Psychopath and Narcissist Survivors Support Group

Summer · member Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 927

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1ablueprincess · member Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 195

I am new to this forum also. I am so glad I found it because these people understand the hell my children and I have been through, even without hearing our story. The reason they understand is because they have someone like my XN. Before finding out there was such a thing as PD and there was such a thing as narcisstic and anti-social, I thought my situation was the only one like it and no one would believe me. My therapist told me about ns and that she thought my X was n, anti-social and bipolar based on stories from my S and me. I have since done a lot of studying and am shocked and sad to find out there are others out there who have been through what we are going thru. Now I can pretty much predict what he will do, and it is almost funny when I see him fitting the mold so perfectfully.

But yes, if he is truely an N he will not give up until you are in the dirt and kicked while youre down. No matter if you give into him, he will still kick you over and over again.

I had people who were professionals tell me that I am going to be in court until my kids are 18 and I will "forever" be an object of abuse to N. I was told this in 2002 and again in 2003. Unfortunately I have found it to be true. It is also true that counseling, mediation, etc. NOTHING will solve the problems. If the courts ever really get it and justice is ever really served, they will give me a permanent restraining order against my N because one day I honestly believe, he is going to kill me for damaging his reputation (and maybe my kids too).
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survivor

NancyCT · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:48 am Post subject:

I worked in the office today. It's not what I wanted to do, and I hated it, but I'm glad I did. I had customers that were left hanging for over a week, and it wasn't fair to them. They put the food on our family's table for all these years. I'll work more over the weekend, pick up as much of the slack as I can while trying not to give myself the stress of expecting to get it all done. I'll just do what I can.

I am absolutely amazed at how much work N got done alone in those last 60 days. He really is good at his job, I gotta give him that. I could never fill his shoes there, the business was never about me, it was about helping N to do what he's cut out for. I was just the support to enable it. It was the perfect job for him, and in a way I'm sad to see him leave it. Sure he's a full-blown N, but I spent 25 years with him (26 really, because we "shacked up" for a year before we married), and the guy has some admirable qualites.

That's not against the rules or anything, complimenting the N?

I guess I feel a little sentimental, being in the office alone today. It was our dream come true, our hope for the future. We started in the basement of our first house. Once when we had a very wet season, the basement flooded and N was making his phone calls standing on a milk crate to avoid any electrical mishaps. When we moved to this house, the business had it's own room, a smallish bedroom, with four people working in it. My kids were 2 and 4 then. They grew up with their kitchen being the employees' lunch room, and with Mom and Dad available to them 24/7.

When the business really began to take off, around year 10, we built it it's own addition to our house. It's one large room perched above the garage, and overlooking the woods and a small pond across the road with pasture beyond. It has a bathroom, a kitchenette, and it's heated by a gas fireplace. Designing it was a blast, and the builder turned out to be a terrific craftsman and very patient with me. I requested so many windows that we had to get a special variance from the town because it exceeded our R-value requirements (I think it's cool that the town enforces it). Standing in the center of the room there is a 360* view of rural New England without a house in sight. It's not fancy, it's all about location.

The office and the lifestyle were what I liked about our business. The work was drudgery. I had aspired to so much in life, I wanted to work in science, I never wanted to be a bookeeper or have a desk job. The work actually had a lot going for it though, like I could wear slippers and never get dirty. This business was going to allow us both to retire early - that was the goal - sock it away and spend more of life doing the things we like without pay.

It would have been great if he hadn't been disordered.

The office didn't seem so wonderful today. I felt a lot of loss in the room, especially the loss of dreams. I think a lot about the stages of mourning, and wonder where I am. Louxloux has a thread going on the general forum about the stages of abandonment, and that got me thinking, too. Which part is this and what's next? I remember reading that if you don't fully process one of the stages, you will continue to repeat it until you do. I've been through all the stages and this should be "lifting", but there's something else happening here too. Feeling all the losses again.

Because the stages of recovery are the same as those of grieving, it got me thinking - "losing" the N is like having a loved one die, but then come back as an evil spirit. It's a haunting. Don't you sometimes think an exorcism is in order, or at least worth a try? So how does that change the grieving process, to have a loved one hang around as a ghost? It's must mess up the continuity of the process something awful. That must be why I'm not conforming to the proper order of things. It's what makes it all extra hard.

