Experiencing and reflecting on the world

During one of my latest therapy sessions, my therapist was describing how we sense the world around us with our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. That every one of them has a multitude of sub-senses that we experience and can reflect on. For example if I dip my hand into water: is it cold or warm? Is it still or flowing between my fingers? How does it feel? Do I like that feeling? If I see a work of art: is it black & white or colorful? Is it large or small? Is its surface shiny or not? How does it make me feel? Do I like that feeling? If I hear a sound: is it high-pitched or low? Is it a noise, a musical sound or a voice? If a voice, is it male or female? Is it hoarse or smooth? How does it make me feel? Do I like that feeling?

This was the point where I was already sobbing. I have realized that I never had the chance of experiencing the world on my own and forming my opinions and reflections on it. I was so extremely angry and disappointed and sad, that I was denied the wonderful opportunity of getting to know my relationship with the world when I was so little. It never occurred to me that I could explore things and form my opinion about them. I never thought that I felt anything when dipping my hand into water or touching a stone. I never knew I could decide whether I liked that feeling or not.

Anger is good. It shows me when something is not right for me. I have to take credit for being able to feel anger when I should feel anger.

When I met something that was new to me, NM already had an opinion about it and she made sure that I never even knew that I could have mine. She was always excited to show things to me, to teach me things (so I appeared smart and she could project her self onto me and appear smart as well) . So I had tons of experience, but never really my own. She loved to hike, so we went hiking, touched trees and flowers, sat on high ledges and looked down into the depths, collected stones and leaves. This sounds adventurous and wonderful right? It was. I loved hiking, because she said I loved hiking. I always climbed rock walls and never understood why it was weird. I was always told that I loved that. Turns out, I have fear of heights. When I much later told her, I was mocked: 'but you loved to climb rock walls'!

NM was always ready to let me know how I felt about anything. When I touched something it was always commented on 'it feels so awfully cold right'? 'It feels so rough doesn't it'? 'It feels so good to touch that right'? When I accompanied her to wherever she wanted to go (we always were going somewhere), it was always 'so fun' or 'so exciting' or 'oh, c'mon Scatha, you LOVE this or that, sure you want to come, it will be awesome you see'! So I was told that I loved to get up early and do stuff all day. Turns out that yes, I like going out sometimes, but most of the time I feel better to just read a good book at home for example. And I am definitely a night owl.

It is tearing me apart because I simply don't know now whether we really had cool times together when I was a kid, or whether I was just made to believe that we did. I remember constantly being told that I had the best mom in the world at that most children only got expensive toys but parents never played with them or went to places with them, and that my parents were so much better. And I was envied by other children because NM did everything with me. But they had friends. They had time. They knew about things out there in the world like cartoons and toys and swearwords and cool clothes. I knew nothing about these, since I had no life outside NM. I was kept under a bell jar, and she hovered over me.

I have never approached the world keeping in mind that I could decide how I feel about it. I have absolutely no idea how to do that at all. Sometimes I just knew that I didn't agree with NM (about clothes, or food, or movies, but that was already in my teens). With fundamental stuff like surfaces, weather conditions, or the like, I have no clue. I know what I was told about how I feel about things. But how do you know whether you really like it or not?

Aaaargh. I'm SO frustrated!

So I guess while trying to be a teenager the first time, I should also start being a 1-year-old, chewing on stuff and touching stuff and smelling stuff and listening to stuff and gazing at stuff? Gosh, people at my age have weddings and kids and puppies.

A narc ghost of the past

I have run into my EXNB's photos by accident. We have been living together for years, and I was madly, insanely in love with him, and I was completely addicted to him. For me, he was my personal drug. He was THE love of my life. It was me, who ended the relationship, while I was still deeply in love with him. It took all my strength, it took my sanity, and it almost took my life.

(I slept at my FOO's place after he left, since I thought I would find support and family and the like there. All I got was teaching NM that no boyfriend meant me living with her again (I could bang my head in the wall all day long for this). And all I got as 'comfort' was getting told a few days later by her to 'get over it already' because my sadness annoyed her)

And back then, I didn't even know that he was a narc (or that NM was a narc).

