Character Assassination

Posted on by stilllearning2b
character assassination

I didn’t like reading how many of you relate to being gaslighted. It’s one of those areas that I know for me is still tender. There is much un-probed because it hurts too much to counter often-good memories with the knowledge of the duplicity and lies. And I finally realized that the daunting task of separating the strands of truth from the pot of lies is pointless. Even though I now know otherwise, I have chosen to find comfort in the fact that it was real enough to me at the time and that’s all that matters.

But that only works with the personal gaslighting, the stories told to me to keep me placid and distracted.

 

It doesn’t work with the external assault. The character assassination that carried nefarious seeds far and wide. That requires a different approach.

 

For much of our time in Atlanta, my then-husband and I were estranged from his parents by his choice. Over the years, we had many families “adopt” us for holidays and get-togethers, but one always stood out. The husband-wife owners of my husband’s company welcomed us into their family. We were at Christmas and birthdays. The kids and grandkids accepted us.  We knew them as friends as well as employers. I loved the time with them and always appreciated the inclusion.

A few months before he left, my then-husband took a job with another company. It made the relationship with the family a little strange but we still kept in touch.

In the immediate aftermath of his abandonment, I did not think of them. Until a few days in when I found a note from the wife on my mailbox with instructions to call.

I picked up the phone expecting to hear shock and horror – the emotions expressed by everyone else I knew when they tried to digest the news. Instead, I got a more distant and guarded message. Condolences mixed with a dash of “well, what did you expect?”

I was shocked. Almost speechless. I asked what she meant. And heard about stories that my then-husband told at work. Tales of my cheating exploits, complete with a vivid story of walking in on me in his office with a man. Claims of staying late at work to avoid me and my wrath.

He painted a picture of a horrible wife, a victimized husband and a marriage in peril.

This from the man that kissed me tenderly every night.

This from the man who knew where I was at all times because I was rarely anywhere but work, school or home.

This from the man that couldn’t keep his hands off me and bemoaned when work kept him away.

For years, I thought this family was my family.

But they never even knew me.

Because my monthly or so visits could never compete with his daily fictions.

I was too confused and surprised on the phone that day to try to defend myself. Defeated and wounded, I simply hung up after muttering something in response to her request to keep her in the loop and ask for help if I needed it.

I never did call her back.

And I never will.

 

There are so many tears that come from this. I’m horrified that he was intentionally darkening my character for years. It’s hard not to wonder for how long. I’m embarrassed that people thought I was unfaithful and shrewish. And I’m sad that I lost these friends and others, as I chose to simply cut off those he had access to rather than to try to vindicate myself against his stories. Although I was tempted to send them a copy of his mugshot:)

He was telling them stories to cover his tracks. He was creating a fiction in his mind to defend his actions, both past and future. Perhaps he was desperate to see himself as the good guy so that he could temper any guilt. I’ll never know.

Much like I chose to walk away and cut my losses from the financial deception, I made the decision to leave those friendships behind. Some damage is too great to repair.

 

So, what’s the lesson in all this?

I know I first started to trust Brock when he actually encouraged me to have time around his friends without him there. It made me realize how my ex carefully negotiated my encounters with his friends.

I know I’ve had to let go of the concern of what people may believe about me and focus on what I know about me.

I know that realizing how my ex lived one way with me and another with others helped me realize that he was not the man I loved.

And I know that I’ve made many, many new friends who know me. The real me.

And that in the end, the only character he assassinated was his own.

 

I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own

Posted on by stilllearning2b
gaslighting

In my ex husband’s mind, why tell the truth when you can invent it? Why yell when instead you can quietly manipulate through gaslighting?

In all of the pain after my ex husband left, there is one pain that stands out as more acute than the rest. After being arrested for bigamy and bailing out of jail, my ex decided to overdose on sleeping pills. It appeared to be a sincere suicide attempt, but he made sure to cover his bases in case he survived.

He composed and emailed a suicide letter to both his new wife and to my mom. I read that email while sitting outside the DA’s office waiting to meet the victim advocate. He was recovering in the ICU.

I felt reality slipping away as I processed the words that distorted the world I knew. In the letter, he speaks of me being “impossible to live with” and “negative.” He talks about my irresponsible spending habits and how I “just had to have my way” and he “couldn’t tell me no.”  Our last trip together – that he initiated, planned and executed – was recast as my demand for a vacation. He spoke of my insistence on building a deck when he counseled that we couldn’t afford it. He tells my mom that she “would love [the other wife]” and that he hopes they get to meet.

