The problem with Toasters...

I have finally arrived at a point where I accept that, to my ex, to my mind raping narcissistic ex, I was just a toaster. A toaster, meaning a toaster on the kitchen counter.

Where I used to think that he is still thinking of me, I have come to a place where I realize he is not. Who still thinks of their old, broken toaster that they put out for the garbage man long, long ago? You don't. You just toss it out, replace it, and never think of the old one again as long as you have a current toaster "doing the job".

I no longer hurt about this or have trouble accepting this. It is not about me. It is about his disorder. It is not personal. Again, do you really think about nurturing your toaster each day, asking your toaster how it is feeling, and tending to its emotional needs?

I realize I was a toaster long before I actually spoke up and didn't want to be a toaster anymore. As soon as he had me secured, as soon as he had me "plugged in" along with all of the other "useful" electronics, appliances, and tools in his life, he quit tending to me on an emotional level. He never really "maintenanced" me on an emotional level, anyway. He only faked those feelings until I was securely "in his kitchen".

However, in reflection, I do remember him having a problem with me waking up and "smelling the coffee". He had a problem when I finally realized I did not want to be anyone's toaster, that I wanted a partnership of equals between warm-blooded human beings.

Instead of just letting the toaster sit outside and wait for the garbage man, he had to start devaluing the toaster. He had to tell me how inferior I was to the other toasters out there. He then became emotional with the toaster and started telling it how defective it was.

See, that is the problem with toasters. Instead of just putting the "defective" appliance outside and going on, he has to take a knife to the toaster first and damage it. He has to get a hammer out and start smashing it to bits.

See the irony? I am just a toaster. Put myself out and let me you move on please. No. That is when he gets really crazy. Who smashes up and gets hostile and demeaning and cold with toasters that no longer work for you?

Moral of the story? I accept I was a toaster to him. I will patiently wait outside for the garbage man to pick me up and remove me from his life, drive me off to a better place where I am me and not an appliance.

I will go without much fuss and realize that fighting back with this crazy person demeaning an appliance will never make him see I am more than a toaster. No matter what he says, no matter if he tells me that he could never live without a toaster like me, that I was the best toaster, realize that eventually I will be devalued once again and placed on the curb waiting for the garbage truck.

So instead I will go quietly on the garbage truck, laughing to myself about this idiot assclown saying cruel things to a toaster, trying to make the toaster believe how insignificant it was in the kitchen.

I will have the last laugh.

"breakdown go ahead and give it to me"....Tom Petty

What’s got me baffled is how I’m reacting to what I’ve learned. I’ve always been a problem solver. I bloomed where I was planted, made lemonade out of lemons…I really believe in that. I am an optimist, I love to laugh, have good friends and I’ve been happy. I’ve loved my alone time and the camaraderie of friends. Even when things have been bleak and there have been some very bleak times, I’ve worked my way through it.

But now, I’m rolled into a tight little ball. I am not taking care of the business of everyday life. I feel like I am barely functioning. The knowledge of this disorder is more painful than the events, or more accurately, it’s like being dealt another blow. All the things that I believed I’d put behind me are rearing their heads….like my own personal horror show. For the first time in my adult life, I don’t know where to start. Everything has been turned upside down. I am terrified and I feel like I’m drowning.

I've so often felt my adrenaline is exhausted nowadays. I'm not ashamed anymore to admit I don't have the energy nor the motivation to do the list I used to do. I'm no superwoman, but when I look back, my former husband had himself a good slave. I moved so quickly, it was like a game to see how fast I could complete tasks. All of this took place while Mr. Fantastic was doing nothing except criticizing, blaming, devaluing. It's amazing how we twist ourselves into different shapes to please them only to realize far too late that we can't please them.

"Breakdowns" often occur for a reason - things weren't working as well as we believed. So we have to look again, see what still works, and replace those things that are no longer useful. We do it externally, and we do it internally, too.

I think it's what we have to go through when we have to evaluate our entire life through the perspective of a greater truth, when reality pushes everything else aside and imposes its own perspective, is a kind of psychological death. A whole world view has died, and a new one is forming. We have to come to grips with the fact that whole realities are different than we believed.

I am sure I will get there, but it will take time. Sometimes you just have to take time off from the perfectionism, to realize it was never serving me..... in any sort of valuable way.

I think in the end, it will all be okay.

