To The Pain

I wrote awhile ago about my re-connection with my hairdresser, and I was lucky enough to have her fit me in a few days ago for my much anticipated - four plus years in the making - hair appointment.   I'm still working out the kinks in the haircut (four years of a ponytail every day seems to have sapped my limited hair styling skills completely,) but we had a great conversation about the NFOO while she snipped about 14 inches off my locks.

Some of the tactics and painful strategies the NFOO subjected her to were exactly the same kinds of abuse they heaped on me, some were only eerily similar.  I was struck, though, by how little they seem to learn; I mean really, how'd that work out for you the last time you tried it?  I have a solid, non-judgmental and confident way about me these days, though, and my ability to listen to and validate Mimi's feelings about the way that she was treated seemed to be a relief to her.

I found myself saying, over and over again, "Mimi, trust me when I tell you that it's NOT you."  The Narcs are so ever-loving GOOD at making all wrongs in a relationship about the other person while taking credit for all the rights.  The deceptions, triangulation, gaslighting, steam-rolling and ganging up are, well, crazy-making.  Poor Mimi, who grew up in a fairly stable home and has a fairly sunny outlook on life was just ill-prepared for the full scale Nuclear Narc Attack she was subjected to.

It's dizzying, you know?  The find ways to make their victim somehow dependent on them, then they take advantage of that in order to suck up their narc supply.  When the victim somehow, some way, finds the guts to fight back, they're just so fucking adept at making the victim believe that they're the ones in the wrong.  Crazy.  Making.

Narcs (and their minions) fight DIRTY.  In Mimi's case, as in mine, they found the weak point - our daughters - and took advantage of the vulnerability of those young girls' hearts.  Playing a child against a parent for any reason is high on my list of unforgivable crimes, for any reason.  And that is, of course, just what the Narcs did to me and just what they did to Mimi.  Sigh.

Fortunately, call it grace or luck or the hand of the universe, those three girls don't have to live as pawns to the Narcs anymore, and neither do Mimi or I.  There's something to be said for time and distance as they relate to healing, and I was able to share my experience with Mimi; the longer I stay away from them, the healthier I am.  In No Contact, I've had lots of ups and downs, but the one constant is this: my life just keeps getting better without them in it.

As I listened to her and recounted some of the dirty, stinking, rotten, awful things they've done to me and my family, I kept thinking of a line from the movie, The Princess Bride.

Toward the end of the movie, the incapacitated hero, Westley, must face the evil Prince Humperdinck with only his wits as weapons as his limbs and muscles have not yet recovered from being (true story) 'mostly dead.'  When the Prince suggests that the two men should face off in a duel 'to the death,' Westley, knowing that he cannot physically best his enemy, launches into a rant about how they will instead battle 'to the pain.'

He explains further that 'to the pain' means that the Prince will be disfigured, maimed, tortured and left in physical and emotional agony; that Westley will not slice off the Prince's ears so that the horrifically beaten and physically disgusting Prince will be able to hear the screams of the children who will be terrified by the post-duel sight of him.  Westley's the hero and well intentioned, not to mention a fictional character, so he's allowed this type of mind play.  But it's occurred to me that this is how the Narc's fight: to the pain.

Long after I had made my boundaries clear with them and held them fast repeatedly, they tried to find a loophole.  If I said "don't call," they'd write a letter.  If I said,"don't write me letters," they sent emails.  If I said "don't email," they sent texts.  And so on.

The most disturbing thing, though, then as well as in retrospect, was the way that they reacted once they'd exhausted all possible routes around my boundaries and it became clear that they wouldn't be getting what they wanted from me.  They simply began instead to attempt to battle 'to the pain.'

They told lies about me to people whom they knew I would eventually hear from.  They told lies about themselves to anyone who would listen, making me look like the bad guy.  They re-wrote history blatantly, at one point claiming that NM's prescription pill addiction (the catalyst of my final stand,) was MY fault.  The used other people's children (including Mimi's) as spies and message bearers who were instructed to accost my DD's at school.  They Facebook stalked.  They enlisted distant family members as minions and at one point NSis approached my (very kind, very country and very much not interested in talking about any feelings, ever)  father in law in the drugstore to bad-mouth me and send a message of guilt.

The ONLY thing they didn't do was to make an honest effort to take me up on my offer to have a straight-forward conversation in the presence of neutral third parties.  Ironically, the only thing that could have been an actual means to healing or some sort of reconciliation was the only thing that simply wouldn't 'stoop' to.  The two times NM did show up, she came with a loaded agenda of the same crap, different day.

In every way they could think, they attacked and attacked by proxy and attacked from a distance and attacked my friendships and relationships in the community.  I watched their increasingly transparent attempt so discredit and harm me in wonder at the depths to which they seemed eager to sink and simply used it as a learning tool; after all, anybody willing to jump on that crazy train isn't really someone I want or need in my life.  But, wow, they sure put a lot of energy into trying to destroy me.  And when they realized they couldn't do that, they redoubled their efforts in their vain attempts to just wound me.

Here I am now,  largely healthy and whole and listening to Mimi the other day reminded me of just how much the whole shitty debacle of 2006 and on into 2007 hurt.  It was fresh and new and every day I woke up with the wind whistling through me.  I simply couldn't believe that anyone, especially people that I'd been convinced my whole life LOVED me, could fight so dirty.

I see it clearly now, and it doesn't really hurt me so much as I find it baffling.  Their epic battle 'to the pain' accomplished one thing for which I am grateful; I am absolutely convinced to the core of my being that those ugly creatures I've seen peeking out of their festering souls are the true forms of the people I grew up with.

They've lost the ability to cause me pain anymore, but they have convinced me beyond certainty that there will never be room for them in any part of my fairy tale.
I'm grateful for that knowledge just as I am grateful for the clarity that I can help to provide to people like Mimi.
And to you, fellow ACoN at this holiday season I offer the same gift:  it's not you. 


Love,
Vanci