doublespeak

Running my abusers’ e-mail through the narc decoder

Back in May 2012, my abusers, Richard and Tracy, discovered this blog, then threatened and began to stalk me. You can read their e-mail below.

Especially note that whichever of them wrote the e-mail (it “sounded” like Tracy’s “voice”), accused me of making things up and accusing Tracy falsely, downplayed Richard’s criminal conviction of choking his daughter, warned me not to go to the priest/church, and threatened to sue.

And yet–Through our own local version of a “police beat,” Crime Reports, published for all to see on the Fond du Lac city website, I have discovered that a domestic dispute occurred in May.

The report points to Richard and Tracy’s last-known address, at least according to Google Earth, which is used by the website to locate each crime event. A follow-up occurred about a week later, so it appears that an investigation was begun into the incident, beyond the initial police report.

No charges have been filed as of yet, so I don’t know what happened, who was involved, or if charges ever will be filed.

But it–along with Richard’s conviction of choking his daughter–supports my statements that Richard and Tracy are abusive, and that I am not making up “false facts” out of a “not-all-there” brain.

And gives more strength to my mind to resist their attempts to gaslight me, and attempts to intimidate me into silence through constant surveillance of this blog. This discovery has even more emboldened me to not be silent–and to laugh at their attempts to scare me.

It gets easier all the time, when reading old posts or remembering things that my abusers said or did, to laugh it off.

Yes, laugh it off. I see how ridiculous it all is, and see right through it all.

Not only does it help pull me out of the pit and back where life is beautiful again, and I am no longer a “victim,” but it should help me identify such behavior in others, before I get pulled in again.

(Not that it is in any way a character failing to be a victim of someone abusing you. Victim-blaming and -shaming is a huge problem these days. The only one who should be ashamed of how the victim is affected by the abuse, is the abuser.)

Nowadays, when I remember what happened, it no longer affects me, just as it no longer affects me to remember what Phil, Peter or Shawn did back in college. It’s become a story I revise for the masses to read, which may inspire a brief burst of anger, but then I forget about it again.

I see right through the things my various abusers did, and no longer let it worry and oppress me the way it used to for years.

Yes, it took me years to get past what those guys did, just as it has taken years to deal with what Richard and Tracy did. But eventually I got through. As Trent Reznor titled a song, The way out is through.

Because of this, and the discovery above which provides even more evidence that my abusers were full of bullsh**, I am now ready to turn my abusers’ threatening e-mail to me in May of 2012, into a piece of high comedy, by running it through my own brand-new narc decoder.

Blogger Tina Swithin has popularized the idea of a “narc decoder,” through which you run messages from your abuser. This handy little “machine” translates those messages which fill you with fear, dread, anger, and the like, into what they really mean.

First, read the e-mail from Richard and Tracy:

Nyssa,
We read this in amusement. It gave us a good laugh to find
that almost 2 years later you are still fixated on something that we
forgot about a long time ago. As for your threats, promises whatever to
expose us you can take out a law book and read about defamation laws.
Richards’s court case may be public access and you are free to speculate
all you want without having all the information and facts. However the
rest of your writings about how horrible a person Tracy is and abusive
mentally deranged etc. have gone beyond statements of opinion. You have
represented in your writings false facts, not just opinions, about Tracy
that constitutes an actionable lawsuit. You are free to have your
opinion and feelings however the minute you go public to the members of
the church or community as you have threatened to do we will exercise
our rights to sue you for defamation against Tracy’s character.
You
talk about threats and bullies yet what are you doing? You are
threating to falsely accuse and expose lies about an innocent person if
they do not concede to your demands. We will not be threatened or
intimidated. We are free to go to church to worship our Lord God without
fear of retaliation from someone we see as not all there. You want
closure here it is. We are not sorry. We did nothing wrong. You will
never get what you want from us because we do not feel we owe you
anything. We will continue to be active in our church our community and
our town; if you cannot handle that then that us your problem not ours.
We will not move or change our faith to make you happy and comfortable.
As for the local parish being ‘your’ church. I think the archdiocese
would have a thing to say about that. The church is for everyone. We
have stayed away out of respect to give you time. We have gone to other
churches in town outside of our faith when gas prices or work schedules
prevented us from driving 40+ miles one way to church. However we miss
going to a church of our faith, participating in the mysteries having
that commune with our Lord, so we decided that when we can’t drive out
of town we will go to the local parish. We will not be pushed out of the
church by you, two years is enough time. So as fair warning for the
perceivable future our work schedules make long distance an issue as the
other parish is moving to summer hours and Divine Liturgy starts early.
So we will be attending locally A LOT this summer, we will even show up
on Saturday nights.

And now I run the e-mail from Richard and Tracy through the narc decoder…..

Snap, crackle, pop….

And here it is, all decoded:

Nyssa,

How dare you ever speak a word to anyone about how we bullied, abused and gaslit you for years? How dare you ever speak a word about Tracy’s abuses of Richard, the children, and others?

Tracy tried her hardest to shut you up so that only you knew what was happening, so we could keep you under our control and even your husband wouldn’t know the truth. We wanted even him to think you were crazy. We wanted you to think you imagined it all.

How dare you break out of our control and think for yourself? How dare you tell your husband and all your friends and family what we did? How dare you have a mind and will much stronger than we gave you credit for?

You were so nice and easily intimidated that we thought for sure we could twist you every which way we wanted to, and continue to use you and get money/stuff/living space out of you.