His words hit like a punch to an unguarded gut. I spent hours dissecting them, talking them over with each of my parents in turn. I knew they weren’t true but they still caused me to doubt. I feared that others (including my mom) might think his words were genuine. It felt like a vicious, spiteful attack on my character. And it wasn’t even factual.

He was rejecting reality and substituting his own.

He was gaslighting – using deception and manipulation to cast himself as the sane and balanced one and to make me look unstable and vile.

And it wasn’t his first time.

He was a master at creating and convincing others of his own reality. And, as trusting of him as I was, I was easy to convince. When you’re being gaslighted and you are unaware of the sleight of mind tricks being applied, you feel crazy as you begin to doubt your own perceptions and conclusions. It’s disorienting as the friction between what you see and you’re told you see don’t quite line up, almost like the view through 3D glasses when you turn away from the screen.

For months, I hated that letter. Every reading caused me to feel ill, like I’d swallowed something that needed to be purged. I shared it only with my parents and the close friend I lived with that year, finding comfort in their assurances that his words were mere deflection and trickery.

But still I wondered.

You see, he had trained me well. I still struggled not to believe his words over my own memories.

I struggled, that is, until I rejected his reality and found my own.

I picked apart each of his claims and refuted them one by one with physical evidence:

I spend too much? Then why do I read library books while he spent over a hundred dollars a month on Kindle downloads as evidenced by the checking account registry. And why do I drive the old, paid for car (that I still have!) while he insisted on buying a new one that came complete with a $500 monthly payment. I made a list of his possessions vs mine. It wasn’t even a contest.

I demanded the vacation? I unearthed an email sent to my work address where he proposed the cruise and described its details.

I insisted upon the deck? I found a trail of emails that covered everything from the summer school income I earned being used to pay for the costs to his enthusiastic sharing of his deck designs.

As for me being difficult and negative, that was harder to disprove. But the fact that I had many friends offer to take me in that year told a different story. I bolstered their offers with the hundreds of notes I had received from students over the years, praising my passion and positivity.

And as for my mom wanting to meet the other wife? Well, that was just plain funny.

Eventually, the letter lost its sting as I saw it for what it really was – an attempt to save his image by destroying mine. I wavered over whether to include the letter in the book. I was afraid I would be seen as the hateful woman he described. I decided to include it, even at the risk of his words being believed by people who did not know me. I knew that many of the readers would relate to being controlled by lies and I wanted to share a rare physical manifestation of gaslighting. Because the most painful part of gaslighting and what makes it so effective is that the evidence usually disappears like smoke in the wind, leaving you with only doubts and questions.

Gaslighting is a subtle yet relentless abuse. It’s one person using power and manipulation to control another. The damage is hidden and persistent, the worm of uncertainty taking up residence and calling everything into question. The effects linger as memories collide with new understanding, the deceptions fighting for dominance over the truth.

Gaslighting is often paired with physical abuse or addiction, the repainting of reality used to keep the partner calm and in place. It is a favored tool of narcissists and sociopaths. Those that are adept at its use tend to be charismatic and intelligent, lending a believability to their assertions. It is deliberate and cruel and can be immensely damaging.

Recovering from gaslighting takes time. Even recognizing that you were gaslighted takes time.

No one should have the power to create your reality other than you.

And your trust in another should never be greater than your trust in yourself.

Gaslighting thrives on doubt.

Starve it by believing in yourself.

Why I Refuse to Call My Husband a Narcissist

Character Assassination

Covert Abuse

Calisthenics For the Soul

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Fortitude.

Grit.

Resilience.

Or, as my husband calls it, an extra gear.

 

It doesn’t matter what you call it, it is a trait we admire in others and desire in ourselves.

We often observe the strength in others when they face adversity and claim that we are not made of the same fiber. That we would not be able to handle the same.

The truth?

 

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.

 

But what if you could build up your inner strength? Develop your mental toughness before it’s thrown into the ring against the lions?

What if you could do calisthenics for your soul?

 

You can.

 

You can build that extra gear, develop that thicker skin that resists every arrow and train for adversity.

And you can do it all while remaining true to yourself and leading with compassion.

 

Life can be tough.

Learn to be tougher.

 

Here’s your training manual. 

 

Do Something With a Finish Line

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I was a late-in-life runner. In fact, I never managed to run a mile until after my 30th birthday. And even that took most of a month to work up to. Over the next couple years, I became a frequent (although still struggling) runner. I maxed out around 5 miles and would frequently compare myself negatively to the other (real) runners on the trails.

