fear of social media and being visible

Originally Posted by Native spirit

Your brain is making you forget for self preservation.going to counselling will bring it to the fore front and will help you.
how to deal with it.

Thank you again Native Spirit. I dread it though. If my hands are already trembling by themselves with no control of mine I can imagine I will feel worse going through it. Afraid of that. But hope it will be better once it is dealt with. Way back when it all happened. God, I was so afraid. And proud too. This was my first touch, myself, of having mental issues but still they did not think I was crazy or hallucinating or making things up.

I was angry with myself. I was afraid at what was happening to me. I had all the empathy in the world for others if they went through tough times though. I just thought I should just not be in the mess I was in. Breaks ups and heartbreaks happen every day. That other people who went mental had had bigger problems on their plate than I had. I shouldn't even be there, taking up their time. But they were very nice to me. I remember when the doctor, psychiatrist said that he was a psychopath, that word exactly. The only word psychopath I could link in my understanding of the word was that I thought of the movie, it's an old one "Cape Fear" with the psychopath in jail who gets out. "Mine" was not like that.

"My" psychopath did serve it to me though, right on a plate only I did not understand it at the time. Only when looking back. It was when he asked me what my expression meant, what i thought. Like he had to ask. And I thought how strange is that, as generally people would say they could see my every emotion in my face, always. That time that I remember as I was surprised he did not get it at once - it was an expression others had understood and reacted upon immidiately, no words needed. I then did it again like ta - da (like you get it??) and it was the same (silence). But I did not then understand how serious this was.

Too he told me to tell him if we went to parties etc if others reacted, and one time I delibertly did not tell him because I wanted not to be alone knowing how cold he was, but them to know it too, even if it pained me, I let it happen. When the person reacted, "my" psychopath then turned against me, blaming me for it, because I had not said anything, objected, I had not given him a sign.

I have thought today if he knew he was different. If they had known this about him. If his family had known and not shared that information with me.

I read something yesterday for the first time I think. It is that psychopaths can not understand, see the feeling of fear in somene else's face. They can't read it. If I ever looked afraid (I can tell you I was afraid) he would then not understand that I was.

It was too odd to me that he would ask me too in bed. I think because maybe I was not used to talking about intimacy and thought that was a zone that should be free from that, that one uses body language and the connection one has, but he would actually ask. knowing now he was a psychopath it make sense he would ask. Because he would have no way of knowing as he lacked those "antennas" normal people have. He did not ask to be offensive or make me uncomfertable, I don't think it was that - it was that he needed to ask or he would be lost, he would not be able to read my signs. But I for one did not know what to say. It was just off to me. I did not understand. And I was rather shy.

Added: I have come to think of 2 things too that could have made me so afraid of social media in relation to him. One was because he had taken the time and the brains to get information about me from others who knew me before he knew me. One time he revealed that by accident and I remember knowing I had not told him what he had just said to me. I said that to him and asked him how did he know. Then he had to confess. I remember telling the one who had "snitched" that even if my life was an open book it was still my life and that from now on I did not want it to come out of anyone else's mouth than mine. He knew the tricks to work on people, to get information out of them.

He would to ask me questions that were so personal but it was the way he did it. Like he wanted to get under my skin but not in a way that people normally do it.

It is a feeling of not knowing who is a friend and who is a "foe" - when it came to him. I had no idea who he had sucked information from, who he was using to get to me in some way. It could be anyone. Either they felt important, chosen for him to do that, he knew how to flatter them, or they were innocent and did not understand the real game he was playing on them. And that frighten me.

I did not know it then but so long after the break up when he began his game again it got obvious to me from the mouth of someone else and another one too that he had like some miracle made it out as if he was a victim and that he was missing me and all he wanted to do was to talk to me. So he would send his words through other people's mouth telling me kind loving words. Just these grand words. It was just this chill down my spine because it was so far off reality as what had been. These people believed his version. It was as if that was the only version that had ever existed. By then I thought this is too old and too strong and he has waved them in .It does not matter if I speak or not, if I have my version. I was just silent. It just went too deep in me. I could not find the words. It was like silent grief, just watching their faces and seeing their mouth speak about it. Like they were lost to me. I only continued to be polite but keep distance.

I think I made a major mistake during the relationship. And I have not thought of it like that before. It was that I remember that I left for some reason or broke up with him, but I don't remember the reason for it. But I did leave. And somehow he got me back. All I remember about it is that he was nice to me when I did not think he would be but he just continued to be nice. And then - one day - one moment - it came. His true reaction to what I had done.

So he would to me be nice to me when I did not expect him too and then be letting it out when I was relaxed.