It scared us when you showed signs of wanting to kick us out of your house years ago for bullying you and being generally abusive, so we had to re-assert our control and make you think you were in the wrong. We had to make you think YOU were the one with the problem, so we could stay put till we were good and ready to leave.

Now, a few days ago, you actually stood up for yourself and told us to stay away from you. But we don’t want to leave you alone.

We’ve always hated your church, and barely stepped foot in it even while we still pretended to be friends with you. But we want to guilt you into thinking we’re pious Christians who long for the Mysteries, even though we have never lifted a finger to resolve this like Christians, have never behaved like Christians.

We have no interest in actually behaving like Christians, or in getting the Mysteries out of any sense of longing for Christ. No, this is only so we can harass you and pretend to be pious, by making big shows of making the sign of the Cross, just like Pharisees!

We want to shove up against you, breathe down your neck and snarl in the Communion line. We want to pretend to everyone at your church that we’re just innocent Christians, so that no one will believe you if you try to tell them what we really are.

We want free reign, so we can control you at church, too, by forcing you to keep quiet and telling everyone you’re a nutcase and not all there.

We know it’s a lie.

We still think you’re easily manipulated through threats. The truth is that we are afraid of anyone else knowing what kind of people we really are. We don’t want your priest to know, either, especially since you spoke of showing him Richard’s criminal records. This is why we repeatedly threaten you and tell you to shut up.

We don’t want you to get help from the church. We want you to be destroyed because you know what we really are.

We are well aware that you never made threats to retaliate against us.

But just as Tracy did with Todd, when she accused him falsely and smeared him all over the game forum years ago, we will try to make you think you made threats. We will tell others that you made threats you never actually made, to get them on our side and turn them against you, make them think you’re crazy, just as we successfully got all those people thinking that Todd was crazy.

We have already done that, by telling some person Tracy goes to school with, Chia, that you did these things you never did, that you lied when you told the truth. She never even met you before. Then she changed her profile to a passive-aggressive diatribe against you, and “friended” you on Facebook. But it was only so we can peruse your Facebook for posts about us.

Of course you never threatened to push us out of the church or Fond du Lac. We just suffer from poor reading comprehension, combined with our fear of somebody exposing our real selves to the whole world.

We have worked very hard to suppress our real selves around other people in Fond du Lac, so that we can make inroads in politics and other circles, but your very knowledge of our true selves–and Richard’s conviction–threatens our feeling of security.

It is all a lie. But you’re not supposed to recognize that. You’re supposed to doubt yourself and come under our control.

The true threat is that because you know the truth about us, your very existence is a threat. We are scared that because of you, that perfect image we want to present the community, will come crashing down as the facade that it is.

You have kept careful notes of our abuses, and that frightens us. We want you to think even those records are fake. Even though everything you wrote is the truth. Even though Richard sent you an e-mail years back which proved your assertions.

This is why, years ago, we tried to make you think you were a stalker for keeping such notes, so you would stop doing that. This is why we are now trying to gaslight you into thinking that Tracy has never abused anyone and that you’re just lying.

So we will ridicule you and make you think you’re the one with the problem (even though your reactions to being abused and seeing your abuser again are all perfectly normal), because we never matured past elementary school.

We will pretend to be amused by your blog, when in truth it scares us to death–or we never would’ve threatened you. Especially your knowledge of Richard’s conviction. We read that page of your blog constantly.

Though your pain, your desperate suffering, caused by us and our actions and words, so much so that only blogging could get it out, does amuse us, because we are sociopaths.

We like to cause pain and refuse to apologize for it, refuse to make it right, because we have no human feeling–except for our own selves. We laugh at others for needing this strange thing called “closure.” When we hurt someone else, when we cause them pain, it is hilarious to us.

Though we are so faulty with reading comprehension that we did not get that it’s not “closure” you need, but for us to recognize we have done wrong, and make it right, through apologies and changed behavior. This would make a Christian restoration of friendship possible.

But that won’t happen, because we are superior to all others and never do anything wrong. And because we were only pretending to be your friends to begin with.

We even laugh at the collapse of your faith, even though Richard claimed for years to want to be a priest. Which shows our own faith is actually an act put on to fool you and others, to give us an air of respectability.

We want you to think that even your perception of Richard’s conviction is wrong, even though you have official, public information saying otherwise. We want you to think Richard is innocent, even though he himself admitted to choking his daughter. All to further gaslight you into our control.

We easily got over the breakup because you were blameless, so we had nothing to be angry about. Well, other than the fact that you broke free of us before we could dump you first.

But you had been showing signs of breaking free from our control for years, which is why we let you go so easily. We knew you would be trouble, that you already saw Tracy’s true nature and were beginning to see Richard’s as well. We knew you may even report us to the police or Social Services–which you did eventually do. That scared us.

We would never admit to being to blame for the suffering you’ve gone through. It’s your fault, after all. It’s never the abuser’s fault. How dare you try to make us take responsibility for how we treat and hurt people, including our own children? We are perfect, can’t you tell? It’s never our fault when we abuse someone! It’s always the fault of the person we abuse!

It infuriates us that you are sticking up for yourself and telling about what happened! So we will make empty threats, hoping to shut you up, even though we know we could never have the legal basis to carry them through, and no lawyer would take us on because we have no case or money! We talk about Constitutional Rights, but that’s for US, not for you!

How dare you insist that we never contact you? Just by sending this e-mail we are violating your rights and request to be left alone! Because we don’t care about anybody but ourselves.

