mutism

Tracy bullies me and tries to control Richard by weeding out friends she doesn’t like

I felt singled out as a terrible person because I simply could not do the social gymnastics Tracy expected me to do.

I must have missed nearly all her cues to start conversations, because I’d go for months thinking I’d been perfectly fine socially with her, then find out she was still offended and mad at me because I wasn’t “befriending” her or making conversation.

To this day I could not tell you what cues I was missing, or when, or any specific details about times, dates, places, words spoken, or what I did to offend her.

Richard would say he saw me do this this and this, but I’d think, WHEN?  I remember NONE of this! 

If she used hidden meanings or subtexts in her speech, I couldn’t tell you that, either, though I recently read that women often do that.

I was fine socially with Richard, but he was a special case: that rare individual with whom I could relate like a socially normal person.  It helped that as a man, he was more likely to say things directly instead of expecting me to read his mind.

I could even “read” him nonverbally quite well, at least for the first couple of years, before he started getting hard to understand.  He seemed to think I could be that way with everyone, when in fact I was only that way with him, my husband, my child and my cats.  (It probably has to do with familiarity.)

I find making conversation with most people to be an exhausting chore.  Most of what I “read” is from the words spoken and a few standard, obvious body language indications.

More subtle body language trips me up, such as–for example–I recently discovered that breaking into a conversation with a group of people is accomplished through eye contact and other subtle body movements.  I had to read this in an article, because I didn’t know it instinctively.

No wonder I’ve always had so much trouble breaking into conversations with a bunch of chattery people!  Usually somebody talks over me when I barely open my mouth, and then somebody else replies while I wait for that person to complete the thought.

Small talk is trouble because I just don’t know what to say, and saying “how are you” over and over seems too repetitive and dull.  I’d much rather listen and wait for someone to bring up something I can contribute to.

I wasn’t being passive-aggressive, promising one thing and then doing another: No, I kept telling Richard that I couldn’t be close to Tracy because of all the crap she kept pulling, that I couldn’t open up to someone who treated me like an enemy, that I had to choose my own confidantes.

But I was kind to her, for his sake.  I paid her compliments, sent her links to a local women’s forum so she could make friends, gave her a flower, changed diapers for her, asked for recipes….

I just wasn’t going to be “besties” with her.  I had to keep my boundaries up or be subject to all sorts of hurt and pain from a mean girl.  And, though I didn’t voice this, I wanted to be there for him and believe him whenever he told me about her abuses of him and the children.

From the horrible things she said to me when I ended the friendship, Tracy apparently thought I was being childish somehow (comments about me needing to “grow up and TALK”), or that it was deliberate.

In fact, when she behaved like a normal, decent person there was nothing deliberate about it: I’m quiet with most people, especially with more than one person at a time.  I’ve always been quiet even with my longtime friend Catherine, usually letting others carry the conversation until I have something to contribute.

Whenever I saw Tracy behave well, I sighed with relief that this time, I had nothing to object to.

But whenever she started abusing her children, snipping at Richard or making fun of me, that’s when I just plain did not want to speak to her.  I think most people would be the same, unless they’re good at faking pleasantries.

I tried to ignore her bullying because I’d always heard that’s what you should do, that bullies want to get a rise out of you, but she kept doing it anyway.  I couldn’t read her at all except when she showed hostility.  Even then, I didn’t know what the hostility was about.

So she was like a ticking time bomb.  Usually, if she smiled I thought things were okay and maybe she liked me finally.

This blog post on intolerance and its comments resonate with me, because I tried to tell Richard time and time again what was really going on, explaining every reason I could think of for whatever incident he described (though not actually remembering it), and he’d supposedly tell Tracy.

But he would reject it as an excuse, and she would reject it outright because I wasn’t shy with him.

But that’s because I was very comfortable with him in particular!  Being shy or quiet doesn’t mean you are that way with every single person on the planet, including your mother, children, husband, roommate, and best friend!

Also, this page sounds very familiar.

I believe she deliberately set me up to fail, and that the standards she sets for Richard’s friends are ridiculous and meant to weed out anybody she doesn’t like, especially ones who don’t see her as this wonderful person–as a means of controlling him, keeping him under her thumb, cutting him off from his support group who recognizes the abuser.

Our mutual friend Todd did not talk to her, just him, she said (like me).

Richard said Todd was wary of her (like me).

Todd is an introvert (like me).

He has been abused before (like me).  I think people are more likely to recognize toxic people when they’ve been abused.  He saw many of the same things in her that I did.

So in 2008, she made up an imaginary offense by Todd against her, refused to believe it did not exist, and smeared him with lies all over a game forum.  So he broke off relations with her and Richard both, because Richard let her do it and eventually joined in.

This is very familiar….. More on this below.

So it wasn’t just about Tracy being afraid of other women stealing Richard, even though Richard did tell me about her jealousies of other women.

And who knows who Richard betrayed before us, since we weren’t the only friends he lost?

Richard told me one day that people would come up to them, say, “We’re sorry, but we just can’t deal with Tracy anymore,” and break off relations with them both.  I don’t know how many have done this.  He said this with her in the room listening, so I know it was true.

I wonder what she did to tick off those other friends so much.  What kinds of things come up that make her so nasty to so many of her husband’s friends that they dump the friendship with him to get away from her?

They must have broken off relations with both of them because Tracy insisted on being friends with Richard’s friends.

Another friend was “at war” with her, told him (before they married) that Tracy would bring him trouble.  Tracy got furious when she discovered that during the two months he lived with us, Richard had been talking to her.  (How controlling!)

Another friend kept clashing with her, as well, and left.  These are the ones I know about.

Todd hoped that Richard would wake up to how she was “driving all his friends away.”

Most people call me sweet, nice, innocent, kind, caring, loyal–but she eavesdropped and knew I found her possessive, controlling and abusive, so I was on her sh** list.

Meanwhile, if she got along fine with his other friends, she acted perfectly normal with them.  See a pattern here?

If I treated Jeff and his friends that way, he’d complain to high heaven.  Her ways lead to strife and lost friendships; our way leads to peace and contentment in the marriage and with others.

Why should I submit and say she’s right and I’m wrong?  That would be a lie!  Our way is innocent-till-proven guilty; none have been guilty, though many have been flirty and a few have offended me.

Tracy’s way is guilty-till-proven innocent.  Look for guilt and you’ll find it, even where it doesn’t exist.  Going further, treat a man like a cheater and he will cheat.

This video (by Sam Vaknin, himself a malignant narcissist, with insights into how they think) sounds like Tracy.

While Richard told me things Tracy was doing, Tracy–when Jeff drove her places–told him the bad things Richard was doing: lazy, unmotivated, etc.  

She was upset that Richard wasn’t doing chores–

–while Richard was upset that he cleaned all the time but got yelled at for not cleaning, that she never did a thing to help out, that when he told her he needed help with chores she’d fume and pout for days.

Todd stayed with them a couple of times, and could vouch for Richard’s complaints.

It has been suggested that we were used as pawns by these people in their own power struggle.

Jeff also thinks that Tracy saw me as a threat to her marriage, but that it wasn’t about a potential affair, rather about me being Richard’s confidante.  

He thinks she wanted a confidante, but didn’t want Richard to have one.  He thinks she was afraid I’d convince Richard that he and the children were being treated badly, and he would leave.

Now, I never told Richard he should leave her.  I did, however, say what I thought about how she treated him.  Jeff kept his mouth shut, and he thinks that’s why he got along with her better.  But now he wonders if he should have spoken up more.

Tracy yelled and screamed and cussed at any person who upset her, throwing tantrums–over a game–even at Todd, a family friend of six years.  When he did something on an online game which she took as a power grab, instead of

  1. seeing it as just a game after all,
  2. calling Todd on the phone to ask what’s going on while giving him the benefit of the doubt, or
  3. refraining her temper because it was after all a friend–

–she cussed at him and accused him right there on the game forum for all to read.