Blue Princess talked about finding this forum and what an amazing difference it makes to know that you're not the only one, that others know, really know, what it's like. That brought me back to when I found this site. Oh, the difference you all have made! Thank you.

Summer, I hope your pup's healing well. I hope it wasn't anything serious. My dogs are on diets, so now they're eating the acorns and hickory nuts that are all over the ground, and I'm so worried that they will get one stuck. It's as bad as worrying over kids, isn't it?

And Dagna, any time you want to tell that story of the energy cleansing, I'd love to hear it.

Thank you for all your support. ((((group hugs))))

Summer · member Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 927

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NancyCT · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 3:04 pm Post subject:

Summer, I looked up the Lowchen breed, as I had never heard of it before - awwww, how adorable! I have a little spaniel mix that is like a live stuffed animal too. She's furry and floppy and has freckles on her nose. I also have a huge, goofy, choc. lab. Together they are comical, especially because the floppy little thing is the boss, and the monster-sized beast is her sidekick. I'm really a cat person at heart, I have 3, but I love my dogs dearly. I would take in all the rescues if I could - I think we all have a bit of "rescuer" in us here, don't we? Sometimes though, I wonder who rescued who? Maybe the pets are the ones who've rescued me! (LOL)

OxDrover · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:43 pm Post subject:

Nancy, dear,

I can so relate to the "loss of dreams" about something you built---and the old family farm that we restored from brush and weeds, building it back up to something wonderful was my "dream"---and the misma (I am not sure how to spell that) that overhung the place after the P-trojan horse and my mother's RAGE at me and D & D'ing me, etc sort of "ruin" it now for me--the wonderful feeling of peace and security and happiness that I had there, even the memory of how happy my late husband was there, are kind of "spoiled" for me and I want to move to somewhere else.

I also think it will not be "safe" physically there for me ever again, at least I cannot FEEL SAFE there---but I think too it is the overhanging pall of "misery" and now unhappy memories of the place. I feel much better up here at the lake even though I am living in an RV with close neighbors and on the farm I was back in the woods without close neighbors and when I walked out to the airport or the pasture the vista was beautiful and I felt I could commune with my late and wonderful deceased grandfather who also loved that land so much, and watered it with his life's sweat and blood. I felt I was not only fulfilling MY dream but continuing his dream and life's work.

Hanging on to those dreams can be however like a little parable I heard once. If you were back in the 1800s and you were going from the east coast of the US to the west coast there are many mountain ranges and rivers to cross. Let's say that you are carrying everything you own in a small cart or on your back. You come to a big river that you cannot cross without a raft, so you sit down and with your handy-dandy hatchet you cut trees and vines and construct the most wonderful raft to cross that river.

When you get across that river...what do you do with the raft? It is a wonderful raft, strong and sturdy, but very heavy. Do you try to tow it along behind you so that IN CASE YOU EVER GET TO ANOTHER RIVER you will already have your raft and won't have to build another one, or do you leave that heavy raft on the side of that river and go on to the next one?

In that story it is easy to see that you MUST leave that heavy raft on the side of the river and walk on to the next river and construct another raft or you would NEVER be able to get across the mountains towing a raft. It would take ALL of your energy and strength just to tow the raft and you w ould never NEVER get to the west coast.

Sometimes I think our dreams are like those rafts---we build them, and build them well, and they serve us well until we get to the "other side of that river" but then they become BURDENS to us if we are not willing to let them go and move on with our lives.

I enjoyed the time I had the dream on the farm, I loved it and it served its purpose to give me goals and accomplishments for those lovely years, but now, I do not have the strength or desire to TOW IT AS A RAFT and use all my strength to do it. I would much rather leave that "raft" (dream) and ralize it was a WONDERFUL dream, I built it with care and it SERVED ITS PURPOSE but no longer has a purpose in my life. And when the time comes, I will build another raft. YOu have your new DREAM of being a teacher---build that raft, build it well, and enjoy building it!
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Life is lived forward, but understood backwards.

NancyCT · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:45 pm Post subject:

Thanks, OxDrover. I'm glad you're here.

