Hi Everyone,
I am new to PF. I cannot say in words how grateful I am for Peace's book and this website of amazing support. This has been a very traumatic experience for me. It's been 4 months since I went no contact, but I am still struggling daily with the questions, the no closure, the confusion, etc. The most difficult two things that I am trying to process right now are 1) breaking the trauma bond and 2) for some reason, I cannot see him as good or bad. I feel differently about the person daily and have confusion that is due to the hot and cold ways in which I was treated.
This story of mine below is LONG and I am very sorry for that. It is a mini book. I try to be brief but I fail every time. I feel so overwhelmed that I can't think efficiently or write the story in a summary... I hope at least one person can respond but I don't expect it from everyone because I know that it's way too long winded and everyone has their own life and things to deal with...
A little bit about me: Traumatic childhood in an invalidating environment, Complex PTSD, abandonment issues due to my parents not being involved in my life and losing my great grandmother who raised me to cancer at 12 years old, multiple times used for sex by narcissist men starting at age 12, raped one time by a psychopath, married a narcissist who in the beginning trampled all over me with lies and addictive behaviors, trust issues, possibly borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety, anger issues... etc. Basically I trust no one and I tend to become putty in a narcissists hand. I have been working with a psychologist for 8 years, take meds and all that, so I am working on my problems but it will probably be a lifetime of work.
First of all, I take full responsibility for the terrible things I have done here. I had endured 13 years of pain and suffering from my narcissistic husband, who is also in the military and has had to leave me for 6-7 months at a time multiple times in our marriage. I lost my identity as a military spouse. I was drug all over the country in 8 months intervals so my husband could train, forced to leave my career due to the multiple re locations, got a bachelor's degree that I could not use due to the military life and in a nutshell, over 8 years of not being able to work and being treated life the military's doormat, I simply fell apart. I went into a full blown identity/ life crisis at 31 years old. I think all of the trauma that I had endured since I had my first memory as a baby, to the emotionally damaging marriage we had; finally everything took it's toll on me. I felt as if my husband didn't love me the way he should as the person I was supposed to be able to trust. He was constantly hurting me because he was selfish and I was stuck in a revolving door with him. He would treat me badly, then he would beg me to stay with him when I threatened to leave. He has always been good at manipulating me when I decide I have had enough of his mess. I began to feel very trapped in the marriage, unhappy, unloved, deprived, lonely (even when he wasn't on deployment), no identity, and suffocated. I just felt like a doormat. Despite such struggles in my 13 year marriage, I never ONCE even fathomed being unfaithful. I was raised with morals and I always stood firm in that I would NEVER be a "cheater". Men had never come onto me anyway. Never once had a man tried to flirt with me or be inappropriate. I assumed after all this time that men understood I was off limits when they saw I was wearing a ring or knew I was married. BOY WAS I IN FANTASY LAND.
This last deployment something was different. I had an intuition that something bad was going to happen. Every deployment had been bad. The one before this one, I had a miscarriage right after he left. He was not there for me emotionally or physically, so I think I started to disassociate as soon as he started packing his boxes for deployment. As usual he was drinking a lot and not keeping in good touch with me as soon as he arrived overseas. He was stressing me out as he always did while I stayed at home to raise our child alone and run our "real lives" here in the states. Again, I was just the doormat left at home to deal with all the stress and responsibility while they all had none of that and had all the freedom to go out and drink and party, etc.
