Anti-Depressants and Sexuality

As of late I am musing on sexuality and personal fulfillment. As an Aspie, I turn to the internet for most of my social interactions. My Instagram page of late has been wholly devoted to my cats. I have also been subscribing to many animal pages in turn. My feed transforms from random scenes of my friends’ lives into an endless display of cute, furry creatures. The ensuant lack of envy is palpable. I have unfollowed any of my well-off and well-traveled acquaintances, satisfied to only be exposed to those equally subsumed by the daily grind. This mediocrity placates me with a sense of okayness. Everyone else that I am exposed to is struggling as much or more than I am, therefore I am doing just fine. I acknowledge that I am creating an echo chamber of suffering as a way of relieving my own guilt for not succeeding in the way my younger self envisioned. I attended photography school. I was an artist...a visionary. I was smarter than everyone and a diligent worker. I would become rich and famous on my brilliance alone. 

Reality eventually caught up with me. I was serially dating men as a way to distract from myself. It was so easy to blame them for my lack of growth and success. I was “tied down.” After yet another failed long-term relationship back in 2010, I finally felt ready to spend some time alone. Some years went by and then I got whammied by a narcissist and soon after, an Asperger’s diagnosis. I’m finally to the point where I acknowledge that social anxiety, mostly due to Asperger’s, has played a huge role in my (lack of) career and my interpersonal relationships. 

Oh snap, it’s not you, it’s me.

I’ve been on antidepressants for a few years now, and that has had some surprising side-effects. Number one is my lack of desire for sexual relationships, and for the most part, human companionship. I think having cats is partly to blame, but I can see the drop off in my interest in dating right around when I started taking medication. My libido is at a lifetime low. Some of this may be due to the fact that I am feeling more self-fulfilled and less needy of a human to complete me. My fear is that this medication is falsely sending me signals of fulfillment when I know my life would be more complete with the companionship of a fellow human, with whom I could go on adventures with. 

I joined Tinder recently, with great feelings of MEH about the whole thing. I did go on one date which was neither amazing nor awful. Neither of us has pursued any further social interaction, so I guess I’m calling it a draw. 

In recent days, I have found myself being drawn back to one of my long-lasting categories of lust: the long haired, slightly effeminate male. After briefly dating a narcissist that came startling close to my physical ideal, the mere sight of a long-haired pretty boy could shut me down. Even tall women with broad shoulders and long blonde hair were triggering. I saw him everywhere, in everyone. Even now, when I look at a photograph of a clean shaven man with long, straight blonde hair and blue eyes, I begin to feel nauseated. Bearded men, and men with different eye colors and hair textures and more muscular builds are far less upsetting to me. I’m slowly adding this type of man into my Instagram feed. The results have been interesting. At times I can feel my libido stirring, but then I’ll hit one that looks too similar to the narcissist, and I find a strange push/pull between attraction and revulsion. Many of these men are self-aware of their beauty and their confidence in their abilities of seduction show in the images. These are the ones I tend to shy away from. I fear those that are aware of their power. I can imagine being aroused by them, and opening myself to them, when I immediately switch in my imagination, to being judged by them, and not good enough or sexy enough for them. This kills the fantasy, and again, the libido. 

I do remember having fulfilling sex while on this medication. It was with a friend of a very long time, who I have loved dearly for over a decade. His Asperger’s is untreated and his fear and aversion are much greater than mine. I was able to open myself up to him in a way I had not been able to since the narcissist. Unfortunately, his walls are too thick to accomodate me in any permanent fashion. I’d like to believe that this sort of connection is available to me elsewhere, but as of yet, I have found nothing.

I’m trying to fill in the gaps as I figure out how to be a sexual being again. In a vague way, I know I am missing human companionship, even if my loins don’t acknowledge it. Everyone my age seems terrified of taking a risk, myself included. Everyone I try to engage walks away. Is it me? Is it them? Is it a poor match? Is it fear? 

I still dream of being a wife…a mother. Are these realistic goals? How are they achieved? Can I maintain my integrity and still have these things? Can I afford them? 

At one point in my life, these goals seemed natural. Nowadays, even a good date seems beyond reach. Where are my soul sisters and brothers? I can’t be the only one.

New Year's Musings

I went in to work early today, and my seven hour shift breezed by. I had not gotten much sleep the night prior, but the one goal on my mind was to make it to an early evening yoga class after work. I had found the listing by happenstance just yesterday, as I was idly pondering what sort of New Year’s celebration I might want to partake in while scrolling through Facebook. An invitation to a candlelit yoga class centered on setting intentions for the new year caught my eye. It was being taught by my favorite yoga instructor in a studio I had visited once before. Perfect. It wouldn’t be steeped in any heavy emotion or expectation, yet there would be an element of familiarity.

