left her for good.

First Melanie dies, just as Scarlett realizes she loves her and Melanie has been her strength.  Then she finds out that Ashley was only infatuated with her, that his true love was for Melanie.  Then she realizes that her own true love is Rhett, and she’s been terrible to him.

She goes out into the night, which is foggy and appears supernaturally terrifying.  Her long walk finally leads her to her safe place, Rhett–only Rhett is fed up and leaving her.

Now I’m reading “Mysteries of Udolpho,” which–now that it’s finally gotten past the endless landscape descriptions and the plot has started–describes Emily’s grief.

First her mother died of a fever, and now, after a long trek through the Pyrenees, her father has also succumbed to the fever.  She’s grieving the deaths of both her parents.

The author goes into just as much detail about the grief as she did about the landscape, which powerfully brings across what Emily is dealing with.

Not only am I reading this while dealing with the loss of a friendship, but the first time I read it, my first college boyfriend had just broken up with me.  It seems that grief is the same whether it’s over a death, a lost romance or losing a best friend.  And Ann Radcliffe is a master at writing about it.  For example:

Emily sat for some time, given up to sorrow. Not an object, on which her eye glanced, but awakened some remembrance, that led immediately to the subject of her grief.

Her favourite plants, which St. Aubert had taught her to nurse; the little drawings, that adorned the room, which his taste had instructed her to execute; the books, that he had selected for her use, and which they had read together; her musical instruments, whose sounds he loved so well, and which he sometimes awakened himself–every object gave new force to sorrow.

At length, she roused herself from this melancholy indulgence, and, summoning all her resolution, stepped forward to go into those forlorn rooms, which, though she dreaded to enter, she knew would yet more powerfully affect her, if she delayed to visit them (p. 94-5).

p. 131: This book is not all doom and gloom (or landscape descriptions).  Once we got past the trip through the Pyrenees, the plot began to pick up, beginning with the death of Emily’s father so soon after the death of her mother.

She is now an orphan left to the care of her father’s sister, a proud and vain woman who just assumes her niece is a silly, disobedient girl, without even knowing her.

Her father met the young Valancourt in the Pyrenees and approved of him…, but her aunt has made up her mind that he’s not worthy to court Emily.  She takes Emily to a dance, where she discovers Valancourt has also been invited.

He’s dancing with another girl he seems to know, and considering he only just confessed his ardor for Emily and his request to court Emily was only just today rejected by Emily’s aunt, Emily doesn’t know what to make of this.

But the funny part is something my SCA dance practice friends will appreciate: Count Bauvillers, in speaking of the girl Valancourt is dancing with, says,

She is handsome, and her fortune will be very large. I hope she will make a better choice in a partner for life than she has done in a partner for the dance, for I observe he has just put the set into great confusion; he does nothing but commit blunders.

I am surprised, that, with his air and figure, he has not taken more care to accomplish himself in dancing.

It’s good to see that our hero is not painted as perfection itself.  And he has more flaws which show up later.

As for Emily herself, I think she’s meant to be shown as having too much sensibility–which, in those days, meant being enslaved by sentiment and emotion–but so far she seems normal to me.  But then, maybe I’m one of these “sensible” people, too….

“Have you got to the black veil yet?” asks Isabella in the 1986 film version of “Northanger Abbey.”  I have got to the black veil, and it’s on page 248.  We don’t know what’s behind it yet (though I actually remember it from the first time I read it nearly 20 years ago).

It has been encountered and mentioned a chapter or so back, but Emily did not have the courage to lift the veil until now.  In the book “Northanger Abbey,” the conversation goes like this:

(Isabella:) “But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with yourself all this morning?  Have you gone on with Udolpho?”

“Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil.”

“Are you, indeed?  How delightful!  Oh! I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world!  Are not you wild to know?”

“Oh! Yes, quite; what can it be?  But do not tell me–I would not be told upon any account.  I know it must be a skeleton, I am sure it is Laurentina’s skeleton.  Oh! I am delighted with the book!  I should like to spend my whole life in reading it.  I assure you, if it had not been to meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the world.”

