In my struggles to learn more about the trauma and my experience with my abuser, I found a community of women that have had the same experience as I did. When I read or listened to their stories, I felt as though we were all talking about the same person, the same abuser. Some women have remained with their abusers for decades, and have literally sacrificed their whole lives being in an emotionally abusive relationship. One thing is for certain, I am grateful that I did not end up spending decades being sick with an abuser. Although I have worked with many chronically mentally ill clients, my abuser’s charismatic passive behavior and victim role, certainly pulled my heart strings and deceived me. I have been reassured by many of my colleagues that even in our professional capacity, sometimes we are even deceived by our own client’s. At times, we don’t learn until much later about our client’s severe personality issues, just like I didn’t learn about my abuser’s issues until AFTER I was well groomed and trusted my abuser implicitly.
To this day, at this very moment, when you read these next few words, know that any thought of my abuser that crosses my way comes with recalling the feeling of immense emotional trauma, a memory of him taking a knife to the very core of my soul in an attempt to suck the very essence of who I am. With that, I also experience a horrible tightening of my stomach, like a twisting and wringing out of all my internal organs. My hands quiver and a lump swells in my throat, because even a thought of my abuser comes with reoccurring trauma. When this happens, I have to remind myself that I survived, that I didn’t have to drink alcohol and get cancer to get away. I only had to have my cervix cut from me twice, hoping I won’t eventually get cancer, as a result of my sexual contact with my abuser. With that, and losing a large portion of my financial foundation, the blessing is that I survived. Through the trauma and pain, I have somehow found purpose. I have learned the importance of how the SECRETS of my pain and trauma can bring to light these secretive emotional abusers. If sharing the SECRETS of my abuser can spare one person the pain, trauma and damage caused by a passive aggressive abuser, then I have found purpose.
If you are reading my page, you were brought here for a reason. Not by fate, or chance, but because this message is for you! Hopefully, you will read every word and keep reading every word, because it may be the lifeline for understanding that you are not crazy (youarenotcrazy.com)!!
Had I not been so isolated, perhaps I would have listened to the words of my friends, family and colleagues. They helped me to see that my “bishert (destined mate)” was an abuser and they helped me to understand that I had been living in a dream that he created for me, a dream of hope, promise and love. That dream was something my abuser could never be capable of, as he is incapable of intimacy, tolerating ambivalence and being accountable to do the work that a healthy loving relationship requires. Eventually, you will notice that you are doing all the work and the only one that has embraced working towards the dream of hope, promise and love.
Although my abuser was married for twenty years, he had abandoned his marriage long before his wife died. Even when she became ill, he detached, never taking the opportunity to join with his wife and help her with the very private and intimate moments of her end-stage illness. Having done hospice work for over four years and experiencing several personal intimate losses myself, I know that before loved ones move on, ending moments are so precious and can be so meaningful for everyone. My abuser would never experience that kind of intimacy.
That connection would require my abuser to be vulnerable and present, to be empathic and caring, to be the most loving towards another person and be there for them. He had abandoned that privilege by doing the essentials and detaching from the emotion, a catalyst for creating a positive experience for both of them. He portrayed himself as a victim, stating he wished he had become ill, in order to get out of his marriage. He never expressed the normal compassion and empathy that one would expect when seeing a loved one suffer. He was a victim, having to “cut the legs off the bed, change the linens in the middle of the night and constantly run to the pharmacy.” The privilege of joining and being present was abandoned. I had no reason to believe that would ever change. I learned that my abuser was intolerant of managing any emotions that could lead to intimacy.
"There are many types of abusers, they all lack empathy or they would not be that way. Some of us came from abusive homes, some us from semi normal homes. Your profession, your income, your nationality, color, male or female. No matter your background, it can happen to anyone, even mental health professionals can be taken in."