I made it there plenty early and found I recognized quite a few faces in the room. While moving my way through the practice, I remembered that so much time on my mat is spent trying to remain present, to really listen to the instructor’s words so I don’t have to crane my neck to see what everyone else is doing, to not succumb to the nasty self-criticism that pops up when I lose my balance or when I have so much fear that I don’t even make an effort to attempt what the instructor suggests.

In some ways, it feels like everything I had gained while consistently practicing yoga some years ago was gone, but then I remember crying on my mat so many times, my heart feeling like it was being ripped from my chest, and I know my mind is much more at peace now than it was then. Tonight, I did not cry. I felt frustrated with my uncoordinated body and my weak muscles, but I can remember a time not so long ago when my body was amazing me with its abilities.

I can feel my resolve hardening to get my mind, body, and soul in peak condition for the trials ahead. I know that I can trust no man to fulfill me, and I must look towards myself and make sure I am meeting my own needs every. damned. day.

This city is riddled with memory. As I leave the studio, I am hit with nostalgia as I pass by the coffee shop that I used to spend so much time at. Settled at a table in the desolate cafe with my iPad and a decaf latte, I am finally fulfilling my daydream of sitting down to do some work at my old haunt. The truth is harsher than the daydream. I have a minor flashback of the day I ran into HER in this very same cafe, and I was only able to hold it together for as long as she was looking. The moment she left, I crumpled into a heap of tears in the midst of my classmates who had no idea what was going on. I have cried in this cafe so many times. Some of those times I was alone, others I was on dates or with a gal pal. Crying in public was a pretty regular thing for me not so long ago.

My flashback is interrupted by the piercing scream of a tantrum throwing child, reminding me that I am currently considering being in a relationship with a man who never wants children, and that at this moment in time I’m not sure I want “children” so much as I want a baby. If my kitten taught me anything, it’s that living things don’t stay babies for long. Of course the only two men in recent history that I was actually hoping to have kids with have now both procreated, so I have that thought floating around in the back of my brain for my mind to inconveniently wander to any time I start daydreaming on the subject of babies.

So much of this feels like a skipping record, but then I remember that I’ve become very efficient at cutting out toxicity from my life. When I acknowledge the hurdles I have glided over in the last 8 months, I see that my time in the trenches was not a waste. I now value myself independently of how men perceive me and/or treat me. That right there is worth 35 years of bullshit.

I decide to read my horoscope rather than get any work done, but today I can’t even play the game where I pretend to believe anything it says. I pack up and head for home. My head has been spinning for days about so many topics that I want to write about, yet I haven’t found a way to format it into written word. Feeling isolated from my lover, I reach out to him only to find myself lost in my head, still unable to put any of my thoughts into words. Reluctantly, I get off the phone and sit down to writing. Finally, I have discovered a narrative in which to hang all my thoughts which seemingly have nothing to do with one another.

I’m finding right now I have three identities which I am finding difficult to blend coherently. My survivor self is very much still recovering from trauma. She finds it difficult to do basic everyday tasks and to stay sober and needs emotional support from others. My political self is loud, proud, feminist, and not afraid to speak her mind, but my autistic self is doubting and worrying incessantly all while isolating, isolating, isolating. The medication does take much of the anxiety down to a dull chatter in the back of my mind, but the greater the stimulus, the greater the reaction. These three selves are so chaotically different in their forms that it is difficult to imagine them all residing within one woman. If you could imagine such a thing, you’d have a pretty decent idea of what it’s like to spend a day in my shoes: clear minded and opinionated, but terrified of judgement and backlash.

At this point I’m not sure how to reconcile my need for social support with my reclusive tendencies. I actually have learned to cherish living alone, with no one but my cats to disrupt my “routine” or lack thereof. I have a difficult time imagining any sort of life partner that would allow me to live as freely as I do currently. Additionally, I find any location that is not my house to be mildly stressful and full of discomfort. At times, this is even true of my own home. I used to judge myself more harshly for being a homebody, but now I’m realizing that it is part of my neurological profile and not likely to disappear.

It has been a strange journey, recognizing that so many of my hopes and dreams for the future are actually incompatible with my neurology. By this I mean that regardless of my ability to attain such goals, many of the things I used to think I wanted from this life would be more likely to result in endless stress than with anything approximating contentment.

I guess my true resolution for 2017 is to just keep on being my authentic self, whatever that entails. I’m not sure if that will ever translate to a family or a career, but I can no longer remain a slave to what I thought my life should be like by now. I never planned to be abused or to be diagnosed with autism in my 30s, two things that have greatly shaped my perceptions over the past few years. I have learned that my self-worth can only be defined by me and not by the willingness of men to be in a relationship with me.

Here’s to another year of not sacrificing myself for anyone. I will continue to shout my truth from my second story window in the hopes that perhaps a kindred spirit will hear a resonance of themselves in my words. Other than this, I have no real expectation. Keep on shining your weird little lights, my friends.

