red flags of being used

Learning my ex Peter was a love fraud; New Men–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–February 1995, Part 3

(Love fraud definition here by the one who coined the term.)

The following may have happened soon after February 7: I found my ex Peter, or “Red Dwarf,” on TCB. I sent him a cryptic e-mail one day, saying he could look in my registry and know who I was. I got no reply, so I thought he wanted nothing to do with me.

Then one night, he paged me on TCB with, “Hello Nyssa.” He knew who I was. He said he hadn’t answered, not because he didn’t want to, but because he wanted to catch me online and talk to me.

He said, “I never expected to see you on these BBS’s!” I told him about Dad’s old modem in Pearl’s computer.

That night we talked online for a long time, mostly about what happened between Phil and me. He heard we broke off the engagement, but didn’t know why. “What happened???” he wrote. He also told me he converted to Wicca/Paganism.

He got angry with Phil when I told him the things Phil did. At one point, I wrote, “Phil should go and be a monk, and spare all women.” He’d once wanted to be a priest, but I figured even a priest gives marital counseling to his parishioners, so a monk in some isolated monastery would do the least harm: safely locked away, sparing all women.

Peter made some shocked cyber-gesture and wrote, “I’m shocked that you would say–or rather, type–such things!”

Heck, I had written this and all sorts of other things in my diary on February 7, when I wrote that I no longer wanted Phil because he wasn’t worth it.

My mother also had never heard me talk about anyone the way I talked about Phil.

Peter talked about a girl he recently broken up with who was twenty(?) and acted fifteen(?). I wondered if it was the same one I met earlier that school year in the cafeteria, though I didn’t mention her. I couldn’t be sure, though; it could have been someone totally different.

Peter gently scolded me for using cold medicine and not herbs or other natural remedies. Which struck me as weird, because doesn’t everybody do that, and why would I do different?

He said that he went to see the O’Haras recently, and was treated like crap. So there was no love lost between him and Phil now, even though they once were good friends.

Soon after we started using TCB, and before February 8, Sharon went on one late afternoon before dinner and met someone who called himself Krafter, age 26. He chatted with Sharon for a while, then told her he was administration.

Sharon, apparently thinking that a member of Roanoke administration was hitting on her, said, “Oh, yuck!” As it turned out, he was a member of TCB administration, or one of the co-sysops, so there was nothing icky about him hitting on her after all.

He spoke with Sharon often over the next few days, and seemed to have more than friendship in mind. One day, I talked to him as well, starting my own friendship with him. One night, I even chatted with him for hours–somewhere between three to six.

I may have run out of time on TCB, because he told me the name and number of his own BBS, Deltapolis, and we went over there to chat. We had many things in common and really hit it off (obviously, or we wouldn’t have chatted for so long). Now he seemed interested in both Sharon and me as more than just friends, but didn’t know which one he preferred.

He’d never dated before, so he couldn’t believe that two women were actually interested in him. He said he must be dreaming. My handle, Nyssa of Traken, also interested him because as a kid, he had a huge crush on my namesake, Nyssa on Doctor Who.

He also hated the Doctor’s other teenaged companion, Adric, with a passion because he was “in the way.” After that chat, he seemed more interested in me than in Sharon, which wasn’t my intention, though I was starting to fall for him, myself.

When Sharon discovered this, I couldn’t tell if she was mad or just faking, but part of it seemed real. She said, “I hate you,” and laughed. I didn’t think she meant it, though it made me uneasy. I didn’t mean to steal Krafter away from her.

I told her, thinking of my ill-fated meeting with the Vampire, “You might not even like him when we meet him. You don’t know.” I probably said we should wait until our meeting with him on the eighth to decide who should have him, if either of us.

We set up our meeting for 5:30pm in the Chase Center in the hall beside the plants, or the greenhouse which was on the main floor of Chase. Sharon had a class there at six.

His description: long leather coat, brown coat, red backpack, a (hooded) sweater/sweatshirt in many colors, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes. I think he was about six feet tall, and something over 200 pounds.