After a few days he left, I begged on my knees for him to come back to me. It lasted for a few months more.

When I found out that he was a full-blown narc, who consciously hunted me down and made me his brainless, dribbling slave, who gaslighted the living cr*p out of me and who almost drove me insane, we were already separated, because he has kicked my ass out with some vague lie of 'needing some time apart'. (yeah, he already had a new victim to pursue, and I was in his way).

I spent my days and nights with reading about narcissism, and the whole puzzle just got solved. And I decided to run like hell and never to look back and never ever to see him or talk to him or even think about him. I knew that if I ever did that, I would be on my knees before him again without thinking, and that I would be the happiest person in the world to sacrifice myself for someone who didn't even exist in the first place. He just replicated me and wore my personality as a Scatha-coat to make me believe that he was just like me. That we were like twins in heart and soul. (I realized that when he started wearing the skin of his new victim who was nothing like me, and he turned into her in an instant. It was horrifying to watch).

So I made my vows of abstinence, which he sensed (he always did) and called in the first second I was sober from my delirium with him. He told me the exact words I ever wanted to hear in my life. I didn't have the strength to say no, but I told him that I would contact him when I had the time. I never did.

Last week, I accidentally bumped into some photos of him circling around his newest prey (it was completely by accident, I expected puppy photos in the puppy photo album of this woman on FB, and ended up seeing his face). It completely threw me off balance. He still has this unique otherworldly beauty that no woman can resist (not even NM, but that's another story, she always loved to try to take my boyfriends away from me). I guess the reason why he looks so handsome and forever young is that he sucks the living soul out of everyone he lays his eyes on, like a real life vampire.

It hurt like hell. And I needed all my strength to resist contacting him or at least stalking him. I miss him madly. Well, not him, he never was and never will be. I miss the image that he wore around me. I miss the feverish love, the addiction, the high, the infatuation, the madness, that neverending thirst, and the knowledge that the love of the most perfect being on Earth is mine. And then I realized that these were not my own feelings, but automatic reactions to the trigger of seeing him, and echoes of memories. I am not like this anymore.

And this whole sh*t has never ever existed.

What I've realized now are the following:

• I am done with illusions and lies. I am not interested in having any relationship with projected images. I want someone who is real and human
• I am a f*cking superhero for getting out of this sh*t on my own and staying out of it.
• I never ever ever want to be back in that situation again. I choose love over addiction. I choose honesty over gaslighting and mind-tricks. I choose healthy over crazy. I choose me over abuse.
• I'm proud of myself, and it feels SO F*CKING GOOD to be me.

The lifelong secret

I don't even know what to say about it or how to phrase it. For some, it might mean nothing. For me, it meant the whole world and it has happened a very long time ago.

It is a mutual burden and blessing at the same time, that I share with a person whom I haven't seen for more than half of my life. NM knew about it because back then I didn't know I wasn't supposed to share deeply personal things with her. I was very sad at that time, and she, instead of showing empathy or compassion, was screaming at me.

I thought this person has forgot it a long time ago. I built my whole life (and my insecurities and walls and many of my dysfunctions) around this thought. I've learned recently that this person has cared about this as much as I did, if not more, and that it was never forgotten.

This new knowledge made my world turn completely upside down and it almost crashed me. I was extremely happy and extremely devastated at the same time. I have realized that all this time, while I was thinking that we were not communicating because of the sad parts, it was never forgotten. I was never forgotten. I was never alone. And someone cared about me all that time. And I did care, as well.

I thought that was it and I was to go on with my life, and I could build my new foundations on this newly received peace, forgiveness and redemption. I didn't know however, that NM would learn about it.

This person was as shocked and as happy and as puzzled and as relieved as I am, and really really needed to tell this to someone after years and years of silence: someone who can be trusted. And just happened to meet NM after a long time, and spend time together, without knowing that she could cause more harm than good to me. And as a result, NM now knows about this secret. She acted as a very understanding and empathic and loving woman when she heard it, and gave her promise not to ever mention this conversation to me.

I called her after learning that she knows, but she acted as nothing happened. She didn't even mention it. So she might have been honest, or she might have other plans.

