The Ever Deepening Rabbit Hole

     The worst part about this healing process is facing setbacks. I’m coming up on the three year anniversary of discovering that M. is a Narcissist. Rather than being a tree in full bloom, fully recovered from this betrayal, I feel more like a tree with dead, withered leaves. I had been healing. I was feeling pretty OK for the first time in three years. Then, another piece of my identity shattered as I began coming to grips with the idea that I have Asperger’s Syndrome. The newly sprouted leaves have suddenly become parched and threaten to fall to the ground.

     As I research Asperger’s, I have been questioning things that are so deeply rooted in my personality that I have never thought about being another way. I had mistaken  these “symptoms” for “personality quirks” and in many ways, these two labels equate to the same thing. For me the difference is in the fact that there are professionals out there who are more aware of my unique profile of abilities than I am. I only know that I am struggling with how to find a career that will allow me to have children and does not cause me a holy heart attack three times daily. I have been working at a gym because it is the most laid-back job I have ever had, yet it still stresses me out. People stress me out. Aggression stresses me out. The gym has this in loads. Yet, before I met M., I think I was better able to handle the stressors of that job than I am today. My theory is that I was a functioning “Aspie” (someone with Asperger’s) before I met M. and the trauma that he put me through resulted in me losing all of my coping mechanisms that had made me a “functioning Aspie.” One of many coping mechanisms that have been lost as a direct result of this trauma is weightlifting. This is something I had been participating in near religiously for the years prior to meeting M. When I met him, I was in the best physical shape of my life. He would often say he would like for me to take him to the gym and train him so he could reach his “genetic potential” but every time I invited him, he would decline. Over and over again he would mention us working out together yet he couldn’t make it happen even if I brought him to my gym for free. When he discarded me, I would end up in tears every time I went to the gym. EVERY TIME. I would think about him working out with me, which is something that NEVER TOOK PLACE, yet he planted the association just the same. If one assumes that a psychopath would do this intentionally, it would seem that he was hoping I’d get fat and depressed after he let. Maybe it was just an unfortunate side effect of his go-to seduction routine i.e. faking interest in one of my hobbies to gain rapport. Either way, I have yet to complete a successful week at the gym since all of this went down three years ago. He did this with renaissance fairs, novels, Game of Thrones, cooking meals in my kitchen, and countless other things. All of these have since become triggers which I have only recently begun to overcome.

     At this point in the process, I’m obviously over-analyzing ever single thing that is different about me according The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Tony Attwood (“obviously” because this is a trademark Aspie behavior) which is making me even more over-sensitive to the daily work drama, including seeing a co-worker blasting me as “the dumbass girl at work” in a Facebook instant message that they did not bother to sign out of before leaving their shift early. Thankfully, that co-worker is no longer employed, which is a great relief to me, because this just felt like another betrayal. I genuinely like the guy and I felt quite hurt to see that the “mutual respect” I thought we had for each other was yet another illusion that I fell for.

     So yeah, more betrayals, more triggers, new meds and I still don’t feel as if I have a firm grip on reality even after all this time. And here we go marching straight on in to my most trigger-ridden time of year. And I found out that my significant other is going to be in Ohio for New Year’s Eve. This essentially equates to an intense depressive attack around the stroke of midnight, if not for weeks prior. I know the protocol: make foolproof plans for that evening to ensure that I am with friends or family and not crying alone on my couch. Yet I feel as if I just can’t. I started a new medication to stop a two week long anxiety attack that showed no signs of lessening without aide, and my anxiety is down, but my motivation is near nonexistent. I feel like I’m just tranquilizing the silent agony I am in every day as my senses are barraged with the clutter of my home, the chaos of owning pets, extreme temperature fluctuations (due to poor insulation and no central heat/air), the daily noise of the gym, which includes the whirring of two dozen treadmills and loud satellite radio. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m hard of hearing or if the gym really just is that loud. I often cannot hear what a customer on the other side of the desk says to me on the first try. However, it’s nowhere near as bad as being a school photographer stationed in a loud, screaming child-filled cafeteria for four hours. That job environment was torture on the senses. Plus I usually had to work through lunch while smelling cafeteria pizza the whole time. Torturous!

