I am temporarily back. This is a bad sign.

I have struggled with the concept of truth a lot in the last few months. Is the truth something that is definable and provable or is the truth something that we make fit what we want to?

In the start of this I wanted to believe that IT had not been lying for longer than he claimed. I wanted this to be the truth. I needed it to be true but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't add up. So did the truth become the scenario that was the most likely? Possibly so, but we all do this - if there is a truth that we don't want to accept then it is easier to create our own, more palatable version of what the truth is. It makes life easier and it allows us to pretend. In situations such as this we may never know the truth and really at the end of the day - it doesn't really matter.

I also struggled with the truth that I probably loved it for too long and yet failed to recognise what real love is. This I have really struggled with because I have had to understand that love is not the answer to everything and in fact, it is invariably the problem. It was also the struggle of accepting that he buried any love so deeply that he would use anything to prove that he can and will punish me.

There are other situations where the truth really does matter and is necessary. When there are others involved and others dependent on you and you discover the lies you have been told stretch back over two years then you have to take a view. That view may not be a great one but just maybe, the need to be in full knowledge is one that will protect you. This does not change your personality but is the wake up call when you realise that the lies you have discovered mean that your entire future is about to be annihilated. What you do with that truth is another matter. The pragmatic approach is: this is where the problem lies, this is what needs to be done to solve that and all other factors are irrelevant.

This decision is nothing to do with frame of reference. My frame of reference is that I lived with a man that lied to me about money and controlled my existence for a long period of time. My frame of reference is that I do not, cannot trust him. My frame of reference is that this man will try and play games until the day I die. This frame of reference is not one that has ever extended to anyone else.

This is not necessarily a good thing. When your frame of reference does not include mistrusting others you take the words they say and the promises of trust deeply, deeply seriously. When it appears that they have violated that promise and in so doing appear to have mocked you - it is a huge shock. It makes you question whether you saw what you wanted to see and your truth was never the actual truth - or whether the truth is being protected. It messes with your mind.

When you stumble across something that you weren't expecting - it makes you question whether the things you were told, the words you believed, the trust you gave were there for the means of others and that every one of those things were untrue. When the mocking appears to be from having not revealed everything and acting for oneself, it makes one question whether you had been utterly and totally manipulated.

The truth is I know what I want to believe, I know what I should believe but I also recognise that when you uncover a stone best left unturned then ignorance was probably bliss.

We all sometimes do things we shouldn't. No one is perfect but the only truth I have ever sought was the pragmatic one - I no longer have any interest in anything else. There are some people that I so deeply want to believe, there are some people that are so important to me that perhaps I put them on a pedestal, perhaps I misread and perhaps I stuffed up but I know more than anything is that my frame of reference never included them

And now the end is near and so I face the final curtain...........

It has been an odd week. Things are afoot and I have struggled. The enormity of having your life dangled over you, all whilst trying to cope with all of the issues that go with children, school, health, life etc have seen for a few moments of wondering how I can keep summoning the strength to continue juggling it all.

In my bid to ensure the children have a holiday - I have flights, no accommodation and no dog sitter, oh and no passports. this is a minor blip on a sea of chaos.

It is my very last wedding anniversary today. 17 years of marriage, 23 years of co-habiting and 29 years on knowing someone. All about to come to an end and one in which we all move forward trying to pretend it never happened and they no longer really exist in your life. This has not been a good week and today it got worse.

If there is one thing I am learning is that trust is on a platform of our own choosing. We all decide how much we trust people and in doing so - how much we are willing to expose ourselves emotionally. I have known for some time that I trust far too much but protected my self from exposing every raw emotion, every fear, every vulnerability and every thought is something that opens me to huge deep routed hurt. Do I learn from this? Nope, I just forge ahead assuming that I can trust everyone with my feelings.

I need to start learning this. I was once criticised by a very close friend for keeping my true emotions too in check. I have worked hard on this and in truth I have struggled to contain them. This blog allowed me to do this, to offload it and to dump it. The cruelty in 'It's behaviour left me very vulnerable to exposing myself to others, keeping it together was no easy task and at times I failed dismally.

