the cheshire grin is the last to go - triggers

[sanmagic7]

radical, i hate that you're going thru all this, too.  it's such a frickin' mess, too horrible for words.  i get it, get all the levels of pain.  i wish i were the only one feeling this way - i don't want anyone else to be suffering so much.  it's not right, it's not fair.   anguish - that's a good word for this.  tears of anguish are running down my face.  my logical side can't make any sense of this anymore. 

my daughter and i are supposed to meet up in san diego next month for 3 days together after her writing conference, and right now the thought of it paralyzes me.  i'm afraid i won't be able to go.  it just feels like too much work to even get there.  i don't know where i am anymore.   falling down the rabbit hole.

3 roses, even those cyber hugs feel good to me cuz i can imagine them as being real.  thank you.  that's the one good thing i can feel, and right now my hub is sick and i'm wearing a medical mask at home against his coughing, which he refuses to cover up and it ticks me off and i can't even get a real hug from him. 

i want to keep writing this out, get this poison out of me.  right now i have to let the tears dry.  dammit!

[sanmagic7]

back to recovery.  2015 was the year that i was brought to my knees by my narc daughter and ex, in jan.  the sept. before, i had met with him to untangle our bank accts. so that we would no longer have a joint acct., and i would have one of my own.  a huge step, fraught with terror, because i was going to the town where he and she both lived, it was her birthday, and i was so very afraid of seeing her.  thank you, god, that she didn't show up.  i had left my banking to him because i was in no shape to think, concentrate, or focus on money matters after i'd run away from home to here.  i paid him to be my accountant, so to speak, write checks for me when i needed to fly to see my daughters, and keep track of my soc. sec. and small pension from the county where he had worked.  he also did wire transfers for me so i'd have money available down here.  both our names are on the house up there, and he was in charge of that as well.  all things monetary were in his care.  i trusted him.

something i'd written in a blog caught him the wrong way, and he decided he wanted to separate completely from me. (when i explained what i had written, he understood that it wasn't at all what he'd thought.  still, as a misogynist, he read into it that a woman had been taking advantage of him, using him for her own greedy wants.  that was the last straw for him). 

2013 was the year that my narc daughter, who i hadn't  labeled as such yet, went through a vit. therapy treatment to cure her of her schizophrenia.  she'd been in and out of therapy since she was 7, had at least a dozen different diagnoses, all the way from adolescent confusion disorder to bpd to paranoid schizophrenia and many more in between.  she was living in her own apt. and found an actual doc who was all about healing/curing - he looked for the root source of the symptoms.  what he'd found about schizophrenia was a lack of niacin (vit. b3) in the brain would cause schizophrenic symptoms, including delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, etc.  it would be a process and i volunteered to fly there and live with her, take care of her while she went through the ordeal.  and, ordeal it was.  i spent 7 weeks watching my daughter go through a brain transformation that included her feet growing a half-size.  it was a nightmare for both of us, but we got through it.

up till this time, the abuse had still been going on, often with her shutting me out of her life for years at a time.  still, when my baby was so sick and needed caring for, i ran to do it.  she was 36.  i was using a cane at the time - meds and undiagnosed lyme's disease had made my legs un-trustable.  we had some great talks - she had been angry with me ever since i had my other daughter when she was 3 1/2, and was convinced that i loved the younger more than her. 

it was during this visit that she told me about her father/my ex being a misogynist.  i'd vaguely known of the concept, but no one would accuse him of hating women.   he looked and did all the right things for the outside world to see, and our own world was filled with the underpinnings of deceit, undermining me with our daughters, etc., all of which simply left me confused, questioning, but still believing that i could somehow fix it by loving him.  she also told me about sexual comments he made about her sister in her presence, and how she'd sometimes get that 'icky' feeling when she was with him.  i listened and began processing.  i was so non-reactive during those years, it looked like i took everything in my stride, and i guess i pretty much did.   

while it's true that she's also deceitful, something about this rang true.  he was a leg man, she had long legs, he'd made a leering noise at her when she was 6 (i yelled at him about that, took it into our couples' session with icky laurie, as i call that therapist, who basically brushed it away, said that wasn't appropriate, and never broached the subject again.)   i didn't know any better about what it really meant.  with this news she was now giving me, i told her that if she ever got that feeling from him again (she'd remarked about feeling it from him at the grocery, and that another, very recent time as they were checking out - he yelled at women while she was in the car, calling them all sorts of names, and when she'd complain, he'd buy her a new computer or something.  it's a dance they still swing to till this day as far as i know) - he said to her 'who's your daddy?'.  she and i both interpreted that as having a sexual connotation, and she'd stormed out of the store.  i told her that if she ever got that feeling from him again to leave that space, wherever they were.

