Boundaries, rules, etiquette, manners, behavior we expect and approve and accept. They’ve been here in societies and cultures forever. Why are we suddenly talking about “boundaries”? And shaming some for not “having boundaries” meant to stop others from bad behavior?
Let’s talk about “boundaries”. This is another current term and concept that drives me bonkers. Here’s why: “boundaries” is a concept that has come up only relatively recently. Its appearance is a piece of the human attempt to figure out and manage those who don’t heed natural and normal boundaries.
Used and abused are never excused. Be sure it’s the abuser who takes the blame and the fall. Finally, let’s expose this phenomenon for what it is.
Used and abused is something people kept quiet about. And earlier still, it wasn’t thought of as “bad”; it was okay for example, to beat your wife. These days we know this isn’t okay by any means.
At this point, abuse is talked about in terms of what is “done to us” by an abuser. We speak about it from the angle of what the abuser is doing.
Signs We’re Used or Abused: The New Lexicon Around It
This is prevalent now, and we’ve got a 21st-century lexicon to describe abuse, and what the narcissistic abuser has done.
We’ve got the new language to talk about abuse; what that person did and said to us meant to describe and determine if we’re used or abused.
These are the words our moms and grandmas didn’t have. These new words, “devalue”, “discard”, “gaslight”, and “hoover” are meant as proof that we’re abused and describe what’s being done to us by an abuser.
Abuse is talked about as “love bombing, ghosting, punishing, mirroring, projecting, devaluing, discarding”. Abusive partners belittle us, lie to us, cheat on us, and take our money. Then, order us around, make us cry, and do stuff just to make us mad.
They always break promises. It seems like they like to hurt us. Abusers throw things at us, yell, disappear, and so much worse. And mostly it’s all so much more indefinable.
The problem with this viewpoint is, that it makes their behavior the problem. Isn’t the real problem that we’re miserable? We can point at what they do all we like, but how does this help us?
Breaking Up With Evil
Breaking Up with Evil: Escaping Coercive Control on Amazon
Five women’s true stories of being ensnared hauled through the confusion, lies, fear, and pain, and breaking away.
Told in their own words, they leave nothing unsaid. Find validation and see new glimpses of the truth as they share their stories… Stories that could be any of ours.
In friendships and work situations and in love, normal people stay. Normal people try when things are tough. And try more.
That’s what normal, amazing, gorgeous humans are wired to do. It’s what we’re taught to do. There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s everything right with us.
It’s just that we can’t recognize the horror or the mortuary of a mind that sits inside a predator sociopath’s head until we see it in particular and stark contrast to normal.
We don’t see it until “normal” isn’t working to change any of the problems between us. — That’s normal. It takes as long as it takes.
The Podcast: Narcissistic Abuse Unwound
A Definition of Abuse Based on How we Feel Rather than What They Do
The tell-tale signs of abuse, or of being used by someone who cannot love, show up in more reliable ways than in the behaviors of the abuser. We can call them a narcissist, a narc, a narcopath.
By any name we might label them with, their behavior is that of a sociopath. and the fact is, that the abuse and predatory dynamics show up in messages from our bodies and in our emotions immediately. We don’t always recognize these signals for what they are. The sooner we can open to the possibility that this is something we’ve never seen before, know next to nothing about, and be willing to take in what it might be, the better.
1. We Feel Like We’re in a Movie:
This relationship, finding this person, life with this person feels lifted out of reality in the best way! Out at a restaurant, a party, or even going grocery shopping with them feels like we’re living out scenes from a movie.
Relationships are said to be “hard”. People say relationships take “work”. In my experience: When it’s right, it’s easy and bad behavior or feeling bad is never part of the equation.
2. We Feel Like We Can’t Live Without Them:
Much to our own surprise, we feel we’ll die without them. In a dramatic figurative way… and kinda literally. We feel panic at the thought of never seeing them again, and, this emotion of our own, inspired by them, is what hooks us hard.
