Working on Healing from Richard and Tracy’s Damage…Day by Day, Crawling Upwards

It’s an uphill climb, but it’s getting there.  Occasionally, I feel sort of happy.  This was one of those days.

I spent part of the afternoon reading The Brothers Karamazov, the first 100 pages of which are so wonderful I want to savor every word.

The rich characterizations, the humor of the narrator, the character Alyoshev (Alexey)–whom I identify with….The father, Fyodor Karamazov, is a narcissistic sociopath…..

I saw the movie (with William Shatner as Alexey) a while back, but I don’t believe they went into the philosophical/religious parts of the story.  I recorded it recently so I can watch it again after reading.

The brothers and the people who visit the starets (elder), Father Zossima, have the same questions and concerns I do–the same overriding question: How can we prove immortality does or does not exist?  And the scenes from Russian Orthodoxy are very appealing to this convert….

The best part was knowing that yes, I was reading at home, but I could have easily been visiting friends.  My husband went to run his steampunk game, and I could’ve gone to visit the wife of the house, but neither of us were feeling well.

Hubby and I saw The Hobbit with her husband and stepson, and the couple has now invited us to a New Year’s Eve party.  We have other friends as well, old friends, though scattered in other counties, making it harder to see them often, but they are there.

Hubby just got me the latest Birthday Massacre CD for Christmas.  I opened it up on the drive to visit family for Christmas, looked through the liner notes, and said, “Oh, this time they’re dressed like axe murderers.”

(In earlier albums, it’s more of an emo/goth look.)

Hubby said, “And how do you know they’re dressed like axe murderers?”  I said, “One’s holding an axe and covered in blood.”  (See picture here.)  He liked that so much he posted it on Facebook.

My favorite song so far: the first, about a drowned girl….

The trouble is, this new album sounds so much like the “Walking With Strangers” album that a certain song, #8, “Remember Me,” keeps going through my head.

It bugs me, not out of dislike–that’s my favorite song from that album, and addicting–but because the whole album reminds me of Richard.

I got it when he lived with us on his own, and I played it over and over– So it reminds me of happy times, the “honeymoon period” of our friendship, when all was right with him and I thought our friendship would last forever, two peas in a pod, bonded in deep, abiding friendship, a platonic mutual admiration society, Frodo to my Sam.

Even while we were still friends, I often had trouble listening to that album because it reminded me of that time, of happiness which had later been tainted by Tracy’s abuses and bullying and Richard’s toleration of it.

Ever since the friendship breakup, I haven’t been able to listen to it at all.

Which really sucks because it’s one of those albums you can barely keep out of the CD player for weeks and weeks after you get it.  It’s just that awesome.  When one of the songs comes up on my random Windows Media Player playlist, or on Pandora, I skip past it.

The other day, in fact, it popped up on Pandora again.  I tried for a minute to listen to it, but it made me too sad.  But the song won’t leave me alone for long when the radio is off.

So I thought, Maybe my soul is trying to get me to listen to it again for some reason, maybe a kind of healing.  Just now I played it, thinking, Maybe if I play it once a day, I can handle it again…

I keep having to remind myself, I’m not lonely anymore: I have friends.

Sure I still miss Richard, but as time passes and he makes no move to repent to us, I grow firmer in my opinion that he was not at all what I once thought he was.

That he was indeed a narcissist using me for supply, a convincing con, not a true friend.

It’s disturbing to think that I could have been so deceived, but overwhelming evidence and proof of this, keeps staring me in the face.

And I remember how badly I was also deceived by my exes Peter and Phil, their systems of lies which did not begin to come to light until much later.

Of the complex web of lies Phil wove to keep me under his control, which you will see as I go further into my college memoirs, elaborate schemes which I believed until he finally confessed they were an act, little hints his friends began to give me after the breakup.

So I know my own gullibility, though I thought I had gotten more discerning over the years.

1. “I did nothing wrong. You’re just oversensitive.”

It’s not that there aren’t people in the world who are highly sensitive. It’s just that even if the person being spoken to were oversensitive, this comment is only going to make them feel much worse! It offers no help, and only rubs salt in the wound.

It is a critical statement of low empathy — there’s no effort to truly understand the other person’s feelings or to consider that maybe the speaker could possibly have done even one small thing a little more considerately to try helping matters.

In addition, it’s most often said by people who are not actually dealing with someone who’s “too sensitive”, but instead, someone who is actually expressing normal dismay about a valid concern.

–Light’s House, The top 10 most dysfunctional things ever uttered, link no longer works

One thing that keeps this going in my head is false nostalgia, which is common among abuse victims:

You start forgetting the bad, remembering the good, and thinking maybe it wasn’t all that bad and you were just overblowing it all.  You just don’t want to believe that you could be so deceived, that someone you loved so much is not what you thought they were.

This is one of the reasons abusers can reel a victim back in, so you have to watch out for it.  That’s one reason why keeping journals, letters, e-mails and the like, is crucial, so you can remember why you left.