she also told me about driving to visit younger daughter who has always been quite well endowed, and that when he saw younger waiting for them in a tank top, remarked about her 'titties'.  there had been a time a few years back when younger got new business cards with a beautiful head shot of her on it, and when she gave it to him, he told her 'i wish i was 30 yrs. younger'. 

so, these were the incidents i knew of.  elder told me that i could tell younger (i was going to visit her in a few weeks), which i did.  my mind was swirling with the implications of all this, and i believed that she needed to know for her own protection.  she was devastated - it was one of the most difficult things i've ever said to anyone in my life.  she asked a few questions, but loved her father (i can't call him their dad anymore - a 'dad' would never do/say/think such things about his daughters - and wanted to keep a relationship w/ him.  i told her the same thing about leaving the space if she ever felt that 'icky' feeling, and that she should be careful to wear looser, more covered-up clothing when she was going to be around him.

later that year, when i confronted him on the phone about this, he went into a DARVO rage, turned the tables on me in about 2 1/2 min., accused me of telling them not to be in the same room with him alone, but he never denied what he did, which is how i know that elder didn't lie about it, and that my daughters' father was a sexual predator.  my skin crawls now when i think of him hugging either of them, and he disgusts me no end.  i hate him for this, can't and am not even going to try to get over this.  back when i was drinking, he was home at night with them a lot, till elder was 7, and i don't know if anything ever went on.  i don't think it was anything overt, but i wouldn't put it past him to have masturbated into their underwear or something.  this is the first time this has actually come into my consciousness.  as far as i'm concerned, he's a pervert and will always be one in my eyes.  all these realizations.  ugly, ugly, ugly stuff.  more later.

so, 2014, he and i untangled ourselves financially from each other.  one of the things he'd said to me on the phone when i'd confronted him w/ all this was how many of these things did i actually 'witness', and i told him 2.  he yelled that 2 times in 25 years was bull*.  outside the bank, i confronted him on this again, told him that a real dad would not do anything like that EVER!!! to his daughters, let alone excuse 2 times as being ok.  after the financial stuff was finished, we went out to lunch, i told him about how sick i've been all these years while everyone thought i was down in mexico having fun in the sun and surf.  he did one of his own type of apologies (i've realized since that he's never really apologized for anything, never been accountable, never admitted to what he'd done, never said he was sorry for doing it, that it was wrong, and that he wouldn't do it again.  instead, he'd apologize a lot, as he did in this instance, by saying 'i'm sorry you've had it so rough' or, if i brought some feelings up to him for something he'd done, he'd say 'i'm sorry you felt that way'.  slippery as an eel and as real as the mock turtle.

i was completely overwhelmed by the time i left him - we'd always say 'i love you' when we left each other, and as i was getting out of the car, he said it, and i was painfully truthful (it was painful to me to be truthful, actually) and told him i couldn't say that to him at that time.  i did tell him to look up 'narcissistic misogynist' on the internet and he would see himself there.  when i went into my hotel room, i fell on my knees, thanked god for getting me through it, and sobbed until i had no tears left.  i was depleted, only wanted solitude, sleep, and food.  i didn't have the faintest that this would hit me like it did.

looking back on all this, it's amazing to me how much i'd let slide, how little sense of boundaries i had, how protective i was of his ego, and how much work i'd put in trying to keep some sense of sanity into a completely insane situation.  it did show progress, then, when the following jan. i was able to eliminate both daughter and ex from my life.  but, what a rough and rocky trip.  i almost didn't get up that time. 

