yet another fab
ulous post on LoveFraud.com"...In those first minutes and hours and days away from him, within the protective veil of No Contact, I came face to face with reality and accepted my truth. I never loved him. I wanted to think I did. I truly wanted to believe I did. But, in reality, I loved a mirage. A shimmering creation of his duplicitous creation. He was the chimera. Facilely capable of shifting shape to suit the weather, the time zone, the geographic formations around him.
I never loved him. I loved the thought of him. The idea. The dream.
In accepting the reality of my love of the idea of him versus the truth of who he was, I freed 
myself to awaken from the nightmare of his embrace. In my awakening, I opened myself up to all that is possible when I let go of living on cloud nine, squeezing my feet into too small high heeled shoes that inevitably trip me up. Feet firmly planted on the ground in my size nine hiking boots, and armed with my shield of No Contact, I strode fearlessly away from my need to hear his voice, to know what he was doing and saying and thinking. To make sense of his nonsense. To understand his machinations.
He did what he did because he could. It’s what he does. It’s who he is..."
Click here for full article.Love and hugs, Laura
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I love this Laura! It is so true. After I finally blocked all his numbers on my home phone and keeping my voicemail full on my cell phone so he could not even leave me a message and blocking and bouncing his emails (all of which felt as though they required my defense, cutting and negative) I embarked on a campaign of letting him know I knew what he was all about. I even gave him the grace, inhuman as he is, to express compassion for the nightmare that has been and always will be his life, even after discovering his romancing other women while romancing me (he guaranteed his monogamy as I was worried about health issues). Recently he took up with another seemingly sweet woman who has a young child and I began to worry about her. Gratefully she made contact with me and I was able to leave some places and books of information should she need it anytime.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really amazing is, the man I have endured since I made a decision to leave his home after only four weeks (it took me a week longer to plan my retreat without his knowledge) is not the man I began to love more than a year previous. The two of him are diametrically opposed...the one who romanced me for a year and a bit and the one I found myself residing with after only four weeks.
I most certainly don't love the man left standing. He's pitiful and empty and will never know real love. He's a well rehearsed user. Of course their will be many women who think they have something special and can sooth the pain he expresses when his NS needs refilling and sadly they also will suffer and suddenly say to themselves, "What the **** was that?!"....the perverbial house of mirrors.
I have been so lucky to be in close contact with people close to him, who have known him almost all of his life and who have watched him do this over and over and over and over...13 known relationships of any length (two years to five) and many more shorter ones.
The people close to him who have reached out to me are tormented by his illness and know there is no cure so they generously and compassionately help those who suffer at his hands and have helped me to understand how ill he is. They can picked me up, brushed me off a year ago and I have spent this year learning who it is anyone could fool me so completely. Forgiving myself for being so gullible has been part of the process.... think we are smarter than that...and learning that there are humans on earth who have no soul, no essence was something I really, really needed to know and didn't until this year.
In reality though and to the credit of all kinds of women who find themselves in such a state, these performances...these "false" people are deserving of the highest Academy Award available!
Also very interesting Laura, the man I knew for several years has NEVER, in his life, been without a woman since he was a teen. He claims to have been but because I have had close relationships with people who know him all to well, I know that he has never been alone. He overlaps romances so he is never left to be with himself alone. Often he has more than one going at a time...in one and priming another. From what I read it is because he loathes himself and needs a constant positive supply or even negative supply rather than be by himself with his thoughts. The man I knew was so afflicted (in his 60s) that he calls his mother almost every single day to elicit NS from her (she's in her 80's). He has very strained unhappy lifetime relationship with his mother. She doesn't play his game always and he's terribly offended. But he continues to call. His portrayal of his life to her is another Academy Award Winning performance not unlike his performance for all of his women (objects) of ns always seeking her approval and never getting it because his behavior is unacceptable. She never wants to meet any more of his women (gratefully I did not meet her as his "flavor of the year", I at least was warned by people who cared about me and I avoided that indignity). Even a grown daughter of his told him "I like ALL your girlfriends dad!" and he didn't even get what that meant he has so little grasp as to what is appropriate and what isn't. I'm thinking, I may have met a very severe case of this disorder when I remember him inviting me to join him on a holiday with his ex wife of some 20 years past and a grown daughter. Reading all I have in the past several months it is clear that these people have NO empathy and they have to learn appropriateness from observing other people. Wow...I have to say...I'm not certain why the universe decided I should meet and begin to care for someone like this. I have always believed that humanity is redeemable. I've been proved absolutely wrong in this case. Thank you to those people close to him that helped me, thank you to you Laura for your ongoing dedication to this blog and the introduction to books that once I began to read proved to be an exact blueprint of my experience. That's spooky! : )
ReplyDeleteWow, you find the stuff that always has me thinking, reviewing, making sense of the mess that was my life. Earl also had a toxic, co-dependent relationship with his Mom, but she was a psychopath too, with way more power over him than he over her, but the two of them kept the negative supply flowing so much I often felt like I was drowning in THEIR broken relationship.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I fell for an illusion, and I can see that now, despite the fact that everyone I knew all those years ago saw it when we started dating. Including one of my friends I've now figured out is himself a Narcissist. So his ex-wife and I are working through some of this together. The problem for her is she's never - we're never going to be fully free of him because he is the father of my namesake.