Enter narcissist # 2. It all began when I went to see a chiropractor for an injury I got. He was extremely good looking and gave me butterflies. Something about the way he looked at me. You could feel the energy in the room and I had NEVER felt that with another man since the day I met my husband. I had no idea what to think or how to handle it. After about 2 visits he began calling to "check on me" and texting me about personal topics, not just my injury. It was never blatantly inappropriate, but he seems to be very charming, acted like he was interested in my life and like he cared about what was going on in it. Typical "grooming" and pretending to be a "nice guy" who just "wanted to be my friend". Then the inappropriate comments started to creep in. I never reciprocated because I felt very confused and I also didn't want to embarrass him by telling him I didn't want things to be that way. I couldn't tell if he was trying to be my friend or if he was trying to get me in his bed. He would be in close touch most days, even between patients. Then on weekend and nights he would disappear. It was like I was his "entertainment" during the day from work, but on the nights and weekends I didn't exist. The last time I went to his office he invaded my personal space and touched me inappropriately without my permission. I was stunned, like a deer in the headlights and just let him do it. Just as I did with men as a child and in my rape, I just let him do what he wanted to do. It was shock, fear, confusion.. and I just checked out - disassociated. The appointment was very intense and you could tell he wanted to jump out of his skin. I left feeling like "what just happened". After that, nothing. I didn't hear from him the entire weekend. I think at that point I realized what was going on. He was trying to get me in bed. He was using manipulation and deceit to make me think he was my friend and that he cared about me and my life, but he knew full well that I was married and my husband was deployed and he was just looking to score an NSA with no commitment. I was all of a sudden clear he was only trying to USE me for sex. Good thing I never fell for it. However, I got really angry at him for attempting to objectify me and exploit my crappy situation and my weaknesses. I had told him too much about my life and my husband being deployed and even a little bit about the state of our marriage. He saw me as low hanging fruit, an easy target he could exploit... and he tried. That really made me livid and made me feel worthless. I shot off at the mouth and sent him an angry text calling him out on everything and even threatening to report him to the Department of Health. He sent me an apology email (I am sure only to save his license) and that was pretty much the end of it. I was very hurt and felt heartbroken that I had been treated that way. This led me into some sort of weird "rebound" where I ended up in an even worse situation with an even worse Narc/Psychopath. I guess I was looking for male friendship to fill the void that my husband had left me with due to his lack of emotional support and connection with me and then in top of that, the deployments. I wasn't ever looking for sex or deviance, I just wanted a friend... something real, not just a meaningless sexual encounter. I was trying to fill the emotional gaps I guess.... something I had never done in the past. I just dealt with it all.
Enter narcissist # 3. I decided to take a vacation because I needed a break from life. So I decided to go overseas and see if a visit with my husband might help my mental state and help save our marriage. It was an ok time. Uneventful and I think seeing the room where he had been living his own separate life without US was traumatizing to me but I was unaware of it at the time because I was disassociated and didn't realize that either. The visit didn't do anything positive for the state of our relationship. I told him about the chiropractor and he was proud of me for spotting the shady behaviors and kicking the guy to the curb. My husband of course was not happy I was talking to another man privately, but at least I was honest. I told him that something weird was going on with me. I felt weird and not like myself. I had been acting very out of character the entire deployment so far. I was spending large sums of money and not telling him about it, allowing myself to talk to this chiropractor, smoking and even started smoking pot... I had been drug free since I was 15 years old (16 years no illegal drugs). It was the stress I was trying to alleviate I guess.
So I traveled across the country from east to west, then to Asia, then back to west coast U.S. (I live on the East coast). On the plane ride to the west coast, I met a guy who I was seated next to on the plane. He was ok looking... but I wasn't attracted to him. He immediately pushed his way into a conversation with me. We sat and talked for 5 hours and nothing inappropriate was said. I don't know why I did this, but I just laid everything out on the table!! I told him all about my life and even about the chiropractor! How STUPID I feel about that, I'll never be able to express in words. Just opened my book right up. Gave him the keys to my castle! We had a lot in common actually. Something weird that happened.... he took out his laptop and started to watch videos of animals hunting in the desert and attacking/eating each other, even talked about baby elephants getting eaten... he said he watched that a lot... I thought it was odd, and he showed no emotions about it.. but thought no more of it because I had no plans of seeing this guy after the plane ride. Red flag! He knew full well I was married and my husband was deployed and that I was going to see him... he seemed like a nice chatty guy and was never inappropriate aside from some inappropriate topics once or twice but not directed at me. I was blind to the fact that this guy was a sleaze even though he was pretty much telling me all that I needed to know. I didn't see it or hear it though... all I saw and heard was "he seems nice and non-threatening". I did tell myself "it doesn't matter the things he is telling me because I won't be a target for him and so I don't have to worry about what he does in his personal life". Boy, I was blind as a bat. I think it was the disassociation making me be in a stupor. We got off the plane and he gave me his number saying if I needed help or anything while I was in the city alone to call him. Then said on my way back we should grab a drink or dinner. I thought it was fine because it all seemed just friendly. He even texted me to make sure I had gotten to my hotel safely. Oh HOW NICE, right??? Why did I not see the exact pattern that I had just experienced with the chiropractor?