[sanmagic7]

thinking about the above, and i'm a fairly intelligent being, i'm amazed at how clueless i was about all this.  i think it was my floaty self, not understanding much of anything.  i am silencing my inner critic who now wants to tell me how stupid i was to have had all this going on around me and not having an idea about what any of it meant.  this bit of misogynist and sexual stuff, every new piece of info i heard and subsequently began researching, gutted me or felt like  a brick had been thrown into my face.  the more i was knowing, the worse i was feeling. 

i had run away from home to mexico where i believed i'd be able to heal, but this stuff kept coming out and it made me feel like i was in the midst of a whirlwind.  i'd gone back a few weeks after my elder had been 'cured' of her schizophrenia because she was exhibiting suicidal behaviors due to not knowing how to cope with the new way her brain was functioning.  she was sending emails, one after another, about how much she'd hurt us, her family, how she just wanted to live by herself, give away her cats, not have any contact with any of us again.  i flew back to calm her down, first asking if she'd slam the door on me if i showed up, and she said no.  so i went, spent another 3 weeks with her, helping her re-orient herself to a new way of thinking and viewing the world.  run in and fix it, san - that's what you do.

by the end of that visit, we had a plan to get her life back on track, including finishing her master's degree (yeah, thru all this, she was able to get some kind of college education).  i gave her money to make sure she'd have school paid for in case her benefits didn't come in, and to start a crystal healing business.  she also spoke of how she didn't want to see her father anymore, so i arranged to pay her some money every month (i was already giving some to younger, who struggled w/ anxiety and panic attacks so she could work part time) to make sure her bills would be paid.  we left on good terms, everything was set up for her to get on with a fairly decent life, and i went home.  this was in aug.

by dec., she told me she wanted nothing from me, no money, no contact.  she wanted to move to a warm place for the winter because her knee was bothering her too much, and she'd apparently contacted her father to fly her out to warmer climes for the winter.  he ended up leasing a car for her and drove it and her cats out to her.  father was back in, probably because she knew i didn't have the credit cards necessary for these kinds of transactions.  everything she'd said and thought about him went out the window, including her mom.

i was devastated, but i was also coming to a point of being done with her.  such a slap in the face!  i turned my attention to younger who was struggling, but who had never once let go of me, had always been kind to me even tho she was mad at first that i'd left, and decided that, since i'd have been giving that money to elder anyway, i'd just give it to younger.  she was starting up a publishing business so that she could get her books out to the public, and i threw my resources to that end.  she was also paying off school loans (several of which have now been taken care of) and i wanted to help with that as well. 

so, in jan. of 2015, i got an email from elder - hadn't heard from her in all that time - saying that money was tight (she'd moved back into the house with her father, he'd over-stretched all his credit cards and had taken out 2 more mortgages on the house in order to pay for trips, etc., for her - our house payments are now triple what they were when i left, and that mortgage should have been paid off by now) even tho her father had taken on a part-time job (he's retired) and that he'd never ask me for money, so she was.  she never said hi, how are you, what's going on with you, just this lame excuse to get money out of me.  it was the straw that broke this particular camel's back.  i said no, that she wasn't going to shut me out of her life then come back in just to get money from me, and that when she wanted to have a caring, respectful, adult mother-daughter relationship with me to give me a holler.  the 3 emails that came back from her were some of the worst words/thoughts/wishes i'd ever seen from one person to another, let alone from a daughter to a mother.

i called my ex - he ignored my first call, (coward) but later told me he'd been expecting to hear from me.  he ignored me on purpose because he didn't want to hear what i had to say.  it was just more of the same, not stopping her from doing such a thing to me ('i told her you didn't have any money'), knowing she was going to do it even under the circumstances of our relationship, not giving me a head-up as to what to expect - ugh!  it's so sordid.  after the phone call, i also wrote to him, told him that even if i did have money i wouldn't lend it to him, that he'd gotten himself into a financial mess on his own because of his decisions about elder, and that once again, he'd complained about something in his life and allowed a strong woman (when we were married it was always me) to come to his rescue.  i basically left it at that, except to wish him a happy birthday!  it was the day before his birthday and as upset as i was, i was still going to be kind enough to wish him a happy day.

i'd begun exploring misogyny, discovered there are 2 types - physical and intellectual.  hub #1 was physical - he cheated on me with real women.  hub #2, intellectual.  he was too scared to go after a real woman, so he cheated on me nearly every night of our marriage until it came out what was going on with video women, two-dimensional women.  he had a wife who loved him, wasn't a dog, was willing to share a sexual anything with him, but he preferred to get off with women on the screen of our tv.  i'd also found out about narcissistic abuse at the same time, and was exploring this, getting info emails from a woman in australia who was making a name for herself in the field.  the info was fascinating, and was when i realized who and what i had been dealing with. 