I still wrestle with the feelings, that while for an illusion, are no less real for me. I guess that's growth though, at least I have a better idea of what I'm working with now. I still haven't written about it much, but believe it or not when we had lunch that day you set in motion a process that is still unfolding in my head and heart. It's being an adventure, and something five years in therapy haven't been able to manage. I'm kinda marveling at that.
I also have a target now thanks to something I read last night. It was fiction, but still struck a chord in me, so it was then no less real I guess. I Realized I don't want to die broken and bitter with regrets. Had a good cry over that, and while I'm not certain how I'm going to manage it, I feel like I have a destination to head for, and that is a great goodness.
Something else that happened after lunch, I spent several day angry. Really angry. Because IT had no right or reason to treat you the way he did. Which for me was amazing, because it was honestly the first time I ever got really angry and nothing horrible came of it for me. It's growth, progress, positive forward and upward movement and I'm kind of amazed.
I also finally have a perspective on the comment you made about me being lucky because Earl was dead. The closure. I'm starting to see that more clearly too, and it dawned on me reading this post, and Heather's comments that I can rest easy that he's NEVER going to be able to hurt someone the way he did me, ever again. That alone is an amazing gift.
Thanks Laura,
Sam
Laura, I wish to restate the two books, recommended as I combed through your site that were amazing in turning on the light for me, blueprints of my experience...removing the "deer in the headlights" shock and confusion. Hopefully, anyone arriving at your site will find these two as helpful. A very extensive book, written by what the psychological community considers the authority on the subject is: Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited - by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.; the other being Narcissistic Lovers, How to Cope, Recover and Move On - by Cynthia Zayne and Kevin Dibble, MS. I found Narcissistic Lovers to be the quickest read and easiest to relate to as it is written in layman language and it left me with the shocking, "there it is in black and white!...my exact experience!"
ReplyDeleteThank you again Laura. You are an amazing person to expose your pain as you have to help so many others. I greatly appreciate your sacrifice.
I wish to share one more really good article which helps to clarify, "it can happen to anyone". http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/12-24-2001-8349.asp
ReplyDeleteLaura? How do these people ever get diagnosed? Their very nature is to believe it is their bad luck to have picked all the wrong women....and the man I knew was looking for women from broken marriages and troubled pasts...for obvious reasons. It is for him that all dozen or more women he had relationships with over a period of 40 years with most relationships lasting only several years, several as much as 5 years and shorter ones inbetween which they don't even acknowledge. Another thing also is that they are never alone...never. He would deny that and claim he had been along many times...the numbers however don't add up and of course he has many on the string at once ready for one to fail, there is another to invest time in. Totally bizarre, but true. I have read three books and of course your amazing blog and they are like a blueprint of my experience. There is no diagnosis, just my absolute recognition of behavior. Therefore, it is just my opinion from experience. The lists that say, if he's some of these he is likely NPD...he's was ALL OF THE ABOVE. I highly doubt there will ever be a diagnosis. I have washed my hands and walked away and want no more to do with him in any way shape or form. I couldn't even consider his request to stay friends. Yikes...friends? I trust my friends. I am finally free. But I have no concept of how these people are diagnosed.