–Richard and Tracy Doe

Ah, that was therapeutic. This is a good way to turn the horrid e-mails/messages sent to you by your abuser, into a piece of see-through garbage that no longer bothers you.

Attempting to obtain closure with an abusive, narcissistic and/or borderline woman (i.e., Crazy) is almost always a maddening exercise in futility.
You’re not going to get closure with this kind of woman for several reasons. First, she doesn’t meet the three most important prerequisites for giving and receiving closure:
A reasonable degree of sanity
A foothold in reality
Empathy
Being able to give an ex closure means you’re able to accept your share of responsibility for the demise of the relationship and when has your BPD and/or NPD ex ever taken responsibility for her behavior, especially when she was clearly in the wrong?
…I hate to break it to you, but if you’re waiting for this to happen or, heaven forbid, an apology from this woman; IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. If you try to get closure from your NPD and/or BPD ex by detailing the many ways she hurt and tortured you, she’s unlikely to acknowledge what she did. –Dr. Tara, Shrink4Men, There is No Closure with a Narcissistic or Borderline Woman

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on September 14, 2014March 3, 2021

And one more lie from Wormtongue falls crashing to the ground (gaslighting)

I posted this on Facebook the other day. I post it here as an example of how abusers gaslight you–but that you must not believe it:

Just had a Writer’s Club meeting on journaling/diaries. Also mentioned was the treasure trove of a deceased mother’s letters: both to and from people, because she saved drafts of the letters she wrote.
We were encouraged to keep journals of our lives, to save letters.
It was healing and affirming for me: I have saved journals and letters to/from people ever since I was a kid.
It’s a record of my life, a place to vent and sort out, a place to remember.
My letters to people record things I have done and thought, while letters from friends are to be treasured, not tossed out like trash. The letters are all part of the journal.
I am an introvert who needs to reflect.
I have always admired Laura Ingalls Wilder, but knew that I could not write memoirs like hers without keeping records.
I also want to have this record in case my memories fade in old age.
One day, my ex-friend Richard found out about this. So publicly on his blog, and then the next day in person, he called me “creepy” for saving all my letters. Tracy even made fun of me for it!
Then there was Shawn from college, who scolded me for keeping a diary. He said that important memories should not be written down. He also psychologically abused me, so I think these people were just scared of what might be in my journals.
As I heard today (and already knew), my archives/journals are perfectly normal–especially for writers–and encouraged. The saving of memories is considered valuable, whether for yourself or for posterity.
I must drain the poison of psychological abuse, not allow myself to take any of it to heart and spoil this wonderful thing I have always loved to do.

My friends said things like, “I do the same thing,” it’s beautiful to save letters/journals, who cares what other people think about what you do with your own life. The president of the club wrote, “Nicely said, Nyssa.”

And THAT is what real friends say to you. They encourage you, don’t try to tear you down. Even if they criticize you, you can tell they have your best interests at heart. Many times, good friends have criticized me, but they are still my friends, and I realize why they said what they did, even if I disagree.

Maybe once in a while a good friend has indeed been too harsh, but this was a rare event in a normally loving friendship, so I can let it go–and it does not repeat itself.

In the cases of Richard and Tracy, and Shawn, the “friendship” was abusive, so the attacks were repeated, whether covert (little things said or gestures that shake your confidence) or overt (rages, angry criticism).

It also demonstrates to me just how entrenched I was in Richard’s narcissistic web.

Somehow he had me so anxious to have his good opinion that when he’d gaslight me like this–tell me some normal behavior (for writers/introverts/NVLDers/Americans/Christians) was “creepy” or “wrong” or “offensive”–it would devastate me.

I would resist and feel the need to defend myself, while some small part of me would think, “What if he’s right?”

But right here is a perfect example that no, he’s NOT right. That he did NOT have my best interests at heart, that he and Tracy were trying to warp my mind.

I post here so that others can see a real-life example of gaslighting, recognize it in their own lives, and resist the lies of Wormtongue. Don’t let those lies hamper your resolve to get away from the abuse, or work their poison in your mind long after the abuser is gone.

For an excellent fictional example of what abusers do to your mind, see Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, and how Wormtongue spun a deceitful web around a king, until the king was emotionally crippled and unable to fight. This is what your own abuser is doing to you, so slowly you don’t notice it.

Even now I sometimes feel the effects of all the Wormtongues I’ve encountered through the years. But over time, their webs are disintegrating and falling away, leaving my mind clear and able to recognize what they were doing.

I no longer feel the need to defend myself in my mind against Richard and Tracy calling me “creepy” for saving my letters. There is no need, because what they said was absolutely ridiculous. If I could haul them in front of the Writer’s Club, they would get thoroughly chastised for spewing such rubbish.

Different kinds of abuse–same feelings: How Mark Driscoll reminds me of Tracy, Phil, and others

One reason why I read blogs and articles of all different kinds of abuse, is that I find the reactions of the abuse victims are the same everywhere.

Of course you’ll have differences here and there: Being molested by a parent is not the same as being psychologically manipulated by an ex-boyfriend, for example.

But everywhere you find the same common themes: loss of trust, hurt, pain, confusion, longing for the abuser to acknowledge the abuse and make up for it.

The other day, I read this account of narcissistic abuse and a smear campaign at Mars Hill Church:

My Story by Jonna Petry

Her husband was a pastor with the church for a time, until he was abandoned and smeared by Mark Driscoll.