Narcissism and the New World Order, Election 2016

     Those that know me know that I'm on a political bender like no other this year. Here on the cusp of the first debate, I feel as if I'm about to watch a boxing match between good and evil. My face is flushed, my heart is racing, and I have personal stake in what goes down tonight. For tonight, I can begin to see if this county is as naive and blind as I was when I fell for a Narcissist. For now that I intimately know the signs of emotional manipulation, I can never fall prey to it again, but before I gained that knowledge, I was in denial that true evil existed.
 
  I squirm in discomfort with my stomach tied in knots as I am faced with the stark and sickening reality that there are millions of people buying it, and that I may soon be living the reality of having a president who is the poster child of Histrionic Narcissistic Personality Disorder (which by the way is 100% overt, unlike covert narcissism which is much harder to detect as the sufferer adopts a woe-is-me persona instead of the bombastic, literally believes he can do no wrong, Trump.)
 
  Although you have no idea that my misgivings have NOTHING to do with actual politics, it scares me to death that men say to me, "But her eeeeemails." You are turning a blind eye to the evil that confronts you. What Hillary did was not evil. Turning an entire country against an entire religious group, with many members that live in our country, is fucking evil. The old white male fuckers of this country are so afraid of a religion that they want to vote a hateful, selfish human being into the highest office of our country. I'm sure there's still even a group that balks at the idea of a woman being president.
 
  I know in the long term, as the torch is passed to the millennials, and the bigots of yesteryear die off, we will begin to know peace and harmony in unprecedented ways across global borders. The internet is turning the world into one gigantic neighborhood, and I have faith in today's youth. They know about sustainable agriculture, eating locally, renewable resources, and are not afraid to implement them.
 
  In the meantime, let's try not to be ruled by hate and closed-mindedness to the extent that we vote in the most ridiculous caricature of the bigoted, woman-hating republican. That will forever cast a shadow on those that embrace that party for what it actually stands for: the protection of the constitution and the freedom of the people of the people in this country. In that sense, Trump is not even a true Republican. He wants the freedom to abuse his power for wealth. He does not care about the freedom of anyone else, and will not be able to do anything to effectively and adequately protect it. The fear mongering he is promoting is the kind that leads to concentration camps where people of a certain group are denied basic human rights, for no other reason then suspicion.

   We are not a country of white Christians. The leader of this country needs to be able to take into consideration every single member of his/her constituency. This includes those with mental illness, military related mental and physical health issues, people of all ethnicities and religions,
not just those that are able to build humongous, wealthy companies.

   I guess my bottom line is that no matter what her misdeeds have been, I believe Hillary to be a "normal" human being capable of empathy, especially when she has to make the hard choices, nor does she fit the profile of a disordered person. Trump, however, appears to be suffering from a disorder created by a lack of empathy. If he cannot mentally project himself into someone else's situation, how is he to solve the problems of anyone but himself?
 
 I have trusted many men like this in the past, and every single one has acted in the same manner. A narcissist will lure you in, treat you like crap, and then blame you for their abuse. When I listen to the words coming out of Trump's mouth, it sounds like echoes of the bullshit my abuser used to feed to me to get me to bend to his will, to intimidate me, to silence me, to put up no resistance to his increasingly fucked up behavior. Many liken it to the frog in a pot, slowly brought to boil, oblivious to his fate.
 
  The best advice I can give to you is trust actions, not words, keep your eyes peeled for projection and misdirection. If you can, look the the subject and verb in relation to Trump's answers given to specific questions. MAKE SURE HE IS MAKING SENTENCES and not just vomiting up words in various arrays that he know gains applause. You know the ones, "The wall! Mexico will pay for it! Crooked Hillary!" Mentally filter all that out and listen to the words he says that are on point...if there are any.

     Don't fall prey to a con man. That shit already fucked up four years of my life, I can't afford four more.

Happy Father's Day

Baby W,

     I just now got word of your impending arrival. In about three months from now, you will make your cherubic appearance, and your Grandparents will be enraptured by you. I wish I could be gladdened at the news of your existence, but the wheel of time reveals to me a most troubled future for you, for I have already walked more than a mile in your shoes. I have marched in them for the last 34 years.

     For a child begat of the union of an empath and a narcissist, there are truly only two ways your future can unfurl. You may be saved by your mother. She has the strength of will and heart to ensure that you do not follow in the footsteps of your Narcissistic father. This is assuming that she is able to remain whole as she stands up against him. For someday, she will see the crack in his facade, and her reality will crumble. Her middle class, comfortable life, the nice house, the nice car, the comfort of having a man in the house, eventually, she will have to give all of that up to save herself and hopefully, to save you.

     For soon, your father will realize that you are the reason he is no longer number one in your mother's eyes. He will seek attention from other women, as he always has. His workplace is rife with them. Your mother at first will believe the stories about working late, tutoring those who need special one-on-one time with teacher, endless amounts of "band practice," but someday something will happen that will be so atrocious, that she can no longer look the other way.

