Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
I have blocked my ex from my phone and blocked his email address. He just changed email addresses and slipped another one past me. The block on my phone is the free block that you have to re-do every 3 months, and if I forget I always have a bunch of texts full of abuse. The last 12 that showed up in one night when I forgot the block was when my daughter was hospitalized again (she has a mental health issue and she had stopped taking her meds while on a vacation to visit her grandparents) telling me that I needed to send her home to him because HE would be on top of it. He has told me time and time again that she is NOT mentally ill and that I am pumping her full of drugs so I don't have to deal with her. He even suggested she needs medical marijuana-which is one of the WORST things for someone with a psychotic disorder to have.
Sometimes I just feel like it will never end. That he can always find a way to get to me and harass me and abuse me. Sometimes I just wish he'd fall off the face of the earth, because it seems like it will never end until one of us are dead.
Frustrated and had to vent.
Sometimes I just feel like it will never end. That he can always find a way to get to me and harass me and abuse me. Sometimes I just wish he'd fall off the face of the earth, because it seems like it will never end until one of us are dead.
Frustrated and had to vent.
I have thought about ROs in the past-but I was so afraid it would set him off and put him over the edge and he'd hurt me. Now I live in another state. I'm still scared of him even all the way a crossed the country. I don't know if that's rational or a PTSD thing.
I know he got our address somehow (probably from someone in my freekin family) because he sends our daughter mail, since she won't talk to him on the phone. She wants nothing to do with him-which is not my doing but just the natural progression of maturity and being able to know now that she's not around him that he's emotionally abusive and makes her feel, as she said "icky."
My parents visited me recently and my ex has been driving them crazy, constantly calling them and trying to get them to get my daughter and I to contact him. Because he is harassing them and throwing a tantrum like a child (at one point he was yelling at my step mom who told him she would not tolerate being screamed at any more than I would and she hung up the phone) instead of going No Contact with him they just try and mediate and get in the middle. I HATE it. I've told them time and time again its better for me, and all the reasons why, if they go NC with him but they just won't do it. I finally told them that I can't control if they speak with him or not but that I don't want to hear anything about it. I have to remind them pretty consistently about this boundary. But once I do they change the subject.
So while they were visiting they said to my daughter that her father would really like to talk to her and she just glared at them and didn't respond. When they left she told me that her grandparents need to mind their own business and she didn't want anything to do with her father. She said when she talks to him she is just constantly irritated and feels icky, and then she said she couldn't quite explain it but she said "You were married to him, maybe you know what I mean." She said she didn't want to be his wife, and she didn't want the responsibility of keeping him in line, and he had to get his own life and take care of himself because she didn't want to do it anymore.
It was shocking to hear how she described her discomfort-the terms she used. There is something called emotional incest, where a parent puts the child in the position of a spouse, asking for emotional support, acting as if they are a confident, talking about thing like their financial problems, sex life, totally inappropriate things. Although no sexual contact is made there is a sexual overtone to this kind of abuse. I've known this for years, hearing her talk, and then to hear say she didn't want to be his wife-chilling.
With a restraining order now I will put some more thought into it, since I'm less afraid in another state. I don't know how that works from another state but I will look into it. I just wish it would stop. This is why I'm in therapy, I hope that I can learn to react differently if I can't stop it, instead of panicking.
A few things I remember from the book:
What your parents are doing is the exact OPPOSITE of what they should be doing. They are fueling this man's obsession. The more they have contact with him, the more they are ensuring that he will never leave you alone.
The author mentions the idea of getting a second phone number, but leaving the old phone number active. Tell your friends/family/business associates about the new phone number, so that eventually only your ex calls the old number. That way, you have a phone number you can use daily with peace of mind. You can ask somebody to delete the messages on the old number for you, or save the messages to document his behavior.
Perhaps you could even try this with email, too? Get a second email address for your own daily use and leave the old address active for your creepy ex. Then have a friend delete his messages or save them for documentation.
In any event, I strongly recommend the book. Good luck!
This sounds awful, and eerily like what I've gone through myself.... with my parents and with an ex. The stalking behavior, the long time of not letting it be over. I think not only you but also your daughter needs protection. It's so good that your daughter can talk to you and tell you what is going on. I also wonder if some of her problems may not be directly result of this stalking behavior, which is exceedingly creepy and would likely wear on anyone. He may not stop ever. I've seen this with my parents. In their warped minds, think they are justified in the stalking or it fulfills a sadistic need to continue torturing their victim....I'm not sure and I don't want to know, except if it will help me deal with their behavior and live a life of peace. The only reason for this to continue is that it must, on some level, be "feeding" them for it to continue.
I would totally trust your intuition about the fear of him. On the other hand, after living through years of not being able to sleep and shutting the windows up even in the heat of summer to prevent a break-in, I finally said to myself, "I refuse to live in fear." If he is going to come kill me, well....I am going to do all I can to prevent this and protect myself, but I am NOT going to live the rest of my life cowering in fear.
