Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
On 12/12/11, I will have gone through one month of no contact with my EX-N. In previous posts, I mentioned that I "Unfriended " and blocked him on Facebook. He also sent me an "I'm Sorry" email, to which I DID NOT RESPOND. I also mailed his personal property to him (things he left at my apartment), without a note. Just when I begin to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking he's finally gotten the message that I am done with him, he starts up again. Even though I've blocked him on Facebook, he has found a way to "get to me." We are both members of several music groups on Facebook, and we share mutual friends within these groups. (There is only ONE person in these groups who knows that we are no longer a couple.) Apparently, he can't see when I'm online, but he can see my posts. Immediately after I post something (and especially if someone clicks "like" on it), he begins posting a barrage of "message" songs, which, quite frankly, have left me completely unnerved. During our 3-month relationship, he would often make comments like, "I'm not goin' anywhere and neither are you." And "I don't get mad, I get even." I didn't see anything wrong with those statements at that time (I guess I was blinded by "love"), but now I am concerned. I have already alerted my employer of this situation (as well as the 24/7 security personnel in the complex where I live), should my EX-N decide to pay me an unannounced visit.
Now that I am out of the relationship, I can clearly see how profoundly disturbed he is. Although he hasn't made any direct threats against me, it feels as if I'm being stalked and taunted via Facebook; as if I'm in a nightmare from which I'll never awaken. I have always been a very sensitive and emotional person. Adding to all this madness is my mother's upcoming death anniversary on 12/12/11. With so much on my plate right now, I fear that I will fall completely apart at any minute.
I have decided to limit my activity on Facebook - perhaps 1-2 days a week, as opposed to 4-5 days. And, of course, I remain strong in my convictions to have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT with this pariah.
I desperately need some feedback here. I really don't know what else I can do.
Now that I am out of the relationship, I can clearly see how profoundly disturbed he is. Although he hasn't made any direct threats against me, it feels as if I'm being stalked and taunted via Facebook; as if I'm in a nightmare from which I'll never awaken. I have always been a very sensitive and emotional person. Adding to all this madness is my mother's upcoming death anniversary on 12/12/11. With so much on my plate right now, I fear that I will fall completely apart at any minute.
I have decided to limit my activity on Facebook - perhaps 1-2 days a week, as opposed to 4-5 days. And, of course, I remain strong in my convictions to have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT with this pariah.
I desperately need some feedback here. I really don't know what else I can do.
It is super annoying to have live your life around avoiding him,, but it just until he gets the message that you are serious and not amount of manipulation is going to bring you back.]]
by Sandra Brown, MA
Pathological persons are energy and emotional vampires. They live off of your emotional content. Part of their personality deficit is the lack of a stable and consistent inner core of a self concept so they need constant attention, distraction, and identity management from which they draw their identity.
Lots of their identity is acquired from their relationships since internally there is so little core self to draw from. This is part of the reason they are so exhausting. In order to get their emotional blood supply from you, they hook you into conversations or arguments or any kind of response they can get from you. They live vicariously thru your own emotional expressions of love, frustration, confusion, etc. It does not always matter what emotion is fed to the vampire (although narcissists like adoration) but just that there is SOME content is enough for them, even your tears, or your screams, or your insults. It does not matter, they just need something, anything from you in the way of content. If they do not get the blood supply/emotional content from you, they will seek elsewhere. (Remember Dracula? He just moved from town to town taking it where he could get it?)
When you begin to break up (read my How to Break Up With a Dangerous Man E-book) he will fear the loss of emotional supply. He wont fear losing you so much as he will getting his identity and his sense of self from you and/or the relationship. He fears the loss of self or who am I without her? This is a very fragmented ego state, one which only exists thru relationships with others.
So when you try to break up, he will continue to contact you which is why they are hard to break up with (read my book). They are predictable in their approaches to get you to respond to them (you are feeding the vampire his emotional blood supply every time you talk to him). These are some of his approaches and if you can get a bag of popcorn and just watch it like it was a LifeTime for Women movie and detach from it, you will see a whole movie pan out like this:
One contact he is angry, blaming, shaming
When you dont respond to that verbally or emotionally (think like you are lobotomized with no facial expression, that is what I want women to do with these men)
Then one contact will be sweet, loving, buy you things
When you dont respond
He will promise to do what youve asked for years. go to counseling, church, take meds, be nice, go to anger management
When you dont respond
He will get angry again--say you arent working on the relate which is why its gonna fail
When you dont respond
He will quit calling for a while to make it look like hes moved on (They are boomerangs, they ALWAYS come back a few times.)
When you dont respond
He will indicate he found someone else or had sex with someone else
When you dont respond
(Are you enjoying the popcorn and movie about now??)
He becomes sick, he doesnt know what this mysterious illness is, or he has prostate cancer, MS, some other lethal disease
When you dont respond
He will just go back to drinking/drugging/dealing/driving too fast/etc.
When you dont respond
He will kill himself, leave the area, never see you again
When you dont respond
He will take the kids, drag your ass thru court, threaten to physically harm you
When you dont respond
He will tell you he is dating someone you hate or his previous girlfriend or wife
When you dont respond
It will come full circle and will begin again, at the top of this list.
When I do phone counseling, its all the same stories. I know that women think that their experiences are unique. But pathology is all the same--these people arent very creative and dont deviate much from the strict internal structure that is associated with pathology. They ONLY react in certain ways so for me, its pretty easy to predict. Once you are able to understand this, you can predict his sad/silly/stupid reactions to a break up.
Since they live off of your emotion and NEED it, the sooner you starve him out by having no contact and if you have to because of your kids, no words exchanged and no emotional content on your face, the vampire will flee to the next available source to be fed.
When women dont disconnect once they understand the feeding and maintenance of pathologicals, they are doing it because SHE wants to remain. The ball is then in your court to figure out where you are still hung up so you can disconnect. This is not a judgment about women not being able to leave. It is a POINTER to a place where the disengagement has hit a snag. Simply notice where the snag IS so that something can be done.
As soon as you are ready to really make the break, buy the Break Up book and then starve THE VAMPIRE. I am going to have fridge magnets made with that on there so women remember daily to not feed the vampire who is lurking near by.
Courtesy Sandra Brown at
http://saferelationshipsmagazine.com/
Thank you, again, ladies!