     Perhaps he will slip her a sleeping pill, because she has been sexually aloof of late, or better yet, just take her in her sleep with no protection, ensuring more bastard children. Maybe he will seduce a coworker and try to coerce your mother into a threesome, because nothing says wholesome, loving family like group sex with your co-worker while your child plays with her children in the other room. May God protect you from your father should he resort to taking his sexual frustrations out on you.

     When that day finally comes, it will be up to your mother to save you, because no one will believe your stories, your trauma. Your friends will chant, "But your dad is the cooooolest! How could he be a dick? You must be exaggerating!" His coworkers will think he is the bee's knees. Even his new wife and step-daughters will be cheering him on as a stand-up citizen, while you know in your heart what the man is like in the privacy of his own home.

     It was ultimately the will of my mother, her attentive doting on me, her knowledge of my shortcomings (disabilities), and her insistence that I overcome them that formed who I am today. Had I taken after my father...

     Let me say it this way: Narcissists are not born. They are created. This personality disorder develops as a survival mechanism in people that have no true "self" as a result of either over or under-parenting. What I'm telling you is, that should your father raise you alone, you will almost undoubtedly end up like him. That will be your defense to his soullessness. When you look into his eyes, you will only remember the man that rages in the privacy of the home. Your friends (and especially their mothers) will think he is the coolest dad that ever existed, while your rage burns under the surface against all the injustices and neglect you suffer at his hands. He expects you to be a physical extension of himself. He doesn't understand that you are a unique person with desires and wants not in alignment with his own.

     God help you if you are a girl. Someday in your adulthood, you will have perspective on what a 12 year old girl should and SHOULD NOT look like to a 40 year old male, especially one that is her own father. If your mother does not protect you, and spell out for you how wrong these things are, you will come of age already objectifying yourself in a way that will take years (...decades?) to heal.

     I know your mother will adore you. I have no doubt about that. My question is, will she have the strength to fight for you when the time comes? The doubts cast upon my soul in my time of trial were more intense than anything I could have imagined. I still have recurring neurological discomfort in the base of my skull as a reminder of a bout of Bell's Palsy three year ago, brought on by the psychological abuse of your father. Whenever I think about him, the back of my skull begins to throb, reminding me of all those times he lied his face off to me, and I just believed it without question. It's a physical, VISCERAL reminder of what a two-faced demon he is.

     I honestly wish you the best of luck. This is so obviously a stacked deck. Baby W, I assure you that I didn't turn out so bad. I've actually found a way to make peace with why your father is the way he is, and why your mother protects him so fiercely. Someday, I will find a way to make peace with you, hopefully when I see your mother step up to be the fierce lioness I know she is, protecting her cub with all her might. Hopefully, I will see my own mother in her, and forgive her everything, and I will be able to wholeheartedly cheer you both on as you tackle this life together.

Love,
D
 

The Long-Term Aftermath of Abuse

     Today, as I stare down the barrel of yet another ending relationship, I wonder if I will ever again be able to feel spiritually joined with another human being. The last time I can recall that feeling was with my abuser, and all of my other memories pale in comparison to that. The thought sickens me. Was I only able to feel that "connection" with M because he lied and acted so well, or was it something that came from me? More importantly, if it came from me, is that bit of my soul still alive? I haven't felt much from it in years. I can feel tenderness. I can feel love in some varieties, but the soul-merging passion that I crave has been lost to me. Some days I have hope that I will share that connection with someone again, but others I fear that "soul mates" doesn't actually exist, and any relationship I pursue will end in a rut of stagnation and misunderstanding.
   
     I'm terrified of being alone again, but the thought of zombie walking through a passionless relationship sounds worse than death. I want my body to awaken. I want my soul to awaken, but now, more than ever I am seeking complete isolation. Again, the fear of perpetual loneliness, of aloneness. I feel myself pulling away from my family and friends, preferring the four walls of my home to the constant scrutiny of others. I'm exhausted just by being out in a world where I feel constantly judged based on my looks, facial expression, gender, disabilities, perceived intelligence, and whatever the fuck else the general public feels like criticizing me over today. It just doesn't seem worth it to keep putting myself out there. At times, I feel ready to quit all my in-person jobs and complete the retreat, but I know I cannot. Not because I need the money as much as I need the people. I know I need you all, but I'm so exhausted just from existing that it's really hard to reach out sometimes.
   
      So, I hang on to my jobs knowing that at the very least, there will be human interaction in my life on a fairly regular basis and try to cling to hope that maybe, maybe some day, someone will speak to my soul again.

My Dreams for 2016

   

     On this road to recovery, I remember reading somewhere that sustaining a great trauma can force a premature spiritual awakening that would have taken decades to reach otherwise. Since facing crippling physical and emotional obstacles over these past few years, the scope of my worldview and empathy has shifted to something outside myself. Finally, I can see the suffering that lies underneath the various faces I greet day after day, the loss, the pain, the tough choices. I was never able to see it before. Once I had risen from my psychic prison, having won the battle against the voice that whispered, "You will never know happiness or love again," I began to catch glimpses of the battles that people all around me are fighting day after day. I see how they keep showing up, and how they sometimes give up temporarily, but eventually they come back to continue their fight.
   
