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Today, a young woman told me about the man she had fallen in love with, a man who is convicted of hijacking, robbery and other assorted crimes, who is now living in prison and should be for the remaining seven years of his sentence.
He is hoping to be out on parole, she told me. He has changed, she told me. “I know he loves me,” she told me, “He says the child I have should have been his. That means he loves her too.”
I was suspicious of this chap the minute she said, “prison”, even more suspicious since he immediately laid possession to her child by declaring it should have been his, but the next piece of information allowed me to understand exactly who this man is.
“In February,” she said, half reverent, half terrified, “He tried to commit suicide because we had an argument and he said he could never live without me. He must love me so much.”
And this, young lady, is my answer to you, a warning, a caution and an invitation for you to love yourself:
No, he doesn’t love you. He is a narcissist, quite possibly with sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies (how else can you hijack and rob people without an anaesthetized conscience?)
Everything he has just told you reveals exactly who he is, but you won’t see it because you want to be loved so much that you will take it from any direction it comes at you, even if it’s a nail bomb that’s been disguised as a heart shaped box of chocolates.
Why?
Because you don’t love yourself.
You come from a home in which you experienced so much abuse that the only way you can love yourself is through the weak reflections that others show you through what they say to you and how they treat you.
Your self-esteem depends solely on how you perceive others see you at any given moment on any given day.
So I’ll tell you what will happen with this guy: he will become jealous and possessive.
At first, you will think he is looking out for you because he loves you so much, but gradually you will begin to see him taking over, demanding to know who you spend time with, where you go, what you do there.
When you answer him honestly, he will start berating you, calling you a liar, calling your friends faggots, dirty jews, that big black bitch, your stupid half wit sister.
You’ll begin avoiding the people in your life because it will make your life with him easier.
You won’t have to listen to him rant about them and you can remain comfortably entrenched in your denial that there is anything wrong. After all, isn’t he only looking out for you?
When he calls you names, when he calls you stupid, when he tells you that he is doing you a favour by being with you because no one else will want you, you will know he’s right.
He loves you so much that without you he will kill himself. You don’t deserve someone who would love you that much, who is that good, who has taken you in when no one else wants you.
Yes, he understands you. Even when he wrongfully calls you a whore and accuses you of being too friendly with another guy, or even sleeping with another guy, you know he has a right to be concerned. After all, he is just being protective.
Then you’ll stop going out and spending time around other people because you won’t want to be accused or questioned and called a stupid whore. Or, kept up all night, not allowed to rest or sleep, while he fires questions at you and waits for you to give him the answers he wants to hear.
Or until you break down in tears at his feet and beg forgiveness for whatever it is he thinks you’ve done wrong, because you most certainly don’t know what it is that provoked him this time. Or you wait until he is tired of hitting you. Or raping you.
You’ll begin to live your life in two modes: the joyful everything-is-great-this-week mode, after he has given you the flowers or the necklace or the teddy bear and swears never to hurt you again; and the fear-filled oh-my-god-what-did-I-do-this-time mode where you anticipate every single one of his moods, and even though you think you did everything right, he still turns on you.
He hasn’t got his claws in you yet. Be wise, young lady, walk away, and begin to love yourself. Empower yourself. Make yourself wise and strong. No woman deserves to walk that path. And yes, it’s okay to laugh at me, and to scoff, and to say, “What the hell does she know?”
I know. Because thirteen years ago, I was you, and you don’t have to live through what I did in order to learn to love yourself.
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He is hoping to be out on parole, she told me. He has changed, she told me. “I know he loves me,” she told me, “He says the child I have should have been his. That means he loves her too.”
I was suspicious of this chap the minute she said, “prison”, even more suspicious since he immediately laid possession to her child by declaring it should have been his, but the next piece of information allowed me to understand exactly who this man is.
“In February,” she said, half reverent, half terrified, “He tried to commit suicide because we had an argument and he said he could never live without me. He must love me so much.”
And this, young lady, is my answer to you, a warning, a caution and an invitation for you to love yourself:
No, he doesn’t love you. He is a narcissist, quite possibly with sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies (how else can you hijack and rob people without an anaesthetized conscience?)
Everything he has just told you reveals exactly who he is, but you won’t see it because you want to be loved so much that you will take it from any direction it comes at you, even if it’s a nail bomb that’s been disguised as a heart shaped box of chocolates.
Why?
Because you don’t love yourself.
You come from a home in which you experienced so much abuse that the only way you can love yourself is through the weak reflections that others show you through what they say to you and how they treat you.
Your self-esteem depends solely on how you perceive others see you at any given moment on any given day.
So I’ll tell you what will happen with this guy: he will become jealous and possessive.
At first, you will think he is looking out for you because he loves you so much, but gradually you will begin to see him taking over, demanding to know who you spend time with, where you go, what you do there.
When you answer him honestly, he will start berating you, calling you a liar, calling your friends faggots, dirty jews, that big black bitch, your stupid half wit sister.
You’ll begin avoiding the people in your life because it will make your life with him easier.
You won’t have to listen to him rant about them and you can remain comfortably entrenched in your denial that there is anything wrong. After all, isn’t he only looking out for you?
When he calls you names, when he calls you stupid, when he tells you that he is doing you a favour by being with you because no one else will want you, you will know he’s right.
He loves you so much that without you he will kill himself. You don’t deserve someone who would love you that much, who is that good, who has taken you in when no one else wants you.
Yes, he understands you. Even when he wrongfully calls you a whore and accuses you of being too friendly with another guy, or even sleeping with another guy, you know he has a right to be concerned. After all, he is just being protective.
Then you’ll stop going out and spending time around other people because you won’t want to be accused or questioned and called a stupid whore. Or, kept up all night, not allowed to rest or sleep, while he fires questions at you and waits for you to give him the answers he wants to hear.
Or until you break down in tears at his feet and beg forgiveness for whatever it is he thinks you’ve done wrong, because you most certainly don’t know what it is that provoked him this time. Or you wait until he is tired of hitting you. Or raping you.
You’ll begin to live your life in two modes: the joyful everything-is-great-this-week mode, after he has given you the flowers or the necklace or the teddy bear and swears never to hurt you again; and the fear-filled oh-my-god-what-did-I-do-this-time mode where you anticipate every single one of his moods, and even though you think you did everything right, he still turns on you.
He hasn’t got his claws in you yet. Be wise, young lady, walk away, and begin to love yourself. Empower yourself. Make yourself wise and strong. No woman deserves to walk that path. And yes, it’s okay to laugh at me, and to scoff, and to say, “What the hell does she know?”
I know. Because thirteen years ago, I was you, and you don’t have to live through what I did in order to learn to love yourself.
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