So I became the kind of person I was not. The person that truly opened up, that shared thoughts and feelings that would leave them feeling very exposed. I now think that being the person I was - was probably far, far safer.

Life is about to get a whole heap trickier. I am on emotional burnout and physically exhausted by illness and life. The blog is about to end. People know way too much about me - it may have been what I needed at the time but it was exceptionally stupid of me.

Its like another failed marriage. Vulnerability, broken trust and hurt.

*THE END*

I failed dismally in my bid to find a holiday for a fiver. I did however manage to procure some obscenely cheap flights and so am part way through my mission.

I took the older two for an Indian tonight. The man serving said

'Can you just check the pilau - it doesn't smell right to me'

This strikes me as a little odd. If something doesn't smell right, why would you ask your customers to try it first to see if it kills them? I let the children try it first because that is just how generous I am. They survived and short of winning awards for aromatic nirvana - it was okay.

The children have been surviving on a fairly ad hoc food regime; lethargy, illness and stress make for no Nigella and whilst I know that they have eaten, I cannot put my hand on heart and say that it is the best this kitchen can muster. As a result, we are unaccustomed to large quantity and half way through the meal, we all experienced a near death moment. Given the proximity to the local undertakers, this could have been most convenient.

So we had a nice meal, we overate, risked food poisoning and felt fat, bloated and ill on leaving. For this we paid good money. This goes to prove that money does not necessarily make you feel good.

So back to the issue of the holiday. We have flights and nowhere to stay. Every year I tell myself that normal people plan and book these things in advance. I have lost count of the times we have had the car fully loaded and still frantically trawled the Internet for accommodation. I cannot forget the last flying family holiday we had (10 years ago) when it was booked, paid and left us a mere three hours to get to Birmingham airport (the joy of last minute bargains), or the bargain basement holiday to Thailand when I took myself, a baby, a toddler, a friend and her 4 month old on a spontaneous holiday to Malaysia. I lost the childs shoes in last minute packing and he spent his hols in slippers, nothing was booked, nothing planned, a guidebook purchased at Heathrow that did not get read on the plane. This was the best holiday I ever had.

There are some things you can plan for in life, some you cannot. The planned ones have anticipation and expectation attached - all to easily shot down. The last minute unplanned will always be okay because it just will. Sometimes not knowing what is around the corner is far more exhilarating than knowing, and the results are often better

I do wish I had sent the passport applications off earlier.

TUESDAY, 14 JULY 2009

The reason history is fascinating is in its ability to repeat itself. Man may have walked on the moon and it may have been

a big step but really, all he did was find something he had not done before and did it. Was this any bigger than discovering

that the world wasn't flat or that you can light up a room with electricity? The Romans weren't to keen on hiking

across fields to go the long way around - so they built roads. People got sick of having to go through London to get to

the other side, so they built the M25. So what really changes?

I was reading this description of the village idiot and marvelling that by just removing or changing a few words that it is as

relevant today as it was then.

Prior to the Industrial revolution, before swarms of people migrated from small towns, villages, and farming hamlets to large industrial cities and Metropolises, the populations people were around all the time (their community) were so small, that if one person within that community was feeble of mind, they were designated the village idiot.

In case you are a candidate for that title, I have taken the liberty of swapping a few words.

When swarms of people move from small towns and villages to larger cities, the populations is so small, that if one person within that community is of feeble mind, they are designated the village idiot.

I thought that I ought to clarity the word feeble

fee·ble (fbl)

adj. fee·bler, fee·blest

1.

a. Lacking strength; weak.

b. Indicating weakness.

2. Lacking vigor, force, or effectiveness; inadequate. See Synonyms at weak.

I suppose that if you were the village idiot, you would lack the intelligence and ability to recognise this

and thus prove Mother Natures way of protecting the afflicted.

