What the hell was I thinking of?????

[piranhamorgana]

Am posting here ,rather than NPD thread in the hope that it may be some help to those who might not see it there.....

My back story is known to many.

Link Here

Baby dd is nearly 8mo and adored by my 4 older dc and me.
Since sending a solicitors letter threatening a nmo,and offering supervised contact, we have neither seen nor heard from xp.

I hope,for her sake,and ours,that he stays away.

I am now having psychotherapy which will be open ended - long road ahead in unpicking the hows and whys of my relationship with my npd parents and recent flashbacks to sexual abuse.

Home is happy and settled,after some difficult times with my ds in Sept,and ongoing nonsense with his father,my 2ndxh.

But - I am struggling to come to terms with HOW and WHY I ever considered that I loved xp.He was SO CLEARLY (from here) an abusive bastard.Sorry to shout,but I am sooo frustrated - at myself.

I am not really beating myself up about it - intellectually,I know the answers....
..he was a skilled abuser.
He groomed me and the dc by reflecting back to us all our readily revealed hopes and dreams of a happy family with a great jolly dad...
...he hooked me with my old fantasy of being rescued by an "adoring, doting prince"...
..gained my sympathy by revealing "deep truths" about his past,that only I had been told,and listened to my own horror story - thereby binding us together as "soul mates"...

Then cemented the bond by subtle and increasingly more bizarre "gaslighting" tricks - moods that he started,but I ended up apologising for..later,huge rows and drama...I was convinced that I was an emotionally unstable drama queen who was lucky to have him...

He told me - (my worst fear) - that "no one else would want a single mother of 4 with 2 exes" and I eventually agreed...!!!!

He behaved exactly like my abusive, aggressive father ,and my npd mother - both of whom adored him.I really thought I had "come home"

AAAAAARRRRGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I sooo can't believe I fell for it.It's like I have woken from a nightmare - except,it has been real life for not just me,but my darling dc as well...

I was on here until recently,grieving for that shite bag....why ,why ,why....

If not for MN,I believe I would be chasing him to this day..so thank heavens for that..thank you,thank you,thank you everyone..I remember how devastated I felt,and how posting literally was a lifeline...

I know my story is far from unusual.There are similar posts daily.
I remember,though,thinking "my story will be different,we will make it work,he's not as bad as those other men on here"

Oh god,I feel so stupid,so scammed and taken in...HOW COULD I??? He even looks different in photos now...I believed I was happy,enjoying,but I was NOT...it's so obvious...
I KNOW I will not let another abuser near me - I can spot them a mile off...

But is this another phase of recovery?
I just can't believe I gave him a moment of my time........

you'll have me in tears in a minute! I am so glad you are free of this monster.

Please don't beat yourself up, as you said, he groomed you, you were targeted. Anyone could have fallen for that. He is very good at manipulation.

Enjoy the freedom, enjoy the peace, take each day as it comes and stick around, we need fabulous strong, brave women like you to help those that are still trapped!

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With any luck you're shot of him for good now. Well done for getting out and standing up for yourself.

As Hissy says, take time to enjoy the freedom, and concentrate on providing a happy, stable homelife for yourself and your DCs - you don't need a man to do that.

Be happy - your future is bright!

I think it is another phrase of recovery , and a usefull one too . Although you know practicly how this happened , your unpicking and looking deeper , unsatisified with the intellectual reasons , i think its another level of self awareness .

These idiots are good for nothing , but they do show us our potential weak spots , ones we didnt even know we had .You,ll spot them and fix them accordingly , and all the while youll know more and more .

Im often amazed that i apear to have sleptwalked through the majority of my life .If nothing else , my experience with a Narc woke me up in ways i cant describe.

we can all only do what we believe is the right thing at the time... yes we can with hidnsight see we were taken in...we can learn from it...

glad things are going well for you and DC.

i think tho, to be careful with the therapist that focusing on the why's and the past doesnt consume you - that there is an end game to this which is moving forward...not just looking back.

the need to make therapy about you - not about him... not so easy but to bear in mind - good therapist will make sure this happens

dignified - this really resonates with me -

"Im often amazed that i apear to have sleptwalked through the majority of my life .If nothing else , my experience with a Narc woke me up in ways i cant describe."

I dread to think how much worse it could have been...but what a way to learn.

The funny thing is/was,I didn't actually think I needed or particularly wanted a man when I met him.But I suspect that was part of the challenge for him - to break me down.And I don't think I would ever have thought so carefully about the things I was giving away,if not for what I have since learnt about protecting myself from abuse.

My therapy will be about moving forward.I had a lot of therapy years ago,and thought I was pretty sussed.Again,it has taken this experience to show up the gaps.