I saw the whole thing, because my husband was in that game, so I used his account to read the forums.  Todd also opened up the private forums so we could see how the argument originated.  From what I saw, it went from civility and Todd trying to help her, to Tracy all of a sudden freaking out over nothing.

It’s not at all surprising that Todd–who also has a fierce temper–got defensive instead of working with her.  He asked a couple of people to help with talking to her, but they said she had “a stubborn as a rock mentality.”  Richard, too, called her “immovable,” not just then but in general.  (More on this incident is on the next page.)

Sometime during this whole mess, came allegations against Todd in his personal life.  I won’t post them because I have no idea if the allegations were true, or if they were all part of the smear campaign against Todd, since they ended up on the forums.

But the next day, Jeff and I went to visit; Tracy gleefully said Todd needed to “grow up.”

Her smile was vindictive and happy, malicious, the cat who swallowed the canary, smiling lips but dangerous eyes–what I now know as a sociopathic smile or sociopathic smirk.

Which was yet more indication to me, during the 7/1/10 “incident” described later, that further discussions with her would be useless.

Todd couldn’t take it anymore and broke off the friendship with them both.  Even months later, Tracy said she wanted him “at the bottom of the sea.”  More details of this story are here.

She put the responsibility for her anger and abuse on others, but accused others of being “childish” and needing to “grow up.”  She wouldn’t respect others, but demanded respect from them.

Being allowed full friendship benefits, however, was like a carrot constantly dangled above my head.  Just whenever I thought I finally caught it, it was yanked away again: emotional blackmail.

It soon became very clear that my quiet, shy, introverted temperament was somehow a personal offense to her, that she expected me to turn into an outgoing extrovert, which is impossible.

I was supposed to participate in conversations with her just like an extrovert would, or someone who is not shy, but that is neurologically impossible for me, except with a few select people.

I felt like I was being forced to jump through hoops in order to be a normal friend with my best friend, hoops that kept getting placed higher and higher while I was constantly blamed for not making them.

Tracy was very manipulative of me through Richard, very manipulative and controlling of Richard, with all her threats and intimidation.  Whether it was marriage or childrearing, I began thinking, “What would Tracy do?”–and doing the opposite.

They strategically plan how to break people down and hurt them or make them weak. This is done in either a surreptitious manner, an overt manner, or both.

They are a control freak.  If they know something is important to you, they will use it to punish or control you, or try to prevent it from taking place (such as an important goal you are working toward)….

If they know something is important to you, they will in some way try to deprive you of it or make you jump through hoops for it. –Joyful Alive Woman, Behaviors and attitudes of the narcissist

It’s highly unlikely that you can make a bully understand that the way he or she treats you is abusive. These people won’t take ownership for their bad behaviors.

They always have a justification and rationalization. It’s your fault. You “made” them treat you badly.

In order for the emotionally abusive person to see their behavior for what it is, they have to be able to tolerate cognitive dissonance. –Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD, 7 Things you need to know about emotional abuse and bullies

If you know a narcissist’s history, you will usually see a track of mysterious upheavals in his life. He suddenly up and moves to a different school or job in a different town every few years.

That is, every time the good angels in his Pathological Space start comparing notes, get his number, and become enraged.

In one narcissist I know of, these upheavals began with one in the eighth grade. “What Makes Narcissists Tick” pg. 79

…This history of past upheavals can be more subtle than the narcissist having to physically pull up stakes and move to a new place….

As I look back over [my mother’s] life for the last four decades it is very evident that she indeed does defecate all over her Pathological Space requiring her to abandon particular social circles with predictable regularity. This has been repeated over, and over, and over again….

If you are acquainted with someone who keeps telling you about how they had to get rid of this person, that person and the other person where all the blame rests on the other party–you are witnessing a “history of past upheavals” and it is a sign you are looking at a narcissist.

Moving about geographically is only one outward sign of past upheavals. High turnover in social circles and relationships is the subtler sign.

…In fact, another red flag is being hated — I mean really hated — for mysterious reasons. And by people that hating is uncharacteristic of….–“What Makes Narcissist Tick”, pg. 79

This red flag is well understood by those of us who have been through hell with a narcissist and found ourselves loathing them and forcing no contact for our protection.

Unfortunately, most people out there in the world…are far too quick to judge what they don’t know. They are quick to condemn our hatred of a malignant narcissist as being wrong.

They are naive to a fault about people who are capable of earning such hatred — so they condemn us. This red flag should be put on billboards and written with sky-writing:

Respect the fact that people do things for reasons therefore don’t be willing to judge what you know nothing of. –Anna Valerious, More Red Flags: History of Past Upheavals & Hated for Mysterious Reasons

 

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction

2. We share a house 

3. Tracy’s abuse turns on me 

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children 

5. My frustrations mount 

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

 
8. The Incident

9. The fallout; a second chance?

10. Grief 

11. Struggle to regain normalcy

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13. Conclusion 

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

14. Updates on Richard’s Criminal Charges 

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

 

I almost break off the friendship because of Tracy

In late February 2008, Richard and I exchanged a series of e-mails which led to the revelation that she fought him “tooth and nail” every time he planned to come over to my house to pick up the bags of mail and stuff I kept finding as I cleaned.

I was horrified to find that she kept telling him I “hated” her, was “biased against” her–and that she gave him so much trouble just to come pick up their own stuff.

Didn’t she want her mail?  Didn’t she want her daughters’ little doodads?  I sure wasn’t going to keep them at my house!

I was also horrified to hear him back up her complaints against me and now scold me for doing things I did not even remember ever doing.  Or for not wanting to talk to her because I was angry at her for something she had just done.

I tried to explain that they kept misunderstanding me, but he refused to listen.  I thought my BFF, with whom I had bonded, who called me the most awesome person he knew–

–would give me the benefit of the doubt, and believe in me, know that I meant no harm–

–but no, even he judged me without a trial!

I told Jeff, “I just can’t deal with that woman!”

It was so distressing that I thought I had to break off the friendship.

Jeff wanted to go over there and give Tracy a piece of his mind, but they were getting ready to go down to their previous city, and fetch their furniture and other stuff from storage.

So he planned to straighten them out after they got back.

I spent a long, miserable weekend, crying a lot, barely sleeping, thinking the friendship was unsalvageable.

Jeff tried to reassure me and comfort me by making the decision for me, saying that I wouldn’t break it off yet.

We went to an SCA event to get me out of the house.  On the way home, I spent probably the better part of an hour describing all the abuse I witnessed Tracy committing against Richard and the kids while they lived in our house, so he would know what all was going on.

I wish I had written it all down at the time.  Or maybe I did, but shredded it later.

On February 22, I wrote but never sent an e-mail to Richard:

You want me to make an attempt to get past the things that happened while you guys were all staying here.  I want to, as well, and have been doing so.

But I tried and tried and tried and kept coming up against a roadblock: that you say Tracy feels herself justified in what she does and rarely apologizes.

Well, I can offer forgiveness; I can offer civility.  I can offer apologies for hurting her feelings or offending her at any point.  I certainly never meant to.

But I must assert my rights to dignity and to choose who my friends will be.

I was deeply hurt by things that happened, and no, it’s not okay.  It will NEVER be okay if all I get for each point is, “[Tracy] was justified for (whatever reason).”  No matter how reasonable the reasons may seem to her, it doesn’t erase how the action made me feel.

If I just pretend nothing happened and everything’s okay, I will get an ulcer [I had one in high school], and inside I will be miserable physically and emotionally.  I endured years of bullying as a child and in college; I’m far too old and have come too far to allow it to happen again.

In order for me to be her friend, to even consider confidences, I MUST insist that Tracy give in some and make apologies.  Otherwise it will be nothing more than civility.

