Book and Website Recommendation if you don't think they are "psycho"

If you have read my blog, then you know that I'm pretty hard-core about the personality disorders that create these sorts of people and toxic relationships.

Im also very aware that many people struggle with doing the same, that is, they aren't ready to concede that the men or women they are involved with, are "psychopaths", "sociopaths" or "narcissists." Though I have blogged many times about how we cannot rely on the media to label what abusive people really look like and act like, some women still think that because the men in their lives can sometimes show loving traits (often to everyone BUT them), can be endearing and actually do good in this world, that they are not "evil" and not emotionally dangerous in the long run.

In enters my recommendation, which is the website called "Baggage Reclaim", by Natalie Lue. Having found herself in one too many of these kinds of relationships, Natalie began blogging 5 years ago and has become an e-book author, and workshop producer(both physical and online) helping women all over the world identify what she calls "assclowns"-or more benignly than me-"Emotionally Unavailable."

http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/

Labels are not so important. The behaviors, the words, the deeds and the resulting pain, unhappiness, confusion and damage, is. As I have stated before-just like there are varying degrees of physical illness, perhaps there are varying degrees of mental illness so while your "psycho" may never kill someone and treats children amazingly well-this doesn't mean that you should continue to attempt the one-sided and drama, pain-ridden relationships that these types offer. "Emotionally Unavailable" is in fact, the nutshell that drives ALL of the games that I myself have written of, which Natalie also has written extensively about, and in greater detail than I.

She also takes it a step further and begins where I left off: She helps you learn how to heal from it, recover yourself and ensure you wont ever find a man like this again-and if you do, you won't want or stick around for it.

With amazing clarity and insight, Natalie takes you through your own mind and has you ask yourself some pointed questions for soul searching, of how these men inflitrate and why you may allow it to happen.

The first time it happens, you are a victim. Unfortunately, the damage done by just one of these relationships sets you up to keep attracting them over and over again. Natalie-known as NML-helps us to figure out how that happens, and what we can do about it-the key to it all being that WE have become "emotionally unavailable."

The psychology is logical and makes perfect sense-and shes not a therapist, shes just been thru it. Like me. They cant teach this stuff as well in textbooks, anyway-if you want to know how to do something, you need to go to the sources who have DONE it.

Natalies latest e-book-"Mr. Unavailable and the Fall-Back Girl", helps you recognize the emotionally-devoid men, and how we end up being a "fall back girl", and why it is we accept this role.

From diving into old hurts, to old patterns, to self-esteem issues and our own emotional avoidance of intimacy-Natalie truly tells you like it is. More importantly, she gently and compassionately helps you to tell YOURSELF how it is.

This website and her subsequent books are not for the faint of heart. It requires soul-searching, inner work and a true desire to heal and move on to find the love and good that we deserve. Nothing good comes easily yet the rewards for the task, the empowerment and the hope that her work will and has accomplished for women all over the world speak for themselves-and she is living proof as she is with a wonderful man and has 2 children by him-after years of struggling with painful, emotionally abusive and as she states, "assclowns."

Natalie also offers many FREE mini-ebooks and worksheets, and goes into the subject of "No Contact" so in-depth, that she wrote a book AND offers free 30-day emails to help you get thru that first month of it. Amazing!

I urge everyone to go over to her site. I've covered the basics here comparatively, and hope that I have opened one eye for people. NML will open both of the eyes WIDE and keep them open, and is the Visine to get the red out. Please support her works-for your OWN good!!!

*I do not personally know Ms. Lue and there is no sort of compensation for my "endorsement" here. She simply has devoted her life and energy to this subject and deserves it, and not only that-would be exactly the kind of thing I would continue to blog. Except I don't have to-shes done all the work for me! :)

How it ended, pt 2-and How it feels when it does

I've lost dear ones who have passed away, I've been divorced from a non-disordered, and I've lost touch with people I've cared about. But nothing, NOTHING could prepare me for this kind of a "loss".

There’s nothing more frightening then emerging from some hypnotic coma to the fact that this man you’ve allowed in your life is disordered and will probably never get help. Getting him to love you is not the way out of it. Loving yourself is the way out of it. To break through the denial requires anger, and not caring anymore what he or anyone else thinks of that. It all hurts, and its so hard to come to terms with.