In this and in other stories I’ve read about abuse at Mars Hill Church, I was struck all along by things that sounded very familiar, in my own experiences with narcissistic abuse, from exes (especially Phil) and from Richard and Tracy:

A person/place who at first seemed like God’s gift to you.
Pressure to conform.
Shunning someone you are told is bad.
Abuse and getting kicked out for questioning, disagreeing, speaking up about problems.
A person who throws tantrums and verbally abuses you for the slightest offenses, even when the offense is only in his own mind.
A smear campaign.
Others encouraged to shun you.
A kangaroo court in which you have no real chance to defend yourself.
Others put through the same abuse if they stick up for you.
A “conference” which is meant not to hear your side or your grievances, but to coerce you into agreeing that the abuse against you is justified.
A refusal of the abusers to admit they’ve done anything wrong. As Driscoll and his henchman wrote to Jonna and her husband, “We still believe we have done nothing wrong.”
Begging others to help, but no one will.
Discovering this abuse is a pattern, that it neither began nor ended with you.

The hurt, pain and confusion as you long desperately for reconciliation:

In shock and heartbroken, Paul and I tried desperately that first half-year to bring about some level of reconciliation.
We so longed to be restored to our friends, to have our name and reputation exonerated, and to have peace in our relationships.
This had become our family that we loved and served and ministered to as our own dear children and as brothers and sisters. These were our dear friends.
How could they do this to us? Words do not adequately describe the shock, horror, betrayal, and rejection we felt. The weight of the loss was excruciating.

The PTSD and shaking of faith:

During this whole season since the firing and the months that followed, I was emotionally and spiritually devastated.
I was often tormented by fear. I had nightmares and imaginations of someone trying to physically harm Paul, me, and the children.
If Mark had had ecclesiastical power to burn Paul at the stake I believe he would have.
I literally slept in the fetal position for months. I stayed in bed a lot, bringing the children in bed with me to do their schoolwork.
I became severely depressed and could hardly bring myself to leave the house except when absolutely necessary. I cried nearly every day for well over a year thinking I must soon cry it out, right?
But, the sorrow was bottomless. My faith was gravely shaken. How could a loving God allow this?
Later it became clear that I had typical symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression and that these reactions were common in someone who has experienced spiritual abuse.
Spiritual abuse occurs when someone uses their power within a framework of spiritual belief or practice to satisfy their own needs at the expense of others. It is a breach of sacred trust.
Christians are commanded by Jesus to love one another. When that is projected, articulated, enjoyed and then treacherously betrayed, the wounded person is left with “a sense of having been raped, emotionally and spiritually” not by a stranger, but by someone who was deeply trusted. (See Recovering from Church Abuse by Len Hjalmarson)

At the beginning, Jonna wrote,

This past summer I saw the movie, “The Help,” and a seed of courage was planted in my soul. One of the last lines of the movie:
“God says we need to love our enemies. It hard to do. But it can start by telling the truth. No one had ever asked me what it feel like to be me. Once I told the truth about that, I felt free.”
This story is an earnest attempt to speak the truth in love that freedom and new life may flourish.

At the end, she wrote things which encourage me to continue telling the story of Richard/Tracy–and express the same hope I hold, that one day my abusers will recognize their abuse and change:

In Acts, Chapter 20, the Apostle Paul pleaded with the Ephesian elders to pay attention and guard the flock.
This admonition, along with the mounting stories of abuse and misconduct coming out of Mars Hill Church, has added to our conviction.
We believe that to remain quiet now would be unloving and disobedient to God. As my husband stated earlier–if we fail to remember our history, we leave it for others to re-write. And, unfortunately, some of that has occurred.
And, in Mark’s own words from his book, Vintage Jesus:
“People are not perfect. As sinners we need to be gracious, patient, and merciful with one another just as God is with us or the church will spend all of its time doing nothing but having church discipline trials.
“It is worth stressing, however, that we cannot simply overlook an offense if doing so is motivated by our cowardice, fear of conflict, and/or lack of concern for someone and their sanctification.
“In the end, it is the glory of God, the reputation of Jesus, the well-being of the church, and the holiness of the individual that must outweigh any personal desires for a life of ease that avoids dealing with sin biblically.
“Sometimes God in his providential love for us allows us to be involved in dealing with another’s sin as part of our sanctification and growth. It is good for us and for the sinner, the church, and the reputation of the gospel if we respond willingly to the task God has set before us.”
What happened to us was very wrong. The way it was publicly described by Mark and the elders at the time was completely exaggerated and deceptive. The way the media and blogs have since reported on it has many holes and errors. Now it is open and plain to everyone.
If Mark and the organizations he leads do not change, I fear many more will be hurt, Mark and his family included. To not speak is to not love or care and shows no thought or consideration for those who have been wounded and those who will be in the future.
We are witnesses. There is a pattern. There is a history. There is an ethos of authoritarianism and abuse.
Mark is the unquestioned head of Mars Hill Church and the Acts 29 Network. His elders have no way to hold him accountable. Those under him likely fear him and want to garner his favor so they don’t dare say nor do anything that might anger him. This is tragic.
Perhaps at some point, with enough outcry and exposure, Mark will come to his senses, own his harmful behavior, and get the help he needs to change. I hope so. Our common Enemy can make terrible use of our weaknesses and blind spots.
Our Lord’s harshest words were for leaders who used their status, power, the Scriptures, and God’s people for their own self-aggrandizement. Surely this is not what Mark meant to do.

