Resistance is Futile

This retreat has solidified all of what I’ve come to know to be true about recovering from a pathological relationship. While differing in specifics for each fellow traveler the process shares some essential qualities. One of these is the absolute need to purge the poison of evil we’ve consumed during our victimization. The nausea that our awakening brings causes us to vomit all of the gory details of what our respective pathologicals did to us. * Luckily I had O to help me through my purging. She had a vested interest in my healing process since we share the same psychopath. Most of us don’t have that luxury or even the luxury of having someone around who understands at all. Those of us who find avenues (though I’m not sure there are any others) like the retreat I’m attending find, perhaps for the first time, other survivors and an opportunity to share our stories and purge, purge, purge. **

For the past year I’ve been politely purging on this blog and rudely vomiting on my friends and family to the point of alienating them. I think I’m almost done with that part of my healing process, and am very glad. It feels remarkably like the sensation of relief one feels after actually physically vomiting as the nausea subsides and you pray that was the last time for a while.

Of the many insights I’ve gained during the course of this retreat there is one in particular I think will serve me the most afterward. That is that no matter what specific things our specific pathological did to us (and they are remarkably the same) the end result is the same. Inevitable harm by an incurable psychopath. Focusing on the minutia of what happened keeps alive the illusion that we can somehow figure out a way to avoid evil. But we can’t. And it is that fact… that evil exists, that it has always existed and that it will continue to exist until the end of the world… that each of us is resisting with our entire being.

I have spent my entire life struggling to eliminate “evil” in some form. Whether the evil of capitalists, war, misogyny, racism or whatever; I believed that human beings are ALL inherently good and can, therefore figure out a way to live in peace. This was the fundamental belief that I have lost. For other fellow travelers it is a fundamental shift in how they view God or whatever belief system they have in place. What is common to all these belief systems is a stubborn refusal to accept that evil exists, has always existed and will always exist until the end of the world and that there is absolutely NOTHING we can do to eliminate it. Resisting the acceptance of this reality is futile. The misalignment I feel is the final vestiges of the cognitive dissonance that defines a relationship with a pathological. We as normal people have been trying to reconcile being with resident evil while denying its existence. Continuing to try to understand why a pathological did this to me is an attempt to find a solution where there is none. It did it because that's what psychopaths do and there is NO changing that.

As a philosopher I have studied these questions in great depth, but have struggled tooth and nail to resist the seemingly pessimistic view that human beings are not redeemable as a species. My whole cloth rejection of Existentialism and Post Modernism is the most obvious example of this resistance. My guess is that if any of my philosophy professors are reading this they are probably smiling. I hope one day to smile about it too, but I'm feeling pretty pessimistic at the moment.

Love and hugs, Laura

*There are lots or reasons why and how this happens, e.g. PTSD symptoms, brain chemistry, etc. I highly recommend reading Women Who Love Psychopaths: Inside the Relationships of Inevitable Harm by Sandra Brown.

**Thank you Sandra Brown and the Institute for Relational Harm Reduction, for providing this safe space.