when this email and phone call happened, it took 3 days for the impact to make itself known.  that morning i woke up doubled up with back spasms, couldn't stand up straight, was in terrible pain, and knew why.  they had double-teamed me once again, but this time i really couldn't play it off, ignore it, or fix it.  for 3 days i contemplated giving up at last - they had beat me, i couldn't take it anymore, i just wanted to curl up into a vegetable and stay like that till i died.  that was the lowest point in a life of low points, and i didn't have the faintest idea how i would be able to survive such treatment any more.

the power of my spirit says a lot to the fact that i'm still here, still alive, still mildly functioning.  i have the best guardian angel ever.  but that day, she was nowhere in sight.  i told no one how i was feeling, it was too deep to comprehend.  tweedledum and tweedledee were on the verge of destroying me, and i knew it.  i'd always held out hope for them because they always said they loved me and i always believed that love would trump everything and would win the day.  i trusted them to eventually come through for me, and it would all have been worth it.  how ignorant was i. 

and so my recovery was progressing.  ha ha ha.

[Wife#2]

  How I wish I could make people be genuine for you. Of course, the sentence refutes itself - it wouldn't be genuine if I was 'making' them be that way. Ugh.

I'm just thankful and so very, very glad that you survived the trip and have made it back home. Challenging though THAT is, at least it IS home. For now.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, wife2.  it is home, and i've been sick after getting my flu shot, but feeling a bit better today.  time for just me, watching tennis, reading, and hopefully doing some healing.  getting to know all this stuff has been just so re-traumatizing for me.  like i've said before, i didn't have the horrors of others - the physical/sexual abuse, the terrible put-downs, nasty words flung at me (except by elder, and mostly at the end).  but the insidiousness of this covert stuff all under the umbrella of polite, considerate, seemingly caring words has pulled the rug out from under me time and time again.   reading now 'the body keeps the score' helps me understand how damaged my brain and body are and why, at the same time it makes me want to weep for what i've gone through to get to this place. 

i told the kids at christmas that at one time i had a counselor who asked me to envision myself on the last day of my life, and i never hesitated before the age 92 came out.  now, i'll be surprised if i reach my 70th birthday.  i just don't know how much more of this my brain and body can take before one or the other just gives out.  all these years i never felt fear, but i'm frightened now every time i turn around.  what new horror awaits me?   i dread leaving the house now, hate having to interact with anyone - i used to be the life of every party, did volunteer work, raised a family, worked on my relationship w/ my hubs, worked outside the home, was always smiling because i genuinely loved life and people and interactions and situations and experiences and adventures.  my smiles were real, came from my heart, twinkled in my eyes.  that's why my smile will be the last to go.  i have always found so much to smile about, but it's getting less and less nearly by the day.  the cheshire cat is and has always been my favorite fantasy character.  his smile was always the last to disappear as well.

[Wife#2]

     

[meursault]

I've been reading your journal over the last weeks, but didn't think I had anything to really offer.   All I can say is you are an incredibly strong woman, sanmagic! 

It's taken some time to claim ownership of your boundaries sometimes, but you have made so many good decisions.  I think it's a major thing we likely all have, not really even understanding we are allowed to have boundaries of one kind or another, but you sure make a lot of healthy life choices. 

It makes me sad seeing how hard it's all been for you! 

Meursault

[Three Roses]

... i'm frightened now every time i turn around.  what new horror awaits me?   i dread leaving the house now, hate having to interact with anyone - i used to be the life of every party, did volunteer work, raised a family, worked on my relationship w/ my hubs, worked outside the home, was always smiling because i genuinely loved life and people and interactions and situations and experiences and adventures.

Wow, I really relate to all this! I used to be so happy, outgoing - what was happening to me?

I kept feeling like I was fading, fading - falling further and further into the sinkhole that had opened beneath my feet. I was tired of running, so tired; my dreams revealed how much running my waking hours were occupied with.

I literally thought I was losing my mind. And my body felt like it was falling into pieces.

But, I had found this place, and I hung tightly to the idea that, if this all had been done to me, it could be undone by me. I focused on not running, and instead focusing as I'd never done before on my past and its effects. Slowly I started coming out of that sinkhole; I know I'm still in it, but not as deeply as I was.

My mind refuses to accept that you are going to

go up in smoke.

You're a beautiful soul and this site - indeed, this world - needs more of you. You are valued and cared for more than I can express in this moment. I sincerely hope that you find, as I did, that there is still a way up and out of our present health concerns.

