A WARNING ABOUT SO-CALLED 'RECOVERY' GROUPS RUN BY 'HIDDEN' INDIVIDUALS
Recovery groups/books by people who hide their real identity are unaccountable, and therefore not trustworthy. Their own life history is hidden, while they trash others with impunity. Some could be psychopaths hidden behind 'emotive' avatars and superficial 'sob-stories'. Do you feel safe pouring out your story to a nameless avatar?
- Self-Responsibility Comes First with Recovery -
Even when you knew something was wrong, you still stayed... You could have dumped the predator before they dumped you. You could have left the job. You could have pulled out of the business deal as soon as the spectacular promises failed to manifest.
But you didn't, did you...
Every recovery journey is different, some take longer than others. Some obsess over their predator (and this is natural for a period of time), others prefer to forget. The most important thing of all is make sure you do not become a victim of your own pathological grief, nor wander into the clutches of attention-seeking misery mongers who may actually delay or even destroy your recovery. It's not your fault a psychopath targeted you. But you have to examine—with a fine-toothed comb—every possible reason why you got hooked. SO IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Sometimes this can be a painful journey of self-reflection. But it's a worthy one.
One can tell who has been a genuine victim of a psychopathic abuse situation. You feel the intensity of their broken soul and it can bring you to tears just watching how these people look down when they talk, and their overall lack of energy. They are filled with a kind of paralysing heartbreak and muted deep trauma and are not obsessed with eternal hatred and revenge.
You can just tell that they were deeply affected—at the soul level—by their silence and inability to articulate their trauma, confusion and self-doubt. Gaslighting does this to a person.
They won't spend their time on their alleged abuser's social networking page making fun of photos of their new life. A genuine target won't post photos of their ex's erect phallus on their 'recovery and support' Facebook group. The will not expand witch hunts to include outing innocent by-standers on various message boards by revealing their real names to the world for not partaking in their own virtual, dysfunctional 'last chance saloon' passed off as a support group. Only the unhinged—or perhaps psychopaths pretending to be victims—partake in such psychotic and dangerous episodes? A certain kind of toxic individual who uniquely starts and continues very personalised smear campaign, while also claiming they are somehow 'victims'—the psychopath, proto-psychopath and the psychotic are the only ones who do this—no one else sinks to that level.
The post-psychopathic abused find it too painful to even look at photos of their abuser let alone concentrate all their energy on them. They have no energy left! The genuine victim won't transfer their own frustrations and unresolved pointless vendettas onto another useful target when their initial object of hate pays them no attention. The genuine victim wants to forget and just restore themselves and seek to understand this experience, and then what they can learn from it. Then, and only then, can meaningful recovery be attained.
"I'm an Empath!!!!! All my Ex's were Psychopaths! Sociopaths! Narcs!!!! Why me!!!!"
"Why you." indeed. Unless you acknowledge your own symbiotic co-dependency in that pathological entanglement, you will never recover. No one ever forced someone to become an alcoholic, junkie, or for that matter a willing target of a psychopath in a romantic relationship, business partnership or friendship. Something inside you warned you—upon your first encounter with the predator—you, and you alone ignored it. That was your intuition. The Devil knocked at the door, and when in a relationship with one of these predators, you, and you alone, invited the Devil over the threshold.
The first step in all recovery is admitting that you may have a problem, and you won't find recovery on many of these these hysterical forums run by assorted neurotics, erotomanics, delusional psychotics and who demonstrate a life-long history of on-tap attention-seeking victim complexes, lost in the infantile pontifications of their eventual First World Problem.
These forums are often run by the pushers who you keep you going back, seeking one last fix. However, there are also good and healthy groups out there, and it's worth carefully reading them—while remaining detached—observing the psychological and behavioural dynamics of the moderators before you start posting your story, as you may come to regret later on, when some 'lightworker,' 'Christian mom' or hysterical drama queen seeks to trap you into eternal rumination within their own quagmire of passive-aggressive neediness and self-destruction. Some of these groups are also run as clandestine recruitment fronts by religious groups seeking vulnerable people going through a personal crisis. Please be careful.
Only you can walk the final path towards salvation and restoration. Concerned and compassionate people would rather see former targets move on with a sense of maturity, internal reflection, while seeking out healthy relationships and life changes. Not caught in an eternal maelstrom of 'poor me' sob stories years after the 'psychopath' is no longer in their lives. Only they alone can do this. However, and very tragically, many become so intoxicated by the drama, histrionics and rumination that it turns them into a kind of proto-psychopath.
The Triangle of Emotional Self-Destruction
Every recovery journey is different, some take longer than others. Some obsess over their predator (and this is natural for a period of time), others prefer to forget. The most important thing of all is make sure you do not become a victim of your own pathological grief, nor wander into the clutches of attention-seeking misery mongers who may actually delay or even destroy your recovery. It's not your fault a psychopath targeted you. But you have to examine—with a fine-toothed comb—every possible reason why you got hooked. SO IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Sometimes this can be a painful journey of self-reflection. But it's a worthy one.
One can tell who has been a genuine victim of a psychopathic abuse situation. You feel the intensity of their broken soul and it can bring you to tears just watching how these people look down when they talk, and their overall lack of energy. They are filled with a kind of paralysing heartbreak and muted deep trauma and are not obsessed with eternal hatred and revenge.
You can just tell that they were deeply affected—at the soul level—by their silence and inability to articulate their trauma, confusion and self-doubt. Gaslighting does this to a person.