So I Think I Have Asperger’s

     After two and a half years in counseling, I think I have finally come to that pivotal moment where I find the root cause of everything…my meltdowns, my aversion to social situations, my bounciness when I’m happy, my rage attacks, my sing songy voice when I’m in a good mood, my feelings of isolation that have persisted until the recent past, my feeling of otherness, of somehow being different, my failure to find a job that pays me what I’m worth even though I have been told a bazillion times that I’m a brilliant girl, even my hatred of Wal-Mart…EVERYTHING.  If you factor Asperger’s into the equation, everything makes sense and falls into a perfect framework that predicts the current life trajectory that I’m on.  It predicts my clinginess to my partners, my lack of girlfriends (yes, I have managed to find a few, but they were diamonds in the rough), and perhaps even explains why M’s betrayal had such a drastic impact on me. 

     I remember as a kid being instructed to say “please” and “thank you,” but I also remember feeling like they were useless words, and why bother saying them if you didn’t mean it?  I never have really thought of myself as being ego-centric, but I do know that I have a tendency to turn all conversations back to myself and that I have a super difficult time being a good listener.  In fact, I was practicing my empathy skills with M.  Over and over I would visualize myself in his position to see how I would feel if I had just gotten out of a relationship, etc. etc.  In fact, I was getting good at empathy.  I was really proud of it.  And then I found out that M was preying on it (oh irony!).  Obviously that shut me down for awhile.  It was just too mind boggling to be so empathetic to someone that was taking every advantage of that trait due to not having empathy himself.  Asperger’s also explains some of the tugs I felt at my heart when I was reading about Narcissism, as some of the traits sounded hauntingly like me.  For awhile I worried that perhaps I am also a Narcissist.  As it turns out, there is a slight narcissistic component to Asperger’s in that Aspies similarly have trouble with empathy and being overly preoccupied with “self.” 

     As with any psychotherapy breakthrough, there is a component of relief but also of worry and anxiety.  There is also a sense of being “broken” and “abnormal.”  I have come to terms with being a weirdo.  In fact, I embrace it and take no efforts to hide it.  I am what I am, take it or leave it.  But there is something about being classified as on the autism spectrum that smacks of disability.  But in a way, I am disabled.  When people become hostile with me, I lose the ability to speak.  More than once this has been the cause of great irritation on the other end of the phone line at work, but when people shout ridiculous angry things at me, I cannot even think of words to say.  I sort of space out.  And I space out A LOT.  I daydream while reading books, watching movies, playing games, building puzzles, or just staring at a wall.  It makes sitting through lecture classes super difficult.  It makes reading homework super difficult.  It makes listening to my boyfriend super difficult.  But I try, and I can. 

     I feel like things have come full circle as I now research my own diagnosis as thoroughly as I researched M’s.  I’m hoping what I learn will help bring some closure to that whole debacle.  I’m beginning to have an inkling of why my interactions with him damaged me so deeply in relation to Asperger’s. 

     I am also realizing that every facet of my personality that drove my ex fiancé nuts were Asperger’s traits.  He accused me of speaking to him as if he were a child, when in reality I was just speaking in a childlike voice.  He hated my bounciness when I got excited, couldn’t understand my depressions and my aversion to noisy bars, and thought I was an artsy fartsy space cadet.  He was most likely a neurotypical alcoholic, making our relationship a rocky one. 

     For now I plan to start gathering information on how to receive a formal diagnosis by a specialist just to put my own mind to rest, and perhaps see if there is any counseling or support framework in place for Asperger’s people.  I think with Paxil and learning more about this condition I can start making some headway into adulthood finally.