ReplyDeleteHi Heather, This is one of the perplexing problems for those researching sociopathy and NPD. Since most NPD/sociopaths don't seek therapy they are rarely diagnosed. It is my understanding that most of those diagnosed are so during couple's therapy. Further experts agree that NPD/sociopaths often fool the experts/therapists. This IS indeed a problem. My ex was diagnosed while attending a marriage counseling session with his ex-wife.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes... it is in their nature to blame their ex's defects for their relationship ills. My own ex said he was, in the end, unwilling to give up his dream of finding the perfect mate.
Your question is part of the ongoing debate about labels. Is our recognizing our ex's as NPD's and labeling it as such damaging to them? Perhaps, but the truth is that the REAL damage is being done to the victims of NPD not to those who recognize their partners in diagnostic criteria.
Samantha, My ex's Mom is also NPD, BIG TIME- the overt whining kind who has a great deal of power over my ex (and unfortunately over his ex-wife as well.) And yes, the negative supply that flows is stronger than any river! And, YES I look forward to the phone call from his ex that announces IT has passed. I plan to solemnly attend the funeral and then celebrate. Sadly, that will be the only closure I will ever have...and not before he has damaged countless more lives.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting that for two of you...your "N's had toxic relationships with their mothers who also were "N"s. The man I knew for two years, as I wrote above, does also. He and his mother are so very lucky to have a most compassionate decent family member caring for them. My heart goes out to him and his wife who have little in the way of there own lives to live and ongoing misery to deal with.
ReplyDeleteI've always believed I will be ok. Once reading these books and realizing and accepting that this is not "personal", that no human on earth is a person to these people, I'm able to add my name to the list of the many he has extracted what he needs from and I might add, I feel honored, because for the most part the list of women are very impressive. They are strong, beautiful and well accomplished women.
I have no difficulty separating the man I met who romanced me from the man I see now. That was pretty much a no-brainer. It's a strange phenomena. It is as though one falls in love with a leading man in a movie. The difference is you actually do interact with them. No wonder so many leading ladies in Hollywood are so screwed up. LOL But joking aside, there was a man that began a relationship with me and by his making, it was pretty intense and suddenly he is gone. What does one do with all the emotion vested into someone who never existed? There in lies my conundrum.
I'm remembering a statement my "N" said to me when I left his home in retreat and I chuckle..he said,"You are giving up the most remarkable relationship you will ever have doing this Heather and you will languish away in mediocrity for all that is the rest of your life and none of your dreams will ever come true." That statement really didn't hit home until I began to read these books. This sad souless man really does believe he is a god.
I'm grateful I'm basically a coward and ran for the hills upon realizing I had signed up for a life of misery if I chose to stay.
....and yes I do worry a little, although realistically I don't want to worry about his next victims. His most recent attempt was with a young woman (21 years his junior) who has an 11 year old daughter. That bothered me greatly...no child can possibly benefit from watching there mother be emotionally abused. It could destroy that child's life. Gratefully, she made contact with me to let me know she chose not to engage with him and he's on to "greener pastures" as she put it. I'm relieved for that child. Our children, when they are young, need parents who are emotionally healthy. I don't care where that greener pasture is, I don't want to know. I read the book "Emotional Rape Syndrome" also and read that some women commit suicide over these men. So every day I ask the universe to "stop this man". I have no idea how I would feel if I ever heard some poor emotionally beaten woman killed herself over him.
I have passed your blog onto one of my "N"s family members as they deal on a daily basis with the "mother" and it is no easy task. I don't envy this wonderful family there task. I have the easy role...it's just to walk away, which I did, but not before pummeling my "N" with emails filled with my righteous anger over my bad decisions based on misinformation that cost me 10s of thousands of dollars over almost three years. There was definitely some healing came from that exercise.
Some 17 months since I left his home after being there just over a month and 2 months after removing myself as his support system and friend and follwoing 2 months of writing my anger to him, I have begun to feel safe enough to remove the blocks from my phone, the messages blocking my cell and the blocks on his emails. I am confident he has finally given up the ghost and his ongoing attempts to keep toxic communication with me in an effort to get me under control, humiliate me back into some kind of promise with him.