On my way back, I was severely jet-lagged from all of that crazy "time travel" and was sleep deprived, my entire body and circadian rhythms were off, my eating was all messed up, I was in a severely depressed and anxious state due to the troubles between my husband being on the brink of divorce and also what the chiropractor had done to me (and I allowed to have done to me). I had started taking Wellbutrin shortly before my trip overseas. While I was in Asia, I accidentally stopped taking the pills because it was a 13 hour time difference and I kept forgetting to take them. So I just stopped and decided to wait until I got back home to start up again. Well, I had NO IDEA that I had thrown myself into full blown psych med withdrawal. I was drinking a lot of wine in wine country by myself and even drove with a big buzz... wow... not like me at all. I am hugely anti-drinking and driving. For some reason, I texted the guy to tell him I was in town. Why?? I have no idea. From the minute I landed, I had vertigo and felt like I was in a dream state. It was almost like an out of body experience. My body and brain were on autopilot. My self preservation was non-existent, I could not process any of the information coming at me, I was not able to make cognitive decisions. The guy BEGGED me to leave my hotel and come stay at his house. Literally. Begged me over the phone. He promised me "no one would mess with me" and that "I would be safe there" and that he and his roommates would "treat me like family". I took that as "I won't try and sleep with you". And I believed him!! I trusted him and left my hotel!! I felt like Eric in The Little Mermaid... hypnotized and just walking around like a zombie, unaware of my surroundings. A ship sailing the sea with no one at the helm. Lights on but no one is home. So I went. I trusted a stranger and I went to stay with him and I still have no idea why I made that decision. I was feeling like I needed some adventure and truly thought everything would be kept friendly... but had no idea what I was in for.
As SOON as I arrived, he switched the game on me like night and day. He steamrolled me. He bombarded me with inappropriate physical touching, very inappropriate comments directed at me and conversation and I literally felt stunned again. It all happened so fast from him that I didn't even have time to think much less react the way I should have. I should have packed up and LEFT! I have no idea why I didn't do that. I had tunnel vision and all I could concentrate on was keeping my stuff organized in my bag, taking showers and making sure I was dressed. Everything else fell to the wayside, even eating. It was weird. There were SO MANY red flags. OMG when I look back, I see the alarm going off like crazy and I'm just in this catatonic state not seeing any of the severe warning signs telling me to get out and get away from this man. Things he said to me, things he did... all of it something anyone in their right mind would realize were warnings. They just came in and went out, there was no processing involved. The first night he touched me but did not try to initiate sex. He was acting all "nurturing" to me, like he cared about me. He started calling me "babe" while I was there which was odd because we had just met and only knew each other for a day or two. Everything just moved at warp speed with him. He was treating me like I was his wife or girlfriend... The second night at dinner he said he wouldn't touch me again because he didn't want to make me "uncomfortable". I said thank you and explained that I didn't want us to sleep together. I told him it would be a terrible idea and that I would get hurt and he would lose interest afterwards. Also of course that I was married and that would be the number one reason (and also the reason why I should have never gone there in the first place of course). He just kind of smirked and shook his head like "nahh" as in "no I wouldn't lost interest in YOU". I knew better. So I thought that it was all clear. There was going to be no sex and I was going home the next day. Other than this one conversation, the entire time I felt like I could not speak up because I would humiliate him and it would be uncomfortable and he may just rape me out of anger. Why did I even care? I shouldn't have. I should have packed up and just left.
He didn't try to initiate sex with me the first half of second night, but he was touching me the entire night. My body was freaking out and I was having panic gasping all night. He knew that I had not eaten the entire time I was there and had been popping atenolol for my heart palpitations. He would rub my back as I sat up multiple times in the bed gasping for breath. He never got up or tried to help me or put me at ease... there was no emotion or helping behaviors that resulted from my multiple panic attacks. He didn't care I guess and was lazily trying to "shush' me and downplay my panic attacks. Anytime I moved he would wake up and touch me or grab me and pull me close to him. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid if I pulled away or told him to stop that he would rape me. He had already been so forceful and aggressive with everything else, steamrolling me and invading my personal space and touching me without asking. He would look me in the eye like "yep, this is what I am doing and you are just going to be ok with it". It was so bizarre his lack of facial expressions and flatlined personality. Both nights he fell right to sleep in the bed, and didn't even chat with me or try to watch TV or anything... just completely detached from me unless he was touching me inappropriately or telling me he wanted to "get me naked" or bragging about his bravado with women or his Porsche or his job that supposedly paid a lot... I know I didn't do anything to stop it or tell him not to do that, but I was truly in shock. Like someone charging at a person as they stand close to the edge of a cliff. They will start to stumble backwards and then they are going to be chased off the cliff. I got chased off the cliff at 3am. He woke up to let his dog out and got back in bed and proceeded to suffocate me by holding me so tight and not letting go. Kissing me and touching me all over. I decided not to fight him....... so I just took control of the situation and gave him what he wanted. I wasn't going to be forced again. It was going to be my choice and not his so I snapped into defense mode. Why wasn't my defense to just get up and leave?? I don't know. I really wish I had. I was honestly afraid if I got up I might get beat up or even lose my life. I decided that giving away my body for one night so I could get this jerk off my back would cost me less than the other possibilities. It was a gamble I was not willing to take.
