I will be traveling back east for an extended vacation this summer. While there I will have the opportunity to travel to upstate NY to visit some friends I made while I was with It. That possibility has resurrected the fantasy that many fellow-travelers share. The fantasy of being able to have some sort of closure in the aftermath of a relationship with a pathological.This closure fantasy has an essential component. That afterward, It/They will somehow understand what they've done to us. What we want is to let them know that we know what they are and explain it in such a way that they will understand and experience remorse.
I discussed this possibility with a fellow traveler and with my therapist. My fellow traveler believes that there is therapeutic value in my confronting It for me. Confronting someone who's hurt us, whether in person, by journal etc. is a common therapeutic devise for those who are dealing with NORMAL relationships. Knowing this, my friend was exploring the possibility of any therapeutic value for me in confronting It.
I thought about it for a long time after our conversation and even before talking to my therapist about it, I decided that it would only feed It with negative supply and could have no value for me whatever. The fact that confronting a pathological can't have any value is part of why there is NO closure from a relationship with a pathological. The outcome will inevitably leave us more frustrated at their inability to empathize with what they've done - and remember empathy is an impossibility for these people. But after discussing it with my therapist I realized that confronting It can do nothing but put me in REAL danger in two specific ways:
A: Exposing ourselves to our ex pathological leaves us WIDE open to be sucked in again. Remember they have the ability to hypnotize us and place us in a trance-like state VERY quickly. Confronting our ex-pathological leaves us wide open for re-victimization.
B: Psychopaths absolutely HATE to be exposed face to face. Confronting our ex-pathologi
cals puts us in danger of severe wrath and retribution at the hand of someone who has absolutely no empathy for anyone and who is prone to rages. Very dangerous!Though there are many, many other reasons, these two reasons alone establish why having an ABSOLUTE rule of NO CONTACT is essential not only for healing, but also for our own safety. So even though I will probably always feel the need to confront It with the truth of what It is and what It's done to me and It's other victims, I understand that it can only result in opening me up to more danger and more pain with no possibility for a positive outcome whatever.
love and hugs, Laura
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Holy Hannah! I'm so glad you wrote this Laura, because you're right. The whole risk of getting ensnared again. Thank you! That was the one thing I'd not thought of, and a great point. I think back to when Earl got his hooks into me in the first place, and you're so right, it was snap you fingers quick looking back.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, yes, yes, excellent point, NO CONTACT is the only safe, sane thing to do.
Thank you! And congratulations too, I know how much the question means to you, and I think this is the best idea.
My Counselor and I have spent a lot of time exploring my feelings and how to deal with having no closure in this marriage/divorce.
ReplyDeleteHE is in another country so, one would think, the no contact would be feasible. However, HE (and his new NS) have been stalking, harassing and intimidating me online for almost ten months now. The divorce is just sitting in Court because he refuses to cooperate about anything.
So, I have no closure from him. No solace in a sense of closure because the divorce is finalized. I have nothing..it's been almost a year.
The only contact that I have had with him in the past six months has been through email...and most times he doesn't "grace me" with a response anyway. No matter how legal or urgent it is.
No matter what, I think it is incredible difficult and frustrating emotionally.
Hang in there and thank you so much for sharing this with us. :)
I have to agree with your therapist Laura...as a matter of fact, if your friends from upper state NY can come to you, it would be better. "Its" are notorious for coming back if other sources of admiration necessary to feed their narcissism wear thin. I'm worried about you being in "it's" vicinity. You, me, Sam...we are all still healing. That wound cannot be ripped open again or it may never heal.
ReplyDeleteI have been invited by friends I made when I was with the "It" that found me and I won't go! Too close and "It" is convincing...not just to us but to others. I absolutely refuse to set up a potential of crossing paths. So...my friends came to me. : ) And until "It" moves, which he is doing, I will not be going down to see my friends.
Stay clear Laura!
Love 'n hugs!
Laura - Great post and such a good point to make.
ReplyDeleteI tried going NC but then a close Aunt of mine died and then I got more emotional/verbal abuse. Threat to cut me out of my NM's will over her not liking being told to be accountable for her abuse. My NM accused my DH of reconciling to get her inheritance money.
Then my NM made her only attempt to ever reconcile (in my life), but I wasted more time responding to her still thinking that her "do anything to reconcile" letter was sincere. After I sent her the problems in our relationship (four pages with crossed boundary examples, lack of empathy and enmeshed family hoping her social worker would figure it out and send her to a competent therapist), but thinking why didn't the social worker want this direct to her. I called the social worker and she said without my NM's written permission she can't talk to me, so I got "major sucked" again with this madeup story.