OxDrover · Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:11 pm Post subject:

Dear Nancy,

I see so much of myself in you in so many ways, in other ways we are I think very different--but you are a great lady and I wish you so much happiness and peace! (((hugs)))

I'm working very hard now to look at "the big picture" on things, not focus on the "details" that don't matter in the larger focus of things. Looking at MY own problems so that I can correct them---taking care of ME.

It has been a long hard road from looking at the Ps and the R/s with them "under a microscope" to start with, then with just a magnifing glass, then reading glasses, and now from a "great distance away" with the naked eye. Getting the big picture has taken a lot of growth--getting in touch with ME and not focusing on them and the "details"---

I read a thread today on Co-dependence that has some GREAT links to other sites and they helped me very much, to get more insight into myself and in ways to go about healing.

I'm back in therapy (actually two different issues with two therapists that work from different perspectives entirely) and am gaining insight into myself from both men...same conclusion about my problems...from two
different perspectives. Interesting, the way it works out. But helpful.

I have noticed a lot of growth in quite a few people on this list lately. Of course there are still some backsliding with NC, but over all the current cohort of people actively posting on the list are displaying a great deal of growth and are looking more at the "big picture" as well.

In the past I have seen people come and go (even in as short a time as I have been here) who were not in a healing place or ready to accept healing at this time. I do hope that those people will come back here eventually, and I think that stopping abuse is like quitting alcohol or cigarettes it takes a few failed attempts to get to the place that you really want to quit and are willing to make the effort to work at it. And it IS WORK.

To your problem of "letting go"--years ago my husband had a business that he worked very hard to build up and it was quite successful and a bunch of P-scam artists came in and TOOK IT OVER entirely, swindled him out of it entirely. He took them to court and spent every dime he had, went into poverty trying to get JUSTICE---and ended up getting nothing but a piece of paper from the court saying he was "right"---but the assets were gone, the companies were bankrupt---and he had spent 7 angry years accomplisxhing nothing but his "attempt to get justice"--- during that 7 years he focused on getting justice (angry the entire time) he was not able to do anything positive about rebuilding his company or building another company, so at the end of 7 long hard years of struggle and pain, he had what he had at the time he started those 7 years before---nothing, and 7 years wasted persuing it.

Yes, I know that "hind sight" is 20:20, but I actually think he would have been "money and painn ahead" if he had just said, "Well, they screwed me goodf, I will build another business" and gone ahead and put his energies into that instead of the fruitless quest for justice. As it was, he lost 7 years and still had to start over from scratch.

I wish I could tell you what was the right or wrong decision for you to make, but there is no way anyone can do that for you--and that is the hardest part I think, MAKING THE DECISION. When I decided to leave my farm and home making the decison was SO difficult, but once I made it I have not looked back. I won't let myself look back, and I am looking at it like the RAFT on the river bank---if I look back and second guess myself I will have lost the farm and my contentment too--I have to look forward to new things, new goals, new mountains to climb--and new dreams!

Someone once pointed out to me that poor people usually don't "mind" being poor if they have never known anything else, AND NEVER EXPECTED ANYTHING ELSE, but if a RICH man who has known GREAT Wealth loses his wealth and becomes poor, he is FOREVER MISERABLE.

I think when we perceive that EXPECTATIONS=REALITY we are usually pretty happy, but when we perceive that expectations do NOT=reality we are miserable.

So for me at least, I need to get "real" and "accept reality" as not being what I want, but I need to EXPECT what is real. Make any sense? Laughing

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Life is lived forward, but understood backwards.

dagna · member Joined: 18 Apr 2007 Posts: 493

Nancy,
I have those 'sentimental' (I know it is more than that, but I don't have a word for it) periods too. When I had to go and refinance the house, I cried at the bank. I'm not one to cry easily. The mortgage guy was very nice about it. I just kept thinking about when we bought the house-- I was pregnant with #1. That was 9 years ago. So many hopes and dreams. I am so thankful that it all worked out so that I could keep it, but it was a different house then. I wasn't asking for a fairy tale, I am still perplexed by the whole thing at times.

Also, I too get worried about posting positive things about N on here, but N is an amazing person, and I have grown in so many ways because of him. It doesn't mean I want him back, it just helps me understand why I fell for it.

This is hard, but you will get through it.
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Sail on silvergirl,
Sail on by.
Your time has come to shine.
-Paul Simon