ReplyDeleteHe is gone and my life is once again my own. :) All I have to do now is catagorize the past 3 years of my life which is pretty much just a big empty hole. I will succeed.
Heather, please remain cautious. Quiet often means that the enemy is planning an attack.
ReplyDeletePlease clarify Laura? An attack? His home is 600 miles from mine. He is off to greener pastures. An attack...perhaps I should put the blocks back on. I'm not worried because I recognize I'm nothing to him. That doesn't hurt at all, it gives me freedom. What kind of attack?
ReplyDeleteLook up "secondary supply". N's hang onto a collection of past relationships as a source of secondary supply when they don't have access to primary supply. They can pop back into your life when you least expect it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is ignorance that leads me to believe I am safe from him now. I can't imagine he want's anything more to do with me. He pretty much found himself attempting to hang on to a wild animal, scratching and hissing, fighting back and successfully getting away. The word is, he's moved on. Although I have witnessed his childish rages he has not stalked me (too far away). I did determine from seeing him abuse his dogs and cats and hearing the same from others that he has a potential of violence, but I never experienced it other than verbal, emotional and psychological abuse.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping he has forgotten my name and perhaps prematurely believing that.
I can't think of what kind of an attack he would put the effort into. He knows clearly I have absolutely no respect for him, nor desire to be around him or have contact with him. That must have been very humiliating for him.
Ok...looking it up. I do know that he has several women from his past that he continues to communicate with and lie to, one he contacted several times in front of me when I was in his home...but those are women who perhaps blame themselves. I'm very different. He'd have been better off trying to cuddle a wild cat than to have tried to engage with me once I found out he was a pathological liar and lived many lives besides the one I knew. He is aware I know who he is only too well.
ReplyDeleteBut in the interest of continuing my relief and excitement about the future I will leave the blocks on. He knows he cannot get through to my home number from either of his two numbers. He gets a message that says I am not receiving calls from this number. He can no longer leave me messages on my cell as I discovered how many messages need to be left on it so my voicemail remains full (escaping his voice or message on my birthday just three weeks ago...his number was there but my voicemail was full) and I have rules bouncing and deleting all his emails from my computers and my server. I am absolutely confident that he won't travel 600 miles to make any further attempts. He is basically lazy.
Maybe another six months would be prudent?
Thanks Laura...I read a wonderful article. It is true that he tried to create a negative supply with me and did for some months of which I escaped. I have been very clear with him that he'll have to go elsewhere. Great article though http://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/malignant-self-love/narcissists-narcissistic-supply-and-sources-of-supply/menu-id-1469/
ReplyDeleteThank you again and I will leave my walls of protection up but I'm remaining confident and excited about today, tomorrow and the next days after that. : )
I feel so very blessed Laura. This has been a fast journey for me compared to some. Having support, for the past year, from the people who know him and finding your blog just several months ago, I am smoothly transitioning into myself again. I have to say though, that without you and your blog and reading as much as I have that you have recommended here, I don't know if I would have come to this place I am now in so quickly. Knowledge is power.
ReplyDeleteEmotional health for me is in my perception. That is...for so long I felt cheated, betrayed, used and most certainly abused. Now I look back and thank the universe I was able to wiggle free and fight my way back to my life.
How do I see him? I see him as a fool. A joke. A person to be pitied because he really, truly believes he's a god. If he only knew what everyone who knows him really thought of him as he makes his profound defensive statements like: "People worship me!", "You are giving up the most remarkable life and relationship if you leave me Heather and you will languish in mediocrity for the rest of your life and none of your dreams will come true." How sad.
The greatest revenge is to get ourselves back on track...to reclaim our essence and ourselves. That was not taken from us...we must to go back to where we last had that confidence, that joy for life, that promise….where we were before we came across these pitiful souless people...remember what it was we were doing and why and start our journey forward from there.