They won't spend their time on their alleged abuser's social networking page making fun of photos of their new life. A genuine target won't post photos of their ex's erect phallus on their 'recovery and support' Facebook group. The will not expand witch hunts to include outing innocent by-standers on various message boards by revealing their real names to the world for not partaking in their own virtual, dysfunctional 'last chance saloon' passed off as a support group. Only the unhinged—or perhaps psychopaths pretending to be victims—partake in such psychotic and dangerous episodes? A certain kind of toxic individual who uniquely starts and continues very personalised smear campaign, while also claiming they are somehow 'victims'—the psychopath, proto-psychopath and the psychotic are the only ones who do this—no one else sinks to that level.
The post-psychopathic abused find it too painful to even look at photos of their abuser let alone concentrate all their energy on them. They have no energy left! The genuine victim won't transfer their own frustrations and unresolved pointless vendettas onto another useful target when their initial object of hate pays them no attention. The genuine victim wants to forget and just restore themselves and seek to understand this experience, and then what they can learn from it. Then, and only then, can meaningful recovery be attained.
"I'm an Empath!!!!! All my Ex's were Psychopaths! Sociopaths! Narcs!!!! Why me!!!!"
"Why you." indeed. Unless you acknowledge your own symbiotic co-dependency in that pathological entanglement, you will never recover. No one ever forced someone to become an alcoholic, junkie, or for that matter a willing target of a psychopath in a romantic relationship, business partnership or friendship. Something inside you warned you—upon your first encounter with the predator—you, and you alone ignored it. That was your intuition. The Devil knocked at the door, and when in a relationship with one of these predators, you, and you alone, invited the Devil over the threshold.
The first step in all recovery is admitting that you may have a problem, and you won't find recovery on many of these these hysterical forums run by assorted neurotics, erotomanics, delusional psychotics and who demonstrate a life-long history of on-tap attention-seeking victim complexes, lost in the infantile pontifications of their eventual First World Problem.
These forums are often run by the pushers who you keep you going back, seeking one last fix. However, there are also good and healthy groups out there, and it's worth carefully reading them—while remaining detached—observing the psychological and behavioural dynamics of the moderators before you start posting your story, as you may come to regret later on, when some 'lightworker,' 'Christian mom' or hysterical drama queen seeks to trap you into eternal rumination within their own quagmire of passive-aggressive neediness and self-destruction. Some of these groups are also run as clandestine recruitment fronts by religious groups seeking vulnerable people going through a personal crisis. Please be careful.
Only you can walk the final path towards salvation and restoration. Concerned and compassionate people would rather see former targets move on with a sense of maturity, internal reflection, while seeking out healthy relationships and life changes. Not caught in an eternal maelstrom of 'poor me' sob stories years after the 'psychopath' is no longer in their lives. Only they alone can do this. However, and very tragically, many become so intoxicated by the drama, histrionics and rumination that it turns them into a kind of proto-psychopath.
The Triangle of Emotional Self-Destruction
Move On and Recover ASAP - Long-Term Hatred and Revenge Fantasy will Only Destroy Your Life.
The damage which a puzzling person may have inflicted upon an individual can linger for many years afterwards, in the form of depression and negative thinking. The more pathological types of abusers tend to be very aware of this. They revel in this constant drip-feed of emotional turmoil and grief that they leave within others.
Some targets of manipulative predators socially isolate themselves, often for years at a time, dwelling on the negatives and finding themselves spiralling deeper and deeper into depression. Psychologists refer to this as rumination—repeating negative thoughts, dwelling continually upon regret, recalling conversations and mentally replaying all the things they wish they had said yet doing nothing to change the situation—apart from using others as compensatory punching bags for their own failure to attain revenge on the actual person who hurt them.
Targets
end up over-thinking, trying to make sense, trying to get the answer.
Often, this leads to distorted rationalisations, such as declaring
anyone and everyone who has ever annoyed, offended, hurt or damaged them
in some manner to be a 'sociopath', 'narcissist', 'psychopath', and so
on.
This is tragic on two counts, as it leads to the social destruction of the ruminating individual, while also allowing real manipulators off the hook by granting them de-facto permission to declare, “Oh, they claim everyone who ever pissed them off to be a psychopath!” Rumination is a very toxic trap which targets must strive to remove themselves from before they end up becoming their own abuser in the long haul.
BOTTOM LINE: YOU WILL NEVER GET ANY MOVIE-STYLE REVENGE, EVER—MOVE ON AND MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LIFE TO DEAL WITH THE EXPERIENCE IN SUCH A WAY THAT IT BECOMES A PERSONAL EVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCE.
LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE OF ALL
This is tragic on two counts, as it leads to the social destruction of the ruminating individual, while also allowing real manipulators off the hook by granting them de-facto permission to declare, “Oh, they claim everyone who ever pissed them off to be a psychopath!” Rumination is a very toxic trap which targets must strive to remove themselves from before they end up becoming their own abuser in the long haul.
BOTTOM LINE: YOU WILL NEVER GET ANY MOVIE-STYLE REVENGE, EVER—MOVE ON AND MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LIFE TO DEAL WITH THE EXPERIENCE IN SUCH A WAY THAT IT BECOMES A PERSONAL EVOLUTIONARY EXPERIENCE.
LIVING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE OF ALL
Thomas Sheridan is an independent alternative artist, author, satirist, musician, public speaker, broadcaster and researcher currently based in the West of Ireland. His illustrations have appeared on the covers of newsstand magazines, books and websites worldwide.
The Anvil of the Psyche is considered a vital manual for personal and social survival in a world controlled by greed and false hopes. Thomas' writings and interviews have evolutionised people to build a firewall around their own psyche and not to be lured into handing over personal independence to an exterior collective or guru. As a result, his NO CONTACT EVER AGAIN philosophy applied to controlling individuals and groups has made Thomas an enemy of mind-controlled death cults and neo-Nazi fringe groups. Thomas has also been featured in several films and documentaries.