Legal Injustice (The Game of Thrones)

     So, I wrote the prior blog entry a little over a month ago, and just re-read it before posting it.  My own words are haunting me.  M has indeed found more ways to show up in my life.  I ran into him at a show when I tried to go on a date with my boyfriend, and just over a week ago, he made an appearance at one of my boyfriend’s band’s shows.  Now, I’m pretty sure M knows he is not welcome around my boyfriend and I, as we have made it abundantly clear, yet here he was, waltzing into my life yet again.  My boyfriend is about to leave town for a month when his band goes on tour, and I have been trying to squeeze in every spare minute with him before we are separated.  On this particular night, M was particularly unwelcome.  I made up my mind to plead with him to leave.  I marched right up and said “My boyfriend is about to go on tour for five weeks and I would like to spend this evening with him without being bothered by your presence.”  Unbeknownst to me, MK, M’s “new” girlfriend was standing right behind him with her back toward me.  Upon hearing my request, she spun around with a look of pure hatred in her eyes and announced to me rather loudly that “THIS IS A FREE BAR AND WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE HERE.”  Now, I had not spoken to her or about her, nor had I said that they did not have a right to be there.  I told M why I wanted him to leave and ask that he vacate the premises out of any shred of human decency he may have.  Of course his response was to parrot MK, “WE DON’T HAVE TO LEAVE.  THIS IS A FREE BAR!”  She was merely quoting his words anyway…this is the exact same response he gives me EVERY time I run into him and ask if he would please leave me in peace for the evening. At this point MK is taking a physically aggressive stance and getting in my face while I’m still in shock that she’s even there.  I had not even seen her. 

     This is where things get a little fuzzy.  I had been practicing in my head about calling M a rapist to his face for the past few days and for some reason, I thought this was the proper venue to try it out.  I think he asked me what my problem was, or something like that and I responded, rather loudly that I was so pissed off because he had raped me.  MK loses it and calls me a “bad feminist” while M is shouting at me that by using the word “rape” I am belittling the experience of people who actually were raped.  I told him to his face that I had consented to being led to his bed under false pretense and that renders any perceived consent VOID.  All the while, MK is shouting to the bartender at the top of her lungs “THIS CRAZY BITCH CALLED MY BOYFRIEND A RAPIST!!!” over and over.  I guess this is run of the mill Saturday night bar stuff, because no one paid her any  mind. 

     I very much feel raped.  I was conned, verbally abused, manipulated, and yes raped by this monster.  I have come to believe his entire targeting of me was pre-meditated.  I have been remembering some words of his about how after he had met me for the very first time (2 years prior to us dating) he had seen me driving along the road and he had a premonition that someday we would be together.  I believe in this instance, that he took the hands of fate and forced them, knowing full well in advance what my fate would be: either be a part time fling to fill the time between his primary partners, or I would graduate to being a primary partner if I sacrificed enough…and if I blinded myself to his abuse.   

      By MK’s uncharacteristically violent reaction to me, I can only imagine that M’s words have worked their poison on her.  I have never spoken to this woman before in my life, yet in our first interaction, she looked at me with such hatred that I cannot begin to imagine what she must believe of me.  Yet in my heart I know.  She most likely believes that every time M cheats, every time he lies, every time he is afraid to commit, it is because of me hurting him…or of A hurting him…or his prior ex-girlfriend.  With M, it is always some woman’s fault.  He blames all the abuse he bestows on his lovers on his ex lovers.  I am reminded of how M had twisted my thoughts of his exes and of A.  I wanted to hate A so bad after the things he told me, but somehow her truth shone through and I knew I could trust her.  M would tell me horror stories of his “recent ex” (when really they were still together).  I believe he sensed that she was about to leave him and was looking for a replacement.  Sure enough, she dumped him just a few months after he met me and from there he couldn’t decide whether A or I would put up with the most bullshit.  So he tried us both out for awhile.  I guess she got too demanding, because he was about to dump her and take me on as his full time abuse victim.  Right before this switch was to take place, I found him out and sabotaged both his potential primary partners.  I’m not sure if he already had MK in his sights before A and I both dumped him, but with a few weeks, I was seeing them together on the regular.  Yet mutual friends are just now finding out that they are dating after 2 years.  Apparently nobody talks about it.  Yet another haunting familiarity. 