The next morning he tried to sleep with me again, telling me it would be "quick" and practically trying to persuade me into it. I discovered that I had some "female issues" down there (spotting, sorry if that is TMI) so I said no and made an excuse up about wanting to shower first... he did not even CARE!! There was no concern for my female situation or for the fact that I had no eaten, had not slept since I had arrived there and was having panic attacks. He just wanted sex with me again and none of that mattered to him, not the night before and not the morning after. he kept saying "I don't care about your female stuff it's natural". Ugh... sorry to gross you guys out. I refused even with all the attempts to persuade me with the "I don't care" and the "it will be quick" (ooh so romantic huh?). he even called it "making love!" What really? After two day of knowing each other? Bizarre. Even though I didn't want to sleep with him, even I knew it was making love. It was something else, the word I will not type here. Regardless, I didn't want to do it again. It was bad too... no good.
That's when the devaluing stage and discarding phase began. Right at that moment. He went to work and I didn't hear from him the rest of the day. He didn't even seem like he was going to see me off. He had "dinner plans" with his friends that night and was going to "take a nap when he got home". In others words, I heard "get out and go home, I've gotten all I wanted from you and now you're worthless to me". So I did. I left early. He came home before I got in my car and I had been crying all day. He seemed repulsed by my tears... he stood far away from me... said "there isn't anything I can do for you to make you feel better" and even had the nerve to say "you're married". Ha!!! He was very cold to me. No emotion at all. No sympathy, no empathy, no effort to try and console me or even to apologize for steamrolling me the way he did. Took no responsibility for his share of the situation. Completely blind to anything he could have done wrong and it was all about me being an emotional basket case. He just treated me and gave me this condescending look like I had the plague! I even had to initiate a hug with him which he barely even hugged me back... it was degrading goodbye to say the least.
He barely answered any of my text messages on the way home. He was ignoring me I presume. He started with the hot and cold, disappearing and then reappearing acts as soon as I left. There was one angry outburst from him while he was drunk the night after I left. He said some very insecure things and that was the ONLY time I ever witnessed any emotion from the man. I don't know where that came from... it truly felt as if he had no care or concern for me at all and I was very confused by the emotional drunken phone call. He would not answer me the next day when I asked him to explain what had upset him or for us to discuss the situation. He would not even reply to me at all, just ignored it like it never happened saying "I was drunk". Other than that, he was completely flat lined. Even when talking about his dog's impending death, the dog he had for 16 years or so...