I know it can be hard to do that when you feel you’re right, but to make it in this world, a person must learn how to make apologies even when she does feel justified.

There were some things that happened with the children that bothered me, but as time went on, I noticed that they seemed to lessen.  The children were also very difficult to deal with at times, so I’ve decided to cut her slack.

So these are the things that must be apologized for if she wants to be friends and not just acquaintances:

1) Doing these things in my house: Yelling at you, picking at you, accusing you of things I knew were not true [they had nothing to do with me, by the way], using a foul word [“bullsh**”] right in front of her children and [my son].

I know this was done to you and not to me, but it was done in my house and I will not have that kind of crap going on in my house.  It never affects just the couple when there are other people around.

2) Getting angry at you for talking to me, not just around New Year’s, but still getting angry at you just for wanting to come over here and grab the stuff you left behind when you moved out!  I don’t want to hear any more about it being a “respect” thing, getting to know her first–

It was deeply offensive and insulting to be treated like crap for wanting to talk to you privately about private concerns, after all that I had done for you guys, after opening my house to her.

3) Me overhearing a phone call to her mother criticizing the menu for that week.  I made that menu in the middle of the lice treatment.

Not only were we trying to deal with shampoo and nitpicking, not only did we need groceries, but I had an unbelievable amount of laundry to do, and it had to be done all in one day so as to kill off any lice in the sheets before we went to bed that night.

The menu had to be done quickly without much thought.  Sunday by necessity HAD to be fast food.

And we couldn’t incorporate lots of produce or meals made from scratch, because that takes a lot of money, and our grocery bills were already averaging $300-$400 a week.

4) Me overhearing a phone call to you as she criticized me for having a “routine.”  That “routine” keeps the house from turning into a pigsty. That “routine” keeps the house and the laundry clean.

I have been mistress of my own house for many, many years and will do things my own way.  My mother had a “routine.”

After Richard and Tracy got back with their stuff, I told Richard one day that Jeff wanted to talk with him.  They had this talk in the bar and grill on Friday, February 29.

Jeff had calmed down somewhat.  But he still tried his best to persuade Richard that I was being misjudged and mistreated, that I was naturally shy and quiet with everyone and could not be an extrovert, that my NVLD affected my social skills, that Tracy’s treatment of me was causing me to close up with her.

He came back home and said the results were very disappointing, that Richard and Tracy thought I was making “a mountain out of a molehill,” that I should just “push myself” to be more sociable with her, that the NVLD was just a crutch.

Jeff tried, but could not get Richard to feel any empathy for me at all.  Jeff was disturbed by this lack of empathy, not just then, but in the years following.

And not just for me, but in other areas, such as Richard’s “oh well” when Jeff told him that his political ideas would cause the poor to suffer for years.  A lack of empathy is also a sign of narcissism.

Lack of empathy is one of the most striking features of people with narcissistic personality disorder. It’s a hallmark of the disorder in the same way that fear of abandonment is in borderline personality disorder.

“Narcissists do not consider the pain they inflict on others; nor do they give any credence to others’ perceptions,” says Dr. Les Carter in the book Enough of You, Let’s Talk About Me (p. 9).

“They simply do not care about thoughts and feelings that conflict with their own.” Do not expect them to listen, validate, understand, or support you. –Randi Kreger, Lack of Empathy: The Most Telling Narcissistic Trait

And no, Sally Normal and Joe Regular, we can’t just ‘get over it’ and we can’t just ‘be normal’. The brain is a flexible organ and we do learn, but we will always be Aspies. –Rudy Simone, “Why are Aspies so Weird?  Why can’t we just “get over it” or act normally?

2. You just need to try harder. Sorry, but no. My brain does not work the way yours does. There is something the matter with mine. It’s not a matter of will, or effort.

It’s a matter of trying to figure out how to cope. You wouldn’t tell a blind person to try harder to see, would you? –Peter Flom, PhD, Things not to say to LD people (or their parents)

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers.

That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.)

Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ. –Carl King, 10 Myths About Introverts

I thought Richard was my friend, that he understood me, that we were a mutual admiration society.

That he would have my back, and at least try to understand my point of view and validate it, even if he had to support his wife at the same time.

But no, there was no empathy at all.

Richard even gave Jeff the impression that it would be dangerous for me to apologize to Tracy, and that it would also be dangerous to tell her about the NVLD, because her mother had abused her while using some disorder as an excuse.

(Jeff thought it was a learning disorder, but he may have misunderstood, because I know her mother had borderline personality disorder.  Learning disorders don’t lead to abuse.)

Jeff found it very frustrating.

If it were even remotely possible for me to behave like an extrovert who didn’t have NVLD, don’t you think I would have already done so 20 years before, rather than always feeling like the odd one out, the one nobody paid attention to, the one rarely asked on dates?  Do you really think this is some sort of choice?

Unfortunately, I did not have research into introverts to show him at that time, because I did not know that the very makeup of my brain determines how I interact socially–even before you get into the problems that NVLD caused me academically, socially, athletically, and in various other ways as described here.

But who knows if even that would’ve made a difference with how he treated me, because he’s one of those extroverts who think that introverts only act the way they do because they’re stubborn, don’t like people, or aren’t trying hard enough.

Richard and Tracy probably would’ve bullied me on the playground if I knew them growing up.

It was also extremely insulting to me, putting my shyness, quiet nature, social understanding disability, and reaction to Tracy’s abuses, on the same level as the abusive actions and excuses of a crazy mother!

Most introverts experience various levels of discrimination in our extroverted society, but this was beyond the norm: It crossed the line from misunderstanding introverts, to abusing and bullying me, by trying to twist my behavior until I sounded like the bully!

It was gaslighting and echoing, both common tactics of abusers and narcissists to screw with your perception–to take the focus off their abusive actions and put it on you.

Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world. —Jonathan Rauch, Caring for Your Introvert

On March 3 I wrote an e-mail to Richard, but I don’t remember if I sent it or not:

I keep getting the impression and fearing that you have misunderstood something: I am NOT trying to get Tracy to ease up on her restriction of our going out to the bar and grill, for coffee, etc. alone.

I stopped fighting that weeks and weeks ago, I think after having a talk with Jeff [after they moved out] that calmed me down and helped me see things from the other perspective.

I know the topic came up on Friday, I’m not sure how, but he probably meant that merely to explain why I was upset and did not understand in the first place back in January, not to change anything.

I just want her to understand that I do not hate her, that she can trust me, so she can feel comfortable with me and ease up on her own time.

Okay, don’t tell her about the NVLD, if you think it’ll only cause trouble.  Just tell her that I never meant any harm to her and did not deliberately snub her.

Tell her I’m a little dense in social situations, if you think that’ll help.  I’d rather she think I was a bit thick than mean or hateful or devious.

I don’t mean the NVLD to be a crutch.  It is, rather, an explanation. I keep looking for ways to compensate for it.

The problem is that I don’t have a teacher, so oftentimes I’ll know I have a problem with something, but don’t know how to deal with it.

But nothing seemed to change.  I was still expected to change the most basic part of my personality, just as much a basic and unchangeable determinant of who I was, as my gender and race–if I ever wanted full friendship benefits with Richard.

While Tracy felt no need whatsoever to stop being an abusive bully, something which can and must be changed, because bullies violate other people’s rights to be treated with dignity.