     After my boyfriend came up behind me and sternly stated to M “You are not welcome here,” M agreed to leave.  MK stayed behind and M retreated to the parking lot, where I almost ran into him AGAIN when I was just trying to get some fresh air to reset my emotional state.  The rest of the evening, I made sure not to be alone around MK, because I felt afraid that she might attack me.  Our mutual friends assure me that she is a peaceful, kind girl, but that night she was intense.  I am very familiar with that sickeningly intense hatred.  I felt it for everyone M demonized.  And he demonizes most of the women in his life.  In his world there are only evil seductresses, not human beings with feelings. 

     He always played up to my Scorpio traits.  He’d flatter my Scorpio sexual dominancy, he’d flatter my shrewd intellect, he’d always comment on my “sexual magnetism” and chastise my Scorpio jealousy and manipulativeness.  He told me that I was the only woman he ever wanted to have children with and pretended to share in my fascination with having tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed elven babies.  This is how he raped me.  He seduced me to bed with promises he never meant to fulfill, with lies that he created JUST TO SEDUCE ME, and then denies that we were even dating.  All he ever wanted from me was for me to be at his beck and call…to sacrifice everything, including myself, in the worship of him.

     So today, I went in search of an injunction for protection (restraining order).  I met with a lawyer for a $300 consultation and was told that I do not have a chance of winning an injunction unless I have been stabbed ON TWO SEPARATE OCCASIONS, threatened with physical violence, or if M begins to follow me all over town.  The only thing I want is for him not to be permitted at my school or my or my boyfriend’s places of work.

     Once again, I am shuffled out of a door being told that I must “continue to work with a counselor” and find some way to heal “this” inside myself.  Obviously whatever “this” is, is still bleeding profusely and while my inner Buddha understands the idea of healing through spiritual work (albeit in a very superficial way), my wounded, bleeding inner self is screaming with anger that abusing someone this way is deemed acceptable by Florida law.  I have had my jobs, my sanity, my ability to have loving relationships, my sexuality, my self-esteem, my inner peace, my health, and my ability to trust my intuition completely sabotaged by this sick person.  Yet this is “ok” and definitely does not warrant a restraining order. 

HATE.

October 8, 2013

     M. W. you are the fucking scum of the Earth.  I hate you so much that it causes me physical agony to have such hate inside me.  My heart and brain still feel tortured by your misdeeds.  I want you to die because it seems that this will be the only way I can find peace.  I could never kill a cow or some other innocent animal, but YOU who make it a point of deceiving and using everything that I held most dear to my heart as BAIT deserve to rot in hell.  Sometimes I think I could bring myself to send you there.

     I can see myself standing over your body smashing in your face as you beg ME for mercy…for compassion…for empathy.  Oh how I would laugh!  I would laugh right in your stupid face as I spat in it.

***

     So I guess you could say that I’m suffering from a relapse.  When things are so far out of one’s consciousness they are easy to ignore, but once they become focal, the vice-like grip of addiction closes its fist around my throat.  I’ve had two recent run-ins with M.  The first one, I was anticipating his attendance, as his band was playing…and I did get through that mostly unscathed (even though I am SURE I witnessed him trying to make me jealous by following around a heroin-chic (read: anorexic) young woman with dark circles under her eyes and wearing referee pants).  The second run-in occurred where I least expected it: the opening of the graduation photography exhibition in the campus museum.  He did not appear to be in attendance with anyone and he did not appear to be there to support anyone in particular.  I saw his long, blonde hair out of the corner of my eye and froze on the spot.  My knees shaking, I was reduced to a sobbing mess in the middle of the gallery.  Moments prior I had been so proud of myself knowing in my heart that there was NO WAY I’d have an agoraphobic freak-out and start having a panic attack in the museum.  But no…I am indeed having yet another PTSD episode in front of my professors and classmates who have been hearing me read my artist statement all semester long, about being in an abusive relationship with a narcissist.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the professor whose class I took an incomplete in, because I developed Bells’ Palsy midway during the semester (as a result of all the stress I was under after starving myself and crying myself sick all summer over M.), saw me crying in the corner.   Luckily, my super supportive partner was there by my side (which is a thing M never was, I keep reminding myself) and he knows that the quickest way out of a panic attack for me is to go somewhere quiet.  My knees, however, were not feeling supportive enough to let me leave via the conveniently located staircase which would allow me to slip out undetected.  No, I am standing there having a meltdown where M. can see just how much of an impression he is making on me.  Coupled with seeing my photographs, which clearly portray him as a psychopath, I’m sure he knows exactly how his presence affects me.  Yet, I can’t help buy feel he will just continue to find new ways to inflict himself on me. 