So to me - and this may sound very strange - when he spoke, wrote, told through others nice words to me - it was the same, the very same, as when he said unpleasant things to me, when he was unpleasant. It both triggered the same fear in me. I don't know if what I am saying make any sense what so ever but that was how it was.

I think my big mistake was to break up and then return. That way I had shown him that - again - persuit, percevation, "playing nice" - was a trick that worked, that he would get me back. So that was the game he then began those years after the break up. Because it had worked before?

I've read now that psychopaths can be attracted to different kinds of people, but people with lots of empathy in them (something I have, something my family and relatives has) are one of these types because of the continues attention it gives them. But of course it is a disastrious match. I already knew it then if not before when landing in the office of a psychiatrist - that I would be the one drowning and he would be the one surviving if we had continued.

Anyways, thank you

[lostsoul13]

Commitment and communication are big subjects for me.. you will find your feet again ... it just takes time to trust sometimes taking a not so jumping leap to not trust, helps also..so those boundaries don’t get broken up with you invested zero trust in the first place... I have had some bad experience with giving out my Facebook...to strangers.wont be doing it in a hurry again it gives them time to treat you bad... and be trampled on... I wouldn’t advise it but try not to invest in these things..so your trust isn’t hurt that bad...easier than said than done....

Hi SoulSpirit13, thank you very much. Ah! So you too have found it difficult then? As if used against you. Yeah, one has to be careful out there.

I have thought and I remember that when I began to feel like a mess I was so afraid it would get back to him and I did not know how far his network stretched so I would travel a greath deal to go where I went to get professional help. They asked me why I did not seek in my own local area and my respond was that I knew people there but I didn't (Paranoia? A true risk?).

They proceeded to help me and then they arranged for me to go nearby where I was now to live to talk to someone.

And it was when the question came about the intimacy part of the relationship that I couldn't take it. I don't know how they can tell these things or if they are just guessing. Too by then my life was looking up and I was returning to my old self (before the psychopath-chapter). I was young and just wanted to live life and enjoy myself and I did. And I left him in the shadows of a sad, pathetic mistake. I was young, right? I was allowed to make mistakes? I had no trouble, if I wanted too, to start dating again. When I later look back I could not believe what shape he managed to get me into. At the time of our break up I did not love him. I knew his true colors. But psychopaths has this way about them, they confuse and are close and have too succeeided crushing their victims. He was a walking disaster.

Knowing what I know now - with my hands trembling after such a long time just thinking of going "out there", I should have kept going even if he was the last thing I wanted to think about.

Had I stayed in the relationship or if he had managed to pull me back - which he tried to do to my surprise he could have blamed my "mental problems" on it being me imagining things or being overly sensitive or what ever. It would have been bad. He would have maybe made me think that or made other people think that so I would have no credibility what so ever if he went on to do cruel things to me or to others, if I knew. That was my fear too. All I can say is that these professionals know what they're doing. At least the ones I was seeing. It just always felt as if I got away at the 11th hour.

Again I feel I have to mention this with my people- phoibia with the social media out there. I remember one time at a party, in a crowd. People "sucking up" to him, thinking he was so and so. Me being beside him knowing (I don't know how I knew but I knew at this point) that even if he was working the room, working the crowd, if they only knew. My God, if they only knew(!) how cold and indifferent he really was when it came to them.

If they only knew too that what we were - what he had planned, arranged for us to be, and I fell right into that trap - were only an image. We were only that on the surface. As soon as the show was over I, or we, were something else entirely. When the door closed to home he could be very easily bored, and resentful and ignoring that there even was another person existing in the home. I would in this memory just let him be. It was too as if he did this to me, the silent treatment, ignoring, as one of his ways to put me down. It was hot-cold with him. I never knew. I was walking on eggshells. I was tense because he made me tense. But he may not have understood that. One can say I was my old happy self before him and then at some stage I just began to suffer.

I did not want to say anything bad about him, that he would hear about and take out revenge. I know it is dangerous to remove someone's dignity. And I just knew nobody is going to believe me. And that was the thing with him. He did not care about other people . But still it was very important that he was liked or had a postition, social status, with all these people. In that regard he could not get enough of people. And that was a thing that just confused me. It made no sense. Why did he care to look good to all these people that he did not care for? And when was it going to be enough? (I think never).

But then I got it. He is using them. Each and everyone of them had something he wanted to use. He wanted to go places (Even if he was in a good place) and he was "Somebody" and he wanted to be somebody even more. That was the impression I later got of him. That he thought he belonged some place and he was entitled to that and that he would work for that.

Most of all he wanted power. He wanted to dominate. He would not engage so much. I once saw a photo of him and it was just that - one can just look at his face and see this overly strict and dominant man, something in his eyes.