‘And it is as fundamental a part of who we are as our gender is,’ [Susan Cain] insists. ‘Your tendency to be inward-directed [introverted] or outward-directed [extroverted] is huge; it governs every part of the way you live and work and love.’ –Jane Mulkerrins, The big noise in the quiet revolution, why introversion is in: Susan Cain on her bestseller about keeping life on the lowdown

 

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction

2. We share a house

3. Tracy’s abuse turns on me

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

5. My frustrations mount

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

8. The Incident

9. The fallout; a second chance?

10. Grief 

11. Struggle to regain normalcy

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13. Conclusion 

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

14. Updates on Richard’s Criminal Charges 

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

 

Tracy’s smear campaign and emotional blackmail begin full-force

Eventually, we stopped sharing a house.  No apologies ever came from Tracy for the many insults and jabs she made.  When I begged Richard to get her to apologize and be kind to me, he talked like everything was somehow my fault and fat chance getting an apology from her, and I was just making a mountain out of a molehill.

Meanwhile, when I asked about making apologies to Tracy–because I felt bad about many things that happened during the six weeks they stayed with us, and wanted to try again–he told me not to, she only wanted that from him, it wasn’t necessary–and Jeff got the impression from him that it would actually be dangerous somehow.

I almost broke off the friendship right there and then, and once or twice afterwards, but Jeff dissuaded me from it and Richard didn’t want me to go.  My son loved playing with their children, Jeff loved playing D&D with them, Jeff had just as much trouble finding friends nearby as I did, and I loved Richard like a brother.

Since Richard claimed to care a lot about me, said I was “very dear” to him, said he loved me like a sister, I had hopes that somehow, the friendship could be salvaged.  Many times I got the impression it had been, that things were finally moving along at a nice, even pace.  But then something would come out that shattered my illusions, and made me feel like Tracy loathed me and would never accept me.

There were huge communication problems: I was open and honest with Richard about all sorts of things.  But Richard and Tracy constantly kept from me all sorts of things that I needed to know, such as ways I had offended Tracy, and then blamed me because we didn’t seem to get anywhere.  I couldn’t apologize or repent of something I did not know I had done.  We couldn’t resolve problems we did not talk about.

It was also exhausting, because I couldn’t just relax and be myself, and stop wondering if I’d done something to offend her yet again, or was she just joking.  I felt constantly on edge, on the spot, on trial around her, because as an introvert with NVLD (and possibly selective mutism) who had objected to her abuses of me and others, it was impossible to please her.

This made me feel resentful, especially since she never apologized for the things she did to me, or for her abuses and controlling behavior toward her husband and children–and I kept seeing her do more of these things all the time.

How could I be expected to forgive and forget when she not only did not repent of what she did, but kept committing more emotional crimes against me, Richard, the children, and others?

Yet I was somehow expected to make up for my “errors” and act just the way she wanted me to act, or else I’d be punished by losing the best friend I’d had in many years.

Except that I had no idea what the rules even were.  I’d think I was following them as well as I could, but many months later I’d find that she still wasn’t satisfied, that something I had always thought was perfectly fine with her, was ticking her off.  This was emotional blackmail.

I often trembled and shook and felt dizzy (panic attack?) before calling Richard, and had to psyche myself up to do it, unless I knew Tracy was at work.

Once, I called and left a message with her, and she was so nice and cheerful–rather than short or brusque–that I thought, finally, finally she likes me!  Then I found out later, to my disappointment, that it wasn’t her but the babysitter.

I told Richard once that I didn’t call him often because I didn’t want to annoy Tracy.  He said, “Go ahead.  Annoy her!”

He was my BFF, my best friend, so of course I wanted to do what best friends do, and talk with him often about everything.

I told Jeff everything, which inspired him to trust me, and if he had a problem or suspicion, he would’ve told me; he was okay with everything and didn’t mind.

So I was startled one day to learn from Richard that Tracy called me “that woman” when I wasn’t there.

And this despite the fact that our two families constantly did things together, them coming to our house, us going to their house, me babysitting their kids, us giving them presents at Christmas and birthdays, Jeff giving Tracy or Richard a ride, Jeff playing D&D with them–

So I was not some woman she barely knew and never saw socially.  No, I was a family friend.

I kept thinking things were hopeless, wondering if I should break things off, and told him straight-out one day in an e-mail that I didn’t feel comfortable being friends with a man whose wife hated me.

But Richard kept telling me things could be resolved, that she didn’t hate me.

In 2010, I sometimes wished he had ended things long before this, out of respect for his wife’s feelings.  While I was always out of the loop and clueless, always hoping and thinking that Tracy was now perfectly fine with me, he knew what was really going on in his own home.

Sometime in late January or February 2008 after they moved out, I discovered through a series of e-mails to Richard that–even though I thought for sure he could go get coffee with me–that he could not, that Tracy had restricted him from doing that with me, though he could do it with other friends.

See, I stopped asking to go to the bar and grill, because there seemed to be a stigma attached to going to a bar with him–even though it was actually a regular family restaurant with a bar, like Applebee’s, not a tavern.  Like there was something “affair-y” about going to a bar with a guy.  (Or, even more ridiculous, like there was something “affair-y” about going to a family restaurant with a guy.)

But I thought it was okay to ask him to meet me each week to get coffee and catch up.  Public place, and not a bar.

That’s when I learned that I wasn’t even allowed to go to a coffee shop with the guy!  What the–?

Restrictions kept trickling out little by little like this.

In August, I asked to meet him in a parking lot to talk, thinking that was a nice, safe place she wouldn’t possibly object to.  My husband had just lost his job, and I needed someone to talk to, preferably my BFF.

But no, even a frickin’ parking lot was off-limits.

Yet it was okay for him to visit me in my house by himself when the kids were along.  Like the kids were “chaperones.”  It was crazy!

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction

2. We share a house

3. Tracy’s abuse turns on me

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

5. My frustrations mount

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

8. The Incident

9. The fallout; a second chance?

10. Grief 

11. Struggle to regain normalcy

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13. Conclusion 

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

14. Updates on Richard’s Criminal Charges 

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

 

 

Tracy turns jealous of and hostile toward me because I’m an introvert with NVLD

Ever since my conversations with Richard first began two years before, they had been one-on-one.  Our conversations for the past two months had gone on for hours, one-on-one.

There was a dynamic, a shared history of confidences, an understanding between us that made these conversations special.  As a quiet, shy introvert, I could open up in a way I couldn’t when more people were added.

Introversion includes a preference for one-on-one conversations, and hating small talk.  It also means you have trouble contributing to conversations with more people because it’s hard to process, think what you want to say, and then find a spot to say it, before the conversation has moved on.

It has nothing to do with our intelligence, willingness to speak, or what we think of the others in the conversation.  It is, rather, how our brains are wired:

Our brain processes require us to think before speaking, going through our long-term memories for experiences and knowledge to find something to say.  Extroverts think as they speak, using short-term memory.

It takes longer to go through the long-term memory.  So small talk makes us very quiet, while an in-depth, interesting conversation inspires us to speak a lot more.

Now, you may say, if introverts have to take extra time to think of something to say, then why are your brains so quick in this case?

It’s simple: If we are already interested in a topic, then we study it and think about it a lot, so we already know what to say.  If we don’t already know about a topic, then we have very little to pull from our experiences or knowledge, so there is very little to say.

The same goes for questions put to us by significant others or friends: Since this question has only just been put to us, we need time to examine it, and figure out what we think about it and the best way to answer it.

I have had people get upset with me for not answering yet, when they haven’t even given me a chance to think it over first.  This is very annoying for an introvert, so stop doing that.

But Richard told Jeff that I needed to “push” myself.  Uh, no.  That reminds me of my second-grade teacher (I loved her otherwise because she was awesome, but this one thing annoyed me):

She complained that I did not participate enough in class.  That’s because I didn’t always know the answer.  One day I was in a little circle with the “smart” group; she asked us for types of construction equipment.

I said nothing because I was into “girl” things, like dolls and Cinderella, and had no clue what types of construction equipment there were.  But she kept saying, “Raise your hand, Nyssa!  Raise your hand!”

What was I supposed to say if I raised my hand–“I have no clue and don’t have an answer for you”?