     My art, which I am extremely proud of, is hanging in a prestigious photography museum and my special day is tainted by the arrival of the last person I would hope to see.  I have created a series of images where I re-enact scenes from my relationship with him, with the knowledge that he is a Narcissist.  There is no way he won’t see exactly what they are about upon first glance.  I mean, the guy is a Narcissist after all.  Since the art show, I have started smoking cigarettes again.  I smoked one at the show as a way to calm myself, and now find myself wanting one whenever I see my boyfriend light up.  I’m fighting the urge to buy a pack because I know once they are in my hands, I will be as hardcore a smoker as I ever was.  There is something about Paxil that seems to make it very easy to fall back into old addictions. 

     However, the largest addiction still looming is my addiction to M.  Running into him has triggered a myriad of PTSD symptoms including, but not limited to: obsessive thinking, cognitive dissonance, depression, anxiety, paranoia, all of which are exacerbated by the undeniable fact that there is still some hurt, fucked up part of myself that wants all of this to be drama I created in my mind.  I want M. to be a decent human being, capable of love, and I want him to sincerely apologize for the way he treated A and I.  I want to know that his latest “girlfriend”  is not wasting the best years of her life with a heartless monster that will just tear her down to a shred of her former self.  As she is a healer, I can only imagine how much going through something like what I’ve been battling for the past few years would negatively affect her career. 

Accepting My Demons

October 7, 2013

Dear M,

     I’m so angry still.  You were playing a show on Saturday night and I knew exactly where you would be.  I fantasized about showing up and storming the stage, ripping out clumps of your hair and kicking you repeatedly in the face.  This did not feel like the usual hate fantasy.  I was thinking through all the logistics as well as the likelihood of getting tossed into jail.  I wish there was some course of action I could take against you, something that would wound you deeply but I realize that anything I do will only be turned back against me.  I am trying so hard to stay in the light but this black mark you have burned into my soul is hard to ignore at times.  I want to destroy your angelic face and blacken your golden hair.  I want to give you an appearance that is more suited to your lack of a soul.

M. W., I fucking hate you.

***

     A large part of the reason I wanted to publicize this blog is that I wanted to be honest about the darker side of recovery.  I had never experienced hate and rage of this magnitude in my life, and the experience was horrifying.  I did not think I had a dark side capable of the urges I was having.  It says something about the type of person I am that I never acted on these impulses because there were hundreds of times where the urge to create violence was so strong that it was physically uncomfortable in my body.  Over the years, these uncomfortably intense episodes have mostly subsided, but even now I get worked up once in awhile.  Just this afternoon I awoke from a dream where I was entering a state of rage and physically shutting down upon running into M in public.  In the dream, he was staring at me from outside the window of an RV and I caught a glimpse of him in my periphery.  Overcome with emotion, I motioned to my boyfriend to alert him to what was causing my reaction and he also responded with more “fight” than “flight.”

     Since that dream I have been battling the urge to look at M’s Instagram account to see what new fictions he is creating about his life and lover.  I’m morbidly curious to witness how long it takes her to see through his fucked-up worldview to find the demon lurking underneath.  A well-timed phone call from my mother stopped me in my tracks and now I’m centering my energy on channeling some hate into my blog rather than getting myself all riled up about whatever bullshit he is creating in his personal life. 