And then my world collapsed.

For months, I avoided the trails, afraid of passing out in the middle of the woods from lack of sleep and nutrition. Instead, I took to the treadmill, where I figured at least there would be people to attend to me if I suddenly lost consciousness. I had to start over again – my first treadmill runs were well under a mile. But still, it felt good to move even in a limited manner.

Just a few short weeks after the tsunami, a friend at work mentioned a half marathon that October (less three months away). I had never run more than 5 miles and that was several weeks prior. And I have never even considered a race of any duration. I was still in shock from the trauma of the abandonment and I was still extremely weak from the twenty pounds I shed in the those first few days.

I had no business running 13.1 miles.

And so I signed up.

 

One of the most frequent pieces of advice I give to people that are in the middle of a major life transition is to sign up for something with a finish line. It can be running. Or walking. Or biking. Or swimming. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a physical endeavor, just something with a defined end.

 

Why do I advise adding one more challenge to an already challenging time?

Here’s why.

– Life’s transitions are messy. The end may be undefined and vague. It may be months or even years in the future. While that goal may feel impossible, a literal finish line does not. It exists at a known time and place. You can train for it. You can cross it.

– Training provides structure at a time when all you want to to is hide under the covers and disappear. It gives you a reason to get up and a reason to get out.

– Exercise is as good for the mind as it is for the body.

– The preparation and the even can be social or allow time for solitude. Both are needed in times of life stress.

– Training teaches you to become comfortable with discomfort. It has an end yet requires that you learn to accept the process.

– Challenges provide opportunity to practice tempering expectations. No matter how much you train, you cannot control the outcome. It’s a lesson in acceptance.

– Confidence comes from achievement. When you cross that finish line, you’ll have the courage and conviction to keep aiming for the finish line of your life transition.

 

I ran that half marathon on a cold, rainy day. It wasn’t fast and it wasn’t pretty. But it was perfect. Tears mixed with rain as I ran the last hundred yards to the finish line.

I still didn’t know when the finish line of my divorce would be.

But after that day, I trusted that I could make it.

Edit Your Personal Narrative

Posted on by stilllearning2b

Did you ever have one of your English papers passed back filled with red marks; edits and deletions shaping your original script into something more cohesive and descriptive? If you’re at all like me, you first reacted with a bit of defensiveness tinged with embarrassment – “I thought the paper was good.” But then, upon reading the revised essay, you begrudging admit that the revised version is better. Maybe even much better.

The external hand wielding the marking pen gives you the gift of perspective, allowing you to see the patterns in your writing and the fall-back phrases that are too often used.  The editing process removes what doesn’t better the whole and selects the best choice of similar words to express an idea.

 

Have you ever paid attention to your internal narrative, the story you tell to and about yourself? Have you ever noticed a pattern in the words you select and the phrases you repeat?

Often we unwittingly craft a negative internal narrative, repeating past injuries and berating ourselves. Spinning yarns into straightjackets that keep us bound and gagged, prisoners of ours pasts and our beliefs. We excuse others while we abuse ourselves, framing our choices as worse than they are.

 

The words we choose to say to others have influence.

The words we choose to say to ourselves have power.

 

When we repeatedly hear the same words about ourselves, we begin to believe them. Even if they aren’t true.

Pay attention to the words you use to describe yourself. Are you selecting the best term? For example, feel the difference between “depressed” and “sad.” Sure, they are technically synonyms but the connotation is vastly different. Depressed is heavy, permanent. A condition. Whereas sad says, “I feel badly right now.” It’s a mood. Ephemeral. Even if you are depressed, try renaming it as sadness in your script. Keep repeating it and you’ll start to believe it.

 

Look to see what other words or phrases you can replace –

“I shouldn’t feel that way” becomes “I feel this way right now and that’s okay.”

“I’m lonely” turns into “I’m feeling separated from others right now.”

“I’m stupid” is replaced with “I made the best decision I could in the moment and I’m learning.”

“I’m rehashing” is exchanged for “I’m processing.”

“I’m broke” is retired and “That doesn’t fit in to my personal wealth goal” is brought in to fill its place.

“I’ll never find love again” is crossed out and “I am open to receiving love again” is written in above.

“My life sucks” is modified with the phrase “right now.”

 

Edit your personal narrative to create a story of compassion. A script of forgiveness and learning and hope.

The words you choose have power.

Use that power to shape the life you want.

You’re worth it.