"How do they invade out minds and change our thinking about everything? We end up questioning our sanity and wondering who we were or are, from our encounter with one. That is why recovery is so difficult. Abusers slowly and methodically destroy our hearts and minds. They take pieces of us, bit by bit, over time; you don't even know you are being robbed, till you are depleted of everything. You then mix in the confusion of good times, which appears to be loving and human, and the bad, not loving and not human like at all. You think you will be able to get the good guy, if only you can turn yourself inside out for him. You know there is that good side of him, so he has you hooked and thinking you can get that good guy. You just need to love him more and put a little more work into the relationship. You love that good guy, you know he exists; he is connected with love, pleasure and good times. Your focus and goal becomes all about getting that guy. You no longer think about yourself and what you want in the relationship. Prince Charming is trapped inside this person and your love and caring will release him so you can live happily ever after."
"What we don't know is narcissists and abusers are at war in their heads, you are the enemy. They take PRISONERS not PARTNERS. You become a prisoner in his private hidden war. He brainwashed and tortured you every day in your relationship. He knew exactly what to do to break your spirit so he could gain control over you. He told you what to think and feel and when he felt like it he rewarded you with some crumbs of kindness. We are so starved of love and human contact; we eat up those crumbs of kindness and crave our next meal from them. We are starving for a human being to return our love and appreciate us. They gain power over us by mixing pain and pleasure, believing we will end up with the good guy, but, THEY DO NOT EXIST."
"When it is over, whether you have been dumped or trying to get away from them, you have survived an emotional holocaust, brainwashed and tortured and you wonder why you are having such a hard time getting over it. You are left to sift through the destruction and rubble to find pieces of yourself. You have to try to remember who you were to even begin putting yourself back together. You try to think, what did I do wrong, where and when did it go wrong, what did you miss, what more could you have done, how could you be so stupid, why would you put up with it, why did I stay, why didn't I leave, why can't I just move on?"
"Never ending questions trying to make some sense of it all, but it will never make sense. It had nothing to do with you. Then we think we are co dependent, we enabled our abusers, we loved too much, and we had no self esteem to have let this happen to us. We now feel ashamed of ourselves, for letting this happen. We end up feeling and being responsible for it all. The abusers move on totally unaffected, looking for their next prisoner to take in. They suffer no consequences, you do. He blamed everything on you, made you responsible for everything that happened and then you are basically told you brought it on yourself. Maybe there are some people who are co dependent, but it does not apply to everyone. It does not apply to prisoners taken in by narcissists and abusers and tortured in their camps, YOUR LOVELY HOME. They are from another planet; they come for the hearts and minds of the loving caring people on our planet. They look like us and they can act like us. You have no way of knowing till you are in their camp. It can happen to anyone, and they need a never ending supply of loving people to live every day of their lives."
"A normal breakup or divorce is hard but this is so much more. They rearranged your mind, depleted and deleted everything that was you, sucked you dry and you wonder why you are having such a hard time of it. You were a kind loving human being with an outstanding capacity to love, and THEY HAVE NONE OF THAT TO GIVE TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE. You did not know people like this existed. I know I thought everyone treated other people the way they would want to be treated; well not everyone sees the world that way. Set up boundaries for the way you want to be treated from now on, don't ever settle for anything less. You deserve to be loved for who you are and to be treated with respect and dignity always. Some things in life do not or ever will never make sense, narcissists and abusers are two of those things. So as long as we question ourselves and try to make sense of it, we keep them in our heads. The feelings you are feeling are all normal when you have been held a prisoner of war, a hidden war in their heads."
"Sadly for those of us who have survived, understanding and support is hard to find. You have to live it to know what it is like. The road to recovery is facing it all, releasing the memories that will never make sense. You can make sense of the insane behavior, you had nothing to do with it, and it was not you. Focus on yourself and what you want to do, you deserve a life. You can't rush it; you must have the same amount of patience and love you gave your partner, BUT THIS TIME FOR YOU. Don't beat yourself up anymore; you came in contact with a non human from another planet. "