     I hate the reality that loss and change are part of this human existence. I hate letting go. I hate moving on. I'm a nostalgic person and I want to treasure everything and everyone that crosses my path, even when they turn out to be incompatible with my sanity or spiritual growth. That being said, there are so many things right now that need changing. Things can not stay as they are.

     I believe if the humans in this world could take a minute and think long term, so many things will start to fall into place. I read about how we could change the infrastructure of the global energy system and start solving HUGE problems like global warming, which is obviously going to start taking out the struggling and impoverished first, but will eventually come to effect everyone on this planet, either through available land or food scarcity, yet here we are, supporting someone like Donald Trump, who is so focused on building a wall, which will not really do a damned thing to end any sort of suffering.

     I'm scared, because I know these are types of things that can not be accomplished alone, yet we're too busy bickering amongst ourselves about whether we should we fear more, Mexicans or transgendered Americans? Maybe violence would decrease if we could create a sustainable energy infrastructure capable of providing food for those that are currently stealing it. Maybe if we pay attention to how many industries are not acting as good stewards to the planet, we could start making a dent in how much damage we are causing.

     I'm of the belief that by slowing changing our minds, one by one, we will start to manifest the types of healing changes that are needed to create a sustainable, peaceful, human race, but until we can band together and start electing people that reflect these priorities, I fear we will be seeing a lot more hate and trauma as we target Muslims, transgendered people, Mexicans as scapegoats for our fears. Every time I read a hateful, dehumanizing comment, I am taken back to the depths of my trauma, where I no longer felt human, no longer connected to this race of people, complete in my isolation with nothing but my telephone and Facebook to keep me in touch with the spiritual threads that bind us all.

     I used to feel alone in this pain, but now I see how many of you are suffering right there with me, and how many have suffered and survived to become the beautiful, empathetic people you are today. Keep hanging on. Keep dreaming. I know you all are out there, and I'm beginning to feel strong enough to come seek you. I want to share ideas. I want to listen to your dreams. I want to change the world.

The Windmills of My Mind

     After being successfully medicated into submission for a better part of 2015, the windmills of my mind are back on in full tilt. Though my mood does seem elevated compared to my “normal,” citalopram does not appear to be quieting the chitta vritti a.k.a. “monkey-mind” the way paroxetine did. Fewer side effects and fewer benefits it seems.

     These days, when I consider my chaotic mind, I attribute it more to being autistic than being human. Always, in the past I have spoken of the disabling commentary running through my mind and asked, “Does anybody else know how I feel?” and invariably people would chime in that yes, of course they know what I mean.

     Now I’m wondering, who of you out there do NOT know what I mean? By you, I mean the presumed “neurotypicals.” Do you exist and who are you? Yes. Seriously. I think I’ve been surrounded by Aspies my entire life and wouldn’t know neurotypical if it bit me in the ass, but I suspect that some of you are actually well-functioning adults. So if you are willing, humor me for a second and read through a sample list of things that go through my mind on one of my “typical days” (and remember that this is going on 24/7 in my brain, and not just once in a while when I have too much caffeine) and let me know if you do not have this type of nonsense rattling around in your mind, and you have no idea what it would be like.

     You know…for science, and because it’s cheaper than consulting a psychologist, which is something I plan on doing when I can stop being autistic for a second…which isn’t likely to happen any time soon because grad season is about to start and I never quite have enough spoons for that as it is…

     I digress, yet I also prove my point. So, things I have worried about/obsessed over/felt generalized anxiety over TODAY include (well, technically yesterday because it’s now 4am and GOD DAMN IT. This is what I’m talking about. This obsessive attention to detail and need for specificity that drives everyone else BONKERS.)

Also:

• What is going to happen to the kittens that my therapist found under her shed? 
• Is my boyfriend’s cat diabetic? 
• I haven’t seen random girl from the gym come in with who I assume to be her boyfriend, in awhile. Maybe I should ask her about him so I can give her a pep talk about how hot she is and tell her that she could pick up any guy she wants, because you know, that wouldn’t be awkward at all. 
• Does random dude man at the gym find me attractive? 
• Does random hot chick at the gym think I’m a doofus? 
• Do people assume I’m an idiot when I’m up front about my shortcomings like when I just explain to customers that my short term memory is actually so shitty that they need to remind me to see if the tanning bed ever became available, because SHINY THING. 
• What the serious fuck is going to happen in this country if Trump wins the general election? 
• How can anyone in the world confuse a transexual with a pervert? People undergoing that dramatic of a personal transformation have got what’s going on with THEMSELVES on their mind, obviously. These are not the people to be feared. 
• How is this planet going to heal itself in time for our survival if we don’t do anything en masse to help it along? 
• Will I be able to muster up the willpower to brave the grocery store before I start running on a more horrific calorie depletion than I did today? 
• Will I ever be able to save up a down payment on a house if I don’t have a man to rely on financially? 
• Could I just call up my film friend Amy in L.A. and start doing sweet P.A. work on real productions? (but seriously…) 
• Portland…should I move to Portland? 
• Let’s double check the work schedule to make sure I’m not double-booked anywhere. OH SHIT! I’m double-booked! Stop everything! (and one quick text and this is resolved in two minutes and did not even warrant a heightened heart rate) 