The next day and all the days to follow, it was like a poker game with him. He would sweet talk me and call me "baby", tell me he missed me, call me after work, then he would disappear in between those acts of kindness. It's like he would treat me like I was worth something, then treat me like less than a human. Not answer my calls or text messages, rub it in my face that he was "with his friends doing this or that" basically to drive it home to me that I was second rate and insignificant to him. He would blow me off, he would make sarcastic and condescending remarks to me... then turn around and sweet talk me... he would make up stories and have me running in circles. Probably laughing at me the entire time. It was a constant night and day, hot and cold, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde... I was in a constant state of fear of rejection and abandonment and also complete and utter confusion. It was like waiting for my turn in the firing squad line... A few days after I came home I shot off a very angry few text messages to him calling him out on his cruel behaviors. He of course called me "psycho" and said "this is sad" and "I wont stoop to your level". Gaslighting me and trying to make me believe that he is the sane, balanced one and that I am insane and crazy. I ended up apologizing and it was almost like he was completely unfazed by my outburst. There was no emotion, he just "supposedly" forgave me and said "I figured there must have been some trauma in your past that made you feel like that" of course he knows about my trauma! It was probably one of the main reasons he knew he could target me and of course my angry outburst was ALL a result of my past trauma - NOT BECAUSE OF THE WAY HE WAS TREATING ME and how drastically his behavior changed after he had gotten what he wanted from me and started to devalue me... I do strongly feel that he only "unblocked my number and allowed me back into his life" because he thought he could play with me some more and take his time torturing me emotionally and psychologically because he knew the sex was sacred to me. He also knew I had never been unfaithful in my whole 13 years of marriage.. so he probably knew I was going to cling on to him like a liferaft because I had just thrown away 13 years of fidelity on him and was desperate to not feel like a "slut". What a power trip for him, what an ego boost. Oh but he made sure to tell me "I don't want to get into anything that isn't my business" as in I don't want to hear about anything you will endure as a result of your cheating with me. I don't care about how this will affect you, your marriage, your life and "it's not my business"... I am pretty sure he made it his business when he pressured me and used intimidation to get me to sleep with him. Oh but after he got me to do that, all of a sudden it's no longer his business and he apparently didn't want to hear anything about it... Wow... so I never brought it up... of course.. because I didn't want to chase him away before I got my closure!!
Anyway, the rest of the story goes as him playing the manipulative games with me, jerking me around emotionally back and forth. Then I suggested that we take some time to think about how we should proceed. I guess he thought "how dare she". We had an arrangement to speak on the phone and discuss our thoughts after a three day period of no contact. Well when it came time for the arranged talk, he of course was no where to be found. Didn't answer my texts about the phone call... only one to tell me he "had been very busy and was at dinner with his friends, can we talk later" but of course I never heard from him. Again, I am insignificant even when we have solid plans to make a big decision about whether or not we will continue to talk to each other. I think maybe he was trying to avoid the thing he knew I was going to say. He didn't want to accept defeat. I stayed up late that night waiting for his phone call only to be let down and to finally realize what was really going on. I was starting to "wake up" finally. I had been feeling miserable the entire time I kept in touch with him and decided I didn't want to talk anymore. However, I wanted to have a compassionate, respectful human conversation about it though... I didn't see any need for us to be hateful or cold to one another. I could have ended it peacefully and with understanding and a kind farewell. I guess he didn't care about any of that. of course, because I'm the codependent and he's the Narc.
After that, I didn't hear from him. The phone call never happened like he said it would. Only after 4 days of him being off the grid, he sends me a text saying "I miss your face". Totally bizarre. He had a habit of sending me bizarre texts that made no sense a lot... just incoherent. Maybe drunk texts? I dont know... Anyway, after not hearing from him I sent him an email stating that I could see where this was headed and that I was going to go ahead and say my goodbye now. I explained that I thought it was all a bad choice but that I didn't have any hard feelings for him and wished him well. I didn't hear back for another 4 days. When he did reply, he showered me with compliments about how "understanding and patient" I had been with him and how he thought it was best we go our separate ways BUT HE HOPED WE WOULD STAY FRIENDS and told me to stay in touch. Even wished me a happy mothers day........... all nice and sweet and friendly until the very end of the text (yea he would barely ever talk to me on the phone, he kept everything within text messages).
THEN he says "I met someone and have been hanging out with her a few weeks, I know you probably didn't want to hear that." What a way to finish me off in true narcissistic style and grace!! I find it comical. OK so he was supposedly seeing her while he was still telling me he "missed me" and planning a trip to come see me so we could "figure things out" (which turned out to be a big fat story. I didn't want him to come anyway so I was glad it did). It came off as a desperate attempt to stab me in the heart and it did. I felt so used at that point. Like a lifeless toy that he played with, got bored with and simply threw away as worthless only to replace me with a new shiny toy that he was infatuated with. Who knows if it was even really true but it doesn't matter if he did start seeing someone else. I didn't want him anyway. The ONLY reason I even kept in touch with him after this all happened was because I was desperate to keep any shred of dignity I had after he used me. I put all my hopes for validation and worth in the man who used me like a blow up doll... Why? It made no sense until I learned about the TRAUMA BOND.