My NM was going to a social worker because she was getting older (over seventy), just got big inheritance money and wanted to feel good about being estranged from her daughter and only two grandkids for two years.
My EF died before my NM's adult abuse started (family secret about her emotional neglect to three kids, but I was luckily close to my EF Dad and was more normal - still emotional problems).
I realize there is nothing I can ever say to someone who has spent her life being manipulative with words and emotions from her childhood emotional damage (cold emotional mother). My NM crossed boundaries after my children were born and she didn't like my decisions/viewpoints and never enough time for her and my NSISes.
Now that my "planet went out of the universe" it can't come back unless I conform to her and accept abuse that I refuse to do for my mental sake or the mental sake of my children who I feel that she will judge in the same way (religion and money decisions her way and spend all the time with her and my unmarried NSISes).
I spent five years daily battling rage and my Narc FOO "gaslighted" me with my own rage (from my other problems). If so, how could this rage disappear after six months of NC with any of them - not even a card to my children.
I will journey without life without them.
Laura - hugs to you,
WBM
I'm not at a point in my own healing journey yet where I'm able to post non-anonymously, so I'll have to respond this way.
ReplyDeleteYou are so, so right... how strong the Siren Song of Closure is, and how overwhelmingly hard to resist. But resist it we must.
Hi Laura, I am glad you found WoN. I just recently entered into stage 6 of the Recovery Stages you shared w/us. Only after a last burst of wanting to have Closure w/the Momster and NFOO did I Discover Peace. Through that experience I realized that as long as the N has the power to determine Closure we will not achieve it -- unless we Redefine It To Find It, and that is what I have done and it brought Peace. Here is my blog,
ReplyDeletehttp://dealingwithtoxicpeople.blogspot.com/2010/07/closure-redefine-it-to-find-it.html
Hi Laura, I read this post just in time I think. My monster has lost my phone number so maybe no more voice mails, but he still has my email and is trying to worm his way back. I am a long way from healing and I still feel that need to explain to him what he did even though I already know he will twist everything and deny or obscure what I know happened. I was there. I am resisting and someday hope to have the strength to just delete his emails without reading them at all. Maybe MY knowing what he did will be enough for me some day.
ReplyDeleteHard for me to accept that there is more than one monster like mine in NY. I keep thinking your monster's initials have to be JAR. Our stories are so similar....not an ounce of empathy for anyone, me or his children or his friends...it is all about what he can get in his world of entitlement, and when he cannot get something, no matter how small, his first thought is revenge.
How did I get involved in the first place? He is very good at what he does and has had many, many years to perfect his game. When I first met him, he was too good to be true and I called him on it. I asked him if he had a play book for what a woman wants to hear. He became furious with me...."Are you calling me a liar?" "Are you implying I an not genuine?" I backed off, because I had offended. In retrospect...........
Thanks again for your blog. It has really helped me. I purchased the book, "The Emotional Rape Syndrome." It was a life saver.
Best to you, and really forgive yourself for allowing it into your life. I am working on forgiving myself and I feel a bit better about the whole thing every day. Bad people exist and not one of them has the words "Bad Person" stamped on their foreheads. We are bound to run into a couple of them in our lifetimes and being the wonderful and open people we are...we are gonna get sucked in and feel special and loved. It is what good people do. It could happen to anyone.
The one thing for which I am exceedingly grateful is that I am not the monster. It must be awful to be inside of him. He has my prayers. There is another excellent book on NPD entitled, "Malignant Self Love Narcissism Revisited" which really opens up the dynamics of what is going on inside of a narcissist and how narcissistic relationships develop and why. Understanding his dysfunction has helped me realize that I really did not have much to do at all with what happened...I could have been a blow up doll. The illusion was that there was a person inside of my monster in the first place. All that was ever there was a dark, sucking black hole consuming everything and everyone around him, but he can be the most convincing, loving monster when he puts the effort in.
Thanks for this blog...time for me to wake up AGAIN, and keep the knowledge before me that I am dealing with a piece of flimsy tissue...not a man.
Katie
Please discuss the sociopathic (farmer) from Pennsylvania who left 1000 pigs to starve to death, while they were locked in tiny crates unable to walk around. They also found 6 dead calves who also starved to death.The pigs and calves were found this November 2010, and he left them to starve in August of this yr. He and his wife were going through a divorce, and he just abandoned these poor pigs. Only a sociopath could sleep at night knowing that he intentionally is causing animals to starve to death.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Laura. I think you will be really interested in this feature film, about psychopaths: http://www.fisheadmovie.com/watch1 what they really are.
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Thank you! This is a MUST see for all fellow travelers. I'm so glad this is coming to light. xo
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