Quote:
Originally Posted by Have Hope
And, it's May 2nd. Our second wedding anniversary is on May 7th - it's making me feel very sad about who I used to be and who I am now.
I remember who and how I was just when I met him - and I had far more confidence then. I remember thinking he seemed insecure and uncertain of himself, and I felt compassion for him.
I pick up strays who are broken and need help. NO more. I am not picking up any more broken souls in my life.
And I realize I have surrounded myself with many broken souls. Perhaps I am one of them too, but I tend to think I'm a fighter and a survivor vs. broken. I am temporarily broken, but I will mend eventually and will be far stronger as a result.
I need to cut out all the broken people in my life. Someone once told me never befriend someone who has more problems than you. The same can go for romance.
I need strong and healthy-minded people around me - not an alcoholic like one of my friends is. He came over earlier this week and tried to grope me. I will not be inviting him over ever again, and that's the friendship I will be eliminating - a 30-year friendship. He is NO friend.
|
And I so wanted to post to this one too. I have exactly the same problem. I am establishing boundaries around all these people now, one by one. It's been so painful figuring this out and establishing the boundaries. You remember my thread is titled about vampires? These people are sorta all like vampires even if they don't all do it intentionally, even if they are not always psychopaths.
And again, I find it shocking how similar all this is again with me, how much I can relate to your posts with all that. And I think of this other person who I used to know (she's very busy now and I was too), she was exploited and traumatised deeply by a psychopath, she got very bad PTSD from it. I am thinking of her here because she was also a strong person and that's why the guy wanted to take advantage of her. She, even years later, still was being manipulated by the psychopath. And she still thought nice things about that guy. It wasn't easy for her also because they did live together. I didn't live together with that guy. That was my luck really. But I still had intrusive thoughts years later too about how he had nice stuff. Even if my common sense, sane brain, all that knew that that is b*******. It was why it was so intrusive. But it's possible to move on. The intrusiveness stopped for me eventually and I started healing more and more. Just an incredibly slow process. The guy in my case may not even have been a psychopath but manipulative definitely. Yours sounds like a psychopath alright. I would say, please focus on completely removing him, complete No Contact, and then you can truly start healing.
I again wish you luck with that, with No Contact and then healing without further hindrances. And yes, setting up those new boundaries!! With your friends or "friends". That is completely part of healing is what I'm finding.