That’s exactly how I feel if somebody–such as Richard–tries to push and force me into a conversation when I have nothing to say.

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days…..

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
A world without Introverts would be a world with few scientists, musicians, artists, poets, filmmakers, doctors, mathematicians, writers, and philosophers.

That being said, there are still plenty of techniques an Extrovert can learn in order to interact with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on purpose to show you how biased our society is.)

Introverts cannot “fix themselves” and deserve respect for their natural temperament and contributions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ. —Carl King, 10 Myths About Introverts

So I resented it when Richard kept trying to make these into three-way conversations with Tracy, whose judgment, temper and humor I began to find questionable.  The more I saw of her temperament, the less I wanted to open up to her.  She put me off with crass humor.  She also seemed to be very reactionary when someone disagreed with her, and conservative where I was liberal.

For example, she ripped on my priest for saying that their marriage had to be blessed in the Orthodox Church before they could take the Eucharist.  She made all sorts of disrespectful and nasty comments about him, such as not listening to an “old man.”  But this was an Orthodox requirement which somehow had been neglected after their conversion, so she was extremely unfair to this wonderful priest.

She also decided she hated my church and wanted nothing to do with it, because somebody told her there was a children’s area in the basement where she could take the kids when they get noisy.

(In fact, even though Richard loved my church when it was just him and me going, they both now came up with all sorts of reasons why they didn’t like my church, and chose a different church two counties away.  My church is full of lovely people and has an awesome, wise priest.)

For another example, I felt comfortable talking with Richard about things that turned me off about fundamentalist Protestantism, such as the rejection of science.  Some time long before, he and I looked over an Orthodox website which said that the obsession with Creationism was not Orthodox.  But I mentioned this in front of Tracy one day, and she just went off on me.

Also on the Forum once, I posted some link that said the Catholic church was not concerned with biblical literalism, which to me showed that even the ancient Churches aren’t strict about this like Protestant Fundamentalists.  I meant it as a refreshing change from what I’d grown up with, but she railed against the Catholic Church for this.

Richard had a far different view, from what I could see.  Apparently she thinks that Christians must reject evolution (and global climate change) despite all evidence that it is true.  I was not comfortable discussing religious issues with her after that.

Then–after all that insistence on biblical literalism–she supported shooting illegal immigrants on sight!  Richard and I both found such a policy morally abhorrent–him because he once was told to do just that as a border guard, and was scarred by it.  (At least, so he says, though I have trouble finding supporting evidence for such a policy.)

My participation in three-way conversations was already limited because they kept going on about subjects I found boring, and because it was much harder for me to break in when two other people were talking.

But it was even more limited because I didn’t want her knowing my private thoughts.  In the beginning I told her private things, but a few weeks later, I no longer trusted her enough to do that.

I kept telling Richard I wanted some one-on-one conversations, not just three-ways, but he just didn’t get it.  I resented being forced into friendship with someone I found abrasive, whom I witnessed verbally abusing him and the kids.  I told him, “I have to choose my own confidantes.”  But it just kept falling on deaf ears, and I resented that.

How could he even think our awesome conversations should start including a third person?  We could have three-way everyday conversations, but there was no way our special, hours-long, in-depth conversations were going to happen with a third person.

That destroyed the dynamic, the mutual trust, the similar interests and backgrounds.  Did he want to ruin them?  My husband didn’t even try to get in the middle of our conversations, but went to the basement (where the computer is) so we could talk.

It seemed Richard was one of those extroverts who think introverts should be just like them, that being introverted is somehow a fault that has to be corrected, rather than a different way of processing social situations.  He often gave unasked-for advice that might work for him, but not for me.

The more is not the merrier: Not for me, anyway. If we make plans, please, please don’t invite other people to join us–at the very least, check with me first.

Introverts usually prefer one-on-one to groups and I’m bummed when the nice cozy visit I anticipated turns into a convivial racket. –Dr. Irene S. Levine, The Inside Scoop on Your Introvert Friends

I had no idea yet that Tracy actually required me to be an extrovert, to be Chatty Cathy with her all day long, along with socializing with her at night.

I CAN’T STAND SITTING ON MY BUTT FOR HOURS ON END WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT SOCIALIZE.  It drives me absolutely batty.  Except, maybe, for Richard or my mother or catching up with some girl friend from college.  But these are people with whom I already have an established rapport and can keep up my end without trouble.

Even after she had been in my house for days, and I no longer could put off housework, and needed a quiet place to recharge, away from all these people.

I had no idea that otherwise she would not “approve” my friendship with Richard, would not consider me her friend despite how I put myself out to help her, would see every move I made as a move on her husband.

While if I were an extrovert, she would “approve” me instantly and I could go to the bar and grill with Richard, could chat with him alone for hours, could even put my head on his shoulder and she’d consider it cute and join in.

Even though she did indeed approve me within the first few days, and called me her friend, now she and Richard claimed she never approved me.  I was so bewildered and angry by this, that I did not call them out on this big, fat, obvious lie.

It was my first red flag warning that they were manipulative, emotional cons, liars, doublespeakers and users–but I did not catch it.  Down the rabbit-hole with me!

But when I found out about her secret rules, I resented that Tracy began treating me like I was out to steal her husband because I wanted to continue having one-on-one conversations with him, as I had been allowed to do for the past two years without anyone even suggesting this was “wrong” or “inappropriate.”

Because I wanted to go to the bar and grill with him, as I had been allowed to do for the past two months without anyone even suggesting this was “wrong” or “inappropriate.”

This constant insistence that I turn into Chatty Cathy with her (when it’s neurologically impossible for me to open up and be chatty with mean, abusive people), or else she would continue being hostile toward me and treating me like the Other Woman, infuriated me over the next couple of years.

It also enraged my husband.  Both of us constantly complained to each other about her ingratitude, treating me like this when I had allowed her into my home for six weeks, and never threw her out, even though she forced herself into my house and was constantly rude to me.

Extroverts tell us to change, and the abusive types punish us and treat us like stubborn creeps for not changing.  But introverts cannot change our behavior.  This is the way our brains work, and the reason we are able to come up with creative ideas and works of art.

If we needed lots of social time like extroverts, and found it rejuvenating instead of draining, then we would not have enough alone time to write or invent.

Also, in February 2008, Richard claimed that he saw me ignore her attempts to make conversation, or saw me get up when she sat down.  But I recalled no such attempts, so for all I knew, he was making this up to gaslight me.

I suggested that my NVLD kept me from recognizing these attempts, since I could not remember them, and had no idea what she had supposedly done or said that was my cue to converse.

Also, when I got up, maybe I had to do something.  Or maybe I was so angry with her for some recent incident of hostility, jealousy or abuse, that I did not want to be around her right then.  Or maybe they were driving me crazy with the PDAs and I just wanted to be by myself for a bit.

It felt like even my right to choose my own company was now supposed to be under Tracy’s control.  Who the heck was she (or he) to tell me who my friends should be, or when I should hang out with someone?

In just a few weeks after she moved into my house, I felt a distinct jealous vibe off Tracy.  She began to hover.  If I sat next to Richard as he played on the basement computer, ten minutes later, there was Tracy.

I felt treated like a homewrecker for wanting to spend more than ten minutes just sitting down and having a nice chat with my best friend and roommate, as I had grown accustomed to.

She stared daggers at Richard or angrily whacked him on the arm if he dared to have a conversation alone with me, or do any number of things–WHAT things he did wrong, I had no idea.

I also had no idea just how bad it could be until one day I asked Richard to talk to me by himself about some things.  It had been a few weeks since I last spoke to just him.  Tracy was right there, so it was not sneaky.  It seemed to me like a simple, ordinary request.  He decided to take me with him to get cigarettes.  Again, seemed simple and ordinary to me.

