Duped

Take heart Lulu, your A could very well be making things easy on you, although it might not seem like it now.

freefalling

This must come from both sides. addicts in active addiction/dry drunk mode cannot give us this

Duped

Indeed. They are coming from a self serving frequency and are incapable of love. They need to feed off our life energy and the love they receive from us. If in active addiction, no love is returned, and hence the creation of codependency and 'need'. We the codependents have given of ourselves so much, that we become desperate for reciprocated love which never comes, and we then become weaker and weaker, and we fall into a state of need. We need the scraps from the alcoholic's table - anything, any sort of love that they can muster up to ration out to us. This was always in the back of my mind in my relationship. I.e., I don't feel that I am getting much out of this from my end.

The sad part it, any love you receive back from the alkie is not emanating from them, it's merely a portion of what you have handed to them in the first place. Eventually this drains you of your life force, and then become attached to the alcoholic parasite.

freefalling

yep you have handed them your soul and you want it back!

Duped

Too right, and it takes a long time to heal too. That is how if we stay, we become a part of the problem, it becomes a negative symbiotic relationship based on selfishness of the alkie and need of the codependent. What a sick and unnatural dance, that goes against the natural order of things!!!!

Bucyn

Maybe she's through trying to get you to accept blame for her mess ups?

We can only hope.

Bucyn

He's not an alcoholic, but this describes my former stepson. He's 13 now, but 12 when i last saw him. I first knew him when he was 7.

He was very quiet and very very polite. He cried easily and specialized in wounded puppy dog. I don't blame anyone for being taken in, especially at first. He was very good. I got fooled a lot myself.

He wasn't old enough to dominant and humiliate anyone, but many of his therapists pointed out he was extremely manipulative and very advanced at it. It was the one constant comment from the majority of his evaluators and therapists.

Up until about age 10 he made no bones about saying that he was special. he didn't have to listen because he was special. He shouldn't have to do homework because he was special, he shouldn't have to follow the rules because he was special. He once thought that he could walk in front of a swing at the park and it wouldn't hit him altho he acknowledged it would hit others, but not him because he was special. He once got upset at school because his chair wasn't in the right spot, so he crawled under his desk. He thought no one could see him. "But there were no sides to the desk, just legs, of course everyone could see you." "But if I didn't want them to, they couldn't."

He was such a liar. He lied about everything and about weird things. In front of a group of five people he'd just have dinner with, he'd lie and say he didn't have any dinner. He lied and said while standing in the backyard cleaning the pool he saw me steal his homework off the dining room table. Except there was no place in the entire backyard where you could see the dining room table. When taken out their with his dad to explain just how it was possible that he saw me stealing his homework when he'd have had to had the ability to see through walls, he insisted fervently, tears running down his cheeks, "I did, I did see it!" So you see through walls. "No, but I saw you steal my homework, I saw it. It was a great and convincing performance.

He used to make a big deal that he was being starved. He got lots of pity from strangers this way. Then I told him that when you didn't eat for 12 hours, your body produced ketones in your pee; one day some CPS person or cop was going to take him seriously, make him pee in a cup and prove what a liar he was. so he needed to knock off the starvation bit. He looked at me seriously, said, "I didn't know that." Shortly thereafter he started whining that people were making him eat too much or that he was going to die from over eating. Once he said I made him eat 8 hot dogs. Another time he broke the blades off his ceiling fan because he had two pieces of pizza and said his stomache would explode. Another time he was wandering through the neighborhood when he wasn't supposed to and when caught told his dad he did it because he was afraid he'd eat dinner and his stomache would explode and he'd die.

There are so many stories about his lying, it would take days to write them all down.

I never saw remorse for anything he did or guilt. Maybe sometimes he was embarassed at being caught, but not much. Mostly he didn't care, and would just stare and wait for people to go away and leave him alone.

He liked whomever he could dupe. He trained his father by showing him affection and approval whenever dad believed his blatant nonsense, and punished his father with withdrawal, blame, and coldness whenever dad put a limit on him or called him on his nonsense. XA was rediculously desperate for this kid's approval. He didn't care much about his daughter's approval, but he desperately wanted this kid to like him. Dad was very easy for stepson to train.

Who can say who has the ability to love? How do you know? He was exploitive not loving. But <shrug>...

He was very underhanded about this. Generally he presents as a quiet, still person. But I think he is developing a need for stimulation. He's taken up rip boarding and snow boarding. But most of his stimulation seemed to have been through melodrama. He set it up to get himself kidnapped by strangers once. He ran off a couple times, but made it easy to find him, once all the police, etc... were called. He loves quietly stirring up big trouble, then standing on the sidelines and play victim or play dumb. I think also he likes making up big stupid lies to see who believes them, who doesn't, who pretends to. He'd sneak out at night lots of times. In December after we broke up he was seen breaking into cars in the middle of the night. He'd play games like sneaking out of bed (even at age six) and smearing peanut butter into the louvered doors or creeping around in the middle of the night and pouring syrup all over, once even creeping into his sister's room while she was sleeping and pouring syrup on the end of her bed and her floor.