So I became traumatically bonded to this man after I left his house... everything he did or didnt do, all the empty words and lies... it all broke my heart and devastated me but I don't know why. I was addicted to hearing from him. I was desperate for validation and I wanted to walk away with my dignity intact somehow. I was not in love with him at all. I didn't even like him or respect him. He was a sorry excuse for a man and he was in reality quite pathetic. There were a lot of things that turned me off about him... I found out all sorts of grandiose lies he had told me about his job. I found out that he had gone to jail multiple times in his past, once for assault. I found out that he had tried to file bankruptcy a couple years ago and it was dismissed... so all the money bragging was truly a result of being in debt up to his eyes. He had lied about his position at his job, lied and told me he had sold a start up company to his employer (a very large name retail store) he lied about having the lease to the large home they lived in in his name... all kinds of things.
He was never a friend to me, he never supported me, he never cared about me, he never took responsibility for anything he did to provoke the situation. All he did was "gaslight" me by calling me "emotionally unstable" and saying "he never knew what he was going to get with me so he avoided me sometimes". I never knew what I was going to get with him either but he never acknowledged that anything he had ever said or done was bizarre or didn't make any sense. Also that it "stressed him out" when I cried (hysterical is what he called it but I never was). I never even discussed my marriage with him... I never asked for his shoulder to cry on after he used me. I didn't even bring up a quarter of the things I was dealing with "behind the scenes" as a direct result of what he did to me (and what I allowed him to do). He never did anything good for me, but yet somehow I cared about this guy. I was attached to him. There was some sort of bond there and it about killed me when I went no contact. I was so heartbroken. But why??? He treated me terrible and like less than a human!
As for narcissist # 1 (husband), I was honest and told him everything. I believe he woke up at this point and realized what all of his selfish behaviors had done to me over the years. All of the stress in my life had literally driven me INSANE finally. I finally broke, I finally fell apart and I ended up falling into the devil's lair more than once because I was so beat down, heartbroken and vulnerable... and naive. I told him I would leave the home and that he didn't have to stay with me. I told him I had gone insane and wasn't sure I was suitable to be with anyone. He went back and forth and so did I, but we eventually decided to stay together and give our marriage one more shot at making things right. I am grateful that I was honest about all of my indiscretions (even though they were not motivated by sex or dishonesty, more from loneliness and just being naive and vulnerable and disassociated). For the most part, he has curbed his narcissistic behaviors, but they still come out from time to time and he is definitely still showing some controlling and manipulative behaviors but since this happened they aren't anything damaging. Just small things... so I don't know if I have a future reformed narcissist on my hands or if he is just playing his cards right so that I'll stay and so he won't experience "failure" as he calls it to have his marriage not work out. I guess only time will tell but at least he isn't being abusive with the alcohol addiction and the emotional detachment... We will see how long it lasts.
I guess my problem is seeing both the chiropractor and the airplane guy in the correct light. I keep going back and forth. I keep thinking that maybe there is a part of them that is good inside... and that maybe they didn't mean to do what they did to me. All of the facts indicate that they just saw me as low hanging fruit and an easy target to exploit and that they didn't care about me at all because their actions never matched their words. There was never anything worthwhile that they ever did for me (i.e. being a true friend or heeding boundaries) Maybe they regret it, maybe they feel bad or wish they would have done things differently. I guess it's the nurturer and the co-dependent in me that wants to believe that every person has some honest part of them or some part of them that can have compassion or understand another human. Or take responsibility and see how their own actions were wrong or how they affected another person and actually have the capacity to feel badly about it. I sure can see all the mistakes I made and I see all the things I did wrong... and I owned up and took responsibility for the wrong doings I made.
I feel bad when I label them as "pure predators" because I am also flawed... but I also cannot label them as "good at the core"... It is so hard. If a robber robs your house, you can say he is just a bad person and what he did was wrong. If a person does a drive by shooting or brutally rapes a girl, you can say they are just a bad person and what they did was wrong. You can clearly label them as "psychopaths" or "predators" and their behaviors as "wrong"... however, when someone plays a psychological manipulation "game" with you and uses the good and bad treatment... you cannot confidently label them as anything and you cannot say that all of their actions were wrong or that all of their actions were nice (of course, they looked nice). It is agony for me....
I guess I would just like to hear what everyone else thinks of these men who I have a good feeling are in fact predators and exploited me with no conscience or boundaries, no empathy.... or if maybe they were just people who are actually good in their core but maybe just made some poor choices and did not really mean to inflict emotional pain in my life.... am I still dealing with the brainwash and questioning my own judgement and logic and reality???
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