Another thing is my natural desire to give people the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve been misunderstood and misjudged all my life due to introversion/NVLD/Asperger’s.  I don’t want to judge others wrongly.

But this natural desire, generally a good and honorable trait, is very dangerous when you’re dealing with an abuser/Cluster B personality disordered person/sociopath.  This is why it’s so important to recognize the traits of such people:

Let’s see: no professional was able to help the victims of Drew Peterson, Scott Peterson, Josh Powell, Michelle Michael and numerous other murderous sociopaths.

This blog isn’t about diagnosing someone to help the person with the disorder. It’s about helping potential and current and past victims stay away, get out, and NEVER go back. If we wait for a proper diagnosis, we’re all f*cked. I say, “F*ck the abuser. Assume the worst.”

Any experienced health professional will tell you that they even get fooled by these lying, cheating, and manipulative monsters. —Paula Carrasquillo

So I keep going back and forth in my mind, wondering if it could possibly be the way I remember, though my journals and e-mails and IRC conversations back it all up.  I have it all written down so I won’t forget.

My husband says that yes, going to my priest for help with the situation (as in Matthew 18:15-17, and as I described here and here) would be right, correct and absolutely necessary if they start going regularly to the same church as mine.  And that no, they can’t sue me for this, no matter how much they may threaten to do so.

A.2.The target of the narcissist or psychopath may be unaware that they are being exploited, and even when they do realize (there’s usually a moment of enlightenment as the person realizes that the criticisms and tactics of control, etc are invalid) –

victims often cannot bring themselves to believe they are dealing with a disordered personality who lacks a conscience and does not share the same moral values as themselves.

Naivety is the great enemy. The target is bewildered, confused, frightened, angry – and after enlightenment, very angry. —How do the ptsd symptoms resulting from a narcissist or psychopath’s abuse and bullying meet the criteria in DSM-IV?

My husband tried to set my mind to rest, saying, “I don’t think you’re wrong.  I believe you have [Richard and Tracy] both pegged correctly [as narcissists etc.].  For one thing, you ask Richard not to do something, and he does it.  I believe you scare him with all your records, and that’s why he keeps looking at your blog.”

(And just as he told me this, there was Richard on my blog again, checking out my re-blog of Paula’s post above.)

Everything I’ve seen, especially their behavior since finding my blog (typical abuser behavior to silence the victim), keeps proving that I’m correct, yet I keep doubting–but my husband does not.

I believe if I can stop doubting my own impressions and experiences and research and the cold, hard proof of the child abuse conviction, my mind will also be set to rest at last.

And then maybe I can set aside the crushing loneliness and depression, and get it into my head that I do have friends, good friends, sweet friends, caring friends.

Problems caused by bullying do not necessarily cease when the abuse stops. Recent research at the Universitiy of Stavanger (UiS) and Bergen’s Center for Crisis Psychology in Norway shows that victims may need long-term support.

This study of 963 children aged 14 and 15 in Norwegian schools found a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among bullied pupils. These signs were seen in roughly 33 per cent of respondents who said they had been victims of bullying.

– This is noteworthy, but nevertheless unsurprising, says psychologist Thormod Idsøe.
– Bullying is defined as long-term physical or mental violence by an individual or group. It’s directed at a person who’s not able to defend themselves at the relevant time. We know that such experiences can leave a mark on the victim.

…The study measured the extent of intrusive memories and avoidance behaviour among pupils. These are two of three defined PTSD symptoms. The third, physiological stress activation, was not covered.

High levels
Recent research on working life has found that 40-60 per cent of adult victims of bullying reveal high levels of these three defining signs. But few national or international investigations have been conducted on the relationship between being bullied and PTSD symptoms among schoolchildren. —Being bullied can cause trauma symptoms

On Tracy calling me (and one of her children) stupid, and saying I’m too stupid to understand:

6. “You’re not smart enough to do that/you’ll never amount to anything/you’re an idiot.”
This one needs no explanation. It’s just abusive, plain and simple. If this has been said to you, remember, it’s projection — people who say this have a tremendous fear that they themselves are the “stupid” one.

Everyone has something to offer. Everyone is good at something, and a comment like this is nothing but a reflection of the speaker’s own insecurities and fears.

Typically, abusive people will pick the moment of a mistake to utter this, but everyone makes mistakes, including the person saying it, and their comment means nothing about the listener. People are not their mistakes, and are not necessarily what other people say they are. 

9. “You wouldn’t understand”.
This kind of dismissiveness and condescension is seen in people who harbor the belief that they are superior and should ideally be the one in control, because of their supposed superiority.

The arrogance of such a statement is more than rude and devaluing — it indicates that the person’s intention is to shut you out and shut you down so they can propagate the perception that they are “better” than you. –Light’s House, The top 10 most dysfunctional things ever uttered, link no longer works