I am stunned at the photograph thing.When dd was born,in April,I would look at pictures of xp and me and feel pain and sorrow.I actually saw the man he had wanted me to see - he literally looked different to how I see him now...Now,he looks like a scary,mean and nasty old lech.And I look like a different version of myself..all defeated,overweight,hair the way he liked it,clothes not quite what I would choose...but I believed it at the time...I thought it was real life....

I realise I am repeating myself.And I am really not actually suffering with this.It's utter disbelief and amazement.

And horror.

I think the disbeleif is normal , its quite a lot to take in. The fact these people even exist constantly amazes me , how do they get away with it , and how do some of them manage to influence whole nations of people ?

You will find a way to be ok with it . I remember commenting to my counseller that i felt like i wasnt really there , that it wasnt really me , that i felt i had staggered through my life in a dream like state .

She replied that i wasnt really there , i wasnt fully " awake ". I remember the process of " waking up ". I saw things i had previously never noticed , things somehow looked and sounded differant , and i felt , for the first time , that i really existed.

There was a short thread a while ago about the " waking up " experience that people sometimes have after therapy or a trauma of some type , it was quite interesting .

The photos , ewww , i know exactly what you mean.

The photos.....

This is what started me off today - I have a big pile of photos which need sorting.From the time I was pg with dd1 - now 14,I have always taken lots,and carefully cut them down and put the best in chronological order in albums.The dc love looking through them.

When I met xp,I took lots of me and the dc ,and some of me and xp.There were some of us all,too,on "fun" days out...

I have never sorted or filed them because of this "reality shift".

But it feels odd to have a gap,all because of a lying,bullying con-artist.
Why should he possess and infect our memories a ,as well as spoiling many weeks of real time?

We are going to reclaim them.The dc and I are sitting here,sorting them all out.The ones with xp in are going into a pile.The ones we like - without him in,of us all,having fun,we will put into albums.

The ones of him - some we will put into an envelope for baby dd to see if/when she wants.
The others,I have suggested the dc do whatever they want with....they are delighted at this...ds plans to use some as loo paper to wipe his bum (really!) .They want to tear and cut some up - poke out the eyes,that sort of thing...

Planning this,they started to imagine a scenario in which he walked in on us - and got very excited describing how they would all enjoy standing up to him and telling him to get out,whilst laughing loudly (and ds said he would moon at him!!) DD1 said she wished we had the opportunity to really do this to him....

I will resist the temptation to wonder how on earth I could ever have considered that creature to be my hero.....and think of it as moving on.

ds plans to use some as loo paper to wipe his bum (really!)

Im often amazed that i appear to have sleptwalked through the majority of my life

Glad to hear things are upbeat for you Pirahna and as someone who lurked on your threads before I am full of admiration for you. And dignified you talk good sense.

I haven't lived with a narc, I don't think, but I can totally relate to what you and dignified said about sleepwalking through your life.

I was so busy holding together a home without help, raising DC and working in my demanding career as well as supporting my DH that I failed to notice that I was miserable. The denial was helped by keeping so busy I couldnt stop and feel anything. I got deader and deader emotionally because I was the "practical one". Then I started being mildly abusive to DH because I had stopped respecting him and loving him.

It took a brief affair to wake me up from dreamland. Acting so out of character and in opposition to all my values shocked me awake.

It has been a long struggle to sort out what has happened. I love the counselling and the insights it brings. And I love living on my own free from disapproval and control. And I love having feelings again, love joy pain hurt and fear! The future is exciting.

I hope yours is too

piranhamorgana , i think its great that your kids say theyd like the chance to say things to him it shows they know he was wong and that his behaviour wasnt ok. And even better that they can talk to you about this.

I notice in all your posts that you talk a lot about we , us , and ours , i think thats really nice .

Thanks maketea and dignified

(dd's took photos on the garden, cut holes in eyes of xp,and wee'd on them....ds took one over the field and poo'd on his...)

I remember my daughter playing Sims on the PC when she was angry once. She shut them all up in a room and set fire to the virtual house. I was totally shocked as she is the gentlest most thoughtful child imaginable.
It is powerful symbolism for your DC!

Hi Pirana

Don't feel bad for being 'sucked' in by someone like this. If your XP is anything like my XP they display a very fake side of them selves until they have you hooked. I split with my XP in January and then believed him when he said he had changed and got back with him at the beginning of the summer. We broke up a couple of months ago and for good this time.

I too feel very angry with myself for being with such a cruel, vindictive person. He told me no one would want me as I have 2 DC's, even went as far as saying I should never have had them.

Try not to dwell on this too much, a good friend of mine recently said to me to try and put it behind me and learn from it otherwise it will just fester.

I have honestly been thinking of the satistaction that i would get from wiping my arse with one of his photos and imagining his face if i were to moon at him