Me and DB, we will meet NM soon in person. I wonder whether she is really capable of some empathy and spare me, just once in my lifetime, or...

...or whether she realized that now has the perfect weapon to ruin my life forever, including my relationship with DB. And for this, she only has to tell him what she learned.

The only thing I can protect myself with is that DB knows she cannot be trusted, so he trusts me more. And therefore, I can hope that she does tell him, and then I tell him that she was lying, he would believe.

This would be the last thing I would ever want to do. I have promised myself that he would know everything about me and that I would always want to be honest with him. And I never ever thought that this past event would come and haunt me. I can say that I could almost make myself believe that it never existed.

I can't tell you what the secret is, because it would reveal my identity. It is nothing illegal, nothing wrong, it was just a situation that is very personal and that I wanted to forget forever. And that now affects my present, even though I thought it never would.

I'll know in a few days, whether NM is capable of empathy towards me or whether she really wants to destroy me.

I'm trying to hope that NM will not talk about this, but deep inside, I'm scared sh*tless.

Making everybody's problems go away

I think this could have been the motto or the perfect description of the reason of my existence for as long as I can remember.

I still have the disease of "perfection" as one of my favorite bloggers calls it. I constantly feel the urge of "fixing" everyone's problems, lives, whatevers. Even when I have absolutely nothing to do with them.

It's so difficult to distinguish between "my problems" and "their problems" since I was never taught the difference. "Their problems" were always "my problems" in a very internal way. If anyone near me was sad, angry, frustrated, or felt any negative feelings besides utter bliss, it was instantly interpreted as my fault. Either because I caused it by not wearing what NM wanted me to, by not pretending to be happy enough to participate in an event I did not want to, or by not showing gratitude after months for a present that clearly showed how NM did not know me. Or, because there was another cause for the person's unhappiness, but nevertheless, I have become magically appointed as the only one who could fix it.

This way, I was suddenly responsible for being for NM a devoted, loving and accepting father and a mother whom she never had, a devoted, loving, passionate and supportive husband who was always on business trips, a cheerful, fun, loving and supportive friend, whom she never had, and all other people that she needed at the moment. And at the same time, providing this be-whom-I-want-you-to-be service to everyone else who happened to be around. Switching between alternate selves, if that was required.

I still don't know how to say no to other people's desires, even if we are not even really connected. When I somehow still have the strength to do so (and it takes a LOT of strength to deny someone something, at least for me), I feel desperate. I feel that I have failed the other person. That I, myself, willingly have caused pain. That I am now responsible for making it right.

The original recipe was getting an unrealistic request, saying yes and hoping that the other person will not realize that I was not doing the thing they asked. This, of course, never really worked, but it at least bought me some time.
If it was inevitable, the other method was saying no, then instantly regretting it, saying yes, then yes again a thousand times, and going out of my way to make amends for saying no in the first place. This is who I do not want to be anymore.

I am now in a situation, where I had to say no to a person, to whom I am not really close to, but whom I still like a lot, about a project we both really care about. I know it is reasonable and logical to say no, and that it would have caused me a lot of extra work, difficulties with no real benefits to say yes. I still feel very sad, and helpless. My instincts still tell me to say yes. I have almost failed to resist, but I'm still sticking to my decision.

I want to be able to differentiate between my problems and other people's problems. Dealing with mine, and letting them deal with theirs.

I hate being conditioned as a very eager and willing doormat. I want to be me, whoever that is. I want to get to know the real me.

I hope this will get easier in time. Now, it is really difficult.

I have not talked to NM for a week now. I'm getting more and more balanced again.

Being the perfect child

I'm starting to realize that my feelings and my own self have both been forbidden from a very very young age, and this can be the reason behind all the family stories about how "perfectly behaved" and "special" I was. The stories about me were:

I was a baby that never cried. The explanation was that my mother was so perfect, that she paid attention to every sound I made, no matter how faint it was, and she attended to my every need, so I did not have to cry at all. Sometimes she mentioned that she never could bear when babies cried, and that she decided that if she would ever have a child, that child would never cry at all.

