when dreams depart

photo credit

When it comes to traumatic events, sometimes the underlying issues are obscured even to those who experienced them. The most anyone can do is to be as objective as humanly possible, trusting he has made the best evaluation possible.

It's usually with apprehension he opens his wounds to anyone, for just as the support of a friend can hold him steady, the disparaging of the latter can throw him into an abyss. At first he seeks support from anyone who'll listen, but eventually comes to realize the subject at hand is foreign to the general public. He therefore devotes large chunks of time to understanding what went wrong and its effects upon interpersonal relationships, health and personal growth.

I came to realize as long as you live with some people in an Gilligan-Island existence, all is love and peace. To the public eye it is difficult to perceive there are human beings who are incapable of sustaining long term friendships except nominally. Some will work day and night to sabotage your connections by 1) seeking to poison your view of others and 2) absorbing your energy with a long list of demands.

Some people also inflict terror so eventually a flash of the eyes is all that is needed.  Cycles of abuse consist in measured doses of sweetness and calm, that eventually lead to periods of tension and hostility, that eventually erupt into verbal attacks. As Darlene Lancer says, "The abuser may be loving between abusive episodes, so that you deny or forget them."

This shift back and forth, can push you into a role similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After each “explosion” he’s walk about in an antic disposition for days not wanting to eat nor take care of himself.  While to others the list below may seem to be a collection of cold clinical data, to me each trait is a condensed prompt that elicits more distressing personal stories.

-- Intuitive Feeling

Paranoid Personality Disorder -- ICD-10 is characterized by the following traits:

- excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs;
- tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;
- suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous;
- a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation;
- recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;
- tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;

- preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.

-- The World Health Organization

 

Understanding Vulnerability to Abuse

Graph credit: www.utahcounty.org

"From the target’s point of view, the relationship becomes a vicious circle of bonding, anxiety, fear, relief, sex and further bonding. The longer it goes on, the harder it is for the target to escape." ~ Donna Anderson

If you've ever questioned why abusive relationships are harder to get over than healthy ones, then Donna Anderson's latest article "Getting Over that Amazing 'Chemistry'" may offer some insightful consolation. Since everyone's situation differs, not all the arguments she expresses need apply.

Dear Donna,

I'm aware my experience differs vastly from yours.  Although I can relate in principle to your life story, I didn't have to deal with an extreme sociopath as you did, but rather a subtle and covert abuser. To be honest, I don't know which of the two is more baffling. My ex-partner seemed decent, caring and committed on the outside, but underneath she was self-absorbed, suspicious, hypervigilant, exploitative and hostile. This discrepancy led me on my journaling journey to make sense of this sweetness/cruelty remix or else go insane. This crazy-making dynamic is aptly depicted above in the visual graphic -- as you know... what counsellors call, "Cycles of Abuse".

The Article:

What resonated with me was your accurate description of traumatic childhood experiences as a way of priming the target so that abuse feels normal. You refer to this fatal dynamic as traumatic bonding. You also mention love-bombing tactics that abusers use so that when a target is favored, the sun shines, but when he or she falls out of grace, the Ice Age begins.

These cycles of abuse often pushed me into a tormenting role similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet [minus the sublime poetry, royal intrigue, strewn corpses and tragic bloody ending]. After each “Explosion” I’d put on an antic disposition for days not wanting to eat nor take care of myself. I breathed a peculiar kind of calm because I didn't have to walk on eggshells as I usually did. I’d go for long walks alone; I'd interact with strangers on the street; I’d get a small suitcase and carefully pack some clothes, important documents and other essentials, as if to prepare for a quick getaway; I'd sit near my daughter's bed at night and cry as if to mourne that symbolic exile...

Getting back to the article, you leave your readers with some helpful homework: You finish by saying that healing and restoration involve exploring the root of our past and how that background may be connected in making us vulnerable to abusive relationships. This is painstaking work, especially if fear, obligation and guilt [FOG] are clouding our vision.  As the Christian theologian and philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard asserted: “[T]he truth is not so quick on its feet.” -- meaning if we want to reach out for truth, we need to work at it diligently, unashamedly and tenaciously.

Thanks Donna for your life commitment to helping others,
~ Reflector

Red Flags

Whenever I mentioned to others how I stayed in an abusive marriage for 16 years, the classic response I'd get was why would anyone tolerate such a "relationship" for so long if it was so bad?


Letting go of an intensely harmful relationship is more complicated than it looks, because perpetrators can be as sweet and tender as they are hostile and self-absorbed. It's a lethal mix. They have a super natural ability to morph themselves in order to get what they want. They intuitively scan you up and down, knowing how to unlock the door to the heart saying all the right words you want to hear -- whatever gets the job done: sometimes sweetness, sometimes rage, sometimes coldness: never knowing which emotional state you are going to encounter.


Those of us who suffer from a low nurturance/conflictive FOO (family or origin) ... are more vulnerable to being hooked to this kind of person with highly unpredicable behaviours. The uncertainty registers as love or what we perceive as ¨love¨ from our childhood.


This is just one of many long-standing issues I’ve experienced. MDM not only suffered from bouts of jealousy, tantrums, possessiveness, lack of empathy, but also generated a force field of anxiety and tension being a Type A personality.