I was shell-shocked for a couple weeks, barely able to function, once it was all said and done. I couldn’t eat, sleep or think, really. I walked around in a daze. I looked around at other women-on the subway, in the grocery store and I wondered if they would’ve ever taken his crap. I really hated myself for not seeing it, or seeing it but not believing it. I smoked a lot, I drank a lot of wine. Didn’t talk to friends much. The ones I did-I think I scared a few.

I was incredibly tired. I broke out, I could hardly jump in the shower My hair began to fall out from the stress. I felt dissoacted from life, disconnected from people and like I was walking around in an alternate reality. I felt numb, and stressed. I couldn’t relax, rest or focus my attention on much of anything. I had muscle twitches and laid in bed not even being able to feel my body. My thinking was obsessed-all I could think about was what happened. My anger was intense. I wanted to keep coming at him, telling him off, telling him that I see it all now, and I wanted him to pay.

I then would sink into a depression of despair, hating myself for ever loving this man, wondering why I didn’t get out of it when I knew it was all true before. How was it that I would sink back into denial and continue to want to believe there was a normal human being there, albeit just very messed up? I was truly emotionally traumatized.

I know that I haven’t told my personal story here. Given some examples, but I don’t know if I have to. If this has happened to you, you know what story is. These men are shocking and horrific and its amazing that ANYONE can say and do the things that they do, just for effect, not concerned at all how it will make you feel. They learn something hurts you-and just rub your face in. You end up doing it back at him-and shame and hate for yourself creeps in. You’ve let yourself turn into him.

I’d look at people and wonder why they couldn’t see that someone had just chewed me up and spit me out. I’d see people laughing, I’d see friends on Facebook status inane and mundane shallow messages, and I’d feel even more alien, more hurt. I had no black eye, no missing tooth to express what he did to me.

If I mentioned the word “abuse” the first question was “OMG did he hit you?”-and when I said no, they seemed to dismiss it and not give it the merit that being hit would’ve. This hurt and angered me more. I’ve been defending myself against this asshole for some 5 years now, and now I have to defend and “prove” myself against the world.

There is much truth in the saying that unless you’ve been in a relationship with a personality disordered person-you will NEVER get it.

I hid, I withdrew. I couldn’t really carry on normal conversations with people, I couldn’t pretend I was just fine. No one knew, and no one seemed to care-mostly because, no one really knew that this guy was in my life, because he wasn’t presented to anyone as a boyfriend. I had almost wished I was married to him, only to be able to even prove a relationship really existed.

Physically, I had aches and pain, I cried a lot. I became just like him in that my paranoia about people-even friends I’ve had for years, became intense. I questioned everyone’s motives in my life and starting feeling that no one in my life really cared about me at all, and that I maybe ended up like this because I am the bad person. At times, I questioned my own sanity and wondered if I hadn't just taken it all wrong.

In many respects, it was like withdrawing from a drug, where you are literally sick, throwing up, nightmares, unable to function. It’s detox-and it’s not pretty.Many people will say that it's like coming out of a cult, and it's true.

Especially because you are doing it all alone-because you just can’t prove just how bad it’s all been. Alone and lonely in such an intense way it hurts. Which is a big reason I started this blog. I hope to spare even one person from thinking that no one out there could ever understand.

I do. After a period of mourning, I literally had to force myself to go on with my life. All the things I’ve neglected and other problems occurring in my life, had to be dealt with and I felt very much alone. I was, in a way-no one else could do this for me. I wanted to be saved, the same way I tried to save him-but I wasn’t that lucky. I had to stand on my own. Went pretty much cold turkey. I reached out to friends and forced myself to be social. I thought and contemplated about what to do with the rest of my life now-so much time spent wasted on him, ways to help him, I had neglected myself. What do I really want? What am I really doing?

I had to push thoughts of “Will I ever meet someone else again?” out of my mind, saying I’ll worry about it later, at the same time, being totally disgusted at the idea of a relationship. My mind couldn’t even fathom a “normal” relationship, as I’d look at couples out in public, listen to songs on the radio and wonder what it must be like to actually be loved, and wondering if I wasn’t so jaded now that I will never know that. Will I ever believe anyone ever again? Often I’d slip back into denial, where I’d start giving him the benefit of the doubt, wonder if I wasn’t being too harsh, wondering if I had taken it all the wrong way, wondering if I had acted different, would he had been different?