I was a toddler that no one noticed. Friends and relatives came to visit my parents and they always thought I was at my grandparents' house. Until NM proudly led them to me. I was usually sitting in a corner, silently minding my own business. I never ran around, I never destroyed any toy, I never unpacked my whole toy box and left them scattered around, I never touched anything that was not mine, I have never opened wardrobes or drawers, I never touched porcelain vases or valuable sculptures or any decoration, I never screamed, I have never been a "terrible two".

I was a kindergarten-aged child who hated everyone in her age. They were all like children. When they visited us, they unpacked and destroyed my toys, then left them scattered. They ran. They screamed. They opened all the wardrobes, pulled out the drawers, started playing with a toy and moved on to the next in two minutes. Before they came, NM made sure that I knew this would happen. When they left, NM always came into my room and told me: See, Scatha, how awful all they are? They are bad, bad kids, they are not good, they cannot behave. See, Scatha, how they destroyed your toys that you always take good care of? See, now all things that they have scattered around, now Scatha and NM has to pack away, to spend such a long time having to clean up the mess they made, to fix what they broke, and all is left to us, because they didn't even make the effort to pack away things, see? If we visited them, NM always told me after we left, how everyone thought that all rules applied to us. That I wasn't allowed to play as I wished when I was visiting someone, because I was the guest, and how they allowed themselves to do anything they pleased at our place, because they were the guests. And how unfair all of this was. I loathed children. I dreaded the time when they visited us. I looked forward the time when they left. In the meantime, sometimes I enjoyed playing with them, because they were company, and they seemed to like me. But the overall feeling was hatred, disgust, despair, sadness.

I preferred the company of adults and they did not want to be friends with me. The visiting parents wanted to talk to my parents, and "let children play". I did not want to play, I wanted to talk to the grownups about science, books, or anything like that. They did not understand my behavior and I was usually pushed away with "you are only a child, you don't know anything about [topic], don't talk into adults' business". I was trying to express my views on politics, or economy, talk about interesting biological facts or how the different cloud types influence the weather. I was still under 7. I felt isolated, I did not belong to the children, and I did not belong to the adults either.

The only love I got was when NM paraded around with my accomplishments. How I could read at the age of one and the half. Show Scatha, read this complex medicine description to NM's Friend. See, NM's Friend, how clever is Scatha? Now, Scatha, tell the doctor lady how many bones (I knew almost all of them) you can name in the human body. Show her the lifelike drawing of the human organs you made. Now, Scatha, tell the poems you wrote to Grampy, I am sure he would love to hear them.

• NM: Scatha, would you like to sing the song you wrote to Auntie, show him how talented you are. 
• Scatha: No, Mommy, I'd rather not, (thinking: I hate performing, I am not that confident, I just want to disappear)
• NM: Sure Scatha, you would like to sing to him
• Scatha: no please Mommy, I'd rather not sing now
• NM: But Auntie woud surely LOVE to hear you sing, don't you, Auntie?
• Auntie (everyone fell for this trick): Yes, NM, I would love Scatha sing, she must be cute
• NM: Hear, Scatha, he would love to hear you sing, you don't want to make Auntie and Mommy sad, do you?
• Scatha: pleaaaaase Mommyyyyyy pleaaaaase nooooo I dont waaaant tooo
• NM: You are rude, surly, impolite and inconsiderate. How can you do that to Auntie and Mommy. How can you want to deliberatly make Auntie sad. How cruel you must be to do this to her. You WILL sing.
• Scatha: :sings and hopes that she can disappear afterwards:
• NM: See, how impolite and bad you were, you did not want to sing for Auntie to show how good you are, now she is happy that you did sing for her, you ARE happy Auntie, aren't you?!
• Auntie: Yes, yes, it was wonderful, how talented your child is, amazing.

 And then, she harvested all the praise. Sometimes I was praised too, for what I could do, for my grades, for the things I knew, for being way more adult than my age. But I was never praised for my ability to love, my values, or for being myself.

Manipulating children according to NM

When we were talking about raising children with NM, she told me that I was always the 'perfectly well-behaved child' and that everyone envied her. I don't remember crying when I was young. I do remember NM spending every waking hour with me, completely enmeshed with me and I had more fun I could have imagined, and I remember my first like 3 years of life as perfect. Maybe even a bit after that. I also remember that my opinion was always asked and valued, so that was also why it was so shocking when I became a tween and suddenly my taste in clothes was put down and screamed at, my taste in food was considered disgusting, my friends were 'inappropriate', and everything I wanted to decide on my own was replaced by her completely different decision.

