Originally Posted by
GiveLove 
I was a target too. I called it an "object" then. I wasn't a person - I was an object, a concept.
I wasn't GiveLove, the person who has her own feelings and pain and needs and struggles, the person who has the right to a good life too.
To him I was "that woman who has to stay here in order for me to feel okay." My suffering didn't matter. My happiness didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the end result: power.
When I stepped out of the crosshairs and walked away, I ESPECIALLY became an object. Then I was "the woman I must get back even if it would be the worst thing in the world for HER." I was lucky to have support in fighting back and getting him away from me for good.
Object. Concept. Satisfaction of a need. Not a person.
I feel like a survivor too, but of a different kind: I survived the things I allowed to happen to me in the course of my learning. I was a hostage who finally realized that the door to my cell had never been closed. I am fortunate. Many do not survive stepping out of the target zone. We could've lost you tallulah, and ever time I think of that it just tears me up.
:ghug
Hmmm
I am still processing all of this truthfully.
Givelove's post is exactly what I went through, but a bit different, if that makes sense.
I was an object that became a target I think
Her alcoholism had nothing to do with her behavior.
I know alcoholics, I'm related to them, I am one, I've dated them, all my friends are (recovering) alcoholics.
This was an entirely new animal.
I was meant to "save" her I think (to her), I spoke the language and gave her the love she had never had. She couldn't help pushing me away though, sometimes covertly, sometimes overtly.
It was the "double bind", I love you "POW" <punches me in the face>
"I love you I need you" her pursuit of me was relentless and repeated.
So I began to confuse love with abuse.
It all got so mixed up in my mind.
I still ask myself how could she have been so mean if she loved me?
So I was the object she needed to complete her in her mind, but she was "rigged" to drive me away the moment we got together. She had so much self hatred and self loathing that she couldn't help but to blast me with it.
When I left for the final time I have never seen so much pure hatred directed at another human being in my life as she directed at me. That's really when I became "The Target".
All in all it was an incredibly confusing experience I haven't entirely processed yet.
It was an act in three parts
Come Closer (The wall of seduction)
Get Away (Love Avoidant and extremely toxic and abusive behaviors)
Come back (Because I would leave her)
These cycles occurred closer and closer together.
It was like she hated me, but couldn't let me go.
She would beg for me to come back to her, admit her part, promise to change, offer me everything I ever wanted in a relationship, then when I did go back to her, would treat me worse then I have ever been treated in my life, then when I would finally leave her again the cycle would begin anew.
Until Like I said the last time she unleashed her full fury on me.
Hell Hath No Fury didn't even begin to cover it.
Pretty strange.
Made me doubt my own reality.
I've been in a "normal" relationship now for nearly six months.
We've had our differences here and there, but what a difference. Night and Day.
Communication occurs. Compromise occurs. Validation occurs. Two people seeing "their part" occurs. Resolution occurs. No "lashing out" and hurtful things being said. No name calling. No gathering of allies. No repeated break ups. No spiteful, vindictive behaviors. No Lying.
The roughest we've handled each other has been to take a "time out" for twelve hours.
That's it.
I like having my "normal" return to normal. To Sanity. I like being with someone who doesn't hate me and spend every waking hour trying to tear me down and squash me like a bug in order to feel better about themself while they desperately want me to save them.
yeah....I still don't truly understand it. I'm still confused as to why this person was so hurtful.
Object. Concept. Satisfaction of a need. Not a person.
That's exactly it. That's all I was. But she couldn't help but to tear me down the moment I was with her. In a thousand different ways, from the most subtle, to disappearances, to constant lying, to in my face horrific, nasty things being said. Driving me insane, making me absolutely break down and cry, then pointing her finger at me and saying "see? Look how F'd up you are"
I sure am glad I don't live there any more though.
I guess that makes me a Victor.