Then Richard said as we pulled out of the driveway that she was staring daggers at him.  That surprised and baffled me.  I said, “Why?”  He said she feared we were going to talk about her.

Her ridiculous behavior shocked me.  It had nothing to do with her, but we ended up talking about her anyway because of her jealous reaction.  I don’t think I got much time to talk about what I really wanted to talk about.  I don’t recall if I had noticed her jealousy towards me just yet, or if that was just beginning to catch my notice.

I also felt largely ignored by Richard, like my days were just housework and sleep and no joy or relaxation, in a crowded, noisy house with no way to get peace.

My routine was simple and, as an NLDer, I did not like deviations: housework, personal grooming and childcare in the morning/afternoon, my time on the computer for a couple of hours around the time my son took a nap and Jeff came home, then evenings for relaxing and–with these people here–socializing.  (That meant about six hours every night spent socializing with Richard and Tracy.)

(I’ve mentioned a forum through which Richard, Tracy, Todd and I all met.  I’ll call it The Forum to make things easy.)

The housework had to get done, especially with all the extra people and all the children running around.  I did not want their health compromised by playing in a basement covered in cat puke/kitty litter, for example.

My child’s Pull-Ups had to be changed, since potty training abruptly stopped when everyone moved in.

And, as an introvert, I desperately needed time to myself in the basement (the “Dungeon”) on the computer.  I needed that time to myself to recharge, to get my computer time before Jeff’s time on it began, to e-mail my mom, to check in at the Forum and an Orthodox forum, to complain on a Goth Christian forum about the noise, and to get away from all the children’s noise and Tracy’s annoying, grating, constantly yelling voice.  Otherwise, I would go mad.

I had no clue that attending to my household and recharging in a quiet corner, was taken by Tracy as a personal, unforgivable, inexcusable offense to her.

That a host doing what a host must do, especially when guests stay for more than a few days, was an insult that cannot be borne, and proves me to be a loose woman of bad character who must never be allowed to be alone with her husband.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?  That’s because it IS ridiculous.  Yet I was forced to accept it as a universal rule that EVERYBODY knows, even those with learning disorders.

I was often upset with Tracy because of her screaming at the kids all day long, or being mean to Richard, though I kept my mouth shut to her about it.  Meanwhile, Tracy began making occasional snarky and jealous-sounding remarks to me.

During the two months it was just Richard, he occasionally took me to the nearby bar and grill for ice cream, where we talked until closing time.

One day near Christmas, I e-mailed him through the Forum (the only way I could say anything private to him anymore) that I was going crazy, that every time I tried to talk to him it was cut off, and asked him to please go to the bar and grill to get some ice cream with me like we used to.  This way we could take a break, get away from all the people and sit and talk privately.

It seemed like a simple, ordinary request to me.

I asked him again later in person because he hadn’t responded, but he said no, and it sounded like we wouldn’t for some time.  I don’t remember now what all he said, just that it made me feel like spending time with me no longer mattered much to him.  Tracy came upstairs.  I went over to do the dishes, but couldn’t control my tears, so I had to rush off to bed so they wouldn’t see me cry.

The next morning, I cried to Jeff in our bedroom that I felt like the friend (me) was being tossed aside now that the wife was here.

When Richard was here alone, he wanted to spend most of his time with me and talk with me, kept me up till three in the morning chattering away about anything and everything, showed me Goth music videos on the Net, told me I was the most awesome person he knew, and we told each other everything that was going on in our lives.

But now he didn’t seem to care if I was alive.

In fact, most evenings, while Jeff was on the computer in the Dungeon and I was socializing, it felt like Richard and Tracy constantly ganged up on me, making jabs at me, criticizing me, making fun of me.

They often did this after they moved out, too, when Jeff wasn’t there, so I hated it whenever she came along with him when he stopped over.  I remember mentioning this once or twice in an e-mail to Richard.

Then they’d get all cuddly and kissy on the couch while I sat on the other end of it, feeling extremely uncomfortable (like I always do when people get all PDA around me).

I often felt like a third wheel in my own house, like I wasn’t welcome, not just during the cuddling but wherever Tracy was.  Richard once asked me to join them in a card game in the basement, but I got a distinct impression that Tracy didn’t want me there.

I felt unwelcome in my own house, like Tracy wanted to tell me where I could and could not be in my own house!

The insults began coming, fiercer all the time; I felt closely watched; I had no moment’s peace.  I couldn’t even take Richard out of the house for a ten-minute private conversation without her getting angry.  Tracy had been okay with Richard moving in with us, and probably knew we were having conversations that lasted for hours.

Why was it okay for him to live with us by himself for two months, and spend hours talking with me every day, but now that she was here, he couldn’t spend ten minutes talking with me?

Why was it okay for him to take me out for ice cream while he lived here by himself, but now that she was here, it was horrendously disrespectful of me to even think of such a thing?  (I’m not sure when, but I eventually discovered she was the one who said we couldn’t do this.)

It was like putting the cart before the horse.  It was completely illogical and irrational, and baffling.  But things really began to escalate around Christmas and New Year’s.  I did not know why, because no one had explained anything, and all I saw was this increasingly hostile person who kept yelling at and bullying everybody (except Jeff).

I couldn’t stand the way she talked to Richard, and I kept wanting to stick up for him.  I couldn’t stand the ways she kept cutting him down.  I remembered a thing she had done while they were still separated, a thing I won’t tell here but which had filled me with so much empathy and sympathy for Richard that I broke down in tears on his behalf.  I wondered how anyone could do that to him, and hadn’t forgiven her for it.

One day Richard would agree with me that Tracy’s treatment of him wasn’t right–that she was too jealous, needed to let him have time with his friends, ordered him around–when he had a few minutes while she was out of the room.

(This is when I began writing this page, trying to figure out why one spouse would require another to spend all his time with her and not with friends, why someone would put marriage so high up there that having friends seems completely unimportant.  It eventually grew to include the problems with jealousy.)

Then another day he would excuse and justify her behavior and get mad at me for being mad at her nasty and controlling behavior.

I felt like she was steamrolling all over me, and he let her do it, like she could do no wrong no matter how horribly she treated people.

Sometimes I wonder if his defenses of her were not because he really believed I was wrong, but because she’d beaten him into submission verbally and/or physically, because he’d be punished if he didn’t agree with her and stick up for her no matter what crap she was pulling or how badly she treated me.

Even if she was a guest in my home, even if I was her benefactress at great personal and financial expense.

Basically, she bullied me and discriminated against me for having different brain wiring than hers, and for needing to take care of household business and have time to myself during a six-week home invasion.

She also bullied me because I wanted to spend time with my BFF, with whom I had bonded over two years of friendship and two months of him staying in my house, while I was naturally shy with her, as I am with everyone when I first meet them.

I believe that borderline personality disorder drove her to see insults where none existed, and that narcissism led her to continue insisting there were insults even when the truth was explained.

I believe that the need of abusers to control their victims, led to her insisting on her being right even when she was wrong, because she soon discovered that I saw her as abusing her husband and children.  After all, if her husband listened to me and saw it, too, then he might leave, and borderlines are deathly afraid of abandonment.

Also, keep in mind that I did not know all her “reasons” yet.  I write this from the perspective of what I learned over two years of dealing with her, things which were not revealed to me until later.

All I knew at this time was that she wanted to know me better.  Not only did I think that spending 24/7 in a house with someone for several weeks was plenty long enough to get to know somebody, but I spent six hours each evening socializing with her.

After they moved out, I thought she’d finally be okay with me, only to find that she still wasn’t satisfied.  In August I thought for sure she knew me well enough by now and was past this, only to find that she was not.  But then shortly after, she did okay me finally.

Then in 2009 I thought this was long in the past, only to find that she had removed her approval at some unknown time.