And 20 mins trying to edit the word fall to fool so that I don't look one. Since I an unable, then I accept that part of being grown up is to admit your mistakes. I admit my mistake although for the large part - that is what most of this blog is about.

Another part of accepting myself is to be honest about faults and bad habits: So here is my dark secret, my bad habit.

When I take a glass from the drainer and the rim is still wet, I use my left breast to dry it. It fits perfectly, one twist and the entire rim is dry. It is also a good way of charting pertness. The day I mistake my breast for my stomach - it will be time for surgery.

Savour that thought should you ever ask for a drink in my house

I have now spent an entire day trying to find a way of taking the children on a plane, storing the dog and some form of bed for the period - all for about five pounds.

It has been a fruitless task and I am now bored.

I may have to buy a large poster of sun, sea and sand, a sunlamp, some cocktail sticks and resort to staying in the living room and trying to fool them. The little ones have never been on a fly somewhere and stay somewhere holiday. This may not be about to change

Swine flu, so named because as you lie in bed sweating through the night you wake up smelling like a pig. Vomit adds to this, as do the piggy eyes.

The teenager had a party last night and a lovelier group of teenagers you would be hard pushed to meet. It did occur to me that having a party when your mother is suffering a pig infection is a little less than thoughtful but everything has a silver lining and mine was that deep down he was concsious of the embarresment that was the garden. Three weeks of arguing about clearing it up and the only thing that was going to get him to do it was when he wanted to do something in it.

However, having a large group of teens in and out of the house until the small hours makes for a dirty floor, filthy sides and general disorder. Having another group cooking fried breakfast the next day makes for a greasy kitchen. Several hours of requesting it cleared got nowhere. Apparently this was unreasonable behaviour on my part since I done nothing myself 'having been in bed all day' By 6pm I booted him out lest I actually wring his neck

Quite right, how dare I be ill. On Weds I spent the night vomiting. On Thursday I woke the teenager and asked for help with the little ones

"Yeah sure" He said - got up, rubbed his eyes and went back to bed.

I am not impressed, I am not proud. He wasn't raised like this and if this is part of being a teenager I am not sure I shall stick around for the other three. I am sure that having your father walk out and no relationship with him must make for some pretty complex emotions but even so, I am not convinced this is a passport for treating others with such disregard. I have had to rally around the men in the family for male role models but all think that their quiet disapproval should suffice. Personally I feel that having lacked a firm male role model for some time, a sledgehammer may be more appropriate.

So I loafed in bed for the best part of the day and watched Jayne Eire. What a load of romantic tosh. The bit in which the vicar mentioned 'all my worldly goods' I thought particularly poignant. In another flurry of texts between 'It' and I, 'It pointed out that it was still 'his' house. I pondered this since when we married, we had nothing. Interesting wording, I thought. Mine, mine, mine

This got me thinking about the narcissistic approach to life. A was reading somewhere about psychopaths. Having always assumed that Psychopaths were simply cold blooded murderers - I thought I should investigate further. So I read about it, dismiss the murderers and look at the common all garden variety.

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

Umm, interesting. What has really interested me recently is the continued games. 'It' turns up and takes his bike from the front of the house. He Say's nothing. I text to ask if he took it. He texts to say he took it the day before. He didn't because it turns out he was seen. He says he will bring it back. I say don't bother. He brings it back.

A chum once described this kind of interaction as cat and mouse. Lets say that I am the small squeaky one. So there I am reading about Psychopaths

This leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath REALLY get from their victims? It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what thepsychopath is after. We can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer.

Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse before killing and eating it has probably explained to themselves that the cat is just "entertained" by the antics of the mouse and is unable to conceive of the terror and pain being experienced by the mouse, and the cat, therefore, is innocent of any evil intent. The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is nature. Psychopaths don't generally eat their victims.