Of course he ignored any attempts at my communications and it only furthered his cause in making me look as though I had lost it, was crazy, stalking him and unable to accept and let go. EVEN THOUGH I ENDED IT.

I looked for support, therapy and to rebuild my shattered heart and scrambled mind. It helped a great deal. Domestic violence counselors will give you all kinds of handouts and “pie charts” that show the cycles of abuse and the minds of abusers, the tactics that they use. Even though you can come across that information yourself-there’s something incredibly healing In telling another person your story, and not only do they believe it, but they too tell you that there’s no doubt, you have been abused. You aren’t crazy.

That’s all you can do. Your life does go on….and should. I know that this can be so traumatic that it can lead you to thinking about ending your life. I don’t think abuse ends up killing women because the man literally kills her himself-I would bet that there are a lot more victims of domestic violence who have chosen to kill themselves as the way out, instead. Its not because you love him so much that you can’t live without him, its because the betrayal is so severe and the reality of dealing with someone truly insane and mentally ill is horrifying. The idea that someone never cared about you at all is heartbreaking and sickening. I know that those thoughts crept into my mind-and that’s when I knew that I was really, REALLY in trouble here. Especially if he’s isolated you in any way, you may not have much friends to go to, and the one’s you do have are also his. You can’t go there. But you can come here. And to other blogs and forums-there is help and support here.

Ok, but seriously....can he ever change?

On some websites, they are very hard-core in believing that abusers can't and will never change. I am personally inclined to believe that the chances of them changing and becoming a non-abuser are very slim, indeed. I think it would take a very strong act of some sort, some major life consequence and a series of losses for them to even consider that they may have some sort of problem.

With narcissist, the chances are slim to none that they will change, because they simply don't believe there is anything wrong with them-it is everyone else. They have too strong of a programmed ego to believe that they NEED to change, anyway. If they experience problems with people, they simply move on to new people, believing that the other people were the cause of the problems. This is why a narcissist will bitterly complain about most the people in their past with whom they no longer associate with. They rarely if ever take ownership for their role in a relationship, and even if they were to see that there is something "wrong" with them-they really aren't too concern in changing it, because there will always be a new person(s) to extract what they need from.

With a sociopath, they will never change, because not unlike being born with a birth defect, they simply lack something in their emotional make-up that gives them empathy, compassion-a soul.

Now a psychopath, in the true clinical psychological sense, cannot change, but-if the "psycho-ness" is caused by other factors (ie, bi polar, drug addiction, product of abuse, etc)-with lots of therapy, self-awareness and treatment, there may be hope for change.

The problem we run into is in trying to diagnose the person we are with, and clinging to the hope that they are in the small percentage of personality disordered people that if they just got help, could become different and better people.

So, what if your psycho falls into that bracket? There's only one way to really help him then.

Don’t spend one more minute trying to force things to work between you. Accept and let go that they haven’t, and they mostly likely never will. LET HIM GO.

Look at it this way: Even if deep down you want to believe he loved you, or does love you, that there’s hope for him-you are not doing him any favors by holding onto him and letting him abuse you. People don’t learn when they are being enabled with their crap, or someone always rescues them from their choices.

I’ve had to learn this the hard way, perhaps you have too-and so does he. Your leaving him might be the biggest favor, the most loving act you can do for him, because it may force him to have to wake up to himself and the consequences of his own actions. He has to learn to grow up and take responsibility for himself, and if you are sitting there unwilling to move out of his way, continuing to be a target-he will never grasp that his behavior and actions are unacceptable.

If your child did something wrong, you wouldn't threaten to ground them, you WOULD ground them. If you just threatened it, and never gave a consequence, not only would they not respect you, but they wouldn't learn right from wrong. Sure, kids "hate you" when you punish them, but then grow up to thank you for it.

So if that man who you want to believe deep down really isn’t truly an abusive narcissist, but a troubled man who could change-you have to let him feel the consequences, hate you for it-but don’t wait for a thank you. Just move on with your life, and maybe you will, maybe you won’t see a change or gratitude, but you WILL be sending the message that you are worth more, you deserve to be treated well, you aren’t out to control and change him, because you have finally walked what YOU'VE talked- and that’s the most powerful lesson you can give him at all.

Deep down, he’ll feel it. You may never hear of it. You may never know of it. Someday, someone may look you up, seeking out your advice about him. You want to be that girl.