[sanmagic7]

you are all some of the most wondrous people i've never met.

i haven't stopped fighting (which is a paradox, because the last thing i need is the stress of fighting), but each time i get sick a little nother piece of my spirit gets chipped away.  it is also stressful to be sick, so my adrenals are taking hits each time it happens.  such a vicious cycle.  it sucks.  enough for now.  thank you all.  you're beautiful. 

[sanmagic7]

today i feel like the red queen - off with their heads!!!  i've been in this caucus race too long, nearly drowning in my own tears, one step forward, 89 steps back.  to finish off this past 3 yrs., since 2013 when i was nursing my daughter back to health and then going back to stabilize her emotional crisis, and getting cut off from her life once again because i had no more money to give her and refused to rise to her bait about what a bad person she was and confronting her on some of her abhorrent behaviors, i also discovered i had lyme's disease and underwent 3 mos. of aggressive antibiotic treatment.  that helped some of my problems, especially with my legs being wobbly, and i no longer needed a cane, or a wheelchair when i was at the airport. 

just before that, on my 65th birthday, the psychotropic meds i'd been given wreaked havoc with my legs, and i ended up falling while on a morning walk, breaking my wrist and some structure in my back.  this was after repeated trips to the town by my husband to tell that shrink that these new meds were screwing with my legs, to which she replied, they couldn't be, she hasn't been on them that long, while the family doc was telling me to  cut back on them and she was contradicting him and i ended up in the e.r. up there not being able to trust my legs and getting these confusing messages from the medical community.  i decided then and there that i was taking this mental health thing into my own hands, did a lot of heavy duty therapeutic work on my own (the psychologist i saw here in town for a new bout of depression bailed on me one day after about 5 sessions - never heard squat from him) to get rid of the underlying emotions that were causing the depression (i don't recommend this for anyone) and weaned myself off my anti-depressants just in time to have that financial untangling meeting with my ex.  so, my brain, what's left of it, was functioning without help for that meeting.  no wonder i was a mess.

when  i was brought to my knees in jan., 2015, i contemplated vegetabe-ism for 3 days, but something grabbed me and i decided to give it one more shot with this australian woman's program about recovering from narc abuse.  (i still didn't know about c-ptsd and me).  there was a lot of free info with the program and a 30-day money back guarantee.  it mentioned something about her doing energy work, qi gong, i think, and i looked it up, saw that it was akin to tai chi.  i've had neg. experiences with tai chi in the past - it's energy flow doesn't mesh with my own, which is very strong (i stop watches), and i asked about that but got no answer.  so, i bought the program, gave it a go, listened to her podcast where she actually did an energy release technique, and it was so disturbing to me that i felt like i was hollowed out in my belly.  that feeling remained till the next day, which is when i decided this wasn't for me either.  when i chose to cancel the program (it was only a week), i did get my money back, but it wasn't very much help except for a lot of info on narc supply and abuse.  nothing about c-ptsd.

it was a start, tho, and i worked on myself throughout that year until the anniversary came in jan. of last year, when i went full-blown into that ef that lasted till aug., found my way here, got that therapist, educated and trained my husband about what was going on with me, gave him a chance to bail (but he wouldn't) and have been battling, again, since then.  i'm wondering if i'll ever get a chance to rest!  all this fighting can't be good for me, yet at the same time i'm supposed to rest, relax, sleep, eat well, and de-stress my life.  i'm doing as best as i can, but i seem to be going farther into the forest than ever before.  these past 4 yrs. would have been enough to give me c-ptsd without all the rest of the madness that came before.  ok, i'm exhausted.  just looking at the reality.  i don't know how i've survived.  no one else does, either.

[sanmagic7]

so, to sum up the 4 latest yrs. of my precious life, i broke bones because of meds, worked my way out of depression, got off my meds, took up vitamin therapy, made the mistake of believing my elder and giving her a bunch of money which she blew on things other than it was intended for, was told to leave her alone and was for all intents and purposes shut out from her life, again, learned about misogny and my 2 hubs. who hate women, what that means, what it meant for me and my daughters, learned that my hub #2 lusts after my daughters and refuses to admit it's a problem, had to break the news to the younger, which crushed her (she still won't talk about it) and that i can't protect them from it, eliminated 4 people from my life who seem to have a different idea of what love means than i do, learned about c-ptsd, had a major breakdown, had a major 8-mo. ef, went back into therapy, had to fire the therapist for incompetence, learned i have alexithymia and what that all means,  got a therapeutic mentor who began helping me re-wire my brain emotionally, was feeling good enough to start walking and lifting weights again, was feeling pretty good, began going after all the stored trauma in my body, went too far and had an absolute regression that left me nearly immobile for 2 weeks, and from which i haven't fully recovered, got the feeling of fear back that i had been missing most of my life, and which i don't like, tackled lyme's disease. had a dreadful experience with an energy worker trying to rid myself/heal myself from narc abuse memories,  learned that my adrenals aren't functioning properly and all the ramifications that go with that, traveled to oregon and had one of the best christmases ever, am still recovering from that (all that shopping and human interaction put a lot of stress on me - by 5 days into the visit, i knew i was already pushing myself to do more than i should, but it was worth it - and am still too sick to go to the store for groceries once a week.  i feel a little better today in the essence of my being.  it's been a long, heavy, heartbreaking, intense 4 yrs., full of battling - people, institutions, the medical establishment, my hub, struggling to get to me, a healthier me.  i still feel 27 in spirit, so don't understand the concept of 'getting old' except that i have so much baggage to wade thru. 