“Dear creature!  How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.”

“Have you, indeed!  How glad I am!  What are they all?”

“I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook.  Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries.  Those will last us some time.”

“Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?”

“Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every one of them….”

I’ve read “The Italian,” though I haven’t read the other books listed.  I loved “The Italian,” which had a delightful Black Monk character who was also the Grand Inquisitor tormenting the main character and her beau.

And as luck would have it, I read this book about the same time I first saw the videos for “Man in a Box” by Alice in Chains (with a black monk) and “Patient Eyes” by PM Dawn (with a young woman praying in a church, wearing a veil, reminding me of the protagonist of “The Italian”).

I’ll have to read it again sometime, though after I re-read “Northanger Abbey.”

Around page 310: Montoni has begun to show his true colors to Emily and her aunt, who is now Montoni’s new bride.  Turns out his supposed riches are nothing but show, because of his heavy debts, and he thought Madame’s own wealth would put him back on solid footing.

But her riches are not what he expected, either, so he wants to marry off Emily to the highest bidder.  First he promises Emily to Count Morano (despite her refusals, based on her love for Valancourt), but he discovers that Count Morano has money problems as well, so at the last minute he packs Emily off to a distant and crumbling castle.

Count Morano tries to steal Emily away, using a secret passage which leads into her bedchamber–a passage which, naturally, causes her constant worry, but Montoni refuses to move her.

When Montoni discovers Morano in her bedchamber, they fight and Morano is mortally wounded.  Now Emily wonders what will become of her, while Montoni insists that his wife sign away to him the estates she kept to herself in the marital contract.

Because of Montoni’s cruelty, his wife hopes to get away from him; she refuses to sign away the estates, so Montoni threatens to lock her in the east turret.

Emily intercedes with Montoni for Madame, since Emily is the virtuous, pious heroine who can put aside the fact that Madame has been mistreating her.  But he says,

She suffers by her own folly, and is not to be pitied;–she knows how she may avoid these sufferings in future–if she is removed to the turret, it will be her own fault.  Let her be obedient, and sign the writings you heard of, and I will think no more of it.

How like the classic abuser he speaks!  The abuser doesn’t see fault in his own self, but blames the victim for his own rages, threats, curses, put-downs, beatings, or whatever he has inflicted on the victim.

And if she does give in, he will rage at her again over another incident later on.  Fortunately, Madame is too stubborn to accept the blame.

But for those of us who are more willing than Madame to find fault in ourselves in general, such emotional blows worm their way into our psyches until we start to believe that we are to blame, even though we know we are not, that only the abuser is responsible for his own lack of control over himself.

And of course, the abuser refuses to apologize, thinking he has done nothing wrong, that the victim needs to “obey” or “grow up” and accept the responsibility and consequences for “her own behavior.”  I know these charges all too well from past abusers, and how they cut into your mind and heart and will not let go.

Montoni’s character is, unfortunately, all too realistic, even though most of us don’t have elaborate castles in faraway lands or bands of followers to do our bidding.  His evil is far too common even among everyday, ordinary people.

Emily advises Madame to give in because of Montoni’s temper, but she will not budge.  The author represents it as a stubborn character failing, a lack of good judgment.  I’m torn as I read this.

On the one hand, yes, it is true that land is not worth throwing away Madame Montoni’s life, and not giving in will lead to Montoni’s vengeance.  She will probably die in that turret.

Still, how can anyone tell her the best way to deal with her tormentor?  If she gives away that land, she won’t have the proceeds to live on after escaping and legally separating from Montoni.  She could escape her abuser, only to end up in poverty in a time when ladies like her were not supposed to get a job.

On the other hand, abuse targets are warned that giving in to an abuser’s threats, rages and control only leads to more and worse abuse, because the abuser now knows he/she can get away with it.  I have seen firsthand that there is no way to win when dealing with an abuser of any type.