The deep hook happened like this: I sat a few feet from the con man. We’d known each other three days. I knew he had to fly back to his own country in a few months. At the thought of his leaving a sense of panic that I’d never see him again roiled up from the pit of my gut. Surprised by this creeping dread rising to take me over, I pulled in a breath to ask,“When’s your ticket back?’” He paused, looked up from under his lowered brows, then uttered a departure date barely two weeks away.
Tsunamis of emotion crashed together in my body. Profound all-consuming panic that I’d never see him again hit up against knowing this was an absurd way to feel, and a third thought wondering why I panicked crashed into those. But, I got no answer. Before I could get myself together, his voice, low and dark came through the fog, intimacy slicing my skin and dripping into my bones, “You’re afraid you’ll never see me again aren’t you?”
Fear ran through me; all I could do was try to look normal. I felt small. There were no words I could say. I willed my head to make a single nod. I surprised myself again when a barely voiced, “Yaaaaaaa,” dribbled from my mouth on the one wisp of air left in my lungs. We were married four days later. He didn’t take that flight.
3. We Feel Confused:
Our bodies on a primal, instinctive level know something’s wrong when we’re entrapped in a scam relationship. It’s our social and cultural mind that has to catch up.
Foggy-brained, we wonder if things are what we think they are. It’s natural and the way our brains are wired to rationalize and make exceptions or excuses for their behavior and for how we feel. Because they’re pathological, this normal human function is exaggerated and bent further to their favor.
Without being super aware of it, we change our ideas about what’s “okay”. We even bend our idea of what a relationship is meant to be in order to make this one continue. This is normal under their invisible influence of coercive control.
4. We Feel Disconnected: Communication is Spotty or Painful:
We feel stupid and like we’re a bother for trying to talk with them. It’s rare we talk together about anything real.
Conversation sticks on shallow or it’s only about household things. It’s texts that fizzle into emojis and arguments. We’re ignored – sometimes for days at a time. They blame us for why they won’t talk to us.
When is “bad” bad enough to trust our gut and our feelings over their behavior? To leave one of these parasitic users it takes a certain moment when a switch flips.
5. We Feel Shut Out – There Are “Mystery” People:
We feel compartmentalized. While we build the relationship we’re hitting roadblocks… in the form of attention they give to other people.
They explain a person they message late at night as a “friend” or say, “she’s my sister” or an “ex” that won’t leave them alone. We know something is wrong… That nagging feeling that they have someone else in their life is profound. This is beyond a “girlfriend”. This is a deeper secret. Some block us from their social media, and rage if we post photos of us together.
How bad does it get before we gather the clarity and courage to go? As bad as it needs to be. It takes as long as it takes. There’s nothing wrong with us.
6. We Feel at Arm’s Length:
Somethings missing. As much as we think we know them and their lives, there are many, many holes in the picture.
Maybe we don’t know where they live exactly or what they do for work exactly. There’s a pattern – even a pattern of uncertainty, or abrupt changes in the time we spend together.
We’re not sure where they drive off to when they leave us. We see him or her only late on Wednesdays and sometimes Friday night and only at our place.
He talks about us getting married, but… it stays out of reach. – Or we live in different towns or different countries.
7. We Feel Ganged-Up On:
We’re left hung out to dry. When the arguments and conflicts that come up between us are shared with friends or family might side with others against us.
Their family or so-called friends sabotage our plans or our efforts to bring the family together or to fix problems in the relationship. We’re sucker-punched by it every time.
We feel sad and stupid for wanting to know normal things like when they’ll be home. Or when we’re really going to meet. We suspect they aren’t where they say.
They say it’s a meeting they’re running off to, but… They say they’re going out of town for work, but… She said it was a trip to see her mom, but… it feels offand we feel bad. It’s like we’re constantly stepping out for the next stair and nothing is there.
9. We’re Not Fulfilled: Intimacy is Absent, Exaggerated, Forced, or Conditional:
The bond doesn’t deepen as the days go by. We have sex, but it starts to feel impersonal, sad or bad, and lonely. Or they won’t have sex with us and they get mad if we try to heat things up.