We are all in this together, no matter what kind of abuse we suffered, or from whom.

We did not deserve it, and need to learn and remember this. We need to put the responsibility for the abuse, and our subsequent hurt and pain, where it belongs–on the abuser–and take none for ourselves.

And we need to NOT look at each other and think, “I got it worse than you, so why should I bother with your story and pain?”

We also need to learn from each other, take courage from each other to speak up and tell our stories, and heal each other.

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on March 11, 2014November 29, 2022

Phil walks away from me again–because I dare to have my own mind, opinions and needs–and because he’s a sociopath–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–The Long, Dark Painful Tunnel, Part 14

Intro to Psych was fascinating: It taught me a lot about such things as projecting your faults onto others, which I saw Phil doing.

The only problem was, it was an Intro class. Like Intro to Christianity, I took it just to get credits. For Christianity, I needed credits of any type so I’d have enough to graduate; for Psych, I needed Social Science credits.

But because it was an Intro, the class was full of immature freshmen. Only a few people weren’t, like Astrid’s roommate Chloe and me.

Intro to Christianity, which I attended with Mike and Randy, taught how Christian doctrine developed and split over time. The teacher, a preacher with the United Church of Christ, taught that Christ freed women, and Paul bound them up again.

We were also taught that the writers of the Bible saw a difference between Truth and Fact, which explains why, for example, the gospels have different versions of the same story, yet are still considered True. The Truth is that Christ arose; the Facts are how many angels were at the tomb.

Unfortunately, we skipped over the section on Eastern Orthodox theology, so I knew very little about it until 2005, though I knew about the Great Schism.

Probably on Thursday, I went to lunch, went through the deli line, and spoke with the cafeteria lady who was at one of the food stalls. (This may have been where the fries, or some other side dish, were.)

Sandy happened to be nearby as I told this woman I was engaged, and smiled and gushed about it. Sandy didn’t say a word.

Amazing how, both times I got dumped, I had just been gushing about my engagement to someone the same day, and Dirk or his girlfriend Sandy happened to be standing nearby, silent–as if they knew something I didn’t.

Thursday, September 29, Phil took a nap in my apartment, after agreeing to go to the IV Bible study in the lounge that evening. When it was almost time for the prayer group, I woke him up so he wouldn’t miss it.

Nothing at all unusual about that. It’s polite, it’s kind, it’s helpful.

But he said, “I thought you said you wouldn’t tell me when to wake up and when to go to sleep.”

Can you imagine such an irrational comment? I said this wasn’t the same thing. I wanted him to join us because it was important to me, and he also said he wanted to come.

But he was so–weird about it, and acted like a jerk, like I had no right to wake him up for anything, no matter how important it was.

You see I couldn’t even be a normal human being around him. Normal human beings wake up other normal human beings for things they want to go to. I felt helpless, like the tiniest slipup and I could lose him. (To me now, that doesn’t make him sound very loving!)

He finally got up, leaving some textbooks and pencils (some of the books were Dave’s) in my room.

(Just to clarify, since I’ve discovered that back in the ’70s, “jerk” often meant “stupid person”: I use the modern meaning of “jerk,” or someone who’s mean and nasty.)

We had a fun meeting with lots of people sitting on chairs arranged in a ring around and inside the TV nook.

After the meeting, Phil talked with someone; I believe it was the guy who came to InterVarsity once junior year, and wondered if Jews and Muslims, as People of the Book, would be saved. Somehow, they got to the topic of how many kids a woman could potentially have.

Phil came up with a hundred, and I said from the couch on the other end of the room, “I don’t want a hundred kids!” It was all playful and fun.

Later on, after the meeting ended it was just Charles, Pearl, Phil and me. Phil and I cuddled together.

Phil and Charles got into a political argument. I thought Charles was right and Phil was wrong, but said nothing at all about it.

Finally, the argument seemed to have ended. Phil later complained that I didn’t support him in the argument, but how could I when I didn’t even agree?

Wasn’t I allowed my own political opinions? And was I expected to back him up no matter what he said or how much I disagreed with it?

Soon, I quietly asked Phil to drive me to the store to buy milk and orange juice, but he said, “I’m not your taxicab.” So I’m not even allowed to ask for a ride now?

He then asked Charles and Pearl,

“Do you think a guy has to take his fiancée to the store if she asks?”

Charles and Pearl both said, “Yes, of course!” Charles said yes if they’re going out and serious, and especially if they’re engaged.

I felt vindicated, and very upset with Phil for trying to humiliate me like that, though I still said nothing.

There may have been a few more words said between them, but I don’t remember. He complained to me about people who don’t listen–though I thought the stubborn person here was him, not them.

I whispered to him, trying to be very calm and loving in my tone,

“Sometimes–I feel–you do the same.”

He said to me, “Thank you for being so supportive.”

Supportive? After he’d just slammed and embarrassed me in front of my friends? He treats me this way and expects me to support him? My friends have just vindicated me and he says I should support him?

He got up and left the apartment. I hurried after him, but couldn’t catch up with him, and he wouldn’t stop. Then I did something that to this day I’m very glad I did: I yelled down the sidewalk to him,

“So you’re just going to run away?” I used a tone that showed how cowardly I thought he was at that moment.

I went back inside and sat down on the armchair.

Charles had some choice words to say about Phil and his behavior that night. Pearl was mad at him, too, and she showed it.