     I have come to the conclusion that this amount of rage is natural after someone experiences an extreme violation that is personally directed at them.  I’m still bitter and angry that this human felt it necessary to use me and manipulate me for their own pleasure, with no regard to my safety or well-being while pretending to have my best interests at heart.  I’m still angry that he continued to lie to my face at every opportunity even after I had blown a hole into his deceptions.  I’m angry that two years of my life and thousands of dollars have been spent on my recovery thus far and that I have had to resort to using a medication to get my life back on track and to feel happiness.  I’m angry about so many things, and I guess the major point of this post is to provide some hope that for people just now going through this, that it is possible to work through the rage without inflicting harm on yourself or others.  Physical exertion, such as long, long walks with no cell phone (so you can’t break no contact and dial up whoever it is to scream at them while working through a rage episode) are extremely useful for working through intense emotion.  Eventually the intensity will lessen, well-founded though it may be, and a peaceful life can be re-established.  It was difficult to not judge myself as a monster or a “crazy ex” while working through the anger but I have finally made peace with the idea that some betrayals are so huge that uncharacteristic reactions are to be expected. 

Letting Go of Fear: Thoughts on Anti-Depressants and Kitty Cats

October 1, 2013

Dear M,

     Today the anger is creeping back in.  The more holes I poke into your persona, the more enraged I become.  Granted, the anger has severely lessened over the last ten months and it no longer threatens to burn me alive.  Still, I am surprised at its persistence.  I have now spent as much time being enraged at you as I spent being infatuated with you.  It is unlike me to hold onto hate for so long. 

     As of now, twenty months have been consumed by you.  It’s still hard for me to accept the truth, and to see you for what you really are.

     I’m still tempted to show up at places where I know you’ll be, even though I know it will ultimately drive me crazier.  I could accomplish so much!  I could ask if you’re gaining weight and suggest some fashion fixes (such as no longer wearing tight, white undershirts out in public that make you look like Frank from “King of the Hill”).  I could tell you to never speak to, approach, or contact me in any way for the remainder of your time on this planet.  I could record your voice saying terrible things about MS and give her a copy of it.  Or I could just sit there and cry like a fool over you.

***

     By the end of 2014, the anger had pretty much dissipated, yet I was still experiencing severe depression.  It got so bad that I made the decision to quit drinking (again), and shortly thereafter I dumped my boyfriend because I couldn’t feel love anymore…not just for him, but for my cat, my family, or myself.  When I began having suicidal thoughts AGAIN, I finally made the choice to try a prescription anti-depressant.  I couldn’t bear the thought of spending yet another holiday season, bargaining with myself for my own survival.  At the end of November, I started taking Wellbutrin and had a pretty bad reaction to it.  I spent an entire weekend crying and reliving the trauma of narcissistic abuse which ended with a panic attack in a restaurant.  I began disassociating with my body and felt as if I no longer had control of my hands.  My doctor immediately switched me over to Paxil, and the ride has been comparatively smooth ever since. 

     For the first month, I struggled with side-effects such as dehydration, constipation, and sleepiness which left me feeling drugged throughout the day.  Work was a little difficult because I felt slightly intoxicated, making it hard to focus.  The side-effects were obnoxious, but not unmanageable, especially when compared to the positive effects.  I began to love my cat again, and I got back together with my boyfriend, as I suddenly remembered that I love him too.  The most amazing thing for me was that, for the first time in my life, the negative chorus of voices that have been criticizing and worrying since the day I was born, were suddenly whispering instead of shouting.  I practically feel like a different person because I so strongly associate with these negative thoughts.  Not having them has been like having my right arm cut off…except for how much more productive I have been since leaving them behind.  I have been able to make business phone calls and decisions, ask my peers for help, and begin tackling a photography project that has been intimidating me for two years.  I have also been more thoughtful and giving, since my usual stinginess around my time, energy and money is lessening.  I have even begun updating my wardrobe for the first time in over a year!  Also, projects that have been on the backburner for YEARS due to my fear-based, irrational thinking (You can’t garden because you can’t handle watering plants!  You can’t compost because making dirt is hard and complicated and time consuming!) are getting accomplished!  I now have four pots of collard greens taking care of themselves in the yard…because…rain.  And a bin full of compost cooking away…because putting trash into a compost bin instead of a trash can is NOT complicated nor time consuming!  I feel like my fears and worries have settled themselves hierarchically, rather than me being equally terrified and resistant to every single thing.  Now I feel appropriately worried about big deal things and less worried or NOT worried about things that absolutely don’t matter. 