and I’d say that amount of worrying/daydreaming took up only about a half hour of my day. Granted, it was a slow day at work, but when I was taking paroxetine, all of this noise just melted away. So, comments? Does anyone not live in their heads under duress of a nonstop internal monologue that is overanalyzing every thing that crosses your path?

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. 

Seeing Through the Manipulation

August 2013

Dear M,

     I’ve been giving your offer of friendship a lot of thought over the past few weeks.  Often times, I’m severely tempted to give in and make peace, but the further I stay away from you, the clearer my vision becomes.  You still seem to think that the only reason I am mad is that you had a second lover.  This could not be further from the truth.  I’m furious because I’m starting to uncover the grooming process you used to mold me into your willing victim.  I feel violated upon recognizing that you trained me like a monkey in your zoo to not ask questions of you.  When I asked about A that first time, you told me she was a “bitch” and that she was trying to rope you into a relationship, thus implying that these were things I should never do, lest I be labeled in the same way as that “bitch.”  You said it with such disdain, I never would have imagined that you ever harbored feelings of love for her.  If I brought up any other women, you would repeatedly reprimand me with a reminder of how you had “no room for jealousy” in your life.  When you left me the first time, you sent me a letter a month later, explaining that you left because I was trying to coerce you into being my boyfriend.  When you came back to me later, this act was repeated when I started getting close to you again.  You gave me the same sort of warning and began to disappear.  Thus, a severe fear reaction was programmed, linking me talking about being in a relationship with you to you disappearing.  I learned never to question my role in your life.

     I’m terrified to even be your friend because even in the short run-ins that we’ve had accidentally, you’ve found time to lie to me.  You told me you would come to a counseling session on Tuesday at 3PM when we both know you work at that time.  It’s as if you will say whatever you think will shut me up and keep me from asking questions.  It’s like the time when you said you’d hang out with me on New Year’s Eve and then pretended like you couldn’t remember ever saying that.  You have a flawless memory when it comes to remembering things that I’ve said that you can later throw in my face, but you never seem to remember the promises you make.  I start to doubt my own memories as you vehemently deny ever saying these things.  This, my friend, is called gaslighting, and it’s an intentional psychological manipulation used to unsettle your victim. 

     On top of all this, you mock me about the things I’ve finally caught on to.  You tell me you had felt something drawing you out when we ran into each other even though I know I think all of that is bullshit now.  In the same sentence, you tell me how all your friends were going to be there and you were trying to get as much socializing done as possible before the start of the school year.  It sounds like THAT was the pull that brought you there.  It had nothing to do with me.  You used these type of psychic connections to draw me in from day one.  You knew I ate it up.  I wanted more than anything to believe that I was somehow special to you.  I’m beginning to understand what it means when you say you have a “special connection.”  You tell me that I’m the only person in your life that you’ve had a connection with that has not come back to you.  I have a theory about this.  I feel that these people in your past, have all been like me, a source of narcissistic supply for you.  It’s probably a group of girls that worship you, that are tortured that they can’t have you, and eat up every bit of attention you shower on them.  They are people you can return to again and again, every time someone sees you for the con artist that you are and makes you feel “less than.”  You claim that you never had this type of connection with A.  Is that because she saw through your shit?  Or is this something you just say to me, knowing it will calm my soul to believe that I was superior to her in some way in your mind.  Every time you say something like this about her, you follow it up with “I hope you won’t say anything about this to her.”  On the initial level, it makes me feel like you are telling me a secret, bringing me closer to you, but on second look, I realize that the main reason you don’t want me to talk to A is that she blows holes through all of your bullshit and allows me to see you more clearly than ever.  She has already told me how you told her that you wanted her to be “the one,” words I never thought you’d even use.  You argue that you never said these things, but much like I was susceptible to your claims of psychic connection, content to maintain a sexual relationship with you based on our “spiritual harmony” alone, she may have needed a more concrete promise to ensure a steady source of narcissistic supply, things like a committed relationship and an assurance that she alone was the most special girl in your life.  You would reassure me of my specialness by saying you never had a connection with her and then turn around and reassure her of HER specialness by saying that you only introduced HER to your family and only called HER your girlfriend.  You tried to make me feel better by talking down about her, and she said you would do the same of me.

