SURVIVORS OF SOCIOPATHS Community Group
A group where we support one another and share our experiences with each other about narcissistic relationships. a place to heal if you have been "touched" by a sociopath. there is hope. share your experience strength and hope here with others who have been where you are. together we help each other heal...
Being involved with a Sociopath and his verbal and physical abuse was traumatic and damaging, but also became the subject of drama and chaos for me. I would share his behavior with all my friends, and his actions which were toxic and violent. In the end, 13 years later i found i had lost most of my friends, they just opted out, they were sick of the subject and hearing yet another story or drama from me, or something unsavoury as it always was. I in the meantime became addicted to the drama and the ongoing story and would share it constantly, most people would always hear how I was not ok, how he was treating me inappropriately and how I had just been violated. I admit I sought their feedback in the form of care and thought that translated as love because there was neither care nor love from him, my partner. i became the victim. Oh god is he doing this to me again, can you believe it, he's a pig, he is disgusting, poor you. Eventually practically all my friends walked away, they were sick of the story, the drama, the toxicity and the topic. One by one they said i cant do this anymore. Because I stayed, for 13 years, instead of taking charge and leaving and offering them a different relationship that was more stable and upbeat. I must have two or three friends left in my life now and if i mention him, after the relationship has broken up, they cringe and ask that i don't. They too are overloaded with my trauma but they have stayed and asked that I dont tell them anymore. All the others have gone. Tonight i shared with a friend that I attempted to phone him, to tell him how I feel and she was so angry with me, telling me you remain stuck if you keep doing that or do it at all. Told me i am sick to death of hearing about him. Your life is damaged in so many ways because of him and you are still playing the part of the victim, phone him, are you mad, what did you expect to achieve, stay away, thats the only way you are going to get well. The cost of my relationship with him has been so high, so many people have walked away and want nothing to do with me, because although he was the abuser, i was not admired for having stayed so long and been abused in radical ways and then shared them. I was eventually considered ill myself and someone who was not normal to be around. He has emptied out my life, so have I, i always had the choice to leave after yet another incident and I did not, I must take responsibility for that, yet every time it would give me another sordid story to tell another friend who would say oh no, thats disgusting, poor you, and as said i took it as care and love. Now i can see it reflected on my own character and that I was eventually not respected by my friends or those close to me, they considered me sick as well. Oh how i wish i had left when he beat me up black and blue in month three, instead of remaining for 13 years and bombarding my friends with toxic drama that they got so tired of that they walked out of my life. They will not come back, I have lost them. That is the cost. I in the end appeared like the fucked up person who was unstable. And I let it happen, all by myself, because I stayed, and because i shared way too much too often with too many, i lost my happy charismatic personality and was just a drain on those who loved me. the Price has been so high.
After I finally comprehended what my NH is and that he is a sick individual, I am now realizing how manipulated I was for decades. The negative fall out of being with these monsters is beyond imagining. I understand what you're saying here, but please don't blame yourself. You were a victim, and reaching out to friends was a normal reaction to being hurt so badly. They didn't understand the situation because they probably never encountered such an awful situation.
You were a victim, but now you are a SURVIVOR! You have survived the worst of that relationship, even though the pain you're feeling now is so extreme. But you did survive, and your healing process is beginning. It isn't easy in the beginning, but it will get much better. Please give yourself time, and don't be so hard on yourself. You WERE a victim, but now you're a survivor, and in time you will be a THRIVER! You will become much stronger and wiser. Give yourself time to heal. Big huge hugs, sweetie!
I am in despair
Don't blame yourself for wanting what is normal at the end of the relationship which is a reason for how he mistreated you. However, from my experience I would say to move on and feel healthier it's better to let go of the idea you are dealing with a normal person who feels and loves, any contact you have with this man will lead to hurt and pain. It's all he is interested in now, he needs to feed off your hurt so any time you want to speak with him just remember that.
They are masterful at destroying our credibility, he has planned it that way so that his horrific behaviour toward you is invisible to others while your behaviour is foregrounded by others as 'crazy'. You are not crazy though, you have been harmed by an spath. It's early days for your recovery, take time, be kind to yourself, keep posting and reading about this subject. I have been looking at this website http://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/ recently and found it useful, this is the mind of the psychopath/narcissist, they are cruel creatures.
xx
I used romance novels to get any feeling of emotional caring or romance as my then-H sure was not providing it. I read compulsively, voraciously to escape my problems. Didn't work. I know what you mean about the drama. I have said many times that whatever else my life was, it was never boring. At times, I miss the drama and excitement, the intensity of living. More often, I feel I could do with being more bored for a while and having things calm. It has been a challenge also in a new, healthier relationship that calmer is less exciting, but that is normal and OK. It takes a while to reset normal.