I have only realized now why. I only had the illusion of deciding things. NM 'came out' lately that she was manipulating me from my birth into believing that the choices I made were mine. She proudly announced that she always manipulated me to do what she wanted me to. And then went on explaining in detail how to make a small child believe that the choices they make are theirs and still get what you want. How to provide them with 'options' to choose from and make sure that they will want to find out eagerly which one you would want them to pick, how to ask them to choose and then if the answer you get from your child is not what you want, simply derail their attention with some toy or something interesting (and due to their very short attention span they will forget you have even asked anything), and then ask the same question again, but that time, even more manipulatively.

NM described how to push their 'wants' the way you want them to, with little tricks, decoys, or how to disregard their desires without them noticing and then replace them with your own.

She was so proud of herself, and she was so condescending (she wanted to demonstrate how little I know about raising children and how awesomely clever she is).

When I was a teen, this elaborate technique was replaced by asking my opinion, acting like it was accepted, then coming at me later completely enraged, authoritative, and dragging along with EF as a physical and emotional shield and threatening to severely abuse him if I don't comply, and then telling me that I will decide to want the exact opposite. And I did so. The conversation looked like this basically:
NM: - Scatha, do you want to visit auntie today?
Scatha: - No.
NM: - Okay (walks away and waits until 5 minutes before departure time, then marches into my room)
NM: - Get your clothes, we are going.
Scatha: (grunts, makes faces and silently starts putting clothes of NM's choice on) 

(you can extend the conversation with buts, arguing about clothes and losing, listening to how 'grumpy' or 'difficult' or 'unloving' I am, or how I don't respect family, or as a last resort NM shoving EF's sad, desperate and panicking face into mine, to demonstrate how she had already started torturing him emotionally and will escalate doing so if I don't comply)

It never even occurred to me until my mid twenties that I could ask why the hell she was asking my opinion if she was not interested in it or would not accept it anyway.

And it never even occurred to me that I could say no to these, until a few years ago. When I first did so, she sent EF to me, and I've never seen such fear on his face before. I still said no. Then she marched up to my door and ordered me to go. I said no and shut the door into her face. Then she tortured emotionally the living sh*t out of EF after it, just to make sure. This is their problem.

But this, that she admitted that she was conditioning me from my birth to do what she wanted me to, was downright creepy and shocking and devastating. At least now I know that no, even when I was around 3 years old, my life wasn't happy or perfect. It was manipulated. And I never had the chance to learn that being enmeshed with NM and doing exactly what she wanted was not equal to being loved for who I was. Not at all.

The worst two dreams

These are the two dreams that are on my top worst dreams list. There was so much gore in them, along with all the sheer panic, helplessness, desperation and fear of death that I felt inside these dreams, that it almost literally scared the living sh*t out of me.

My first worst was, when I was still living with my FOO. After waking up, I have realized that there must be something really, seriously wrong. This was the time when I was an alcoholic, left for college each day around 4AM at dawn to avoid meeting NM, EF was in hospital, I was severely depressed, suicidal, and I had absolutely no hope.

My second dream was approximately a few weeks ago.

Dream #1

I somehow tied NM to a bed, and I was so desperate to end all the pain inside me, that I have decided to end her life. To do that, I started chewing her heart out, with nothing else than my own teeth. It was a very long process, there was way too much blood, and she was screaming. And when I almost got there, I have realized, that there was the rib cage between me and the heart. That besides all her pain, agony and screaming that I have caused for her, and the extrapolated version of what she was feeling, all her pain, and also my emotional pain inside me, being so desperate that I was to do that to my own birth mother, I still cannot get rid of her.