Never cared how anyone else felt or how much trouble he caused anyone else. Liked to make other people's lives unpleasant.

He was impulsive, but it was always hard to distinguish impulsive from bizarre or from manipulative. He could control himself if he wanted to.

Well, in preschool he had bullying behaviors, in kindergarten he was denied field trips because he caused problems. His first and second grade teachers complained and worried about him. At age 8 he was accusing his dad of putting bumps on his head and was always read for a false accusation of abuse. By age 9 he'd gotten himself arrested and charged with taking a weapon to school. By age 12 he'd been charged and convicted 4 times for felonies, including weapons and drug charges. Also got away with a lot of stealing.

Never, ever, ever took responsibility for what he did. Ever.

Nope. Once at age 10 wrote out a list of weird sex questions about having se with his sister, getting her pregnant and having sex with animals.

Hard to tell because he was young and the young are not realistic, but remember on the first day of second grade he started crying when his father drove him to school. He wanted to know why he had to go to school, he already knew everything and what he wanted to be (a banker), why should he have to go to school.

Weapons in school at least 4 times; drugs at day care and at his other school (I don't think he used, I think he was selling); stealing, stealing stealing, not just from us, but from classmates. The most expensive thing he stole outside the family was an $80 nintendo.

1,2,4,5,7, 10, 12, and 13 all true.

Summerpeach

OMG Bycyn. is this kid in therapy? That is scary.

alanonicnov2008

seriously that makes me want to run out for a tubal ligation.

stilllearning

It's good to remember that everyone, even acctive As, are individuals. I had an alcoholic parent - not emotionally available when she was drinking and it definitely affected the family unit. But. She wasn't manipulative and she was high functioning. I know that she loved us - and I know that she was remorseful "the morning after." I'm a RA and I absolutely caused my family pain when I was at the worst of my disease - didn't even attempt a relationship for the last two years of my drinking.

Nothing, and I mean nothing - not five years in the rooms - prepared me for my relationship with XABF. Either his brain is so pickled and he is so bent on protecting his disease ... or he really does have an underlying problem. He had a pretty rough childhood by his own account - he lied about so many things but if he was honest about
what happened to him, it was no picnic.

Bottom line is that I actually gave him way, way more of a free pass in the final months than I should have because he was "attempting to stay dry" and I know how rough those early months can be. But he was a monster. And the upshot is that I really don't think he has a conscience. Not about how he treated his collegues, his ex, me, his family - nobody. You can treat alcoholism. Some personality disorders really aren't easy to treat (psychopathy) and on the offchance that he does ever get sober in any real way, I'm glad that I won't be around to see whether some of the things I saw were due to it was alcohol or his personality.

At the end of the day I don't want an active alcoholic -or- a psychopath for a partner. And definitely not an alcoholic psychopath. All that matters is how someone treats me and whether I'm comfortable having them in my life.

SL.

MaryGoRound

I'm so glad I read this thread. SL, you put it so well. And I can really relate to what you said about your X. Sometimes I wonder if his childhood stories are true. Then again, he does have a tattoo of his mom who died a tragic death, so I think it must be true.

It is so hard to separate the two: sociopath and alcoholic. Because most alcoholics seem to have that sociopathic empathy. For example, with my xabf..sometimes he would express his interest for wanting to get help and then say he was scared. Now, most of me really thinks he was genuine. But how do I know he wasn't just really good at saying what I wanted to hear? Where's the line between reality and just really good manipulation.
And could some of these people have such deep, deep seated pain that causes them to exhibit behaviors like that of psychopaths,etc?

That's what I was wondering while I was reading. And I've been sort of panicked or been upset with myself lately to be with someone who is pretty much...really f.ing vile. What if he really turns out to be a serial killer, like someone mentioned? LOL. I shouldn't laugh. Its actually pretty disturbing.

But you're right SL. It doesn't matter. I always wanted XABF to get help regardless, b.c I knew beneath the masked pain he could be a great person. But I want someone who treats me right. Without a disclaimer, justification, or pity for their behavior.

alanonicnov2008

I literally had a silence of the lambs moment with my ex while he was drinking. One day he had invited me over for dinner and when I came over the apartment was decorated nicely with candles, etc. On the floor was a large scientific picture book with thousands of pictures of butterflies in it.

He had this attitude toward me that I was about to become a beautiful butterfly. I believe in the sickness of his disease he was actually projecting that he could become well...but in his mind I think he thought if only I'd be mormon, he could marry me and save me from my own mortality.