i do have an appt. with an internalist, and this may be a blessing that has been dropped into my lap.  i'd wanted to get to him thru our ins. plan, had seen him once or twice for the lyme's (he knew very little about it, so i had to find articles written in spanish that explained it.  i'll have to do the same for alexithymia, brain damage, the effects of chronic stress/trauma/c-ptsd, etc. to see if i can get some root work done on what's wrong with me.  in the meantime, i'm working on changing neuro-peptide connections from pos. to neg. with good self-talk/self-thoughts, am sticking pretty well to my adrenal diet, and am ready to go for the gold.  if this guy doesn't help me, i don't know what i'll do, but i really won't think too hard on that now.    we'll see. 

so, just like the mouse's tale, this one is long and curvy.  it switches back on itself constantly.  i did a funeral today for all the emotions i haven't felt, want to feel, and don't know if i ever will.  i have gotten fear back, but would love to experience happy.  one thing i realized while i was writing was that the reason i loved bars so much was because of the laughter and that i could throw my arm around others to get my sense of touch fulfilled.  it was the closest i'd come to happy, besides being made to feel beautiful by a man.  it's also why i love watching stupid sitcoms with someone now, and laughing out loud at them in that someone's presence.  it's my new pseudo-bar experience.  i miss the bars tho.  i had such a good time there.  such a very good time.  but, they're deadly for me now, so i don't go back.

 

[sanmagic7]

i almost forgot.  after i got on my feet again in 2015, i wrote a sci-fi novel that i'm hoping will be picked up this year.  it's been a fairly busy 4 yrs.

[sanmagic7]

moving on - i picked up a couple more realizations this morning that helped clear things out a bit.  one was that my dad was my primary abuser in that abstract manner of emotional neglect.  no harsh words, no physical abuse, nothing so overt.  simply never acknowledging any joy about me being his darling little girl, or pride in my accomplishments, and, of course, having to be perfectly perfect, which left me non-emotional for the most part.  it also kept me looking for men as an adult who would validate (ooooh, there's that validation beast again - another realization?  the validation junkie always doing doing doing in order to get her fix of validation.  hmpf!  me as a beautiful/desirable woman, trading sex just for the touch that had been withheld from him.

i'd read a long time ago that when abused children are threatened from outside their family, most often they will run for safety to the parent who abuses them inside their family.  it was explained that these children chose the abuser in an attempt to show him/her how much the kid cared for that parent so that the parent would eventually stop abusing them.  paradoxical, to be sure, but to a child's mind and logic, it makes sense at the same time.

with this in mind, i realized that this must have been why i revered my dad so much, always, ALWAYS, trying to please him, and becoming devastated when i somehow didn't meet up to his standards.  my mom was in a shadowy place in my world, like she really didn't count very much.  in fact, i've always described her as a mouse, had little use for her emotionally, and always wanted to be like my dad, who was fun, charismatic, and . . .  a male.  i wanted to be like a male, (didn't want to be a man, i was always content and satisfied with being female) had no sense of myself as female, was never girly, and even questioned my femininity at one point in my life.  not my sense of being a woman, but if i was truly feminine.  i've had people tell me that i have a lot of testosterone floating around inside me. 

which leads to the second realization of the day (ok, this part of recovery feels good.  finally!)  as i mentioned before, i married 2 misogynists.  (i believe i ran into one on this forum as well).  they all had unresolved mother issues, and women were to be used, no apologies were offered for wrongdoings, and, well, wrongdoings weren't acknowledged as being wrong in the first place.  when i read up on misogynists, another thing that stood out was that if he would ever choose a woman to commit to/settle down with, she would have to be, in his eyes, the cream of the crop.  someone who other men would give him kudos for landing, so to speak.  this part was obvious with hub#2 - he and i both believed i was perfect.