Empower yourself. Recognize that your life is also about choices. You do have power. Again remember this: The person that caused this much pain in you, cannot fix the pain he caused. If he was capable of this, he never would’ve done this in the first place, and he would’ve stopped the first time he saw how hurt you are, or he would’ve left you alone. Stop looking for him to fix it.

Yes, he is responsible for the hurting. Logically we think, he should be responsible for the fixing. But, he’s not. If you look closely you’ll see-he doesn’t even take care of himself. That’s why YOU tried to.

Moving on from the damage, pt 2

My apologies, I have a family member in the hospital and my signal was not so great at my new place. But, my relative is doing much better, being released and internet problems fixed, so now I hope to get back to blogging consistently. Thanks to those who wrote with encouraging words.

So now you’ve decided to leave him. The truth is, sometimes they hope you will end it, so then he’d have more reason to feel sorry for himself, more self pity so then the next woman that came along could hear his sad story about YOU. And to throw it back in your face-because if you are the one who ended it, what are you so upset about? Why are you coming back around with unsolved questions? You dumped him, remember? You just hurt HIM. You didn’t want him, you rejected him, you weren’t patient enough, understanding enough, and you left him, and gave up on him. But understand something: He won’t let you be the one to end it.

Some will do whatever he can to have you take him back- the "hoovering" and then he will cruelly and viciously dump you. If he is unable to get that chance, then no matter the truth-the next woman to come along will be told that “I ended it with her", about you. If you truly end it, trust me, he will vacillate back and forth between the “You dumped and hurt me!” to twisting it around again, blaming his abuse to you to be that he just didn’t want you, something wasn’t there, he tried, he rejected YOU but because he was “afraid” to hurt you, he didn’t know how to come right out, sit you down and be honest with you, because he was afraid of what you would do if he truly hurt you and let you down like that. Yes, he’s THAT good at psychological warfare, that by the time you’re done, even when YOU are ending it, he makes you feel that HE was the one who really wanted out.

And he will convince everyone outside of the two of you of this as well. The whole “She didn’t fire me, I quit!’ mentality, stripping you of your dignity and your right to stand up for yourself, to feel proud of yourself that you were strong enough to throw him away and get better. No one leaves him-he decides when you can go.

You know-he’s the DECIDER. You will pay for ending with him in some way, some form. But if you have been successful in your attempts to expose him, have anything “on him”, and he truly realizes you are not the women to “fuck with” anymore, will he leave you be, and leave you. As hard as it is, you also have to do the same. Not because he deserves it-he deserves all your wrath and then some, and you feel like you could tell him off for the next 20 years and never take a break-you have to stop. For no other reason than HE DOESN'T CARE.

He’s not listening. If you are reduced to writing him, he’s not reading your words. He reads them but doesn’t GET IT. He will then frustrate you further, as he denies not receiving your texts, claims to be deleting them before reading them, and the same with email. Don’t believe this. After many times of denying, I finally utilized “read receipt” on texts and email notifications-when they were opened and how long they were opened for without his knowledge, just to prove to myself that I’m not crazy. Considering that I’ve been with 3 men like this who all say and do the same things-trust me, they are paying attention. Their paranoia alone has them curious and wondering where they stand with you and what you may be “scheming” up.

Moving on from the damage, part one

Now that you’ve shown a less than perfect side, they have an upper hand. They make demands. “I asked you to believe me”. “I asked you to just trust me.” “I asked you to stop.” See, they think that because they are “asking” vs. “telling” that this is somehow camouflaging their controlling ways.

Yet when confronted, they will often say “I told you the truth now back off,” “ I told you many times how I felt, I’m not going to repeat myself” or “I told you over and over again about why, now can’t you just let it be?"

Incidentally, they have a very odd vocabulary. When they do speak its like a tower of babble bullshit, and they might as well be speaking in tongues, because what they say, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They get tongue tied, say outrageous things then back peddle to say “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that.” They will express that they have a hard time “opening up” or “talking about emotional things.” And they do. It’s almost impossible for them and they grapple with this the same way a child is trying to master reading. When they speak, they sound exactly like a child who is stumbling through a book. Its very frustrating. But this is only when asked to speak in a vulnerable, “emotional” like “tell me how you feel” sort of way. Otherwise, they are the masters at glib and conversing, using unique words, word structure and have a rather extensive vocabulary.


