Betrayal and forming our narrative

http://nyti.ms/1bx9OtR

This is how I feel. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Hi Hankster, I hope you're OK! Why are you feeling stupid?

Kudos for starting a thread.

But I don't understand the point.

"But the betrayed are usually as savvy as the rest of us. When one woman I know asked her husband, a closet alcoholic who drank secretly late at night, how he could have hidden his addiction for so long, he replied, 'It took a lot of work'."

I think I get it hankster

hankster are you feeling like one of the people betrayed ? thanks for sharing it was a good article

My mother told me many times, that for someone who was so smart, I sure was stupid or did stupid things. Anyway, it feels like this is the first time I've seen this "syndrome" of being fooled for a long time in a relationship described as in this article. Unfortunately it doesn't include a parent-child example.

It reminds me of the Isaac Asimov short story, "All Summer In a Day", about a girl's life on Venus, and the cloudy skies clearing only once every seven years. This story affected me when I read it the first time many years ago. I keep telling t about it. It's sad. About this kind of betrayal.

Anyway yeah just saying this is where I am, who I am.

Maybe where you are, but not who you are.

Hankster
I don't know how you feel but I know how I feel: incredibly stupid and niave. The work shock is an understatement and I feel like a character from a tv show because I believed so many lies for six years. I felt like I didn't exist anymore and that my previous life didn't happen and I questioned my memories, where they real? I questioned her love for me, her motives where they genuine? As it turns out they weren't so I lived a life that didn't exist. Sorry you have experienced betrayal it's very hard to come back from it x

hankster you are so so far from stupid .you wit is astounding . it is hard to believe good about ourselves when all we have been given is the message that we are stupid, or horrible, useless. especially if it is from someone we love and look up to as a child. but try to believe me when I say you are none of these things.

Hankster, I was betrayed by my ex who built up and hid debts, lied about paying bills and hid the reminders and the court summons. He fooled me and lied and brainwashed me. And I have a genius IQ.

I think it's nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with having the misfortune to be the victim of someone else's terrible behaviour.

(((hugs)))

Hankster: As children we are old lies about ourselves (you are stupid, you are, you are) it says more about them....than you. They were lies that (as adults) we have to spend a lot of time trying to understand that. Everyone on the planet, no matter how intelligent...does stupid or says stupid things; ;it doesn't make us stupid; it makes us HUMAN. I was betrayed by a father I never knew, a mother (abusive) a husband of 31 years who was abusive and a whole church who voted me out of membership...and there is more, but I made a decision since I couldn't control all of that garbage, to be the best I could be....Don't let others define who you are. YOU get to do that. hugs

I really appreciate you posting that article. I never quite thought of betrayal that way.

I totally enjoy your presence on this forum and think you're pretty cool! Not stupid at all. Imagine if you were so deeply cynical and suspicious of everyone that it was impossible to betray you. It would also mean you were incapable of love and trust and friendship. You'd be unable to see the good in people. People who have been deeply betrayed in close relationships often feel dumb. But it isn't dumb to be loving and give people a chance to be close to you. It's a lovely quality squandered on an undeserving person.

Nah, you are not stupid... It shows you were trusting and believed that the person who ought to have been loyal to you and/or had your best interests at heart took advantage and abused this (precious) trust.

Any such abuse we encounter (in particular (as) children who are especially vulnerable and ought to be protected by adults/parents) only serves to underline how the other party was/is insidious, manipulative and at times, plain machiavelian. The blame lies at their feet but yes, we tend to feel stupid for ever believing and/or continuing to trust them. But it is not stupidity... just a good, trusting, heart that has been taken advantage of.

stu·pid
adjective
1. lacking intelligence or common sense.

Hankstah...you have tons of both intelligence and common sense. It sux that you were lied too, but let's blame the liar and not the victim.

The author of the article mentions a researcher, Jennifer Freyd. I ordered one one her books. She says betrayal is like dissociation in that you feel you have to distort reality in order to survive (my words)? Anyway I rather liked the Wikipedia entry on it. I may post more after I get the book.

It's kind of like when you break a glass on the kitchen floor - you want to make sure you pick up all the shards. Then you find a huge piece of broken glass hiding under the cabinet and you say whoa - I wonder if there are anymore like this?! Anyway this feels like the last sweep up, tying up all the loose ends.

It sounds like you're finally seeing that voice that runs through your head and calls you stupid, etc. for what it really is: a lie. That's the first step in silencing that voice, and silence it you will. I think you're starting to see the truth--that you're a human being with a good heart and a whole lot going for you. I love your wit and your presence on these forums. And just want to say "You go, girl!!!!!" You're gonna make it.

Freyd definitely knows about betrayal. Her parents' response to her recovering memories of CSA was to form the False Memory Society or whatever it's called.