Red Flags:

MDM was especially skilled in using her powers to push me off balance or engulf me. To be in her emotional vicinity, was to be exposed to endless episodes of "gas lighting" and insecurity:

- was manipulative; exploiting my good will
- acting as if she was capable of empathy
- knew how to deplete my time, energy and financial assets
- demanded constant attention
- an underlying hostility just under the surface waiting to pounce on me with her famous fiery red glare
- concocted endless long-lasting accusations against my family of origin designed to alienate them or isolate me from their influence
- possessed a sophisticated radar to detect my soft spots rapidly. This emotional instability came across as a strong dose of disapproval where I end up compensating with all kinds of appeasing responses
- started arguments and thrived on conflict: addicted to the drama
- showed no motivation to do any internal work necessary to reconstruct trust and intimacy
-- Reflector

Hoovering

I learned the term, "hoover" means getting sucked into the same relationship even though you know in your heart it's hazardous to your health. It can happen over and over again if you're not grounded -- especially when you have co-parenting duties to fulfill on a daily basis. A few times I've been taken off guard getting into a friendly conversation with my stbxP. I find that until you have a specific vocabulary for a given dynamic, you are more liable to fall prey.

It's been my tendency to second guess myself, believing in grace -- that maybe I had been too harsh or too quick in my judgments of her. It's easy to forget the hellish world I lived through now that I have had time and space to recuperate my somewhat lost identity and emotional/physical health.

~ Reflector

Paranoid Traits

"An abusive relationship is a lethal web of confusion, fear, promises, and hope. The complicated and dangerous process of getting out entails many challenges that people who have never been battered may not consider."

-- letswrap.com

Even though I've been separated from an abusive relationship for several years I often need to reinject myself with a reality check -- re-reading, re-educating myself about personality disorders in order to remind myself AFRESH about the trauma I lived. Perpetrators are experts at making you believe what you believe is a fabrication of your mind. They will approach you as if nothing ever happened between you.

My Reality Check:

Characteristics that match my ex-spouse:

-- is on guard, believing that others are constantly trying to demean, harm, or threaten her. These generally unfounded beliefs, as well as their habits of blame and distrust, might interfere with her ability to form close relationships....

-- Doubt the commitment, loyalty, or trustworthiness of others, believing others are using or deceiving her
- Is reluctant to confide in others or reveal personal information due to a fear that the information will be used against her
- Is unforgiving and hold grudges
- Is hypersensitive and take criticism poorly
- Reads hidden meanings in the innocent remarks or casual looks of others
- Perceives attacks on her character that are not apparent to others; she generally reacts with anger and is quick to retaliate
- Has recurrent suspicions, without reason, that her spouses is unfaithful
- Is generally cold and distant in her relationships with others, and might become controlling and jealous
- Cannot see her role in problems or conflicts, believing she is always right
- Has difficulty relaxing
- Is hostile, stubborn, and argumentative..."
All PD descriptions were provided by http://my.clevelandclinic.org

~ Intuitive Feeling

Letting Go…

I cannot change the awful events in my life, but I can work on replacing the messages that have emanated from those events. Also, I no longer need others to understand me as I once (desperately) expected them to. If someone comprehends I’m grateful! If not, that too is now acceptable.

Having lost a sense of self early on in the marriage, I became as invisible as I could, flying under the radar as much as possible -- making myself as small as I could to escape my ex-spouse's nasty tantrums. My anxiety grew so large that if I saw an acquaintance on the street, I’d walk on pretending not to notice him or her, because I simply did not have the strength to interact. I stopped caring how I appeared, whether my hair was cut well or not, what clothes I had on... Any photographs taken of me during this period revealed the empty eggshell existence. There was no sparkle in my eyes, not even a trace of joy or spontaneity… Friends could see how I lived in sadness and depression more than I could. The reflection in their eyes told me something was wrong, but I was too numb to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t see how trapped I had become into the role of good husband/rescuer/loving father while at the same time playing submissive/appeaser/follower.

It’s not that every day spilled over with nightmarish scenes coz my daughter's mother could be as sweet and tender as she could be cruel and self-absorbed. In fact it only took one or two triggering events or meltdowns over the course of several months to remind me who was in control. It was as if two personalities resided inside one body, never knowing which one I was going to encounter – kinda like a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde syndrome. It’s what counsellors refer to as cycles of abuse – a mix of BITTER/sweet to confuse and disorient the victim.

Those of us who suffer from a low nurturance/conflictive families of origin... are much more vulnerable to becoming hooked to this kind of controlling personality although people from loving homes can also fall. For me the highly unpredictable behaviours registered as love or what I perceived as ¨love¨ coz as a child I witnessed so much out-of-control drama. All of this amounts to a lot of ambiguity that takes years to shake.

The challenge of washing away the contamination of pain, self-condemnation, exploitation and anger has been rewarding. The underlying motive that now compels me through each day is the search for validation, restoration and connectedness -- seeking to share rich, satisfying, deeper-level thoughts and feelings with those who want to listen or who have faced a somewhat similar nameless monster.
© Reflector 2008