They both thought his question about a fiancée was unfair to me, and that he was trying to embarrass me. One of them, or I, said he seemed to be taking out his frustrations in the political argument on me.

A few minutes later, he called me up and said, “You’re more than free. Good-bye.” Then he just hung up.

I tried to find him by calling Dirk’s apartment. Dirk’s roommate Carl answered the phone, and promised to have Dirk call if Phil came there. Unlike Dirk, he was very supportive of me. Later Dirk called or I called him, and when I told him what happened, he said, “It sounds like you two have broken up.”

I think Dirk was very kind to me despite the lateness of the hour (probably after 11), and didn’t want to see us broken up, but felt powerless to stop it–even though he had done severe damage to my attempts to work things out.

Phil’s behavior all week long, especially including this, is well described in the “Disproportional Reactions” section here:

One of the favourite tools of manipulation in the abuser’s arsenal is the disproportionality of his reactions.
He reacts with supreme rage to the slightest slight. Or, he would punish severely for what he perceives to be an offence against him, no matter how minor. Or, he would throw a temper tantrum over any discord or disagreement, however gently and considerately expressed.
Or, he would act inordinately attentive, charming and tempting (even over-sexed, if need be).
This ever-shifting code of conduct and the unusually harsh and arbitrarily applied penalties are premeditated. The victims are kept in the dark.
Neediness and dependence on the source of “justice” meted and judgment passed – on the abuser – are thus guaranteed.

I believe this was indeed premeditated, that he wanted nothing but a subservient puppet with no mind or will of her own, and as soon as I expressed my own desires, my own opinions, that would be “the last straw” and he would leave.

And somehow, it would be “my fault” even though the unvarnished truth is that he was an A$$HOLE and I did NOTHING wrong.

I talked to Phil on the phone the next day and asked him to come meet me and talk with me. At least he gave me that much. However, he insisted it be in the Pub, though it was public and often noisy. We set the time for 3 p.m., after I left work.

During these weeks, I read books–a book on the Psychology of Love, which I’d bought sophomore year, when it was used by a Winterim class I didn’t take, “Love and Hate.” I also started reading a book Helene lent me, on how to let go when you get divorced.

Both were very helpful to me. I read them while there was still hope, and read them after the second breakup. The first one I read when Phil and I first got back together. I read it in just a few days to learn how to deal with our arguments. The second one I read as I needed to.

I tried to set up rules to keep our discussion civil, probably using things I’d learned in these books. The rules were to keep me in check as well as him:

Issues will be honestly dealt with–not turned into arguments or “clamming up.”
Each will listen to the other–not interrupt or get angry–and really think about what the other is saying.
No getting up in a huff and stalking off–issues will be brought to a resolution.
Each will be calm–no yelling, hitting, raising voices, or the like.
Honesty–but not cruelty (including jokes).
If someone violates the “rules,” the other one will calmly tell them– the talk is not over yet.
Any and all apologies will be accepted.
No accusations–use words like “I feel” or “It seems to me.”

I showed these to Pearl, and she thought they were fair. I wrote them not only to protect me, but to protect Phil, because I could see myself breaking any of these rules quite easily.

Anna stopped at the library and gave me a pep talk about the meeting. I prayed hard that it would go all right. I think I even started to feel a peace about it.

3:00 came, and I headed over to the Pub with my books. Phil was alone there. I think I didn’t want to go there because I expected to find too many people, but only one person came in the whole time.

I showed him the House Rules, the pact I wanted to make with him. But he refused to go by them, so I ended up not going by them, either. What was the point, after all, if he wouldn’t play by any rules, to stick to any myself?

He was so pig-headed he wouldn’t even entertain the notion that I might have some good ideas about how to keep the talk at a reasonable, productive level.

Instead of sitting down and talking quietly with me, Phil played pool. It seemed he didn’t want to talk with me, didn’t want to listen to a word I had to say. He just walked around the pool table, shooting the balls.

It was frustrating. It was done to show me that what I had to say was unimportant because it disagreed with His Majesty.

I tried to work out some problems, and it didn’t work. He was so unwilling to listen to anything or even try to talk things over that we got into an argument. I said he didn’t know the meaning of love; he said, “You’re right.” Okay, for once we agreed on something!

Phil said cruel things; one thing was, he made me sound undutiful or uncaring because I didn’t confess to Mike that I had a little crush on him (and it was little–it had only just budded a couple of weeks before).

He yelled at me for never talking to Mike like he kept telling me to do, in those two weeks after the first breakup, and yelled that if I’d done so, I’d know it wasn’t returned. He’d talked to Mike, and learned that “he does not“(that’s how Phil said it) return my feelings.

Not only did he overstep his bounds by scolding me for not broaching a subject with a friend without feeling right about it–

but now he made me feel like crap by not only saying Mike doesn’t return my feelings–

but saying it in such a way that made me feel presumptuous to even think that somebody else would like me.

So now I was left with nobody at all, as he kicked me in the emotional side and made me feel like there was something wrong with having a tiny crush on somebody who didn’t return it.

But it hadn’t been right for me to talk to Mike, not while I was with Phil, and not so soon after the breakup.

There was also no sense risking Mike’s friendship over something that was so insignificant at the time.

But Phil had gone ahead and done that for me, a shocking betrayal, overstepping his bounds.

It was a blatant disregard and disrespect of me and my feelings on the issue. It also could have jeopardized my friendship with Mike.

He also said at one point, “I’ll probably do things with other people,” meaning have sex. I don’t know why he told me this, except to make me feel like crap.