Yes, in extreme cases the entire cat and mouse dynamic is carried out and cannibalism has a long history wherein it was assumed that certain powers of the victim could be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But in ordinary life, psychopaths and narcissists don't go all the way, so to say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenarios again with different eyes. Now we ask: is it too simplistic to think that the innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse running about and frantically trying to escape? Is there something more to this dynamic than meets the eye? Is there something more than being "entertained" by the antics of the mouse trying to flee? After all, in terms of evolution, why would such behavior be hard-wired into the cat? Is the mouse tastier because of the chemicals of fear that flood his little body? Is a mouse frozen with terror more of a "gourmet" meal?

This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas about psychopaths with a slightly different perspective. One thing we do know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and narcissists report feeling "drained" and confused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health. Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue "love relationships" and "friendships" that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?

We do not know the answer to this question. We observe, we theorize, we speculate and hypothesize. But in the end, only the individual victim can determine what they have lost in the dynamic - and it is often far more than material goods. In a certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul eaters or "Psychophagic."

Conscience seems to depend on the ability to imagine consequences. But most "consequences" relate to pain in some way, and psychopaths really don't understand pain in the emotional sense. They understand frustration of not getting what they want, and to them, that is pain. But the fact seems to be that they act based solely on a sort of Game Theory evaluation of a situation: what will they get out of it, and what will it cost? And these "costs" have nothing to do with being humiliated, causing pain, sabotaging the future, or any of the other possibilities that normal people consider when making a choice. In short, it is almost impossible for normal people to even imagine the inner life of the psychopath.

This leads us to what psychopaths DO have that is truly outstanding: an ability to give their undivided attention to something that interests them intensely.

Manipulation is the key to the psychopath's conquests. Initially, the psychopathwill feign false emotions to create empathy, and many of them study the tricks that can be employed by the empathy technique. Psychopaths are often able to incite pity from people because they seem like "lost souls" as Guggenbuhl-Craig writes. So the pity factor is one reason why victims often fall for these "poor" people.

Now I recognise that this is far more fascinating for me than it is for anyone reading this but since most of my recent outpourings have been a cathartic vomit than an entertaining script - bear wiith me. And fascinating it is since 'It's" nickname was in fact 'Poor It' - so now I search for my part in this drama

Even more amazing is the fact that when psychopaths do get exposed by someone who is not afraid to admit that they have been conned, the psychopathis a master at painting their victims as the "real culprits."

Psychopaths just have what it takes to defraud and bilk others. And even when they are exposed, they can carry on as if nothing has happened, often making their accusers the targets of accusations of being victimized by THEM.

The victims keep asking: "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have fallen for that incredible line of baloney?" And, of course, if they don't ask it of themselves, you can be sure that their friends and associates will ask "How on earth could you have been taken in to that extent?"

The usual answer: "You had to be there" simply does not convey the whole thing. Hare writes:

What makes psychopaths different from all others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.

But there is something else about the speech of psychopaths that is equally puzzling: their frequent use of contradictory and logically inconsistent statements that usually escape detection. Recent research on the language of psychopaths provides us with some important clues to this puzzle, as well as to the uncanny ability psychopaths have to move words - and people- around so easily. […]

Here are some examples:

When asked if he had ever committed a violent offense, a man serving time for theft answered, "No, but I once had to kill someone."

A woman with a staggering record of fraud, deceit, lies, and broken promises concluded a letter to the parole board with, "I've let a lot of people down… One is only as good as her reputation and name. My word is as good as gold."

A man serving a term for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an eyewitness, "He's lying. I wasn't there. I should have blown his fucking head off."

I love this bit. I always assumed it was just the lack of ability to articulate at speed.

So what does all this mean. Nothing really, except that in terms of turning my life into a sitcom - it gets better and more dramatic every day. The fodder for future royalty is huge.

On a sadder note, how must all this seem through the eyes of a child. How do they see life when one day Dad walks out and Mummy and Daddy never exchange a word again. How surreal must that be? How must it be when one day when you are older you realise that Daddies mobile only works when Mummy sends a text saying if signal is bad, she can come over in the car to say goodnight?

On another note - I am going on a date with a total stranger. The only thing I know is his name. In reality - isn't this the only thing you truly ever know?