     And then you have the audacity to tell me that you’ve changed in 8 short months.  You claim that this was the first time you have used deceit, but your stories from the past sound riddled with it.  I am truly working to retrain my brain, erasing from it all the bullshit things you taught me to believe were healthy and desirable, like not speaking my feelings, not asking questions, being OK with an undefined sexual relationship…things I now realize have been responsible for a monumental emotional collapse.  In just 10 months, you were able to damage me in ways that 8 months of counseling have barely begun to untangle.  I have a hunch that you’ve been living this way for a long time, perhaps most of your life, and from the reading I’ve done, it’s unlikely for you to ever find healing, even with the help of a professional.  Moreso, it is unlikely that you even desire to change.  The claim that you are somehow a different person after 8 months is a disgusting lie, one that I can see through easily as you tell me how you have changed using the exact language and tone of voice that you have always used to lie to me.  Here’s a little test to see how much you’ve changed: show this letter to the girls currently in your life: MK, MLS, JC, and whoever else you’ve tried to woo.  If you really aren’t habitually doing this sort of bullshit, then it will just sound like your crazy ex is writing you hate mail.  A and S seem to know what I’m talking about though, and I get the feeling that you know exactly how to BS the way into the hearts of girls in your occult group as most people in cults are pretty susceptible to brainwashing and psychological manipulation.

     It pisses me off that you think I’m having such a violent reaction to A.  As if the thought that you ever stuck your penis inside another girl would take me to the brink of a mental breakdown.  Fuck you.  Seriously.  The bullshit that you have been doing to me for the last year and a half is really fucked up.  I don’t think you are polyamorous, I think you are a Narcissist using a multitude of victims simultaneously to make you feel OK.  THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING.  In situations of polyamory, one must take into account the feelings of all their partners.  It means acting with LOVE towards more than one person, not merely sticking your dick in them.  You have proven that you are not actually able to love one person, let alone more than one simultaneously.  You NEED people for your own self validation, but again, this is not the same thing as love.  So fuck you and your offer of friendship, fuck our special connection, and fuck all the bullshit you have put me, A, and God knows who else through.  Grow the fuck up and stop subjecting people to emotional abuse, because ultimately that is what you are doing.  You are destroying people’s sense of self worth all in an effort to improve your own, and that is unethical and reprehensible.

***

      This letter was written when I finally was able to see through M’s bullshit almost in real time.  I had run into him at a local battle of the bands and he had approached me from behind, taking me completely off guard, as I was chatting up a new male friend.  M spent a good portion of his evening talking with me as I cried my eyes out, still sucked in by his act.  He was trying to be very gentle and sweet with me, luring me back into a “friendship” with him while his new lady friend, MK, sat across the bar, staring us down the entire evening.  I was aware of her presence, but since M was completely ignoring her at the time to give me his full attention, I did not feel threatened by her.  Any time I asked about her, he just repeated how he couldn’t be in a relationship with anyone.  As of today, they are publicly in a relationship, and have been hanging out together since the day I found out about A and confronted him publicly, which was 8 months prior to this event. 

     As we were talking at the bar, I suggested he go see a counselor with me if he was truly interested in repairing our friendship.  Without missing a beat, he said he was willing and able to do such a thing during a time which I knew he’d be at work.  Part of me was skeptical of the ease with which he agreed to this.  The more I think about this day, the more I believe that the content of our conversation was of little import.  His main goals were to rope me back in to his fucked up game, and to make MK insanely jealous by ignoring her all evening while talking to me.  In a conversation later in the week, he admitted that he had come with a friend who he ended up ignoring all night so the friend had left in anger.  This does not sound like typical male behavior, so I can only assume it was the female that had left.  I had played right into his game and was most likely instrumental in helping him emotionally manipulate that girl into the same jealous fucked up place I was in.

     I was not able to see all this immediately, but within a week of no contact, all the charm, flattery, and pleading melted away to uncover the obvious manipulation taking place.  Without hearing his pathetically patronizing “I’m so sorry” voice, I was able to listen to the actual words coming from him without buying into his emotional act.  A completely different picture emerged.  He was trying to placate me.  He was using me to manipulate someone else.  Furthermore, he was still lying to my face.  I was so angry with myself for not seeing it sooner.  He never attempted to contact me.  He only waited for my calls because he “knew I needed space and wanted me to make the first move.”  In reality, I don’t think he gave a shit if he heard from me one way or the other, but if I called and sounded plaintive, he knew I was ripe for manipulating.  More often than not, I was still furious and I would start yelling at him over the phone, which did not give him any emotional advantage over me.  He needed me to come to him in desperation.