     I was concerned that taking a medication would make me not worried about everything, resulting in a couch potato, pothead-like existence, but quite the opposite has been happening and I’m astonished.  I feel that with the help of this medication, I may actually have a chance at accomplishing some pretty scary career goals, and even some long-suppressed and hard to talk about family goals.  The most reassuring thing of all is that I still have the ability to feel angry at M.  I do not believe that this anger is in any way misplaced, and I believe that my continued ill-will toward him will keep me out of harm’s way.  There is no way he can lure me back into his disordered universe if I continue to have a negative, visceral reaction to thoughts of him. 

     As a disclaimer, I have been 100% anti-medication since I was 16.  This is honestly a stance I never thought I’d back down from.  I have been a long-time sufferer of depression, but I have been able to manage it with diet and exercise until I met M.  Even then I got through some horrific times as I contemplated suicide time and time again.  I’m not sure what led to my most recent bout of detachment which ultimately led to yet another round of suicidal thinking, but I finally reached my point of absolute desperation.  I did not think I could survive yet another breakup and the dead feeling of not even loving my cat.  I have since learned to regard my cat as a bellwether of my moods.  As she is a neutral party, my feelings toward her are more indicative of my moods rather than of her.  I have hope that I am nearing the end of my recovery as I begin to move on from this trauma and start making progress towards a life filled with love, peace, and respect (and kitty cats).

50 Shades of Fucked Up

September 14, 2013

M,

     Tonight is your show at the record store.  I am tempted to show up even though I know my presence would be unwelcome.  None of my reasons for wanting to attend are pure or good.  I only want to spread chaos and hurt.  I hope my presence would be a distraction to you as I introduced your multitude of lovers to one another.  I wish you could witness your web of lies crumbling to your feet as you stand trapped, tethered to your guitar cord.

     Maybe then you’d have more empathy for me as your private life impacted your work, rendering you impotent onstage for all to see.  I hope at the very least you have felt jumpy, expecting me to show up.  I imagine you saw my passive-aggressive tactic for what it is and called my bluff.  I wish you weren’t as insightful as you are.  I still pretend you are the man I fell in love with: open, honest and compassionate.  I’m still mystified at how you could possibly not be those things.

     I had made plans to be creative and powerful tonight so I wouldn’t have to sit here crying over you while you go out and live your rock star illusion, but they unfortunately fell through, leaving me here to yet again mourn the fact that I never got the chance to attend one of your shows as your lover.  I envy the opportunity that A had to do precisely this.  I am still so very angry at you for everything.

     Here we are, nine months later.  I could have had your baby by now.  What a very different, fucked up world that would have been.

***

     You can’t out-manipulate a Narcissist.  I learned this the hard way.  M could always see through my attempts to make him jealous or upset as payback for the turmoil he was putting me through.  It’s maddening.  During the first few months of no contact, it was insanely difficult to keep myself from showing up to his publically announced performances in an attempt to return the favor of completely destroying my sanity.  I had to do quite a bit of reality checking to remind myself that no matter what I attempted, I would be viewed as the crazy one as he would be able to keep a calm demeanor while I was already driven to the brink.

     On the Psychopath Free forum, I have seen quite a few members inquire as to whether the book 50 Shades of Grey would be too triggering for a recent Narcissistic abuse survivor to read.  I knew there were some problematic scenes that involved physical abuse/S&M style scenes that could be triggering to people that endured being physically controlled by their partners, but as that was not part of my particular trauma I figured I might be able to get away with reading it for a cheap thrill.  Unfortunately, one of the long term side effects of being in this emotionally abusive situation has been a near non-existent libido for years.  I thought perhaps that Mr. 50 Shades might be able to help me recover some of my former Scorpio mojo.  As expected, I got drawn into the book, but for reasons I had not anticipated.  E.L. James has cast the ultimate Narcissist as her leading man.  From using sex as a weapon of control to continuing to socialize with and speak of his former lovers as a form of triangulation with his current partner, Christian Grey covers every aspect of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  The female lead knows she wants more than this man is emotionally capable of offering, but he manages down her expectations until ultimately she allows him to beat her in accordance with his preferred S&M lifestyle.  She wants a boyfriend and he wants a fuck, yet she tries to convince herself throughout the entire story that what he is offering will be enough to meet her emotional needs.  Surprise, it is not and she spends the majority of the time that she is not having sex with him in tears.  This entire storyline is hauntingly familiar to me. 