but, going along with that, i believe i have been involved with female misogynists as well, all 3 of whom played major roles in my life.  one was my first therapist.  she was an outspoken advocate for men, and after some of her speeches, i heard women saying that she hated women.  i heard this on several occasions over the years.  she said it was ridiculous because she had women employees - me and our receptionist.  when i look at cate and i, both were cut from the same cloth in the femininity territory, as in neither one of us was the girly type.  i remember having a conversation w/ a friend who was part of this group of hers (i'll call her icky l) and this topic came up.  she told me 'well, you have a lot of testosterone, so that's why she likes you'.

thinking further along these lines, i've said on several occasions that if i were a man, i believe she would've attempted to have a sexual relationship with me.  don't know why, but i've had a strong sense of that for a long time.   in therapy, she once basically told me that the reason for my hub's continual masturbation was because i wasn't pleasing him, and that i should go out and get frilly lingerie cuz that's what he liked.  i told her i already had a drawer full, but i sensed (even tho i couldn't quite put a finger on it completely) that she was telling me that his addiction was my fault, that i was to blame, that if i'd do more of what he wanted, there wouldn't be a problem.   and she called herself an addiction counselor - yeah, right!

she also wanted to write a book about men's dependence on women, which she thought was awful.  i can see it much more clearly now.  she adored her dad, talked about him quite a bit, but had unresolved issues with her mother, who she blamed for her father's death.  o my heart! 

i had another close girlfriend who also worshipped her dad, and would blatantly talk to men in a different tone of voice than when she'd talk to me - it was much more seductive - and would always pay attention to men when they were around, ignoring me.  we played cards in a monthly game (one of the players was my brother, and he can vouch for this cuz she was always coming on to him) and she would make the rounds of the table when she had a free moment, giving neck/shoulder massages to the men.   she and i went on a 9-day road trip once, and, altho we were best of friends at the beginning, it ended the friendship after we got home.

finally, this friend of 20 years who i recently eliminated from my life.  same thing.  terrible, unresolved mother issues, threw me under the bus many times during our friendship in order to accommodate a man.  my hub saw it happen while she lived here.  she often told me that she hated women (but she went to a woman's college) because, while she had plenty of women friends, she didn't have a long-term romantic relationship with a man.  being without a man was a major complaint of hers the entire time i've known her, altho while i knew her she'd had several live-in relationships with men both in the states and while she lived here.

i know, i know, as i was writing i thought - but san, you also worshipped your dad.  i think the big difference is that i didn't have those blatant issues with my mom, and, therefore, didn't hate women.  i never put a man before a friendship with a woman, which these women did constantly.  if i went out with girlfriends, i left with them, that kind of thing.   i've had great relationships with women all my life, including spending many years living with female roomies, both in college and out on my own.  many of us are still friends. 

so, misogynists in my life.  there seem to have been quite a few, both male and female.   new realizations coming at me like a pack of cards.  hoping to be able to put these to rest now, and knowing a little better what to look out for in the future.  i'm not sure exactly where this came from, with these women.  i'd always attributed it to putting the needs of strong women who acted vulnerable (oooh, like my mom.  yes, there was an incident where i didn't tell her i was uncomfortable with what she was doing because, altho i didn't see it as an overt sexually abusive act, it didn't feel good to me, but it seemed important to her to do it, like she would do it to a baby.  a friend of mine labeled it sexual abuse because i didn't feel safe enough to speak up about it.  i didn't want to hurt my mom's feelings, make her feel bad, so i kept letting her do it, kept quiet about the fact that i didn't like it.  well, maybe there's an issue there that i hadn't let come to the fore until now) in front of mine, so i accepted being thrown under the bus for men, or ignored if a man was in the room.   

so, i can see an issue with my mom but i really don't believe i hate women.  this issue doesn't feel like it has the same kind of impact.  maybe i'm fooling myself.  it wouldn't be the first time.  the strong yet vulnerable woman seems to fit better for me, as to why i stayed in relationships with these women for waaaay too long.  yeah, that sits better in my chest. 

anyway, misogynists come in all shapes, sizes, and genders, but the results are the same.  women are held to a different standard than are men, usually a subservient type of standard both sexually and friendship-wise.  in with the good, out with the bad.  none of them are in my life anymore, and i'm glad.  which tells me something - it must've been the right thing to do to get away from them. 