"Welcome to the place you never wanted to be."

John Chapter 8, Verse 32 – “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.

There seems to me no greater truth written or spoken than the words, “The truth will set you free”.

Only people who have been subject to the kind of torture by evil people, the way I have (call them sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths, whatever – a lethal thorn by any other name smells as putrid) can truly understand the effects of such torment.

Anybody else – friends, family, counsellors, doctors, psychologists, even ‘experts’ on personality disorders, try as they might cannot ever REALLY 100% comprehend the depth and complexity of it all.

Kind, well-meaning people, who assume that you are ‘obsessed’ with your abuse because you never seem to talk about anything else, think they are helping when they say things like, “Let it go”, “Move on”.

What they don’t realise is that they are inadvertently doing one of the things your abusers did. They are not allowing you to find your voice. They want you to shut up, just like he did.

This apparent obsession is not a yearning for him– for someone who treated you with dreadful cruelty. Your yearning is to be heard. The catch-22 is that to be heard means to be fully understood by listeners and that validation cannot be provided by anyone who cannot 100% appreciate what you need to say. Or for how long you need to keep saying it.

Sometimes, the ‘support’ that is so desperately needed, turns on you. This so often happens to the victims of all types of bullying, when the very people who are supposed to help, (whether through ignorance, misunderstanding, disinterest etc) end up re-victimising the victim.

Then when the victim, with nowhere else to go, kills her/himself in despair, the re-victimisers say, “We tried to help but she/he didn't co-operate”. Typically, the victim is blamed - not the bully, not the ‘helpers’ – it’s always the victim’s fault.

There is much advice out there on how to ‘let go’ of what the evil one did to you (and often continues to do). E.g, “You will never get closure from a narcissist/sociopath etc, so forget it” and “You can’t make sense of the senseless”.

I’ve found myself repeating these mantras, perhaps thinking that if I say them often enough, they will work.

Maybe with some people, or the passage of time, or both, it seems to work. However, the fact that many of the people who say “It worked for me, so it will work for you too”, write books and websites and blogs on the subject – tells me that whilst some of them are genuinely doing it to help others through the horrific aftermath of life with a psycho - there are probably just as many who have to keep plugging away because they have never let it go either and however much they protest otherwise, they too are still trying to make sense of the senseless.

Having said all that, I’m not writing this as a criticism of those people (their hearts are in the right place), or as a criticism of the lovely, well-meaning friends who unfortunately invalidate you just as the abuser did because they don’t want to hear about it anymore, and tell you to let it go, move on.

I’m also not writing this to make other victims of psychos give up on life in despair, because they feel that their bewildered pain will never go away.

Quite the opposite in fact.

I once told my ex-husband, when we were still together, that there was no point in lying to me and that I didn’t need to ‘spy’ on him either. I said, “I don’t need to go looking for the truth, it always comes to me”.

It always seemed to then, but my mistake was in thinking that the truth would always come to me - that I didn’t need to go looking for it. Well-meaning advice to “drop it”, “move on” reinforced the idea that I should not seek the truth. Or even wait for it to seek me. Just “leave it, it doesn’t matter, move on”.

But it does matter. It matters because in seeking and finding the truth and then accepting the undeniable truth you find, only then can you ‘let it go’. The truth can be unbearably painful. But the fact that it IS the truth is the only thing that can liberate you. It is the only thing that can put an end to that yearning to find a voice, to be validated.

The truth really does set you free.

Every single day that passes without the lies; the treachery; that endless, underlying anxiety; the feeling of having to tiptoe through a field of landmines; the hostile tension; that blood-curdling, empty-eyed stare; the complaining; the blaming; the crazymaking; the gaslighting; the cruelty; the feeling that there is a leak in your soul where the life is slowly being drained from you; the ache to be genuinely loved; the yearning for peace; – every day is a blessing from God.

John Chapter 8, Verse 32 – “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.

Dear You...