Dream #2

I lived at my FOO again. I went home and found EF tied to a chair, his hands twisted back from his shoulders. I knew that NM did that to him. Without hesitation I freed him. NM came in, and realized that I have freed EF, she started screaming at us, and wanted to kill both of us. EF somehow signaled to me that we have to end this for all, and that I have to drown her in the bathtub. I knew that it was her life, or ours and there was no time for negotiations. So I pushed her into the bathtub that was only half-full with water and held her down. And I was terrified of my actions. EF prepared me that it would take at least an hour to drown, so I must prepare that it will be very long, and if I fail, I will have to start over again. And as he said it, bubbles came up, and formed the words: I really love you Scatha, I genuinely, truly, deeply love you. I knew it was a trick, and that she would lie anything to survive, but still... it resonated so deeply within me that I started crying uncontrollably and released her up. She attacked me again. Realizing that she lied to me, again, I pushed her back, still crying like I have never cried before. Then she transformed into some sort of seed or bean or something, but I still had like half an hour to continue the drowning. I have never felt as guilty as that before, to commit the ultimate sin and to hurt someone that much. EF came in and admitted that the 'World Police' was looking for her and that they want to give me a medal of honor for putting such a threat down. We put her 'seed form' into a glass of water and I still had to hold her down, while EF was driving me to the police station for my celebration. And I still felt worse than ever before.

Both times, when I woke up, I felt so disgusted of myself, I cannot even describe. I truly loathed myself. Side note: while awake, I'm unable to even kill a fly or a spider. I rather help them get out my apartment. Why am I dreaming about such violence then?

If there is hell, these dreams are there. I am still uncontrollably shaking and my stomach is turned upside down. I feel terrified.

Another blow to my insomnia. I have been terrified of going to sleep since I was 16, because of my nightmares. This does not help.

I want a drink so bad. But I am not giving up being sober. No way.

Comments are welcome, as always. Did you ever have dreams like that?

The wonders of honesty

As I've mentioned before, I'm practicing honesty. And oh boy, the wonders that follow after being honest.

Last time I've decided to be very open and honest with one of my friends whom we had a subject that we did not talk to. I realized that the truth would hurt him, and might end with him not wanting to be friends with me after that. But I have also realized that I cannot have a deep connection with someone, if I have to lie about one of the most important things in my life, just to protect him from having to deal with his own emotions.

Hell, I've been doing this all the time with NM, having to hide everything I was just to protect her from realizing I'm not her salvation, nor the fulfiller of her unfulfilled childhood dreams, and definitely not her substitute husband. I was the main actor in her private theater of make believe, along with EF and all the cheerleaders and flying monkeys around. It has been my second nature, since I was born to deny myself and twist reality for everyone else, to know all their secret thoughts without asking anything, and to concoct the most beautiful realization of all their dreams. The only thing I knew was, that if I am myself, their worlds shatter, and I am the cause of their illness, despair, conflicts, and even the thunderstorm outside (yes, she actually made me believe that me being myself was making the rain fall with thunders and lightning, to emphasize that I made NM sad).

To think this through made me realize that this was, in fact, narcissistic thinking. To believe I was powerful enough that I was making everyone happy or unhappy just by being alive, and that I could influence the weather. That it was my responsibility only to save the day. Geez.

I don't want to create dream worlds to people anymore. I can show empathy if they are struggling with their own problems, I help if I have the means or the time, but I don't want to save everyone around me from their own lives and solve everything for them. I don't want to be the fairy godmother anymore.

So I sat down with him, and then 5-6 awful hours passed until I was capable of telling the truth. It basically was that I was with DB and there is no way that we can be anything else but friends. I also added that it does not mean that I don't like him or his company, or the things we do together, but there is a line that I cannot, and will not cross.

And then the miracle happened. He still talks to me, we still do stuff together, the world didn't collapse, there were no earthquakes or innocent kittens dying. It also seemed that he was somewhat relieved (despite that he was the one explicitly asking me not to talk about anything like this). I am myself, and the world is still here. Wow.

The other part:

My friend-who-broke-contact-with-me-before.

I have decided not to hide in the corners anymore and do what I think, instead of doing what I think is expected of me.

We had to go to a business event together that supposedly lasted 3 hours (but in the end it turned out to be a 8-hours-long one). I asked him if I could sit next to him. He said yes. Then we had business lunch with the others, and he sat next to me. He talked to me. We even had a cigarette together, just like old times, talking, laughing. And in the end, I asked whether he would visit the big event of my project (that he was part of in the beginning, but then decided to quit). It was my greatest fear that he would simply say no. I was scared as hell.