I stopped talking to him shortly after that because it freaked me out. I then got an email saying that he had waited for my transformation...and he was still waiting for me in whatever state I was in...and I remember clearly he put the words "pupa, larvae, egg".

Freaky!!!!!!!!

He got sober, but that underlying projecting never went away, I was always "inferior", "less than", "sicker than he was". His entire family projected this stuff on me. When I went to his parents house to visit they took me to church and a conversion meeting and it was all in the name of my salvation.

I still obsess over it because it's so odd, and so disturbing. And when you can't convince someone of what is real...that really drives me nuts. I can't remember how many times I had to tell my ex, "no I'm not your ex wife", "no I'm not evil", etc. It never sunk in.

Duped

Yikes.

That is really, really weird.

Are all Alkies bullies as well?

alanonicnov2008

In a word. Yes. I think to varying degrees but the self will is seriously run amuck.

Bucyn

He was. He was on risperdale and lexapro at the time we split. And he saw a neuropsychologist who said on several occasions (I heard it with my own ears), "Stepson is very, very disturbed" (he used two 'very's). The Dr recommended that stepson be in residential care. Stepson did spend 8 days in a psych hospital about a year ago and he liked it.

I wouldn't be surprised if XA has taken stepson off all meds and doesn't do therapy any more and caters to the kid. He was in deep, deep denial about how fcked up that kid was, almost twisting himself into pretzels to come up with excuses about how it wasn't really stepson doing these things, it was someone else (meaning me or my kids) who was setting stepson up.

XA who is severely codependent as well as alcoholic will believe that by giving stepson everything his way, he can bribe/love stepson into health and well being. It didn't work on XMIL (she's still batsht crazy) and it didn't work on stepson's mother (a homeless psychotic wandering the streets), and it won't help stepson either. Oh, he'll settle down some if he gets his way all the time, but he'll still have the problems he has. Schizophrenia is in the genes, it's not going away. Bribing/spoiling/loving a person is no cure. If stepson gets everything he wants for the asking, for a while his criminal impulses might quiet. But the world is not going to be codependent upon him like Dad and Granma and Auntie are, he's going to have to toe the line like everyone else and produce. His criminal behaviors will emerge again when the world is not as indulgent towards him as daddy was. If it's not handed to him on a silver platter, he'll steal it.

ANyway, it's not my problem and I am immensely relieved the kid doesn't even live in the same state.

Oh, btw, XA likes to cyberstalk me. If you have anything to say to him, feel free. He'll be around shortly to read it.

MaryGoRound

[QUOTE=If you have anything to say to him, feel free. He'll be around shortly to read it[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=I then got an email saying that he had waited for my transformation...and he was still waiting for me in whatever state I was in...and I remember clearly he put the words "pupa, larvae, egg"[/QUOTE]

Omg guys!

This is so disturbing. but yet so f.ing funny! because its so classic!

Alanon that is crazy transparent projection. They have such a weird way of operating with the world it seems. That's like straight out of body snatchers or something. I wish I could cite a similar experience of projection, but that definitely tops anything I have here!


edit: what the heck happened to my quotes :'(

Duped

The projection can get hilarious at times, mine still says things like, "You still haven't changed." or that I need to "Grow up and act mature." .....because, you know.....having a job and a career etc. and keeping an income flowing in as opposed to being on social assistance is the height of immaturity.....

However, some of the projections are absolutely insane aren't they? I've gotten the whole list:

- You're the one with the drinking problem.
- You still haven't changed.
- Grow up and act mature.
- I don't deserve to be treated like this (if I mention her boozing)
- You're abusive (if I mention her drinking)
- You have mental problems
- You need to grow and heal


Ugh....I mean, I want her to fix herself more than anyone, for the sake of our daughter but the projection as part of the denial, the splitting......man oh man. It has such a grip on her. I have never seen anyone in the grips of this disease as she is. She attacks anyone who is genuinely interested in her health and wellbeing yet embraces and surrounds herself with her minion enablers who are in fact people with a vested interest in her continuing to be a drunk.

EDIT: the projection from my exAGF onto me happens only when she is sober (in keeping with the theme of the thread)

alanonicnov2008

He really was good at this. We had a therapy session where we had to mirror each other's feelings for each other. I say how I feel, or how I felt about a particular thing, and he repeats back what I said.

We were talking about a fight we had, and I said "I felt ignored", and he repeated back "you felt inferior." This kind of twisting happened with almost everything I said. He literally was not able to perceive reality properly. That's when the therapist said to us both that he had a journey that he needed to be on by himself.

wicked

I would say that therapist is the king of understatements.
Yeah, a journey with a straitjacket on.
Wow.
I finally got it too, that my ex had left the building.
One of those moments, okay, this is just crazy now.

Duped

Yep. With my ex, the lights are on but nobody's home. It's like she lives in Alice in Wonderland, and it's real scary.