They tell us they can’t be “intimate” – for some reason. There’s a shifting of the issue onto us: they tell us we want too much sex or sex too much. Or they force sex. Maybe they video us, or ask if someone can join in… You might pretty much know they’re doing it with someone else.
We feel despondent and also desperate to please them in the absence of real intimacy. The natural thing that occurs is that within our minds we begin to substitute small things as signs of big closeness and as a sign that they do love us after all.
We start to think we’re super-loved by them when they do something super-small – like take the garbage out.
Tiny things take the place of intimate depth. We try harder, cook better, bake more, wash better, make more money, hurry faster, and give again and again. This is normal; there is nothing wrong with us. Staying is normal, trying is normal. Nothing changes, however, except we feel more and more alone and sad and worthless. Yet, eventually, this is what feeds into the whole thing falling apart.
Staying Silent is Normal
Sometimes the greatest lies are told in silence. We feel ashamed, hurt, isolated, and alone when they come at us in sex on overdrive. Drugs might become a way to cope with the unwanted or “off” sexual scenarios.
We try to convince ourselves dominance and ropes or sex only on Wednesday afternoons, or only if we’re “good” is okay.
We try to convince ourselves that one thing they want to do… is okay – when really, we don’t like it and don’t want it we feel stranded on an island of pain floating further and further away from love. And further and further from our life as we know or want it.
Emotions are messages from our body; feelings are how our mind feels about those emotions. The meaning we give them leads us to safety or trouble.
Pulled in many directions we float, almost out-of-body, and try to collect the pieces. We’re caught between our partner and our kids, between our partner and our parents.
There’s a panic, a lump of nausea in our gut, we try to bring things into focus, into line. We try to meet the regular needs of our kids, work, and family, and at the same time feel out of step with our partner and everything else.
Our mind is on figuring out the indefinable needs of our partner, resolving the rough bits, and making things look happy and great to everyone else. Mostly we feel like we’re failing, sinking. Constantly agitated and anxious, we hope no one notices.
11. We’re Uneasy: There’s Fighting and the Silent Treatment:
The bottom line is, that we’re afraid and apprehensive, cautious about how we approach them. If we ask where they went or if they’ve got $95 dollars to pay the cable bill the roof gets blown off the house with their indignant anger.
Ask why they came home so late and then don’t talk to us for three days. Wonder out loud why the gas tank is already on empty and we’re treated to rage from hell. – Sometimes even certain words we use make them angry.
Normal humans take responsibility for the problems in a relationship. The thing is, we aren’t in relationships when these things are going on. We’re hijacked by a user.
We feel like we might get something wrong and upset them. Certain “rules” or patterns fall into place and seem expected. We can’t break the rhythm that’s been set, a routine that caters to them. Maybe they tell us what to wear, or not wear. Where to go, or not go. When we can talk to our mom or tell us not to talk to our mom. Maybe… they get physical or make threats.
13. Abused Leads us to Feel We’re in the Wrong or We’re the Problem:
Feeling it’s our fault makes us feel like we don’t fit in, even in our own home. If we bring up the troubling thoughts on our minds, they tell us we’re imagining things They say if trusted them, didn’t question them, or could be patient, everything will be fine. They tell us because we’re so suspicious we’re ruining everything. We feel worse, nothing is resolved, and we feel less and less “at home”.
They say the most ridiculous things, and we try to make sense of them. That’s what “normal” does. Our brain and body do this naturally. We need things to make sense. We need harmony.
14. We Feel Like They Don’t Care About Important Things In Our Life:
In abuse, “supported” and “heard” go by the wayside; things we care about don’t faze them. Things in our lives we’d expect the person we’re dating or married to have an opinion about seem to never hit their radar. We get no response, or an odd reaction when our goldfish or our mom dies instead of any level of compassion.