And he said yes.

I expressed that I was more than happy that even if not participating actively, but he will visit us at the event. He smiled. And yes. This means a lot to me.

Ah, the wonders of honesty. The miracles of being true to myself. Of being me. Wow.

The others

I am practicing the art of honesty, and I feel really embarrassed about what I am going to post now. But please, be honest with me. I am open for advice, criticism, analysis, and well... also compassion :)

I wonder if I am really seriously f***ed up, and whether I intentionally sabotage my chances to any healthy relationship.

I have considered myself completely monogamous and a firm believer in fidelity, marriage for most of my life.

However, there was a point, where I have failed myself and my value system. I have been living with EXNB for four years. We moved together after a few months, and from the day it happened, he stopped talking to me, spending quality time together and having sex with me. Also, he refused all my attempts at getting close to him, or even trying to touch his face. He always had reasons: being tired, the weather, side-effects, depression, problems with work, problems with anything. I have accepted the reasons, but it drained me and my self-esteem in every possible way.

To cut the long story short, I have decided not to sit at home all day long looking at his back playing computer games, and I started to make friends again (I have lost almost all of them because I focused on nothing else but his needs). I got closer to one of the new friends than I should have, and we started to have an affair. Soon after that I have realized that I would not do this to either of them, broke up with EXNB, and went on with the relationship with the friend, then broke up with him also when I have realized that he was unhappy with me and that all I could do anyway was being a sobbing lump of depression 24/7.

After this, I couldn't forgive myself, besides all my friends telling me that after four years of neglect and celibacy I had no one to be faithful to, and thus it was acceptable that I cheated on EXNB even if for a very brief period.

It still haunts me. How I could throw everything that I believed in away just because someone, at last, wanted me.

Since then, I do feel f***ed up. Especially because I feel that I cannot get away from that pattern anymore. When DB and I had problems, I had a huge crush (love?) on one of my friends and when said friend realized he felt the same, he broke all contacts with me. Nothing ever happened between us, but I still miss him like hell, and (I still love him)

I am still in touch with the other friend, who was my boyfriend after EXNB, and I am still not made of stone... meaning that I don't find him unattractive, and that he is not unlovable to me. I know he is still in love with me, after all these years, and it still hurts him that we are not together. And sometimes, memories start flooding me, and I sort of think that I feel the same about him as I used to...

When I look back on my earlier life, I remember that with my boyfriend before EXNB (also for four years, also he was completely unavailable, with a wife and children, feeding me with lies that he wanted to be with me), I also had shorter episodes of having a crush on someone else, but back then, I could control myself.

And I do remember my second boyfriend in my life, who was so innocent and young and inexperienced (I wasn't really that experienced either) that he barely ever kissed me (again, unavailable), and I had a very good friend, who became more than a friend for me, and then disappeared from my life. I didn't feel any regret then, though, which bothers me now.

I start to recognize that there is a pattern here, me being in long relationships with unavailable men, starting to panic when I realize that there is a problem in said relationship, suddenly turning into a femme fatale and then selecting someone to fall head over heels for.

Now, I feel that I simply cannot deal with men who "are there". Like DB. I love him deeply, but still... what the hell should I do with someone who is there for me and loves me? I miss the powerful, napalm-like burning inside myself, the thrill of the "hunt", the uncertainty, the anticipation, the all-engulfing passion and obsession, for someone, whose thoughts and dreams I can completely possess, but whom I cannot really have. Or the secrecy. The thought that I am wanted, truly, deeply wanted by more people.

That one, simple, normal, harmonious, loving, working relationship is very far from enough.

Once, I phrased this feeling as that "I collect souls". I feel the best when more than one men (especially a certain type: who have beautiful souls, thoughts, moral values, are great to talk to, have a sort of underlying attractiveness that is rather deep charisma than beauty, and some hidden but deep pain inside them) are completely obsessed by me. The downside is, that I am unable to "unlove" them or forget them no matter what happens after it.