In any event, this relationship can drag out forever-because while you may end up yelling, screaming, name calling, “threatening” and cajoling-you don’t DO anything. You don’t leave him, or you keep taking him back. Sometimes, you even seek HIM out. He will keep coming back, and you will keep taking him back, and vise-versa. While you wouldn’t wish him on anyone, you sometimes are hoping he will just find someone else to be the main source of his narcissistic supply. You’d gladly hand your crown over even though he thinks you’ll be mortally wounded if he does. After all, you were once. You reach a point where you hope for someone else to get him off your hands to get you out of it, or become obsessed with trying to change it.

You constantly step into a WayBack machine and transport yourself back to your very first meeting, and re-invent the whole relationship in your head. What you SHOULDVE DONE. What you COULDVE DONE. How you should, could or would’ve been different. If only’s and why didn’t I’s and I should haves become a mantra that you can only mindlessness mumble like a thorazined out psych patient, the things you wish you said, the things you wish you didn’t say, the things he said, the things you wish he HAD said and now all the things you WANT to say. If you are lucky, you didn’t have children with this man, if you are lucky, you didn’t lose everything you financially helped invest in-a home, a business, credit cards and the like.

He probably financially abused you too if you wake up and realize one day that without him, you’re not sure how you’d economically survive or that you are out thousands of dollars. You think of the opportunities lost if you lived with him or was married to him- the times you wanted to go back to school, the career interests you’ve had-all put on a backburner because he’s effectively convinced you somehow that “good mothers stay home with their kids” or he has you working for him. I will blog about if you married a man like this.

Eventually, you feel defeated, depressed and deflated. Whatever moxy, mo-jo, spirit and fighter in you, the survivor in you, is stymied. You have no energy anymore. You have no spunk left in you. You “give” up. All your anger turned inward and resulting in depression and anxiety. Any self-confidence you once had, destroyed. All your dreams, discouraged because you hate yourself and don’t even know it. And you wonder how you will ever pick up the pieces of your heart, love again, trust again.

You want desperately to be loved and desired, yet the idea of anyone else even touching you makes you sick. You wonder if you will ever enjoy sex again, can ever trust a compliment. Your intellect knows better, you know and are even close to good men as friends, as family members, as ex boyfriends. But this one man, or a history of people like this, has null and voided them all, because there must be something horribly wrong with you that those “good” men never find you. And that’s what you are left with. Just as you are “labeling” the narcissist-you yourself are now struggling to put a label on yourself.

The point is that it shouldn’t matter how he got in so much as it is that he did. Yes, we may need to figure that out when the relationship is over. But it is unfair to say “Well if you had felt better about yourself, this wouldn’t of happened” because in my opinion, it further adds insult to injury by taking away the bite of just how BAD the abuse was. That’s why its called ABUSE. Someone took your mind and RAPED it. You didn’t “let them.” They took it by force. They played you. AND YES IT REALLY HAPPENED. Consider it like date rape. You spent time with the guy, agreed to go out with him because you liked him and trusted him, and you were attracted to him. Does that mean he had the right to push sex on you and take it from you without respecting whether you were ready or wanted to? Of course not. Same with emotional abuse. Just because you gave signals that suggested you were open to him, didn’t mean he had the right to do all that he did to you. Yet you are labeled the crazy one.

On the contrary, if you get out of it, if you are now seeking out professional help of any kind, getting yourself into therapy, googling for YOU-you are NOT the crazy one, because remember-those who are truly crazy don’t know it, don’t question it, don’t obsess on the state of their own mental health. After all-you don’t see him running to a therapist and remember-YOU were the “scary” one, you “abused” him! His therapy is to just start seeing someone else-and starting all over again with a new, pliable, naïve and ignorant to his ways woman-like a sick collection, to see if this one will not see through him. The more women he can collect to re-assure him that he can’t be that bad, otherwise, why would anyone be with him at all? `is all the therapy he needs.

All those “trust issues” he complained about seem to fly out the window when a “new and improved you” comes along. For someone with trust issues, he bounces back very quickly, lets another woman into his lair of deception and chaos, and never looks back at you. Unless she dumps him. Then you are the FIRST one he will look up, to see if there’s anyway or anything left to manipulate out of you, to test his “skills”, to remind you that seems to have forgotten him and moved on that he’s still around, to taunt and haunt you all over again, because he CANNOT be forgotten. He can be hated, he can be despised, but don’t you ever strip him of his power over you, and render him meaningless in your world.