We might get a blank stare, or a shrug and a grumble that doesn’t fit the circumstances – leaving us feeling like we’re falling through the air.
The fact is, our concerns and problems irritate them and put them on the spot. Our emotions threaten them from getting what they want. Sociopaths cannot relate to, feel, or understand the feelings we have. They truly don’t care. We see this in how they walk away so easily.
15. Things Aren’t a Two-Way Street:
We feel let down and like the only one “giving”. Things are one way for them and another for us. We feel like we don’t count. They can use our car or take our money to go meet someone for lunch, but we can’t freely borrow their iPad let alone their car (if they have one.) – When they do use our things they “adopt” them as if our Kindle or book bag is now theirs.
Maybe we do their laundry or stop by and feed their dog, but they’re unreliable or absent in support of us. Their birthday is a big deal, ours is usually not.
Typically on any holiday, we get nothing from them. We’re tending to their needs – and it seems expected, while they ignore our needs – unless – by reciprocating they get money, access to others they can make use of, or a place to live or something else they need or want.
16. We Feel We’re Being Lied To:
Things aren’t adding up. When they say certain things there’s a lurch in the pit of our stomach that floats up to shimmer in the back of our mind: something is not right. – And then sometimes they say the oddest things, that make no sense like: “You only think you love me. If you knew who I really was you wouldn’t love me.”
17. We Feel Like We’re in a Nightmare:
We know we have no idea what’s going on. This is like nothing we’ve ever known. We did what people do in relationships and tried, and tried, and nothing changed. Then we’re scared. – Now, instead of feeling, that we’ll die without them, we feel we’ll die because of them.
Confusion, Exclusion, and Fear Signal We’re Being Used
These feelings signal this person isn’t into us for a normal or genuine reason. We’ve been put in a box for their personal use or gain and “normal” is never going to happen. Confusion and self-doubt are symptoms of the trauma and post-trauma of the deception and emotional or physical harm and of being used.
These feelings signal our “mate” has a life they keep us from. They more than likely have a past or current life we know nothing about.
They’re often married, usually live with someone, and have children we don’t know about. Have habits that are destructive, criminal records, or behavior that should be a crime if it isn’t.
Having these feelings within a relationship or friendship indicates our friend or partner is what people call a “narcissist”, from the DSM definitions of NPD. – But is usually a much more serious danger, an antisocial psychopath, known as a sociopath commonly a con man, a scammer. – Sociopaths cannot have genuine relationships and only bring inevitable harm.
Trust Our Gut: Our Instincts Have Real Meaning
We don’t have a feeling that something’s wrong for no reason. This feeling itself is proof that something is wrong. – Proof you’re being disrespected, deceived, and worse. These pathological users make use of others and have no genuine feelings of care or love for any others. They have no physiological, biological, mental, or emotional capacity to have these feelings. They never have and never will. – This is not because of us – it’s because of them.
Our feelings are proof. There’s no more proof needed. People like this cannot change. A sociopath wouldn’t want to change if they could.
This is a situation that will only escalate in harm and danger to us. It could be said these aren’t relationships, but an invasion or take-over for the convenience of the user. – A crime of deception. We’re being used.
Trust our gut. We don’t have these feelings without reason. Stand up for our lives. Give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. We’re worthy and deserve all good things in life and love.
Add these to your contacts so you don’t miss a newsletter! jennifer@truelovescam.com info@truelovescam.com
As a certified coach, upholding industry standards I strive to inform, educate, invite thought and dialogue, to co-plan, co-strategize, advise, consult, refer, recommend, train, teach, guide and coach people in guided recovery and discovery specific to these crimes, and from hell and broken in the aftermath to whole again, and more. You decide what winning is.
Affiliate links are in every True Love Scam Recovery article. Clicks on these links provide minor compensation to keep the site running. www.truelovescam.com and its agents are not licensed as attorneys, medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, or therapists. See the entire and full True Love Scam Recovery Privacy Policy and Legal Agreement and Disclaimer here. Thank you.