We ate our dinner in excitement. Randy joked about our meeting. When 5:30 neared, we rushed off to Chase. We sat in the hallway by the plants, wondering what we got ourselves into.

A scuzzy-looking guy in a leather jacket walked by. At first we feared it was him, but it wasn’t. We sighed with relief and waited some more.

Finally, Krafter arrived. He was cute with striking, slanted, dark eyes. He had short, brown hair, glasses, a shapely mouth, and a sweet, cute smile. I was attracted to him, but Sharon wasn’t.

She said none of this to him, of course. We went into a classroom, sat at the desks, and talked for maybe ten minutes or more. I was jealous because Sharon had more to say than I did, so the two of them talked mostly to each other. He smiled a lot.

When it was time to separate, Sharon said to me, “He’s so nice!” Whether either of us wanted to date him or not, we certainly wanted to see him again. And I was definitely interested in dating him.

I probably met Speaker online around this time, too. He was 20, which seemed young to me then, even though I was only 21. He had low self-esteem, refused to give his real name, and complained that he could never find a girl to love him. We chatted for hours; I seemed drawn to such guys. Phil had been similar. I didn’t mind trying to encourage them.

Speaker had spoken to many of the other girls on TCB, but I was the “only truly nice girl” or the “nicest girl” there. We became fast, online friends. He called me Nyssie, and I called him Speaker-y. I called myself his Nyssie.

Speaker and I got acquainted by doing the Budweiser frog thing to each other: One of us typed “Bud,” the other “Weis,” and the first typed “Er!” or “ER!” I didn’t know it then, but he hadn’t even seen the commercial.

(When I met him finally, he said that on the way over he saw a Budweiser frog billboard, and thought of me. Then I had to explain to him that I got the “Budweiser” thing from the frog commercial.)

Krafter wanted to meet us again. He said he and his friend Stimpy watched Mystery Science Theater: 3000 and ate pizza every Saturday night. Though at first he wanted to just see us alone that Saturday, he said, “No, I can’t do that to Stimpy.”

Krafter knocked on the kitchen door on Saturday the 11th at around 5pm, holding a box of pizza. Somebody also provided Mountain Dew, since, as my roommates and I now discovered, caffeine-filled Divine Dew was the drink of choice for computer geeks.

I answered the door. Stimpy was nineteen, tall and skinny, with distinctive eyes. His handle came from Ren and Stimpy. His hair was long and light brown, and under a baseball cap–but facing front, not back, a good thing. I thought he was cute, and Sharon and Pearl thought he was hot. If Sharon wanted Krafter, I could take Stimpy.

We seemed less like two people meeting two other people, and more like two girls and two guys trying to get together and pair off. All we needed to know was who wanted to pair off with whom.

That night, I sat on the couch, Krafter in a chair to my left and Stimpy on the couch to my right. I wanted to choose one of them, but wasn’t sure which one I wanted most. At the time, I thought it was Krafter. I also flirted with Stimpy.

Sharon thought they were paying too much attention to me and not to her, so she finally went to bed. She didn’t understand that she was Krafter’s favorite, not me.

To me, TV wasn’t a conversation killer, but a social gatherer. By watching it and not each other, and filling up uncomfortable silences with it, you could feel more comfortable with people and begin to open up to them.

(Farwest Trivia, though it killed teleconference after its debut, was also this way, because you could comment on the questions if the conversation lagged.)

You could learn a lot about people just from their comments and laughter during TV shows.

Krafter was “in charge” of an imaginary corporation named Delta, made up of some TCB users (such as Ish Kabibble; more on him later). Its aim was to take over everything. This was all a joke, of course. He even gave us Delta business cards. The name of his BBS, Deltapolis, came from this.

Delta was housed in an imaginary pyramid, which, Krafter said, one day would “crush H–.” I asked why H– (the town in which my friend Mike grew up); he said it was arbitrary, picked for being tiny and close to S–.