Then again seeing us together, several memories I have, I did not come off as some weak woman who was being bullied by him. I would answer back. I would joke with him. He had a good sense of humor (which I remember I thought was strange afterwards now that they said he was a psychopath). I even think he thought I was too cocky sometimes with my remarks. I was not going to let him know I was afraid. Now looking at it like that, if he did not know fear, then it would have made no difference to him, he would not have been able to tell anyhow. Perhaps it was most important to me. To show I was not afraid (even if I was).

It was so terrible to see them, the other innocent people around us, and knowing they would be used and I know I tried to say something to someone one time, but wasn't heard. I felt helpless just watching them.

It was all those little things that did not match up. He could plan and give and say words to me that were so grandiose, but when he was not aware of it, his true colors came through, and he was not willing to give anybody anything, no help, no nothing.

I remember he was good at fooling people so they were the ones being used, taken advante of and they were the one who ended up doing the job. He was not, by my book, a team player.

I don't remember the exact messages he send, wrote when trying to get in contact with me again and when using others again to get to me - but I know that he was smart enough not to use a written word of threat. Therefor people just opened up doors for him, and therefor who would believe me when I said that he was dangerous? That he was really after hurting me? That he had done this once before (when I had fallen for it.).

About the people again - because of his position, because of the games he played ,because of the people he knew, his family knew, his friends knew - I just did not know where his power ended as he was going through them as efficiently as he did - just to get to me. And that was what I thought was so strange too! Because I was nobody to him! I mean - why bother? And I thought OK I just have to be really careful not to say or do anything at this point to offend him, which included even talking to others about him, and it was too to protect them in all this. He needed his image to be a certain way, I think.

I've decided that I am not going to push myself in this. It is by now impossible to say if my trembling is an over reaction, that it is a phoeibia with no reality to it no more, or if my nightmare can begin again (even if I don't think that). I will just let it be. Those who has had my back before has let me know will continue to have that.

What I remember when I came out of the relationship, when I began to feel better, like myself again, was that I noticed all those little things that normal people, strangers, did to one another and it was such a warmth. And I thought this world was always here - but when I was his it was as if I was behind this window of glas and they were over there, like his cold ways had done that to me. That they could not hear me. Or me them.

I have met of similar characters after him and again it was people being fooled by it and really bying the image and I remember trying something that I knew that my ex would react on , and then seeing this person reacting like that. And I thought to myself. Ok, this is bad. This person should not be sitting on power. And I could not tell people who were so convinced this person was a star, was the best for the job or what ever, that becaue of the little things, things nobody bothered to notice. Or perhaps they did notice but then another signal in their brain went no, it can't be, because he/she is really so good.

It is as if the first signal that notice the little thing ,that is off, do not go all the way. It tries. But another signal stops it. I knew it because I had lived through it. I had been trying before to say something to someone while into or on my way out of the relationship with the psychopath, and this person first confessed to something (as if I did have a point) but then at once defended him and said it couldn't be. I can imagine it was a painful journey for me to find out while I was suppose to be "so lucky" and be in this "perfect relationship" what a cruel mistake it all was, and what he was. Anyways, I was sadly right about those others and I truly wish I wasn't. The little things are really to me the big things. And the big things can just be there as an act or tool of manipulation.

I've read today that psychopaths can be a genetic brain damage for which there is no cure. All I remember back then thinking was because of his energy (how i feel it, view it) that I just knew that it does not matter what, if I do or say anything - he will stay this way. I don't know why I knew that, I just did. I did not waste my energy then. I knew there was no reasoning to it. No point in trying. He was just - that. There was no point in crying, in hating, in loosing energy, in hoping. I just knew.

In the memories I do have of him I think he was attracted to me or/and what he perceived as "love" which was this superficial level of attraction, it did not go deeper than that. I had felt truly loved in a previous relationship and I had remembered that feeling. So I could tell the difference. I never said that to him though.

Can very well be that my brain is still protecting me from remembering more, which can too be why I can say in all this time not once have I ever had a nightmare or dream about him.

Maybe too why I have not is because there was never a true connection between us. Usually we people - we can connect. But he and I - no I can't imagine we were ever connected. And that could be because he did not know, he was not able to, connect to people, not just me. And that was why it sort of felt like when he was talking to me about his "Love" for me that it was just some lines from a movie he was reading out loud. It did not go deeper, and there was no real connection.

[blackraven]

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

I feel so bad you have to deal with all of that to avoid him finding you and contacting you. I have a friend and she got divorced and her ex husband was like that stalking her. She finally had to sell her house and move to a new state to get away from him. He even broke into her house when she was at work and took pictures of himself in her house and sent them to her to scare her.

Now days it is so easy to find out where people are using the internet. My friend changed her name and never posts pictures online and that worked for her.

Wow...now that's scary!