When I refused to give in to my abuser’s tyrannical will, back in college, he raged at me and cut me down, trying to break my will.

Another abuser’s spouse started giving in to the rages; the rages keep happening, and the abuser keeps chasing away any of the spouse’s friends who see him/her for what he/she is.

Emily believes that there is no way Madame can escape the castle, so she must give in.  But I think that Madame should take any chance she can to escape–along with Emily, whom Morano claims is also in danger, though Emily doesn’t know how.  Escaping the abuser is the only way either of them can get out of this.

But–as if Radcliffe meant a metaphor for the domestic abuse victim who is trapped by financial circumstances, wanting to keep a family together, or even strong and fervent love despite all the abuser has done–Emily and Madame are trapped inside a crumbling, drafty castle in the middle of the Apennine mountains, with a tyrant.

Steve Taylor’s “Svengali” says, “He’ll try to steal your body but he can’t touch your soul.”  However, even if Montoni can’t kill their bodies, he will murder their souls with psychological torment that will break them apart.

Run, Emily and Madame!

But, of course, shortly afterwards, Madame is locked in the east turret, and Emily doesn’t know what has become of her.  She strongly suspects Madame has been murdered.

On page 336, when Emily hears a “chorus of distant” voices from within the castle, she asks Annette, who says it is only Montoni and his guests carousing.  Emily’s response is

can this man’s heart be so gay, when he has made another being so wretched; if, indeed, my aunt is yet suffered to feel her wretchedness?  O! whatever are my own sufferings, may my heart never, never be hardened against those of others!

And Emily is so right.  I have seen people rejoice in deliberately hurting others.  This is considered one of the signs of abuse.  For example, from Patricia Evans:

Why does it seem that after he abuses me verbally he is happy, like he feels relieved? Also, he will act like it never happened. It’s like he has no memory of it….

This is what verbal abusers do. Verbal abusers almost universally act like nothing happened, like they feel fine and the relationship is fine.

This is because they feel they have more control. Maybe they got you to back down, believe them or doubt yourself.

If you doubt yourself then you might go with what they tell you, be more compliant and more slave-like. This makes them happy.

 

To be continued…..

I’m not the only blogger who’s been “found” by the abuser

In the blogosphere, writing about your experiences with abuse, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, bullying and the like, is common:

My Trip to Oz and Back has been up for nearly 10 years, one woman’s story of her experiences with her girlfriend, whom she now believes to have borderline personality disorder.

Joyful Alive Woman also wrote about her abusive, narcissist, former female friend.

Single Dad Laughing and Alan Eisenberg blog their bullying stories under their real names.

Patricia Singleton uses her real name to blog about her abuse experiences.

There are also many who write anonymously.  The anonymous author of Narcissists Suck wrote all sorts of things about her sister and her sister’s e-mails, and claimed to check her stats all the time to see if her sister had found it–but the blog is still up in all its glory.

The Prozac Blogger is afraid of his father finding the blog and “wiping the floor” with him in court.  [Update 5/29/14: Prozac Blogger has long since healed, and removed his blog.]

One Angry Daughter had to deal with the fallout when her family found her blog, but her blog is still up.  [Update 5/29/14: Not anymore.  I believe she stuck it on Amazon a while back so you could pay to read it, but now it’s not there, either.] 

The popular Psycho Ex-Wife blog got shut down, even though it was anonymous, when the ex-wife found it and complained to the judge; the authors of the site are trying to get it back up again.

These blogs are a kind of Internet-wide group therapy session, and the blogs are helping all sorts of people realize their sanity and learn how to deal with the abusers/narcissists/BPDs/bullies in their own lives.

Shutting them down would only help the bullies and abusers, and victimize the abused all over again.  Let’s support keeping these blogs on the Net!

From “Psycho Ex-Wife”:

We are asking for help in this defense because it is an issue that faces any parent that is divorced.