I became furious, lost patience with his disregard for civility, and began saying what I felt. Phil kept saying, “You’re right.” This infuriated me even before, because it was an angry tone, and he’d once told me he did this to deliberately upset people during an argument.

All of a sudden, while I still had things left to say, Phil abruptly walked out of the Pub into the Campus Center lounge. I almost followed, but when I got to the door and looked around he was already out of sight.

Rather than waste my time looking for him, I picked up my bookbag and left. Sharon later said it was good I didn’t follow him.

I believe I said what I should have said, though it didn’t go very well. I’m not at all ashamed of the chewing-out I gave him, either then or in later letters–I’m quite proud of standing up for myself, of refusing to sit back and be the victim of his abuse.

Because Phil was a classic abusive monster, even without hitting me, and I was well rid of him. He was a narcissist, a sociopath.

He broke things off with me because I dared to have my own mind, my own thoughts, my own opinions, my own needs.

He was an old-fashioned chauvinist pig. He broke things off with me because I was not a subservient, submissive slave who never does anything but what the Master wants, even if he doesn’t tell me what he wants.

My anger was fierce because I knew I’d been mistreated and abused. I hated him.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on March 11, 2014August 25, 2022

Phil the narcissist admits to manipulating people and using them as pawns in his game with me–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–The Long, Dark Painful Tunnel, Part 11

Sometime soon after the breakup, Phil told me he’d been bathing now–actually bathing, soap and everything–and brushing his teeth, so he could attract women. He even shaved sometimes as well.

I don’t know why he told me this, but it was insulting. So, he wouldn’t bathe more than once every two months for his own wife, but he’d bathe daily for complete strangers?

And he’d even been watching a dating network on S–’s Marcus Cable. He just breaks up with me, and the bed’s not even cold before he starts looking around for another girlfriend! Man, what a loser.

Before September 19, and probably around the 14th, Pearl told me about a journal that she and some others were going to start. I asked to be a part of it. It was going to pass from one hand to another, with each person writing a little something in it. It would be me, Pearl, Sharon, Tara, Mike and Astrid.

While Carol was still at Roanoke, she and Pearl did this with each other. When they wrote in it often, they got along just fine; when they neglected it, their relationship suffered. We carried on this journal for maybe 16 years using group e-mails and a Yahoo group, before Facebook made it moot.

Friday, September 16. It was odd to eat breakfast each morning at the dining table, because since late sophomore or early junior year, I didn’t get up for breakfast at all.

Junior year, my only breakfast was a handful of M&M’s from a big bag, which got me through the few hours before lunch. Of course, after a while they seemed to do odd things to my stomach, so I figured they’d gone bad and stopped eating them. I may have then started eating dry cereal from those little individual-serving boxes.

I loved eating breakfast from our own little kitchen on our own big dining table. I also washed my dishes each late morning or early afternoon, depending on when I had free time, since I only had one set and needed to use it each morning.

However, as I did I felt restless, alone, like a part of me was gone and I was waiting impatiently for its return. I think that usually, no one else would be in the apartment at that time.

At 11am on the 16th, I went to see Counselor Dude about my Senior Writing Project. This project was required for Writing majors to graduate. I told him I’d decided to work on Jerisland, the desert island novel I’d been writing and revising since 1988 (and periodically mention here), and I said,

“I’d better warn you that it’s a Christian novel!”–since, after all, his atheist beliefs were well-known.

“That’s OK,” he said, probably not too surprised–it was me, after all. “I’ve read Christian novels before.”

****

On possibly Saturday the 17th or the previous Saturday, Anna invited me into her suite room after dinner. It was homey to be in a suite again, if only for a few hours. We had a long talk, and I discovered, in some amusing incident with a fly in the room, that I could joke and even belly-laugh. We both noticed I was taking this much better than the time Peter broke up with me.

In fact, I might wake up in the middle of the night and feel despair and/or a restlessness, a sense that time was oppressive and I had too long to wait before Phil came back to me. But it didn’t make me lie awake all night. I could get a decent night’s sleep each night, even the Friday night after the breakup, instead of just lying there waiting for morning to come (as with the breakup with Peter).

Over the next few months as I read through the biblical book of Job, I felt the loss, the wondering why, practically everything Job went through. Job asked for a trial, him against God; I wanted a trial against Phil that vindicated me against Phil’s actions, claims and complaints. The ending of Job gave me some hope for the future, though I didn’t yet know what it would mean for me to be given back more than had been taken away.

****

Monday, September 19. I wrote in my diary that I’d just had a long talk with Phil, and things weren’t as bad as Dirk made them seem. He had the wrong idea about the situation.

Not only did Dirk have the wrong idea, Phil said he could act in front of Dirk and control what Dirk thought of things, what he thought was going on, how he thought Phil reacted and felt.

Even when Dirk said Phil was so depressed one night that he felt he had no friends, and everyone in Dirk’s apartment tried to tell him this wasn’t true–IT WAS AN ACT! Phil said, “I’m that good of an actor.”

Why would he manipulate his own friend like that? Unfortunately, this question did not come to mind. I was so much in love and grieving that I missed this huge red flag, that Phil was playing us all like chess pieces: Dirk, Persephone, the people in Dirk’s apartment, even me.

But now, Phil revealed that he wasn’t nearly as angry as I had been led to believe. Phil’s manipulation of Dirk caused Dirk to suggest he get a restraining order, but Phil said that was ridiculous.