I feel a deep hunger inside me, that can only be fulfilled by one single person when he holds me really close, entangles me, and constantly showers me with love, affection, desire, and words, loving words.

(A side note, EF, the first "man" in my life had traveled a lot when I was little. I loved him more than anyone, and he was never there. But I could spend all my months, waiting for him, preparing presents, dedicating all my thoughts to him, waiting for the wonderful day of his arrival. One of my theories now is that I am reenacting this in my adult life)

I do NOT want to mess up my relationship with DB. I do love him, and I want to keep him. I want to be normal and faithful and normal. And normal. And I don't want to spend most of my days obsessing about the thought of obsessing about someone obsessing about me.

Am I seriously f***ed up?

(am I a narc, like NM?)

The day when EF almost died

I was at the beginning of my twenties. I lived with my FOO, and had a boyfriend for four years. (I have mentioned him before in one of the posts). NM found out about him at the beginning of our relationship, and my life turned into hell, until I promised to leave him. I secretly dated him for four years. And I finally decided to take control of my life. I sat down with NM and EF and told them that we were still together and intended to stay that way. (A half year later we broke up, but that is totally unrelated. We are still good friends though, both happy in our present relationships.)

In a week, EF was taken into hospital with an unknown but very severe illness and almost died within a day from dehydration. He stayed there for a month (or three? I don't remember). And I remained alone, at home, with NM. He was the only thing between me and EF and now he was gone. He almost never protected me but at least he never hurt me and I loved him. And I still believe that he does love me. I was horrified and scared to death, because I knew the worst hell was coming. And no, I didn't know that the 'worst hell' was way much worse than that.

I learned that EF was dying via phone. NM called me (I was at college which was unfortunately in our city, so I had to live with her). She briefly told me that EF was in the hospital and that he was dying and that it was because of me. And then she hung up. I called her back, and when I managed to talk to her, I asked her where he was. She refused to tell me. I had to beg her for days. She told me that she wouldn't tell me because the reason behind EF's mysterious illness was that I told them I was together with then-boyfriend.

I was devastated. NM kept on talking. She explained to me in detail, that EF admitted to her (before being taken to hospital) that it was my fault that he became ill. That the fact that I was together with then-boyfriend devastated him so much, that he almost died. Then she looked deeply into my eyes, and told me:

"He will die. You killed him. You killed your own father. It is all your fault. It is because you shocked him. You devastated him. You hurt him so much. He did not expect this abhorrent behavior from you. He could not take it to realize that his daughter was such an unimaginably horrible person. To know that you are with then-boyfriend."

I was crying so uncontrollably that I was rather screaming then crying, and was collapsed into a lump on the floor. She shook me up and forced me to stand up. When she ensured that I could not look away from her gaze, she continued.

"If he would survive your murder attempt, do not ever even think of trying to telling this to him. He is such a good man. He wouldn't ever admit that it is all your fault. So don't ask him. He will lie to you and tell you that it is not your fault, because he is so much better than the lowlife you are. He would want to spare you from knowing that he knows how horrible you are. That you wanted to kill him. Your own father."

The next thing I remember was hearing the following from NM:

"I wish Bro was alive. I wish he survived instead of you. At least, if both of you had to be alive, I could say that well, Scatha is irreparably broken and went wrong, she is the black sheep of the family, but at least we have Bro, who is nice and loveable. So I could toss Scatha away and turn towards Bro."

(Note: Bro was aborted before I was born.)

Then she forced me again to look her in the eye and said:

"I wish I wouldn't have to see you all the time, the way you are. I wish I wouldn't have to know day by day that you are like this. I wish you weren't alive. I wish you were dead. I want you to be dead so that I wouldn't have to go all through this."

After a few days, when I was completely broken, she told me where EF was. I could see him but only with NM present, watching my every move.

I don't remember too well, but I think almost half a year have passed until I managed to ask EF in private, whether he thought I was killing him. That I didn't know what to think because NM told me that he wouldn't tell me the truth anyway. He sent me away with a backhand wave telling me that I was stupid and it was not true. And that he didn't ever want to talk about it again.

He has recovered pretty quickly after he got home from the hospital and is now completely cured from that illness.

NM's words still echo in my head.