     The frustration of that evening still lingers over a year later.  Just the other night I had a dream where I ran into MK and was desperately trying to warn her that she is with an emotionally abusive psychopath.  She must not see it yet if she is still with him.  After A and I blew such a hole in his game, he must be more thoroughly covering his tracks.  I imagine that she still thinks he is something special even though she has a sense of fear that he could leave her at any moment.  Perhaps he has whittled her down into accepting the open relationship he was trying to groom me into, flaunting in her face the fact that she alone isn’t enough for him, or perhaps he has her still believing she is his one and only even after saying for years that he could never be monogamous with anyone ever.  In the dream, she defends him, telling me what a great boyfriend he is and how much he has changed since the scandal of A and I went down.  I woke up so very angry that he is still out there causing harm to innocent people and that his victims stand by him and defend him.  It makes me feel so powerless to know that even if I tried to help, nothing would come of it.  So I blog and hope that somehow this message will get to those that need to hear it whether it be people that I know personally, or some random soul on the internet that finds these words by a fateful google search.  My soul is still deeply scarred by the actions of this man and my anger still burns under a surface that has been relatively calm as of late.

Seeing Through the Fairy Tale

August 2013

      I always told myself I’d never be one of those women that allow a man to rule over her, controlling her actions and emotions.  But here I am.  Looking back, I can see how I let you make me feel guilty for my feelings.  Every time I had questions or doubts you would throw my “jealousy” in my face and remind me of how unacceptable it was to you, making yourself out to be a saint.  I bought into your shit, even as I saw you being jealous of me, of other musicians, of your ex’s new boyfriend, of your brother.  You were just projecting your shit onto me, and I bought into all of it. 

     You trained me to doubt, not to question.  Then you trained me to not even ask for your time or company.  You needed your freedom and space.  You were grieving.  It was hard to be with a new girl.  We’d go out together and you’d leave my side for most of the evening.  You’d promise we’d go out together and show up at my house and tell me you feel too sick to go.  You’d have sex with me and leave immediately after because you had “other things to do.”  I’d tell you it was alright, that I understood.  You were busy, and were barely able to make that small bit of time for me.  I was thankful to you for bothering to show up at all.  All this time, I thought it was MY idea.  I thought I knew what you needed and was trying to provide it.  Now I see how you were laying out the cards from the beginning. 

     I believed you were so much better than me.  I thought you were so empathetic, kind, spiritual and insightful.  I felt like I had to be a great artist to deserve you.  Being myself was not enough.  Now I believe you are just a skilled liar with a memory like a steel trap.  Only once did I catch you messing up your story. 

***

     Today I backslid a little bit.  I saw his new primary relationship partner show up on Instagram and I clicked over to see what was new.  I had been actively avoiding doing any such thing for the sake of no contact, but for some reason I succumbed to temptation.  I saw that she had been on a recent trip to Mexico and immediately wondered if M had accompanied her.  I clicked over to M’s Instagram feed where I saw exactly what I had feared: he was also posting photos from Mexico.  I immediately felt jealous as it sunk in that here they were a year and a half later, still together and traveling the world in tandem.  For a moment I felt that familiar doubt that maybe he really was just too broken from his last relationship to take me seriously and that now he is in good, healthy relationship with someone else.  I’ve spent the better part of the day reminding myself of a few key things: 

• He was already working on this girl when things ended with me.
• He used me to triangulate with her on more than one occasion at public events.
• He acts exactly the same towards her as he did with me when out in public, distant and cool.
• She is friends with A (the other woman when I was dating him) and still chose to date this doofus knowing how shitty he treated her.

     I can only conclude that she is only the primary relationship that he puts forward as his public relationship and lord knows what else is going on behind the scenes.  I never would have suspected his shitty behavior had I not been confronted with very damning evidence and it is likely he has stepped up his secrecy since that PR disaster.  He has been denying his relationship with that girl since day one so I doubt he would even acknowledge it to me now if confronted.

     The bottom line is this: I finally can acknowledge that it does not matter what is going on with this girl.  I personally, do not ever want this word-twisting evil person back into my life.  I have no room for emotional mind-fuckery and vague communications that make me feel insignificant and undeserving.  Chances are good that the other people in M’s life have not learned this about themselves yet, and hopefully M will be the catalyst for great personal change for them at some point, if he doesn’t manage to destroy them completely.

     Reading through this, I’m tempted to laugh at statements like “I felt like I had to be a great artist to deserve you.”  Now that I understand more about how Narcissists pick their targets, I realize that my artistic ability (or lack thereof) played absolutely no role in how much I was “loved” by M.  My art was just another way to control me.  By heaping on praise about my work, he would ensure that he was getting that much deeper into my good graces and trust.  I’m fairly sure it would not matter what I was actually creating, his praise would be the same, with the same intended result. 

     Now I am with a true artist who understands that the act of creating must be the purpose of art, because the glory of fame is fleeting as fans move on to the next great thing.  Never once have I felt that I needed to be better than I am to deserve his love.  Through this whole ordeal with M, I have learned exactly what my strengths and weaknesses are.  I do not need my relationship to define me.