Hester,

I just cried again from the guts of my testicles.
Right now I don’t care what he was as far as labels…but I don’t think he was a sociopath. Not smart enough. People saw that he lacked depth, I’m finding out.
This was okay with me. He was a fine companion and complement, so I thought. (I can’t and don’t remember at all my dissatisfaction in the relationship – it is eclipsed by feelings of abandonment, shame and inadequacy.)
An old college friend who I’d not spoken to in almost two years told me that they saw he posted “Happy to present my new man!” on Facebook last week. He’s in a relationship again. Huh. Okay.

I’ve been isolated in the apartment the past couple days because of the snowstorms. This has probably exacerbated the low mood.

Feel like the sadness is never going to end. It is a constant heavy cloak, relentless. Doing my best to stay open to the feelings, but I have to function in life, too. I cannot be having breakdowns in work like I just did for the past 30 minutes. My eyes are slits.

Something about this feeling is so and too familiar. The shame – have felt it more times in my life than I want to or could count. Something about this – I have this awful feeling that something is innately wrong with me. It hasn’t reared its head like this in a long long time. The relationship and working obsessively dimmed its volume.

Today, on his website, Jack Kornfield wrote “Even loss and betrayal can bring us awakening.” I realize that I don’t want to be awakened if it means this pain. I would have preferred that he didn’t leave and I had dull, low-grade dissatisfaction with life. That may sound uncool, but it is the truth.
Don’t have that choice now.

I have felt pain in my life, but didn’t realize it could be this deep. Knowledge I’d rather not have gained.

So: I’m depressed but tell myself to stay open to it because that’s what I’m SUPPOSED to do.

– J

Hester,

I have read your post more than a few times. It was so thoughtful – I could tell that you truly read it and this was appreciated. I did not write back immediately because I wanted to reflect upon it.

When it happened, the ex leaving, an old friend of mine said something about him being a narcissist or sociopath. She suggested research and started listing the symptoms. I stopped her and told her that I did not care what he might be because it would not take away the pain or change what had happened or the present. I also know that I could take a couple symptoms and diagnose anybody, including myself, with any number of illnesses – the internet is a splendid resource for this. Sometimes knowing can be elucidating, and other times it can cause me to digress from feeling. Earlier this week, my acupuncturist, an easygoing fellow, told me that my ex was “fucked up” and “sociopathic.” He said that what the ex did was far from healthy or even normal behavior (we know that normal isn’t always healthy); he said that it was “pathological.”
I do think that the ex was not liking to have to contribute more, financially.

I did the best that I could with this man to avoid mistakes and unworkable patterns from past relationships. I worked hard (there were also fun times). Like I said, I have often been controlling to the point that men who loved me would bail because they simply couldn’t take the intensity. Having done much work on myself, I understand why many of those men did what they did. I did what I did because I was generally afraid.

I’m reading what I just typed and thinking about that. When I feel afraid, I get even harder on myself. When I’m feeling down, my tendency is to become even rougher on myself. I don’t LIKE the feelings so I DO something to make them stop. I’m seeing this in myself even now, even after all these years. I’m going through a difficult time and being so rough on myself. I wish I could forgive myself.

I want to clarify two things I originally wrote because absolutes can be deceiving. Yes, he had lied. It wasn’t ALL the time, though. He was often transparent, too. I would see the body language change or he become evasive when asked questions. In response, I would become more demanding or questioning. It was a terrible pattern in our relationship and something I don’t like about myself – the seeming inability to let things go (I’m not talking about me bringing up things for no reason that would make anyone uncomfortable so they might feel scared and then lie; I’m talking petty things where there was no reason to lie in the first place). This is when friends etc. told me to be forgiving because I had no right to be so demanding or badgering or interrogating. I saw their point there and would apologize for my part most of the time.
Now that he’s gone, I think there were a lot more lies than he admitted to.

Secondly, I had written about him seeming to have no interest last fall. It did feel that way, but I don’t know if that is truly the case. It is the case of perception. Maybe I was feeling terribly insecure about other things. Yet, I do not think so. So often in life I have not trusted myself when, later on, I realized that I should have. It is tricky because there are times that I think something is wrong and there is not. Human? Or result of growing up with trauma? I’m not sure, truly. I am angry because now I feel like he stole more than the cat and material things – he stole my ability to trust.
Is that something I give away?

When I first read your post a week ago I was feeling very happy. Quite content with work and my life. These past few days: miserable. Very angry and focused on him and the betrayal. It WAS a betrayal. I cannot count how many times he told me how much he loved me and that we would be together forever; I’m an adult and know these are words that he probably meant at the time, but I feel furious about it now. Disproportionately angry about words said in the past. I feel ashamed – pride hurts.
I DON’T KNOW THE REASON HE LEFT. HE LEFT AND STOLE FROM ME. HE TREATED ME WORSE THAN AN ENEMY.
These words and others like it frequently, sometimes continually, swirl about my mind. I ruminate about reasons he might have left. What was on his mind? Did he want to really hurt me or did he simply not care at all? I keep asking that often useless question: Why?

Maybe I am probably doing better than I give myself credit for. I go to work. I talk to people and do not make every conversation about me or my breakup. Hygiene is good. Diet is fine. Could definitely use more physical exercise and meditation, but I often feel so tired and angry. Frankly, I get tired of doing all the work to not feel depressed. It exhausts to work just to feel okay about myself and forgive.

I am just tired of being angry and sad. I’m tired of speculating. But it is like a storm and just when I think it is about to stop, the rain keeps coming.

So I will read a bit about anti-social personality disorder. Maybe it will help.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you.