At first, I thought she just wanted to know me better.  But then in June 2009 I was required to have a certain kind of conversation with her.  So one day I did so, and thought that settled it, that she had a conversation like that with me (again) and could relax.  (It was weird, because Tracy told Richard that had never happened before, even though it DID happen back in early December 2007.)

Then I was told all the horrible things I supposedly did during her stay here, but I apologized and heard from Richard, shortly thereafter, that all the restrictions were gone and everything was fine.

Then in July 2010, she once again acted like she never had a conversation with me, never approved me, never removed her restrictions.

And now she demonstrated that it was my introverted nature that ticked her off so much, that it was impossible to satisfy her because she required my very personality be changed before she’d approve my friendship with Richard.

But not only that, but this is what she grabbed onto as a reason to give me, while the real reason was that I became more outspoken about how she and Richard were both abusing their kids.

So she had to make up offenses that did not exist, and pretend she never approved me, to justify her narcissistic rage against me–and push me away before I reported them to CPS.  I base this on events that happened in 2010, as you will see here and here.

It was maddening, narcissistic crazy-making!  The only way I can explain such behavior from her, is that she did it deliberately because (as you will soon discover) she knew that I saw her as abusing her husband and children.  And if Richard didn’t go along with it, saying and doing all the right things, he would get punished.

From Oscar Wilde’s “Portrait of W.H.”:

Of course it is a hypothesis, but then it is a hypothesis that explains everything, and if you had been sent to Cambridge to study science, instead of to Oxford to dawdle over literature, you would know that a hypothesis that explains everything is a certainty.

And yes, this hypothesis explains everything.

The parts about not feeling “welcome” because I followed my schedule of housework and computer during the day, and personally insulted because as an introvert I had to carve out time to myself every day to recharge, that was not revealed to me until a year and a half later!

So I had no chance to explain what was really going on, until she dug in her heels and refused to budge an inch.

I also had no idea that I was required to carry on long conversations with her like an extrovert and share secrets with her and be best buds with her.  I just thought that spending every night socializing with her for SIX HOURS should be plenty for her to get to know me, and that insisting on more was being controlling and petty.

I also felt that she put far too much pressure on me, trying to force me to talk when I didn’t know what to say.  I felt that if she wanted so badly to chat with me and get to know me, then she needed to stop being so nasty to everybody:

Stop hovering over Richard, stop pressuring me, stop snarking at me, stop screaming at the kids, stop being possessive and controlling with Richard, stop smacking him and picking at him and ordering him around.

I’m also trying to recreate the events of 2007 in an easily digestible manner, and without remembering everything that happened (having shredded much of my records of it in early 2008).  So keep in mind that our discussions/arguments on this issue, had not yet happened when the next sections occurred.

Isolation

  • limiting outside involvement
  • making another avoid people/friends/family by deliberately embarrassing or humiliating them in front of others

Emotional and Mental Abuse

  • putting another down/name-calling
  • making another feel as if they are crazy in public or through private humiliation
  • unreasonable jealousy and suspicion
  • playing mind games

Intimidation

  • making another afraid by using looks/actions/gestures

Using Privileges (perceived or cultural)

  • treating another like a servant
  • acting like the master or queen of the castle

Physical Abuse

Isolation
Abusers isolate their victims geographically and socially. Geographic isolation includes moving the victim from her friends, family and support system (often hundreds of miles); moving frequently in the same area and/or relocating to a rural area.

Social isolation usually begins with wanting the woman to spend time with him and not her family, friends or co-workers. He will then slowly isolate her from any person who is a support to her. He dictates whom she can talk to; he tells her she cannot have contact with her friends or family. —Warning Signs of an Abuser

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction

2. We share a house

3. Tracy’s abuse turns on me

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children 

5. My frustrations mount 

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

 
8. The Incident

9. The fallout; a second chance?

10. Grief 

11. Struggle to regain normalcy

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13. Conclusion 

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

14. Updates on Richard’s Criminal Charges 

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

 

Houseguests From Hell

This is not a hotel, nor is it a large house.  The only place we had for the two adults was the basement floor in sleeping bags; they didn’t want that.  So one slept on the couch while the other was in a sleeping bag on the living room floor.  Our house is plenty big enough for the three of us, but the living room is far too small for furniture and a sleeping bag.

The three children squeezed into my child’s twin bed while he squeezed in with my husband and me–making it hard to sleep, and giving me the ever-present dread of a wet bed.  There was no privacy for the adults.

We only have one full and one half bath; the bathrooms, to allow for more living space, are very small.

The basement was half full with our storage, and only half finished, with a painted floor and a vent from the furnace.  We “finished” it with dirt-cheap Wal-Mart rugs and some furniture to make a computer room/library.  I sweep, vacuum and dust it regularly, and vacuum it out once a year to get rid of webs.  It works for us, but there was no place to accommodate guests except on the floor.

I don’t know why on earth Richard did not listen to me and either keep them with his mother, or find a cheap motel to stay in.

Richard talked so much of Tracy’s emotional and verbal abuse while he lived alone with us, that for me to hear all this constantly, hear all the horrible things she was doing to him and the children, and then be expected to just accept her into my home with open arms and befriend her–Richard was in denial.

But I gave it my best shot anyway, hoping the abuse would end and she and I could be friends.

I had no idea I was being evaluated when Tracy and I first met and made acquaintance, since I don’t do that with my husband’s friends.

I thought we got along quite well, in fact.  I suggested that Richard buy her flowers when he met her at the airport.  I was very welcoming.  I smiled and chatted with her.

I was uneasy because of what Richard told me, but made my best effort to be friends with her anyway.  I told Richard we were getting along just fine.

I asked Jeff, who got coupons to fancy restaurants through work, if we could share one or two with Richard and Tracy so they could have a nice date.  All this to befriend her and to help her and Richard resolve their differences.

When we were alone together while I was stuck on the couch, too sick with a stomach bug to do housework, we had long conversations, and I confided one or two girly secrets in Tracy.  I asked her if Richard told the truth in his outlandish stories, but she didn’t seem to know.

I asked her to buy me some Coke from the corner grocery store because I needed fluids; somebody called her cell phone; she smiled at me as she told the caller that she was going out to do a favor for “a friend.”

So you see, she officially called me her friend within a very short time.  Which means I passed her private test.

But shortly afterward, she forgot these things ever happened, and treated me as if I never had a long conversation with her, never confided in her, never was her friend.  How soon she changed history and made Richard believe it!

By the way, I got sick quite often while they lived in my house.

One evening, when only Richard lived here, I had been feeling fine when all of a sudden I moved my head a certain way and got overcome with dizziness.  My eyes went back and forth, back and forth; I couldn’t control them; I now knew what it meant for the earth to spin around and around.  Eventually, I threw up.

Such a thing had never happened to me before and I had no other symptoms of illness, so at first we all thought I was pregnant.  (He said, “How will it look, Richard comes here and Nyssa gets pregnant!”  I about choked on something when he said that.)

Richard was very worried and attentive and Jeff put me in his care while out of the house–another reason I felt that Richard and I had bonded and become very close friends during these two months.

Then the vertigo left as mysteriously as it came, returning every now and then for the next year, with no other symptoms of illness, though not as intense as the first time.  Even cleaning out my left ear caused me to cough so hard I nearly threw up at least once.

I never knew what caused it, if it was a bug, if I had developed a medical problem, what.  I went to the doctor during one episode; he said it was probably an inner ear issue.  He saw no reason to do further tests, though I could see a specialist if I wanted to.  I took some medication and ginger pills.  Then the vertigo stopped bothering me, leaving just as mysteriously as it came.

Also, right after Tracy and the kids moved into the house, they brought in a nasty stomach bug.  Then another stomach bug went around the house a short time later.

I already expected the occasional illness from my young son picking things up at Sunday School.  But all these illnesses coming in such a short time, and all the same kind–stomach bugs, even the grownups throwing up–made me suspect poor sanitation.

