Narcissist Trauma Survival and Recovery Community Group
Support for those anyone who is or has been in a relationship with a narcissist. Together we are much stronger than any of us would be alone. A place for non-judgemental mutial support, advice, and comfort.
I was reading something the other day ... I use a lot of analogies or metaphors in dealing with my situation. Such as being a "legally regulated hostage". I mean seriously, when I started realizing I have been UNDER THE JURISDICTION of the Court system for the past 16 years or so ... all due to divorce ... it puts things in a new perspective. Never really realize this stuff, when it starts ....
So one of the things which has been most frustrating to me has been the "wheel of violence" and the like that is often show in terms of domestic violence. And if you are the partner of a N or ASPD/traited individual, you likely have been exposed to violence, particularly if you have "crossed their will" in some way. I have hesitated to use the term "violence" however, as it conjures up visions of bruises and wounds ... despite the realization that if my psychological and financial injuries were able to be converted to physical, I would be a bloody mess and only the most hardened and callous heart would consider that I should "just move on" ... I'd LOVE TO.
Which brings me to what I found on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) site: Definitions of Violence. Despite the FACT that I have received the runaround from police, I have been subjected to violence ... and likely, others here have been as well. Actually, that is a certainty to me ... as I know there are many of you who've been INJURED by anxiety and similar disorders ... you are not "ill" ... you HAVE been "injured".
You can see the whole of the definition (four part) on this page: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/definitions.html
Here is the part I wanted to highlight, as it is very common and sadly, VERY overlooked by "authorities":
"Psychological/emotional violence involves trauma to the victim caused by acts, threats of acts, or coercive tactics. Psychological/emotional abuse can include, but is not limited to, humiliating the victim, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, and denying the victim access to money or other basic resources. It is considered psychological/emotional violence when there has been prior physical or sexual violence or prior threat of physical or sexual violence. In addition, stalking is often included among the types of IPV. Stalking generally refers to "harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property" (Tjaden & Thoennes 1998)."
So one of the things which has been most frustrating to me has been the "wheel of violence" and the like that is often show in terms of domestic violence. And if you are the partner of a N or ASPD/traited individual, you likely have been exposed to violence, particularly if you have "crossed their will" in some way. I have hesitated to use the term "violence" however, as it conjures up visions of bruises and wounds ... despite the realization that if my psychological and financial injuries were able to be converted to physical, I would be a bloody mess and only the most hardened and callous heart would consider that I should "just move on" ... I'd LOVE TO.
Which brings me to what I found on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) site: Definitions of Violence. Despite the FACT that I have received the runaround from police, I have been subjected to violence ... and likely, others here have been as well. Actually, that is a certainty to me ... as I know there are many of you who've been INJURED by anxiety and similar disorders ... you are not "ill" ... you HAVE been "injured".
You can see the whole of the definition (four part) on this page: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/definitions.html
Here is the part I wanted to highlight, as it is very common and sadly, VERY overlooked by "authorities":
"Psychological/emotional violence involves trauma to the victim caused by acts, threats of acts, or coercive tactics. Psychological/emotional abuse can include, but is not limited to, humiliating the victim, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, and denying the victim access to money or other basic resources. It is considered psychological/emotional violence when there has been prior physical or sexual violence or prior threat of physical or sexual violence. In addition, stalking is often included among the types of IPV. Stalking generally refers to "harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property" (Tjaden & Thoennes 1998)."
Even after I realized I was married to an NPD, I did not realize that I was a victim of abuse. To the degree I felt abused, I never saw it like anywhere near as bad as being physically abused. Then, I toured a domestic violence shelter. Thank heavens I was wearing sunglasses on the tour because I started crying. It all rang so true. I was so much like these victims. They just got physically battered -- which is horrible, not saying it is not much worse -- but we were suffering so many of the same things. Some of the things I said back then I did, I was told, those are victim behaviors. You have to unlearn that.
It also turned out that I was legally battered, even though I would have never called it that. I called it physical intimidation. This included a lot of physically scary things he would do to us. But when he used a rigid finger, hitting it pointedly repeatedly on my chest, that actually is battering. He did this to the kids too. He used to grab their arms to keep them from running away from them, also battery. I could have tried to prosecute this, but I thought the court would not take it seriously. So, look into the definition of battery, if you need to use that.
If filed one motion to stop a barrage of really nasty emails to me and my family. Initially the Family Court judge rejected it. But not because it did not have merit. Rather, he thought it was serious enough to be submitted instead to Domestic Violence court, where it could have been some kind of criminal charge. Unfortunately, due to another decision by another judge, I was not allowed to do that.
Interesting that the CDC recognizes the damage all this emotional abuse, harrassment, and stalking can cause. I got Chronic Fatigue Syndrome from all the stress of dealing with him and doing everything to keep us afloat. It took me more than 2 years to start to really heal from that. Later, I had C-PTSD. I filed for divorce at the time I did, in large part, because I could not longer function as a person. At one point, I almost had a nervous breakdown and would have checked myself in somewhere, but i was too afraid it would make me lose custody. So, yeah, there were physical effects from my non-physical abuse.
Here is the full link from my note above. For some reason, it did not post in its entirety.
I read that legally speaking, emotional abuse (and it can be shown from a diagnosis of say, PTSD) causes PHYSICAL INJURY.
BUT though the Courts WILL recognize this, particularly in a carefully prosecuted case, they are reluctant to make this wide-spread, because of the "flood" of lawsuits that would likely be filed and the difficulty in weeding out the genuine from the faked claims. Which is a real tragedy and sort of a double whammy to those going through it.
I had sort of started to think of what he did metaphorically ... like if he did to me physically what he was doing, emotionally, legally, financially ... how I would look. And I got sort of confused for a time, because I was hearing/reading that "legal definitions" of DV and such were different from what the agencies (DV) were putting out there. But it doesn't make sense to "set people up" by telling them something is "abuse" if it is legal. So I started to check into it all, in the State civil and criminal code. Worst and hardest part is that many things ARE DEFINITELY a crime and more "easily" dealt with if a stranger commits them against you ...