The Psychopath's Holiday Parade of Woe and Nonsense

It's the holiday season.  The NSP (Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath) is going to act crazy.  Get ready.

Why must we deal with such nonsense?  Why?  Why?  Why?

I have no answer.

I know that the NSP in my family of origin acted out during the holidays. I know that my children's father will be doing his annual crazy dance during the most wonderful time of the year.

For him, the crazy season begins with Thanksgiving.  It ends after New Years Day.  Every other holiday, birthday and major family event will also be ruined.  Any time I had anything special or significant happening in my life, he'd be sure to screw that up too.

My last memory of the last special event he sabotaged was a job I had scheduled for out of town.  That was the last time I booked an out of town job while we were married.  I had learned the pattern.  Why bother trying to do anything while being married to him?

The last Christmas he ruined was the Christmas before I left him.  I was feeling suicidal for about 15 minutes while reeling from his non-stop verbal attacks and his screaming hysteria that would last for hours.  I sat on my bed and thought about how I didn't want to live.  This turned out to be a fine moment in my life.  It was that moment that it occurred to me:

I had a good life before him.  
Logically, I could have a good life after him.
So, I should leave him.
I should get a divorce.

That was the moment I started my plan of escape.  I opened a new credit card account; I had a good reason to justify it - I could save money on purchases with the card discount.  I got a new mobile phone with a new carrier so that the account was in my name only, and he couldn't cancel it; I had a good justification for that too.  My plans went on and on, and I eventually escaped.

I spent many ruined holidays with my psychopathic husband.  I could generally keep my head above water.  I remember throwing a great holiday party even though he had been throwing a fit for days, and I had shed many tears.  Our house looked beautiful, the food was wonderful, I looked put together and happy, my kids were darling.  But I was living in a hell.

Mr. PsychoMan still tries to ruin the holidays for me, even though we are divorced.  He attempts a lot of contact.  He needs a dog to kick.  He creates nonsense dramas which I have become increasingly good at avoiding. Even so, he still likes to waste my time, or try to.

Wasting our time is one of the NSP's greatest joys.  He needs all that attention.  Wheel spinning.  Drama.  Circular argument.

Time passes, I grow wiser,  my children grow older and more independent,  I heal from the exposure of having been in an "intimate relationship" with a psychopath.

Someday my kids will be all grown up, and I will be completely free of the custody coordination drama nonsense.  It will be over.  I do not wish my children's childhood away, but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the other side of it is complete freedom from the psychopath.

















It's the first week of December and I have my seatbelt fastened.  We've already experienced plenty of psychopathic sabotage this holiday season.  We are three weeks into it.  Lots of crazy email nonsense.  Attempts to pull me into arguments.  Sabotage of the children.  Inappropriate face to face contact with me.  On and on.

At this point, I am a freaking expert at the NSP Holiday Parade of Woe and Nonsense.  I can hardly care about it.  But more is to come.  I am ready.

And if you, who are reading this, are in the throws of personality disordered drama and nonsense, I wish you the very best.  I hope that you find a way to remove yourself from the situation as soon as you possibly can.

Be well, people,

AKA Rose Lee Mitchell


Do you have a story of Holiday Woe and Nonsense that you would like to share?
Feel free to leave it in a comment below.


Image Credits:
Creative Commons license
Found on Flickr
Dancing Reindeer by Carlos "A Christmas Fantasy Parade Reindeer"
Toy Soldiers by Anna Fox "A Christmas Fantasy Parade"

Blame versus Personal Responsibility

"blame" by Yuliya Nome


There's a balance to life and to everything.   Blame.   IT WAS HIS FAULT.   It wasn't my fault.   Our culture makes a religion of Personal Responsibility.   I would have been better off if I had blamed my husband more. A lot more.  Instead, I fell victim to the cult of personal responsibility.  The trap.   I would rush off to my feel-good personal responsibility sessions, and get enough juice to make it through another week with an abuser.

I thought I could "think and try" my way into a better relationship with him.  Or pray my way.  Or 12-Step Serenity Prayer my way through my children's childhood, and things would get better.  That's what all the women's magazines say.  You know, those periodicals that we pay for in order to be told what to wear, what to buy, what we should prefer, and generally, How To Live Our Lives.   Really?

General relationship advice mostly doesn't consider the fact that one may be involved with a disordered individual who aims to control, belittle and destroy the Other.   Relationship advice which fails to assess the Goodness of the Other is meaningless.  Worse: it is Harmful.

Because he wasn't the A Streetcar Named Desire, stereotypical, movie-version Obvious Abuser, I didn't know that I was in a hopeless situation.  He was slick.  He looked good in a suit.  He made lots of money in a profession that reeks with authority.  He spoke with excellent grammar.  He had an excellent education.  And when he wanted to, he could talk real nice.

I thought we could work it out.  I thought things would calm down.  Well, he never wanted things to calm down. I can see that so clearly now, outside of the relationship.  There was never a chance in hell that he was going to chill.  Drama is his middle name.  What's funny: I'm the one who looks dramatic.  Emphatic.  Funny.  Colorful.  Artistic.  You know, "out there".  He is the calm, ordered, tempered one.  HA HA HA HA HA.  Whatevs.  Without him, my life can return to its peaceful, former glory.  Of calm, quiet, serenity.

Looks can be so deceiving.