I began cleaning the doorknobs every time a child used the toilet, and asking them if they washed their hands.  It was exhausting and disgusting to keep cleaning doorknobs and toilets, but the stomach bugs stopped going around.

I also–as the one washing the towels–noted their distinct lack of regular showers.  The house was saran-wrapped for the winter, so I couldn’t even crack a window.  I sprayed a lot of Febreze.

The filth described above–my own house began turning into this, as hard as I tried to fight it back.  I had to clean up after everyone who used the bathroom, because they didn’t do it themselves, and that got GROSS.

I spent day and night cleaning, doing laundry, and running the dishwasher.  Richard left his cigarette butts all over the parking lot.

We couldn’t afford to feed them, yet got no financial help, and then they complained about the food and how I ran the house.  They violated every rule of houseguest etiquette, and showed very little sign of trying to get full-time jobs or their own place.

They made me feel like sh** for going about my normal, everyday routine, taking care of business, and carving out time for myself.

Tracy considered it a personal offense to her, for me to try to get back to normal life, have clean towels/clothes/dishes, keep my son in clean diapers, and take a break from all the noise and crowding that went on for weeks.

I only did what any host would do, must do, with guests who stayed for more than a few days with no sign of leaving.

But she punished me for this through passive-aggression, forcing me over the years to jump through hoops to get her approval to be friends with her husband, giving her approval and then taking it back again and again without word or warning, smearing me to others, raging at me for imaginary offenses, and then claiming that she “owed” me nothing–not even apologies or kind treatment.

(Actually, they “owe” me well over $2000 for damages, food, utilities and various other things.  Kindness and hospitality were the only reasons I never presented them with a bill.  In other words, I was a sucker.)

I was also punished for being naturally shy around her (especially after her fangs came out), but wanting to spend time with my BFF, to whom I had grown close over the past couple of months.

Well, excuse me for caring about and wanting to spend time with my best friend!  I did nothing wrong here!

I finally gave up on vacuuming the living room, longing for the day when they would move out and clear that filthy mound of dirty clothes off my floor.  And of course, there were the cockroaches and lice they brought into the house.

At first, I thought Tracy and I were indeed friends.  I told Richard that when they found their own place, I wanted to visit her one day and him another day.  I did not notice her abusing the children or Richard.

But then little things started happening here and there.  First, one morning as we got out of the car at church, she screamed at her oldest (who was 6), “You tucked your pantlegs into your boots?  You know how to dress!  That’s tacky!”  The shrill tone of her screams was bizarre for what this poor girl did.

I mean, come on, the girl, who was now enrolled in a nearby school, probably saw all her classmates do the same thing.

I took it as personally insulting because I know how to dress, I’d been tucking my pantlegs into my snowboots for 34 years, and nobody ever called it “tacky.”  Everybody does that around here out of practical necessity, because it protects your pantlegs from the snow and mud, and your legs from the wind.

That poor girl had done just what she was supposed to do, but got screamed at and belittled for it.

I mentioned it to Richard that night, asking him to calm her down and get her to ease up on the poor child, because that’s how we wear boots here.  He already knew that the place where he grew up (no snow there) and this region have different ways of wearing boots.

He also said that I witnessed what his own family complained about, Tracy picking at the children.

Soon after, I began hearing Tracy scream at the kids all day long.  During the six weeks she lived with us, then the following two years, I witnessed her tirades, online and off.  I also recalled her rants on the Forum before she ever moved in.

Video Number Two made me think of Tracy, the way she goes off on people.  I heard her scream at the kids like this, only around me she kept out the cussing; I have it documented that she cussed at them, too.  Sometimes it frightened me; sometimes it angered me.

This is what I mean by screaming, not “scolding,” not even “yelling.”  Screaming like this is indeed child abuse.  I’ve also heard her scream at Richard like this.

I’ve heard her scream at others like this, only with all that cussing included for adults.  Her online tirades, both to me and to Todd, were exactly like this.

In fact, this video is indeed triggering me a bit, as the blogger warns can happen.  Not just the tirades, but the hitting, because I saw Tracy smack her kids around, and because Richard told me she almost killed me once.

(In the comments to the above blog post, I wrote about Tracy stalking my blog.  The blogger responded, “The fact she stalks your blog tells me she knows the truth, and hates the fact you tell it.”)

I’ve heard other parents yell at their kids, but not normally like this.  My mother yelled on occasion, but she sure never sounded like this.  It just is not right!  Screaming like this severely damages people, no matter how old they are, or what their relation to you.

Her very voice grated on my nerves so much that even a few years later, it still was like fingernails on a chalkboard whenever she even raised her voice at the kids.

(I couldn’t tell you if her voice aggravated me because of NLD making me more sensitive to loud noises and yelling, or because it would aggravate anybody, but the NLD certainly didn’t help.)

And the yelling and screaming seemed to happen every two minutes, often for reasons I couldn’t fathom.  It seemed the kids weren’t even allowed to act like kids!

I became convinced that she was at the very least a verbal abuser of her children and Richard, because I saw and heard it constantly.

On December 17, 2007, I wrote in an e-mail to my mother,

I already heard that Tracy can be hard on the kids at times, and I’ve seen some of it.  It seems her mom was emotionally abusive, her dad was abusive in other ways, and when she and the kids stayed with them the past few months, she started acting like her mom.

Richard and I really hope that being away from there, and around Jeff, Richard and me, will influence her away from that.  Poor Richard tries to get her to stop doing something, then gets an earful.

But I’m trying to look past that and remember that he loves her, he married her, so I can’t just judge her and reject her.  [Proving that I also made a good-faith effort to befriend her.]

She kept ordering around and making fun of and trying to control Richard.  He seemed like such a great person to me, yet she kept treating him like dirt and cutting him down.  She even said one of the children was cuter than he was, when with his weight and health problems, he needed his wife to say he was handsome.

She accused him of not wanting to spend time with his family, of staying away from the house just to get away from them, when for two months I saw how sad he was at being separated from them.

Then a few weeks in, she began to act jealous and hostile toward me.  I had no idea why, after all I had done for her and her family, and how nice I had been to her, even though she and her children invaded my house without my okay.

I had no idea how she could justify behaving this way toward her benefactress and hostess.  Didn’t she realize I could turn her out at any time?

She complained about not knowing me, but after living with me 24 hours a day for weeks, and socializing with me every evening for some six hours, how could she not know me, how could I still be a stranger to her?

This made everyday life in my own house ten times more stressful than it already was with all these people here.  I had nowhere to go to get away from the stress, except for the computer, in a long and bitterly cold winter.

And I had no idea when these invaders were going to leave.  But she even resented and hated me for that temporary respite on the computer, as if I were supposed to slowly boil away in all the stress and constant company.

Yet it wasn’t as if she arrived and I started spending a couple hours hid away on the computer every day.  No, that did not start until days had passed after they all moved in, and they became roommates instead of guests, so my job as hostess had relaxed a bit.

I believe I had already gone through a bout of stomach flu before that happened, so it had to be at least a week, long past the time most hosts would feel obligated to keep a guest entertained.

And I had no idea when they were going to move out.  It was not supposed to be for long, yet they ended up staying six long weeks!

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction

2. We share a house

3. Tracy’s abuse turns on me

4. More details about Tracy’s abuse of her husband and children

5. My frustrations mount

6. Sexual Harassment from some of Richard’s friends

7. Without warning or explanation, tensions build

 
8. The Incident

9. The fallout; a second chance?

10. Grief 

11. Struggle to regain normalcy

12. Musings on how Christians should treat each other

13. Conclusion 

13b. Thinking of celebrating the first anniversary

14. Updates on Richard’s Criminal Charges 

Sequel to this Story: Fighting the Darkness: Journey from Despair to Healing

 

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