I dropped a Mississippi Mud ice cream sandwich (chocolate ice cream and nuts) on Stimpy’s lap in a flirty fashion.

After the TV shows ended, Krafter and Stimpy sat on chairs by the kitchen counter. Krafter said,

“Stimpy and I can tell you about the users on TCB. We can tell you who’s nice, who you can trust, and who you should avoid.

“If you want to meet someone, do it in a public place with people around. If somebody doesn’t want to meet you, you should beware that they may not be as nice as they seem.

“Ish Kabibble is the one truly nice guy on TCB. Speaker is a problem, since he never wants to meet anyone, and keeps giving girls these sob stories to make them feel sorry for him.

“Red Dwarf is the worst! He pretends to be what a girl wants so she’ll date him. And he’s always borrowing programs from us for his BBS, which is really annoying.”

This revelation floored me. I smiled and said, “I used to date Red Dwarf when I was a freshman.”

Krafter and Stimpy looked at me like I’d been contaminated or there was something wrong with me.

I laughed and said, “He was a Christian back then.”

Of course, what they said about Red Dwarf, or Peter, made me wonder how much of our relationship had been real, and how much had been an elaborate lie so I’d date him. Was he like that back then, or was I not only his first girlfriend but the one who actually got to see the real him?

I had no way of knowing, especially since he changed completely after the breakup. That could indicate that he lied to me, except that back then everyone else saw him the same way I did: as a sweet, Christian person.

Of course, Shawn wondered all along if Peter truly changed after the breakup, or if he’d been that way all along. He said sophomore year, “Nobody changes that much.”

I didn’t believe Shawn back then, but now I didn’t know what to believe. I still don’t; it’s not the sort of thing you ask somebody, even when you’re friends again: “Were you just fooling me and manipulating me?”

Apparently he makes a girl think he’s just the guy she’s always wanted–then wonders why she’s so upset and can’t let go after he breaks up with her!

I saw Speaker online soon after that, and he began beating himself up again. Instead of reassuring him like usual, I got mad because he seemed to be manipulating me just as Krafter and Stimpy had warned me.

He then got mad at me for getting mad at him based on what other people said about him. We eventually made up; I decided to be his friend and make up my own mind about him.

When I returned from Christmas Break, I planned to go back home after I graduated, and be with the Vampire, my old friend Josh and my high school friend Becky. Now I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving all the wonderful people I was meeting on TCB. I decided to stay in S– with them and my roommies.

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 November 17, 2014August 16, 2022

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

Warning: Freeloading houseguests could be “legal residents” of your house

Thanks to various sources–a friend who manages apartments near my house, various letters to advice columnists (such as last night’s Annie’s Mailbox), and Google searches–I discovered that it was very risky for my husband and I to allow Richard and his family to live in our house.

They were homeless, so this was their primary residence for a time, and their mail was sent here.

Since Richard had previously lived in another state, had nowhere else for that mail to go, and had lost his driver’s license, this was the only way that Richard could get a new license–and, thus, a job. He couldn’t get a job without a license.

Turns out that in many states, this could mean I would’ve had to give them 30 days’ notice, or go through the courts to evict them, if they did not finally leave on their own. It looks like, for Wisconsin, this was a “tenant at will.”

This is particularly troubling because many times I asked–even begged–Richard to set a date and move out, but he did not do it until he and Tracy decided it was time to leave. (!!!!!)

Meanwhile, we were cramped and my husband and I were going crazy, because we had ZERO room (not even a spare bedroom) in our 1100-square-foot house, and I am an introvert who MUST have time by myself. Lots of it. Daily.

Which Tracy took as a personal affront that meant I could not be friends with her husband without her constant supervision/chaperoning because obviously I could not be trusted alone with him. (!!!!!)

Argh. Yet because they stayed here for six weeks, and Richard for three months, and this was their primary residence, I couldn’t legally just throw their stuff outside, kick them out, change the locks, and be done with it?