Dear momma's boy I know you've had your butt licked by your mother I know you've enjoyed all that attention from her and every woman graced with your presence after
Dear narcissus boy I know you've never really apologized for anything, I know you've never really taken responsibility, I know you've never really listened to a woman
Dear "Show" boy I know you're not really into conflict resolution nor will have any talk of connectedness and any talk of resolving this leaves you running for the door
Dear egotist boy you've never really had to suffer any consequence you'd never understand anyone showing resistance
Dear popular boy I know you're used to getting everything so easily a stranger to the concept of reciprocity people honor boys like you in this society and any talk of selflessness and any talk of working at this and any talk of being of service leaves you running for the door

You go back to the women who will dance the dance you go back to your friends who will lick your ass you go back to ignoring all the rest of us you go back to the center of your universe

Dear self centered boy I don't know why I still feel affected by you I've never lasted very long with someone like you I never did although I have to admit I wanted to
Dear magnetic boy you've never been with anyone who doesn't take your shit you've never been with anyone who's dared to call you on it, I wonder how you'd be if someone were to call you on it and any talk of willingness and any talk of both feet in and any talk of commitment leaves you running for the door

You go back to the women who will dance the dance you go back to your friends who will lick your ass you go back to being so oblivious you go back to the center of the universe

Soul Sisters

I know a lot of girls. A lot of girls.
Pretty girls. Sexy girls. Lovely girls.
Shapely girls. Courageous girls. Intelligent girls.
And they find these men. These angry men.
Sad men. Mean men. Cruel men. Emotionally lost men.

And they fall. Or at least they think so.
They think they fall. They think it's love.
It's the fools gold of love. It's lust.
Or the need-to-be-loved-so-badly-they-accept-a-fake.

And we all have made bad decisions.
And I say, "Hey soul sister. Love yourself. Be kind.
Don't expect him to make you happy. Don't want him to be super human.
Sugar. Bear. He can't solve all your Daddy-didn't love me enough-issues.
It's not his job to fix you."
And they give me a blank stare.
And they're young. And they don't realize that happiness is an inside job.
And that what he can give is only a smidgen, a bit, a portion of what makes you...you.

Be whole, sister. Be you, friend. Be happy, love.
Then this man, this kind,
this joyful, this open to loving you man will exist.
And oh my, do they exist.
Like unicorns in a forest. Not a myth. Not at all.
They're real. But you gotta get real first.
Be open. Be kind. Be patient. Be real. No games.

Godspeed loves.

I didn't sign up for Assclown Camp!

Urban Dictionary defines an Assclown as such:
One, who, through the fault of his parents conception, is a skid mark in society's collective underwear.
You, my good sir, are an assclown.

So I apparently signed up for and attended Assclown Camp. Not sure when I did that, not sure how I did that, why I did that, when I did that....you get the idea. But I can tell you what I've learned from attending this camp and some things that I'm still not sure why I suffer from the affects of attending Assclown Camp.

So I read to self diagnose; I google all kinds of crazy shit to figure out what the hell ??

So I come across a lot of articles that elude to PTSD; Eh, I think I don't have PTSD isn't that reserved for the military personnel returning home and can't quite deal with life?? Nah, I've been writing that idea off, until recently.

What gets my blender of a mind in motion is what in the sam hell am I always feeling worried about?? Think Anxiety. Next blender blade whirls in what in the sam hell am I always scared about? Think Fear. Next whirl of the blender please...ah my old friend entrapment, hello my friend. Think Disempowerment.

I read where these are all symptoms of PTSD; it seems that PTSD can potentially arise from any prolonged period of negative stress in which certain factors are present and guess which factors they are...oh yes my dear friends anxiety, fear, disempowerment, entrapment, confusion, betrayal, loss of control....good gawd I could go on forever.

I think about this in transition with relationships in my life and how I have so many (thankfully!) but I never seem to get close to any of them. I think it has to do with a lot of different trash that will keep floating to the surface. Not as often as it did at first, still too much now. I know time, no contact and taking my life back will help.

In the meantime I think that I'm in survival mode. The ability to do whatever it takes to survive is instinctive. We all have it, and in traumatic enough situations, it will come out or we die. Similarly shutting down feelings in order to do whatever it takes to survive, or do your job and help others survive, is a reality based survival skill. Numbness is the answer. It is effective. It will help you live.Unfortunately when survivors numb their fear, despair and anger, all their feelings, even good ones, are numbed. Numbness is comfortable.

God blessed Assclown Camp. I wouldn't send my worst enemy there.

The Scorpion and the Frog

Good anaology on self destruction....kind of reminds me of my last marriage, oy vey!

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"
"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"
"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.
"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back.
"I could not help myself. It is my nature."
Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.