Maybe it is because I am an artist that I can visualize the process so effectively. I see me as a furry little wild rabbit, bouncing about the wilderness, nibbling on grass. A man spotted me bouncing about enjoying life as I did. He was a tortured man who was jealous of my freedom and gently…tenderly…lured me to him with fresh alfalfa pellets and beautiful fresh carrots, tender strokes and all the things little rabbits aspire to. He caught me and caged me and begins his methodical ritual of abusing me. He took away the carrots, the pellets and the gentle stroking and began his ritual torture..the same torture he inflicts on all the rabbits he has lured. He wouldn't let me go because he enjoys the euphoric power he feels torturing me. But I had help…there were those around him who see his sickness and who felt pity on me and who opened my cage door and begged me to take the opportunity to run…and I did. But not first without inflicting my most lethal bites repeatedly on him….and I was once again free. I found my way back to that wonderful meadow I was living in before he found me. I am back to enjoying my freedom and the sweet grass I was nibbling on, but I am wiser now for the experience and will not be lured in again as I had been.
I have a deep love and respect for all animals. Wild ones and domestic ones. I have been a pet owner for all that is my life until my divorce five years ago when my husband took the little dog that I bought for him and who was a member of our family. I have never entertained adopting another pet as for now, in my life, I do not feel as though I can offer the dedication and stability an pet deserves to live a life of dignity. Their lives are so short compared to ours. So I enjoy my friends pets very, very much.
ReplyDeleteA year ago, he said to me, when I was encouraging him to give up his dogs because he did not live a lifestyle that lent to their quality of life…the dogs he treats so badly most of the time…"I'm not going to get rid of the only things that love me so very much!" And therein lies the motivation of these twisted humans. It is all about what pleasure they can derive from controlling and keeping captive, beings (animals and humans) here on earth. No matter how he treats those poor dogs, throws things at them, kicks them, screams at them, leaves them in their own filth (often they have to relieve themselves where he leaves them because he leaves them for so long and they are punished for that), rarely walks them unless there is someone in his life watching, leaves them in his van for days and days and in his home unattended for days and days and days while he pursues other sources of "ns" (women) and then returns. He then lets them out and feeds them and they are so desperate and grateful for that attention and he equates their gratitude with love for him. How sad for those beautiful dogs and he thinks no one is watching. How pitiful he is.
I'm not afraid of him anymore Laura. I understand now what he is. It was never about me,…my joy for life, my essence, my bubbly nature and my positive outlook. I was enjoying all that life offered me when he snared me in his trap. He is jealous of me and of all others who are content in their imperfect bodies and lives. He will never have that. I have freed myself and he will never be able to approach me again. He doesn't scare me anymore because I know, clearly, without reservation, what he is. I refuse to live my life afraid. My life is worth way more than that. He will never come looking for me again either. I am too dangerous. I expose him and he is aware of that.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I will always be here for the other bunnies he snares if they come looking for me. I will help them, as you help so many others in identifying this sick souless being. I consider this knowledge the greatest gift I could have ever stumbled upon in this painful, confusing and mind boggling journey. I am free!
The little girl he attempted to snare after me and who decided, perhaps because of the age difference of 22 years, that he was not for her…found herself assisting him in storing his belongings so he could rent his house and travel in his van with his dogs to "greener pastures". In her family blog, she referred to the experience and to him as "Hector the Collector"…referring to his collection of "stuff". She gratefully has no idea how poignant and symbolic her statement was. He is a collector of humans….he collects them in an attempt to steal their essence….to fill the hole in his being. He is a body walking this earth that is empty. He is truly the personification of evil.
ReplyDeleteSpent the evening with a girlfriend and oddly although we weren't discussing my experience with an "N"....my mind was mulling over things and attempting to identify feelings that occasionally emerge. I discovered tonight that additional to being angry about financial burden I incurred based on his pathological lies and although I only stayed with him at the longest 5 weeks there were many holidays together during the year and a half we dated...I discovered I am also extremely insulted about the entire event that took almost 2 years of my life away. I suppose it's not much different than how one would feel if a friend dissed you so badly. It is insulting.
ReplyDeleteThis reference has some very soothing information!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.narcissismfree.com/
I knew something wasn't right with him.... It bothered me. I flip flopped back and forth with the idea of him being an N... I guess I didn't want to believe it. I consider myself to be intelligent... How could this have happened to me? As I write this I am ignoring his phone calls. It has been 3 weeks since I told him to go away and stop sending me text messages... I'm guessing that his current didn't give him any supply this weekend. He is on the hunt. It won't be me this time. I have made up my mind. In fact, because he is calling me... I'm taking that power and walking away with it.
ReplyDelete