EvaSophia, those were awesome suggestions. Thank you!
My feeling about a restraining order is that it would be a mistake-I'd rather just have a safety plan because of the risk I believe is involved with an RO, and a safety plan is what really keeps you safe anyway, and RO is just a piece of paper which works for certain types of individuals, and it often works very well. I have thought about it at length, and just don't feel its the best option for me.
The issue with my family is a big struggle. There are times I get absolutely furious with them. I have told them the exact thing you mentioned-they are feeding something bad. Every time they would talk to him I would get a new flurry of vms, emails and texts. He is SO extremely manipulative, and plays the guilt trip so very well (and my family are hyper-moral, you-give-the-shirt-off-your-back-for-someone-in-need type of people they are easy prey). I have to remember how many years it took me to gain insight into those tactics and become hardened to them to temper my anger. But still, it makes my life so much harder and I get so angry-and I have seriously talked until I'm blue in the face about it. It's infuriating to have him throw his fits and engage in his harassment of them as well-and they want ME to make it stop by pacifying him when all they need to do is go NO CONTACT!!! Why do they think someone like him gets that way? Because being a pain, causing pain, and intimidating WORKS FOR HIM. People give in so he'll just stop. I have a lot of trouble being close to my family because of this while I once was. I feel very betrayed. I get sick of saying the same things over and over.
With the phone and email thing-I just really wanted to try and take the easier route and block him so I didn't have to go through all that with changing them. I was hoping blocking would do the trick. And the blocks don't mean he knows he's blocked, he can just keep sending them the whole time thinking I'm getting them-they don't come back to him as undelivered.
Scarclan, yes the stalking is awful-I know I don't need to describe how it makes me feel because you've experienced it, and I'm so sorry for that.
With my daughter she has just started to really open up about it since we moved. Before I always got the feeling that she was not comfortable speaking ill of her father. I think she's been trauma bonded for quite some time. She really wanted to move, and I believe it was in no small part to put distance between her and her father. Now that she is away I think its giving her a lot of clarity, and now I feel her wanting validation-so for the first time I'm discussing things with her. I think she's ready. I have always tried to validate w/o saying bad things about her dad, but I am now being more straightforward that his behavior is abusive, and that is why she feels these things about her father right now, and that it's a normal reaction, and that I understand because he abused me too. She seems relieved to hear all of that and is not shutting down. She is not one to be open about her feelings, so this is huge for her.
I absolutely in my heart believe part of the reason she is ill is the abuse. I have researched her disorder exhaustively, I go to NAMI, I have always been involved in her treatment. I know there is a genetic component, and my great aunt had what would probably nowadays be called postpartum psychosis, and also on that side some probable anxiety, depression, and so on. But i think of it as a vase with a very fine hairline crack in it-with careful handling the vase may never fracture, but it its misused it's more likely to break. It's possible she would have had this disorder anyway, but years of abuse in my mind most certainly affected brain development in the structures and functions of her brain. She also witnessed the assault of my now H which almost killed him, and I think that triggered it.
From the time my daughter was first sick at 15 (close to 16) my ex has been in total denial. He would never talk to her drs or anything-even though my daughter had signed a release for him to do so, he would harass me for information, and say I was vengeful and cruel if I didn't give it to him. I said, you have the drs contact info, you can call them and get every question answered by experts, you can talk to your daughter and ask her how she's feeling and what she thinks. But, he really didn't want education, he wanted to tell me to jump and for me to say how high? How can I make this better for you, C? Not my job anymore buddy-don't want the job, I know what comes with it. She chose to live with just me from 16 on, with an on again-off again relationship with her father. He has no idea what we've been through for her to stay healthy or what happens when she's not. He's got no right to tell me how to support her with this when he never even bothered to learn about her illness. Being a classic Narc she can't be mentally ill you see-that doesn't reflect well on him.
And scar you are so right about balancing living safely with living in fear. I agree 100%. I think we both know its a challenge, I get triggered, I go into "Oh, crap!" mode and my higher cognitive functioning that should sensibly evaluate a perceived threat shuts down. But I'm working on it.
So, he is using your daughter's illness (and yes, I agree that he is at least partly responsible for her health problems due to the immense stress) as just another way to harass you? There is a special place in hell for a man like that.
Your right ooooo, these people wreck lives and harm others and it is very difficult to deal with, and there is a certain strength we all have in surviving it.
Since the first option is out of the question due to possible safety issues that leaves you with the other option.
I suggest giving your family an ultimatum. Either they demonstrate that they care about the health and wellbeing of you and your daughter by going COMPLETELY no contact with your ex, or you and your daughter will go no contact with your family as well as your ex.
If your family chooses to continue fueling the problem then go no contact with them and perhaps change your phone number. Then let them deal with your ex until they learn what you and your daughter have been feeling and finally stop communicating with your ex. Once that happens he will hopefully start to tire out and eventually give up when he sees nobody will play his game anymore.