How come I am a repeated common denominator in all this
Who is to say that I am not the one that is sick, why do all these people think this way of me when I know in my bones who I am, but can't trust it
is this the damage he has done?
I seem to have been left with no credibility and such damage to my reputation - has he done that?
Isolated.
Cast Out?
Its as if it has all turned on me - he appears to present this absolutely normal in control person to the world
when i appear to be a complete mess having lost everything
How do I get through this, back to reality
what is reality......
I don't know any more
I don't know who or what to trust
How do I retain value in myself and believe I have been part of an unrealistic nightmare
To everyone out there he seems normal and in control and I seem sick and screwed up
How did this happen??
Thank you for your responses. I am struggling terribly and to be honest have not been able to get out of bed for days. I have seen a psychiatrist and am on meds but I have no motivation whatsoever and nothing left of my life, it is shattered. I don't want to go for a walk, see friends, nothing - all I do is force myself to get up and try and find a job and get no response which further adds to my worthlessness. I have lost practically all my friends because in retrospect now I see how I overburdened them with my story for over four or five years and shared toxic and unsavoury information with them and I suppose they were at first supportive and thought he was a pig but eventually could not understand why I stayed. I didn't even know why I stayed, or kept going back, or calling him back, it was only when I suddenly woke up and SAW what I was involved in that I recognised I was totally under his spell, caught in his web, under his control, had moved from being a confident outgoing girl to someone completely compliant. I suppose I should never have used my friends as my therapists but they were a lifeline for me and in using them as that, one by one they left. I now have literally two friends in my life and I try to be more private and anyway don't have much to share because I no longer have contact with him. But they are also tired of hearing about my grief which is something I try to understand - how can one feel grief for an ending with a monster - but it is not only grief about my addiction to him, but about how I allowed myself to get involved with something so malevolent, so scary, so pre-meditated, so unloving, so controlling. I am still reeling as I try to come to terms that a person like this exists. At first I sought contact with him not believing I had been discarded after 13 years, when he always said I would be the love of his life and I believed him but then a strange thing happened, I found that any contact with him, even a conversation about my beloved dogs which he has, had me reeled right in all over again and had me agreeing to terms to satisfy him and try and make him happy - only to find that after the conversation it was as if my soul cracked open and I was an absolute mess for days. Now I know that this perhaps happens because the iron hold of denial has been lifted and although he can still reel me in, my soul and bones can sense his malevolence and his sickness and how dangerous he is for me, so they feel it all, see it all, even if I respond without sensing it. I asked myself how it was possible that I spent 13 years with him never feeling this kind of crack open, and yet a simple phone call can destroy me, not because I seek his false love but because something in me SEES it now and cannot tolerate the criminality of it all. So I know I cannot go near him, he phones I don't answer, I feel the urge to phone, I don't, i work through the craving - knowing there is nothing there by a false empty shell. I sit amazed that as I am broken, with nothing in my life, no friends, nothing, that he has never had the compassion and empathy to come to me, but i know i can't let him come to me, but he doesn't even consider it - how cruel can a person be - after 13 years of my life. he has discarded me now and doesn't give a shit, doesn't have the capacity to experience my pain or my sorrow or my shattered life, wouldn't offer money, nothing. Is it normal that this just destroys you at first, breaks you, leaves you absolutely horrified and heartbroken, and almost immobile, is that part of the healing process - yes you guys talk about that I am out that I am a survivor but on many days I think I am not going to make it, that I will not be able to rebuild my life. I have to admit that after many many calls from him which I ignored, I relented stupidly and did call him last night and asked him why he was calling me, in a small voice, and he said to ask how I am - haha. I said to him Simon, I am broken, I am heartbroken, my life is shattered, I have nothing left, I am estranged from my dogs because you have them, discarded me for another woman, am moving from place to place, the loneliness I feel is indescribable - he just kept quiet whilst i talked and i then said I need you to know I will never ever ever forgive you, never. And I put the phone down. Of course then thinking he would phone back, so I had to recommit to no contact - there is nothing there and he brings back all the emptiness and how duped i was and how stupid. Is it natural to feel so hurt, is it natural to feel so broken - other people say oh come on move on its over get a grip - am I steeped in self pity or really recovering from something seriously traumatic, can I do this, can I recover - what will it take - time? Acceptance? Forgiveness of myself. Please guide me through this. I am scared and traumatised.