Imagine a judge telling you that you cannot talk about your children on “any public media” – which would include things like Facebook updates, Twitter, or your personal blog – or you will lose custody.  Imagine the far-reaching consequences for bloggers everywhere if orders such as this one are left unchallenged?

There goes your online support group.  There goes your Facebook and Twitter updates.  Your website, personal OR commercial – ordered gone under threat of incarceration and having your beloved children removed from your custody.

This order flies in the face of our civil rights, and your civil rights, too! Imagine trying to protect your children from abuse and a judge telling you that you must hide the abuse and protect the abuser by not allowing you to talk about the abuse in public, we can’t let this stand.

Another reason to keep up such blogs is the understanding it provides for people who struggle with residual effects of abuse or bullying, but everyone keeps telling them, “Let it go, move on.”  As Patricia Singleton puts it so eloquently:

I have discovered that those people who tell me to “Let it go now. Move on.” are usually one of two types. They either have never experienced what I have and therefore know nothing about the process that it takes to heal. Or, they have their own abuse issues that they want to stay in denial of.

If you see me going through my issues and haven’t dealt with your own, then my struggle threatens your denial. That is why you tell me to let it go and to move on so that you don’t have to become aware of your own unresolved issues.

I feel sad for those who are still in denial of their own issues. I have little sympathy for those who don’t know what they are talking about because they have never experienced what I have.

If you haven’t been there, you have no idea of what it takes to live my life and to struggle to get better. Don’t tell me to get over it.

If you have been where I am and were able to let go of your issues by healing them, then tell me how you did it. Share your experiences and what worked. Don’t share your denial of your issues. I don’t need that.

I did that, on my own, years ago and I know that denial just helps you continue to live in the pain. Denial heals nothing. When you are in denial, you aren’t happy. You aren’t free. The only way to freedom is through the pain, not around it.

…Some of you choose to share your own experiences, as I do, by blogging about them online. Others choose to write in private journals. Some of you still continue in the silence because you haven’t found your voice yet.

It is for other incest and childhood abuse survivors that I write of my experiences. Any time that someone survives abuse in any form and can write about that journey, that is inspirational.

It isn’t light, funny inspiration. It is sad, thoughtful, sometimes tearful. It is always heartfelt. Sometimes it comes from a deep well of hurt.

It is always healing to be able to bring these thoughts and feelings to the surface and share them with others. It can be educational to share with others who have never experienced abuse in their own lives. Without awareness, you can stop nothing.

I want to read the stories of people who are still “in the trenches” of working through their pain, not a step-by-step guide that tells you to just “stop thinking about it” or any of the other trite sayings which people give you.  And I write my “in-the-trenches” stories for others who are also in my place.

Mulderfan commented on a post,

FYI, a THERAPIST suggested I “piss and moan” on a blog as a way to rid myself of my demons. Its actually been a great way for me to meet other “volunteers” who, unlike you, validate my experiences.

As One Angry Daughter wrote in “Bear With Me”,

 In case you haven’t already heard the exciting news, my FOO [Family of Origin] has discovered my blog. I really don’t care if they are reading or not.

What I do have a problem with is NM [narcissistic mother] leaving comments spreading FOG [fear, obligation, guilt]. Out of the 300 + comments I have gotten on this blog, her comment was easy to spot. The comment has been deleted.

She has yelled over me and put me in my “place” my whole life. Well, she doesn’t get a voice here.

I have been able to block them from accessing (A how-to guide is in the works). I know eventually they might find a way around it (as I type, they are continuing to try to reload my page, click on various links to this page, and view cached versions of this site — I’m sure they think they are very clever.).

I kinda feel like a kid whose mother just read her diary… but I am not ashamed. These pages are my point of view, my honest account, my journey. The only reason I blog anonymously is to protect their identity, not mine.

So FOO – if you have sneaked your way back in and want to read, fine by me. Be warned, you may not like everything I have to say. If it bothers you, by all means, do not come back again. Please keep your opinion to yourself. I will find you and I will block you again.

 

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