I may have had to send them an eviction notice by registered mail when they lived right there with me?

Or at the very least give them a written notice 28 days in advance? It’s hard to be sure, because I’ve Googled for hours and can’t get much Wisconsin-specific information for this particular informal situation.

I’m not sure exactly how it applies when neither of them got an actual okay from us for the whole family to move in: From what I recall, I expected them to find some place else, such as a motel. I seem to recall Richard telling me they were going to do that.

Then I discovered they were all coming to stay, which is not what my husband and I originally agreed to when Richard first asked for a couch on which to crash.

No, he was supposed to stay for a couple of weeks, find a job and apartment, and THEN bring up the family, who were staying with relatives. Then he tells me his family is coming to stay with us, too, but neither my husband nor I can recall giving him permission.

The very thought of abusive and bullying freeloaders who don’t clean up after themselves, don’t often bathe, don’t give you money for their keep, constantly argue and yell at each other and their children, who have overstayed their welcome with too-nice hosts, being able to control when they can leave, and even sue you if you kick them out and change the locks, is appalling.

And with the state of the economy, and many people hosting homeless friends and relatives for weeks or months at a time, this is an important thing to keep in mind.

Research laws for your state before letting them stay with you. Have a written agreement and move-out date before they even move in.

Then I found this post by “aardvarc” on a legal forum:

I know this goes outside the spirit of the holidays, but as someone with a lot of experience with and exposure to situations like this, the reality is that when you have friends or casual acquaintances who are needing a place to stay, putting them up in your own residence really is NOT usually the best option.
You have to keep in mind that there are REASONS why they are being kicked out, and even more reasons why they don’t have ties with parents, siblings, other family members to turn to – and often its because those bridges have already been burned.
If they are turning to friends to take them in, particularly in open-ended situations (ie don’t already have something lined up), it really needs to be a BIG red flag and if you wish to assist, you need to do so ONLY after getting some very fundamental things (like a lease agreement) IN WRITING.
Allowing others to live under your roof often comes with the consequence of providing those others with unintended rights, and resulting legal nightmares should you want them out before they are ready to leave.
Your BETTER option is to get them to a program in the area who can assist them, or give them enough cash for a few nights at a motel until they can get in contact with programs/agencies.
Those programs have MUCH more in the way of legal protections (they can toss people out, without eviction) and are MUCH more versed in providing aid (and motivation) to make positive change than most individuals.
It’s really a shame that trying to help others so often results in the helper being taken advantage of – but those with the biggest hearts sometimes get the biggest heart ACHES.

My situation is astoundingly common. So this–as another poster wrote on a forum–is why so many people don’t take in friends and family who are down on their luck. 😛

Here is a website on Wisconsin law about this, though these are not lawyers.

And this is a general page on letting friends stay in your apartment.

I post this to warn others because it could happen to you, too.

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on September 7, 2014December 20, 2018

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.

Friends tell me Phil is controlling–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–October 1994, Part 8

When we went to school events, Charles put his arm around me and I didn’t mind, but I feared other guys would see this as a sign that I was “off-limits.” I wasn’t: We were both allowed to date anybody else we wanted.

That’s what we meant by not being serious, by taking it slowly, by being, as Charles told Pearl, “very casual.” And I wanted to date at least two other guys at the time, including Mike.

Helene and her best friend Kay became my friends junior year through Phil, who liked to sit with them at lunch. They met in Sophomore Honors and liked him then, but now they were my friends as well, and Helene didn’t like him so much.

Helene said, “Phil has been talking to Kay. I think he sees her as a sister.” That might explain why she got quiet when I said Phil was a jerk. What truth twisting did he tell her?

Helene said Catherine told her Phil and Persephone were dating. Helene’s thoughts:

“It shows he misses you….You shine compared to her….It confirms my worst fears about him. I really think little of a person who–like a person who gets a divorce and then goes out and finds someone else right away. They don’t want to work on the relationship they have, and they go out and find another one?…He’s going to regret it.”