He looked really good, on paper.  He still does, I guess. Unless you know how to read between the lines.  Which I do.  Now.  But, back then, in the marriage, I bought the advice of giving 100% to the relationship.  Maybe that is good advice in a healthy marriage?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I don't know.  After what I've lived through, giving 100% sounds like a really bad idea.  But, I didn't have a healthy marriage.  I didn't have a real relationship with the man I married.  It was false, because he was false.

I don't even consider myself to have been married, and this is a new idea for me.  It was like living with a ghost, or a character.  Is it a marriage if you never really knew your spouse?  If you were never really known?  If he wore a mask every single day of his life?  If, when the mask slipped, you were looking at a monster and you wanted desperately to get away, and never see him again?   That doesn't sound like marriage to me. That sounds like a horror story.

If we live in a world where I am 100% responsible for the outcome of the marriage, where one spouse is 100% responsible for the relationship?  Well, that is just the dumbest advice ever given.  And if I am 100% responsible for my mood, and my happiness?  Really?  If I have a monster screaming in my face and chasing me from room to room?  If I have lived with chronic stress for years, caused by living with an abuser, such that I self-medicate with substances or activities that are not helpful or healthy long-term?  Being subjected to chronic stress is my fault?  Really?  When the abuser isolates me from friends and family and work opportunities, it's my fault?  I should take responsibility for his abuse?   Seriously?

Clearly, blaming My Self does me no good.  Blaming Him, and Sitting In That Space of Muck and Yuck, also does me no good.  Nor does it do any of my relationships any good.   Nor does it do my children any good.   Moving On does us all a world of good.

processing the past,
understanding it,
framing it in some sort of positive light,
and letting it go....
this is the work that I am doing.


By AKA Rose Lee Mitchell


Did taking responsibility for the state of your relationship cause you trouble?  Does it still?
I would love to hear from you.

Please make up an alias when you comment, so that I can address you by a name other than Anonymous.  Thank you.

How Do I "get along" with the narcissist/sociopath/psychopath?

DO NOT ENGAGE. 

Communication Protocols

In this post, I aim to describe how I "get along" with the narcissistic/sociopathic/psychopathic ex-husband with whom I must share child custody.

With shared custody, one must participate with the other parent. "No Contact" is not possible.   But, how much participation must we actually have?   There is a rock-solid custody agreement.  There is very little to discuss. 

The disordered person wants engagement, drama, entanglement, confusion, details, discussion, attention, accusations, defenses, explanation….and on and on.   Give an inch, and he'll try to take a mile.  Therefore, the rule of the game is to Reduce Engagement With The Disordered Person As Much As Possible. 

I have a set of policies and procedures that I practice to reduce engagement with the disordered father of my child(ren). 

The Short List 

1. A Dedicated Mobile Phone, Only For Him.  

2. No Voice Conversations - Texts Only. 

3. A Dedicated Email Account, Only For Him.

4. Texts Instead of Email Whenever Possible. 

5. Reduce Face-To-Face Contact To Nearly Zero. 

6. Delay. a.k.a. The 24hr Rule.

Here's a little more detail.

1. A Dedicated Mobile Phone, Only For Him.  

My child(ren) always have access to this phone to contact their father. 

We have a spot where the phone lives in the house.

We have given the phone a name.  (Example: We named the Daddy-Phone "Peanut.")  
I think this helps reduce the drama for my child(ren). 

He may contact them on this phone. 

We do not call Daddy from Mommy's Phone.  

Daddy is not allowed to call Mommy's Phone.  

Daddy is only allowed to call The Daddy-Phone. 

2. No Voice Conversations - Texts Only. 

I do not talk to him on the phone. 

I text, and only from The Daddy-Phone. 

I don’t need the psychopath to reach out and touch me via my personal phone.  

He needs to be sequestered. 

I check the Daddy-Phone at least once per day. 

I do not check it at night, close to bedtime, because I don't need to get upset/rattled/energized. 

But, he doesn't text very much, because I don’t engage.

3. A Dedicated Email Account, Only For Him.

I used to check this once a day. 

Then, I checked it 2 times a week. 

Then, I checked it once a week. 

Nowadays, I check it about 2 times a month.  Or whenever I need to send something. 

4. Texts Instead of Email Whenever Possible. 

Texts are preferable to email. 

The shorter, the better. 

The less engagement, the better. 

The less I say, the less there is to say. 

Texting tends to keep his responses short.

5. Reduce Face-To-Face Contact To Nearly Zero. 

Custody exchanges happen at school.  Sometimes, when there is a holiday, or a teacher workday, we exchange the kid(s) in a public location.  I often have a friend do this for me.   I find that the more face-time he gets, the more agitated/enraged/interested he becomes.

6. Delay. a.k.a. The 24hr Rule.

When it seems like there is a need to respond to an email, I have a 24 hr rule.  There is usually nothing so important/urgent that demands a quick response.  I find that by giving myself a cushion of time, I give myself peace.   Often, I find that I can wait even longer.  A two or three day cushion lets me really measure my response.  Best case: an entire week.   Often, after waiting a week, I find that I don’t need to respond at all. 

More than anything, the psychopath (narcissist, sociopath) wants your attention. 

He wants your time, your energy and your pain. 

Don't give it.

http://roseleemitchellsblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/how-do-i-get-along-with.html

Photograph by Mark Nockleby on flicker. 
Title "Denver Roller Dolls Mile High Club roll out before the championship bout"
Used under the Creative Commons License