Dirk, however, had been so controlled by Phil’s great act that he told me (probably as a scare tactic) that Phil was thinking of getting such an order (which Mom called the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard). Phil reassured me now that he had no such intention.

So from Phil’s own lips, I got confirmation that Dirk was a pawn used for Phil’s Control by Proxy. This explains why Dirk would get such a daffy idea as a restraining order on a harmless person who would never think of stalking or harming anyone.

This is a tactic used by abusers and narcissists, controlling their prey using third parties, as you can read if you click on the above link.

Not only that, but months before, Phil admitted he was spoiled like his nephew Taylor at about age four. He recalled wanting a certain book, and manipulating his mother by throwing a tantrum until she got it for him. So he started this behavior early.

In my diary entry, I mentioned Phil was in the fall play. He got a part in Measure for Measure. He said the theater director chose Shakespeare plays this year to avoid the controversy of the previous year.

He said a relationship with him right then would be hell anyway because he’d have no time for me: the play, work, school, pledging Zetas, etc.

(Though that didn’t stop him from starting one with Persephone a couple of weeks later. That’s the second time a guy gave me the “I won’t have time for you” line. It proves that if you want something, you’ll make time for it.)

My leaving him alone completely after he told me to, probably influenced what he said now (and made an RO especially ridiculous).

Phil agreed that we could be friends and write letters to each other, so one day I wrote him a nice, friendly letter. He came to talk to me about it in the laundry room.

He said that even though we weren’t “engaged” (as he now called it, rather than “married”) anymore, I was still one of his potential “buyers,” and we could go on dates.

On Tuesday, he said we could only be acquaintances and I had no more chances; now, he reversed that, and began saying again, “Keep the faith.” He said, “I’m tempted to kiss you, but I won’t because it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

The outcome of the laundry room conversation was so wonderful and comforting and encouraging that it made me happy for a time. I felt Phil and I were now friends, despite everything, and told Dad about it. I told Dad why Phil wouldn’t kiss me, and that it was so noble, honorable, of him.

So far, it seemed that this breakup was much better than the one with Peter, not just because of how I took it, but because of how Phil acted.

****

Sharon said if Phil never came to see me in the library again, the librarians wouldn’t be sad: When he hung around the circulation desk when I worked, not only did he make it hard for me to do my homework, but he scared people away from the desk and annoyed everyone.

I tried to keep him from drinking his Big Slam Mountain Dew bottles in the library, and Seymour complained about it to him. He kept trying to get around this, drinking over by the chair under the window near the door to the lobby, saying it wasn’t actually “in” the library. But I kept getting after him for it.

Pearl didn’t think Phil was a Christian, because he didn’t act much like one. At least, not anymore. I said, “I think he is; he’s just misguided.” He was going astray and didn’t care.

“There are so many people,” Pearl said, “who claim to be Christians, but they don’t act like they’ve made God the Lord of their lives.” This isn’t about whether you drink or dance, but about how you treat people. And as an abuser, Phil gave Pearl plenty of reason to doubt his salvation.

I soon got to the point where I called my parents less and less often for advice on this.

My dad told me about fleeces, like in Gideon’s story in Judges, which I could put out to see what God wanted to tell me. It’s not really “testing” God: That’s something different.

Dad said I could ask God to open or close a door (not literally, of course), and He would do this. He also said that fleeces should be put out twice, as Gideon did his, to make sure that the answer was really from God and not just a coincidence.

What you do is, you either ask for your friends to do something a certain way, maybe something they often do, or you ask for something else specific to happen, and that will be a yes. The answer can also come at a time when you least expect it: It pops into your head.

You can also do a series of things: ask for fleeces, then ask God to open and close doors for you. (By the way, I am NOT recommending this, but telling you how it was explained to me, and how I used it. The outcome will come later. I also write about this here.)

On my dad’s advice, I prayed that God would open a door if Phil was meant for me, or close a door if he was not.

Dad also kept saying Phil was emotionally unstable, that he had better talk to a priest or a counselor soon because otherwise he was going to go over the edge. He said Phil was a yo-yo, always going back and forth.

On the 21st, I put out my first fleece–for my roommie Sharon to make a certain sigh she often made–and she did so.

I wrote in the Journal around this time, “If God means for men and women to be together and married, then why the heck did he make it so hard for us to understand each other??”

But something must have clicked in my head on the night of the 21st, because after going to bed, I wrote a diary entry by the light of my clock, which was fluorescent and gave out a lot of light: I was very angry with Phil at the time, and wrote it all down.

I won’t reproduce the entry here, which was a vent session, but I will quote the most interesting parts:

Me shifting blame, eh? I don’t think so. Up till now I’ve accepted just about all the blame that’s been heaped upon me. Well, I say, no more!…
If you don’t think I’m worthy of you, then screw you! You’re not worthy of me.
…You told me [many times during our relationship] to go find somebody better because you weren’t worthy of me. Well, you have your wish. I see your unworthiness, so off I go to find someone who is worthy.

I wrote that I could no longer trust him because of the fake dream hoax (also here and here), and because he turned both my weaknesses and strengths against me, then said I treated him bad.

“I didn’t treat you bad,” I wrote.

At the end, I wrote, “You take my virginity away and then say we’re not really married. What a scumball thing to do. Good-bye forever.”

The next morning, I was still angry, though a part of me wanted to see things work out.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992:Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?
April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign
May 1992:

Sophomore Year