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Old 08-12-2016, 10:14 PM
  # 27 (permalink)  
Yours Truly
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 94
Originally Posted by ring View Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6xU_CPE310

Hi Yours Truly, watch this, it is funny but has a real message that took me a while to learn. I have experienced similar to you and things started to become clear that knowing what I was dealing with, with them, I then realised I had work to do on me with the co-dependency ( I only realised that this is what I am recently, a ahah moment you could say, it changed the landscape in a good way. I wanted to stop giving my power away. I see you are very loving and caring, have a look into this co-dependency I think it could help. You can not change them but you can arm yourself with knowledge and boundaries. Maybe watch this video every time you find yourself wavering. Hugs to you dear one.
Ring, that video was terrific. Thank you for sharing that and a bit of yourself. And I love your avatar. :-)

When I came here tonight I was going to say that as I find myself needing to detach from the situation it gets more and more difficult for me to come here to post. Also, I am a very private person by nature. The video was uncomplicated, to the point and didn't leave me in a puddle of tears. I will create a YouTube folder titled Narcissistic Sociopaths and add that video right away. I thank you very much for planting the idea. I hadn't yet considered videos - only books. But as is customary for me, I think too much, and this is what I came to post from a philosophical standpoint:

Say he is a sociopath. If he is - and after much reading and searching through my memory archives I am quite certain that he is - then like any other mental illness, he can't help it, and even worse, he most likely won't seek help. But GOD would know that he was mentally ill and FORGIVE him. From an ethical atheist's humane perspective, it would render him forgiveness from an earthly standpoint as well. It's easy to sympathize with the unmedicated, homeless, barefoot schizophrenic crossing the street in the cold, pouring rain, but why not the sociopath? Diagnosing mental illness is still in its infancy. I went from one psychiatrist directly to another who have COMPLETELY different treatment perspectives. Polar opposites. Our prisons our full of mentally ill individuals due to these conflicting opinions and lack of definitive diagnoses. So in our courtrooms, sociopaths are just remorseless criminals - biology, heredity and social influence rarely being taken into serious consideration. We haven't DEVELOPED the technology to definitively determine an individual's psychiatric diagnosis/diagnoses. So that's a point I think is worth considering. It boils down to a moral and ethical dilemma when it comes down to deciding what to do with these folks, and really, that should be all the answer the court systems need. I mean, really - what "normal" person wakes up with a smile on their face and says "I'm going to go knock off Grandma today."

I realize that sociopaths are unable to empathize. They can be taught that other people have feelings and learn right from wrong from an intellectual perspective and we can learn boundaries, but do they really work? Maybe they only work to fend off the sociopaths who do seek help, but those who seek help usually only do it when they become institutionalized.

I ought to just write the old man an email, tell him I love him, that I'll leave the light on for him and leave it at that. With no expectations that he'll ever meet me halfway. . . .because most likely he won't. I won't act on that email right away, though; he hasn't been specific about how long she has left - only that it could be weeks or months. And I presume that the fact that there have been no updates on her condition is intended to manipulate me into feeling guilty as well. Every day I'm concerned about how she is doing. I do care. And he is well aware of that.

I may never send that email. I know what is going on here. I know what both his and her m.o. is - that being that she is pushing me out of his life again and he is allowing it. I'm adamant about that and I just can't get past it. When they met 40 years ago I became history. But I never was spiteful or jealous of her. . . .not ever. I really wanted and tried so desperately to love her, and up until recent events I still did. She just never wanted me around. Ultimately she took my Dad away from me and he allowed it to happen. So I'm angry with both of them. And that just might not be the right mentality.

Revenge wasn't so much the dominating emotion of the day today. It was guilt. I thought about her dying, I thought about her card (as insincere as I suspected it was), and I thought all of the communications I have initiated - all of them - were sincere and full of love, right up until the end when all my Dad did was spew back hate. I ask myself that if I still have more to give, is it right to withhold it just because I'm jaded by his (and her) recent behavior? Is it selfish? Are my intentions to disconnect out of spite or to preserve my own mental health? Surely it's both. I'm not really expecting answers here; writing the questions just kind of puts them front and center so they don't get lost in the shuffle with all the other questions swirling through my brain, and hopefully I'll gain some perspective.

She's dying. That's incredibly deep. For all I know they could be huddled on the floor together in the fetal position just sobbing uncontrollably. All they have is one another. It's so tragic. But they just won't let anyone else in.

There's more, but it would require another marathon post so I'll save it for another time.

Love to all.
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