     The chilling accuracy with which James presents her protagonist’s emotional reactions to this man’s manipulations, pity plays, triangulations, and the way James shows how he meticulously grooms her to begin accepting physical abuse as a necessary part of their relationship leads me to wonder if James herself has been seduced by such a man.  Having experienced a very similar seduction, I recognized each step that led me to the dangerous conclusion that this abusive man, M, was my soul mate, and that I should do whatever it took to keep him.  Every time I stepped out of line, asked too many questions, demanded too much, he would shut down emotionally and cut me off physically.  He used sex as a weapon for controlling me.  When I was good, I got laid.  When I was bad, I wouldn’t hear from him for days.  I heard pity stories about how his fucked up childhood caused him to be the way he was, yet he would never disclose details about it.  He invited me to go out with him to meet an ex girlfriend, assuring me that there was nothing there between them anymore, and proceeded to ignore me the entire evening while listening intently to her, even as I was being harassed by drunken men.  He made sure to compliment me excessively every time I wore something sexy to the point where I would always wear sexy panties and makeup every time I went to see him.  Nowadays, I have swung far to the opposite side, never wearing makeup or sexy clothes, not even shaving my legs.  It gives me a slight jolt of disgust when I think of trying to make myself look attractive to men now that I see how subtly he had manipulated me into something I am not.  As a part of my recovery, I make it a point to do mainly things that I want to do, and I try to make sure I am not changing who or what I am to win the favor of a sexual partner.  After losing myself so completely to another person, I am trying to keep myself entirely intact from now on.

     Like Grey, M, uses his status to lure in new victims.  As a “rock star” he can pick up a new girl at every performance if he turns on the charm.  He’s astute at finding lonely, perpetually single women and giving them compliments until they feel like absolute sex goddesses.  As I read the book, I notice how James uses certain promises from Grey to keep her protagonist from running for the hills.  He assures her that he will be monogamous and that he will strive to give her the “more” that she requires.  In my case, some of the more included being introduced to M’s family, and being able to attend one of his performances as his lover.  These are things that were always denied to me, but I found out at the end that he had granted these very things to A.  While M gave the illusion of being monogamous, he was always trying to introduce the idea of an open relationship since he claimed that one woman alone would never be enough to satisfy him.  For a time, he had me truly mulling over whether or not I could live with that arrangement.  Every so often, I would convince myself that I could.  I always imagined I would be the primary relationship since we had such strong chemistry, but he was trying to groom A to be the primary relationship in his harem, and I was just a side dish.  I had no idea he could manufacture such strong chemistry with anyone he seduced.  Towards the end, I realized how much of myself I was sacrificing to stay with him.  I had to give up monogamy, love, compassion, compromise, and my dreams of motherhood just to have amazing sex with this man once every other week.  Looking back I know it wasn’t worth it.

     At the end of the book, the protagonist also realizes it’s not worth it to sell her future to a man incapable of loving her.  I want to shake the author’s hand for showing the inevitable, soul crushing break up that must ultimately come.  However, the existence of two sequels assures me that this is not the end.  Of course he must seduce her back; the narcissistic cycle can not be completed if the victim is not hoovered back into the emotionally abusive landscape with promises of change and assurances that she is the most special of all his victims.  I think I may read the other two books in hope that the ultimate lesson learned is not that we as women can somehow fix and heal these irreparably damaged and abusive men, by pouring every little bit of our souls into them, while they eat away at our lives, giving us nothing more than an elusive fuck in return.