(Pearl said that Persephone’s going to regret it–which turned out to be true, a year later.) I said Phil didn’t want a feminist; Helene noted that Persephone was extremely feminist.

Helene also said, “Last year, after you two got engaged, Phil came to us [her and Kay] once and said you had an argument but worked it out. But he complained that you wouldn’t just do whatever he wanted. We saw this as controlling, and hoped you would realize this before you married him.”

I remembered that argument. It was over whether or not I could listen to a rock station in the minivan, one which only came in outside the campus and played better songs than any other station. Remember, this was in the Stone Ages when college kids couldn’t just hook up to campus Internet and pull in a webstream whenever they wanted.

I found the following paragraphs in The Psychology of Romantic Love by Nathaniel Branden:

Imagine that an individual feels, perhaps beneath the level of conscious awareness, that he or she significantly lacks worth, is not lovable, is not a person who can inspire devotion for any sustained length of time.
Simultaneously, this individual desires love, pursues love, hopes and dreams to find love.
Let us suppose this person is a man. He finds a woman he cares for, she seems to care for him, they are happy, excited, and stimulated in each other’s presence–and for a time it seems that his dream is to be fulfilled.
But deep in his psyche a time bomb is ticking away–the belief that he is inherently unlovable.
This time bomb provokes him to destroy his relationship. He may do this in any number of ways. He may endlessly demand reassurance. He may become excessively possessive and jealous.
He may behave cruelly to ‘test’ the depth of her devotion to him. [Phil once told me this was why things had gotten so bad. It’s in my diary.]
He may make self-deprecating comments and wait for her to correct him. [Phil did this all the time.]
He may tell her he does not deserve her and tell her again and again and again. [Yep.]
He may tell her that no woman can be trusted and that all women are fickle. [He refused to let me meet his “vampire friend S–,” with the fear that I’d fall for S–. And he didn’t believe me when I said I would never leave him even if I found a “soul mate.”]
He may find endless excuses to criticize her, to reject her before she can reject him. He may attempt to control and manipulate her by making her feel guilty, thereby hoping to bind her to him. He may become silent, withdrawn, preoccupied, throwing up barriers she cannot penetrate. [This whole paragraph sounds like Phil over the course of our relationship.]
After a while, perhaps, she has had enough; she is exhausted; he has worn her out. She leaves him.
He feels desolate, depressed, crushed, devastated. It is wonderful. He has been proven right. The world is the way he always knew it was. ‘They’re writing songs of love, but not for me.’ But how satisfying it is to know that one understands the nature of reality!
Suppose that, despite his best efforts, he cannot drive her away. Perhaps she believes in him, sees his potential. [That was me.]
Or perhaps she has a masochistic streak that requires that she be involved with such a man. She clings to him; she keeps reassuring him. Her devotion grows stronger, no matter what he does.
She simply does not understand the nature of the universe as he perceives it. She does not grasp that no one can love him.
In continuing to love him, she presents him with a problem: She confounds his view of reality. He needs a solution. He needs a way out.
He finds it. He decides that he has fallen out of love with her. Or he tells himself that she bores him. Or he tells himself that he is now in love with someone else. Or he tells himself that love does not interest him.
The particular choice does not matter; the net effect is the same: in the end, he is alone again–the way he always ‘knew’ he would be.
Then, once more, he can dream of finding love–he can look for a new woman–so that he can play out the drama all over again.
It is not essential, of course, that his relationship end so conclusively. A literal separation may not be necessary. He may be willing to allow a relationship to continue, providing both he and his partner are unhappy. This is a compromise he can live with. It is as good as being alone and abandoned–almost. –p. 128-129

(According to the author website, this book is now out of print, but you can find it at the above Amazon link.)

Around this time, I saw Phil with his head on Persephone’s shoulder in the cafeteria. It made me sick. I was glad to have Charles around.

Charles and I were taking things very slow and casual, while Phil just seemed to jump from one serious relationship to another. The bed wasn’t even cold before he started dating her!