[sanmagic7]

now that i've written down the story of the madness, i don't have to repeat it.  i believe it's time to put it behind me.  i'll have a funeral for it today when i'm done here.

someone posted about the differences of being abused as a child and as an adult, and i'm grateful for what she said.  i know people could look at my story and wonder why i didn't just leave, why stay?  i believe that's where my childhood issues come into play.  they basically set me up to stay, work on it, do everything i could, say everything i could think of to fix it, to make it right.  in essence, i believed i had to be the one to make the insanity sane, which means i couldn't leave until i'd given it everything i had or die trying. 

having an abusive daughter also spoke to the mother in me - her mental and physical illnesses throughout the years were a reason to accept the abuse (in my mind) and excuse it, to just hang in there and take it because i didn't believe she had any fault in it.  i know better now that there is no excuse for abuse.

husbands, well, i was so naive and trusting that it was beyond my comprehension that they would hurt me after saying they loved me.  i didn't have those trust issues i read about so often here.  i trusted everyone not to hurt me.  my mind would tell me 'why would they?' and i'd go on, mindlessly allowing my non-boundaries to be crossed over and over.  until i was pushed out or over the edge. 

as far as that therapist goes, naive, vulnerable, and a sense of grandiosity that she would pick me to be all those things to her.  so i did her bidding, no matter what, no matter when it didn't feel right to me.  she was the therapist, she knows, i was the lowly apprentice of a sort.  it wasn't until i was in grad school that i began questioning what was going on, what part i had in this.  i was an adult, there was no gun being held to my head, how much of this was my responsibility?  i posed this question to my professional ethics professor, who didn't hesitate with an answer - it is never the client's fault.  no matter what happens, it is not the client's fault.  the therapist wields the power - which is why i repeatedly talk about an imbalance of power in therapeutic relationships.  so, even if a client willingly has a sexual relationship with his/her therapist, it is not on the client.  the therapist took advantage of the power of the relationship.

all these things are now part of my past.  they happened, they're done.  i'm still dealing with the consequences, both in mind and body, but i feel much more hopeful today that i will get past this.   i'll never be the same - i don't trust people now.  i'm a bit sad about that.  hopefully, it's for my own good.  i didn't even trust the people on this forum to accept and/or understand my story after i wrote it.  the anxiety i felt all night was terrible.  i was scared to look to see if there were any responses, and the first one i saw was very caring.  thank you.

i believe that we are often adults with emotional responses of the children we once were, trying to make adult decisions without really knowing how to do that.  i think my recovery has turned a corner.  i don't want to look back anymore.

[sanmagic7]

i had a funeral for my past today, laying it to rest.  it has defined me for so long, but i feel like i've moved past it now, have come out the other side.  i'm so thankful i've lived long enough to feel this way - i didn't think this was ever going to happen,  i really didn't.  i thought i'd be stuck in the throes of that mad tea party forever.  instead, i now have other things to do, like heal myself, finish the book i'm writing, enjoy myself and my life, enjoy the people i have decided to keep in my life. 

there's a little hole in my chest at this - that past has been so much a part of me for so long.  to put it down like the rabid dog it was is a loss, for sure.  but a necessary loss.  all these people i've been obsessing about, how much i want to tell them off or make them understand - i've finally realized that they've all had so much time, so many explanations, so many pleas letting them know what i wanted or needed from them, years and years of this that one more isn't going to make any difference.

the fixer in me never wants to give up.  i can see her as rather sick right now.  that's a sickness that i've held onto that's also part of my past.   i can't fix any of what happened, can't fix any of the people involved except me.  so, that's my focus from now on.  time and energy for me and for those who are in my life now because they have shown me caring and love and kindness.  i have to be careful not to try to fix them, either, because some of them are hurting and damaged.  the fixer must die and lay with all the rest of the unhealthy people who have been part of my life.  good-bye. 

i'll miss you for awhile, but i'll learn to live without you eventually.  i know you'll be peeking your head up from time to time, like the dormouse, but i'll just encourage you to go back to sleep, gently or harshly, whatever it takes.  and i know i'm not alone in doing this, so i feel fortified as well.  hope is a wondrous thing.  couldn't feel it before, didn't know what it was like.  i think i'll keep it.