Justified

When they publish my manuscript, I am changing the name to Justified.

Justified in devaluing me. Justified in keeping all my stuff after I kill myself to hurt you. Justified in telling our young adult sons I along with my family were not worth knowing. Justified in announcing the mistake you made in agreeing to marry me after I begged you to do so. Justified in soaking up the attention and sympathy at losing the love of your life. Justified at buying a cheap casket because I just sprung this on you. Justified at struggling through life and using my suicide as the excuse.

The only thing that stopped me from killing myself during our last year together was the thought of the narc in her ‘widow’s gown’ telling everyone she’d done all she could, but I was just too crazy to help. I’d made her life a living hell etc. etc. etc.

Isn’t it bad enough, that after I attained the strength and courage to divorce the narc, and after I’ve already lost my self-worth, my youth, my time, my money, my reputation, my sanity, my pre-marital property, and whatever else I lost because of being in a narcissistic relationship, now I have to lose my kids too?  It just isn’t fair; and it isn’t right. But I suppose if I whine, complain, yell, scream, worry about them, or jump out of a window, I’m selfish and telling people that I’m a victim!

I’ve watched the narc convince joint friends and other community members and even family members that I was the crazy one and she was the victim, by her masterful manipulation strategies. She hoodwinked people and they don’t even realize it. She slandered my name. I feel alone, humiliated, discouraged, disheartened, and vengeful.

The Character Assassination

A close cousin of the smear campaign. Built on a foundation of lies also, hurtful and effective. The smear campaign is outward-facing, namely, it is aimed at third parties to affect their way of thinking.

She directed a character assassination at me. There were three ways she assassinated my character. The first was to say things to me which were unpleasant, demeaning, and hateful, which accordingly dented and wounded my sense of well-being. The second was to do things which were denigrating, disrespectful and nasty which caused my sense of self-worth to be eroded, for instance failing to make her something to eat (to treat me as non-existent) or to make me engage in a waste of my time and energy (starting an argument when I was on the phone with my mother was the big go-to). Those two methods are obvious and directed. The third method was a particularly insidious and troubling way of affecting my character. She would tell me that other people think badly of me, dislike me, and are saying things about me. They are not, of course. She avoided or reduced any risk of me finding this out by saying, “There’s no point asking them, of course, they are bound to deny it but trust me, I have heard them. They didn’t think I could hear.”

While increasing my paranoia and making me feel terrible, she also seized the opportunity to heighten her own virtue with me by stating, “Of course I don’t think that of you, but I thought it was only right to let you know what is being said about you.”

Naturally, she thought this of me because this falsehood was being generated by her. She could avoid any blame (a key aim of hers) while landing several blows against me caused by fictitious remarks from other people (the claims my mother and sister said was hurtful) and drawing fuel from my confused and upset reaction.

And now, she subjected my kids to the smear campaign against me and I find it is working. It is enough to make me either curl up in the fetal position and give up or rage with anger like an erupting volcano.  Of course, to do either would confirm the reality of the premise of the smear campaign I am deranged and crazy and let’s not forget suicidal. I’m just not sure that one day one of my sons would wake up and say he wanted answers and I would be laying six feet under and therefore unable to discuss with him everything he had heard over the years. If I kill myself, well, she will win. Again!

I have written about suicidal thoughts and depression but I have more to say.

But Let’s Deviate for a Moment, Shall We?

Here is some historical data, it’s boring but consequential. Over the last two decades, suicide has slowly and then suddenly announced itself as a full-blown national emergency. Its victims accompany factory closings and the cutting of government help. They haunt post-9/11 military bases and hollow the promise of Silicon Valley high schools. Just about everywhere, psychiatric units and crisis hotlines are maxed out. According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now more than twice as many suicides in the U.S. (45,000) as homicides; they are the 10th leading cause of death. You must go all the way back to the dawn of the Great Depression to find a similar increase in the suicide rate. Meanwhile, in many other industrialized Western countries, suicides have been flat or steadily decreasing.

What makes these numbers so scary is that they can’t be explained away by any demographic logic. Black women, white men, teenagers, 60-somethings, Hispanics, Native Americans, the rich, the poor—they are all struggling. Suicide rates have spiked in every state but one (Nevada) since 1999. Kate Spade’s, Robin Williams’, and Anthony Bourdain’s deaths were shocking to everybody except the epidemiologists who track the data.

And these are just the reported cases. None of the numbers above account for the thousands of drug overdose deaths that are just suicides by another name. If you widen the lens a bit to include those contemplating suicide, the problem starts to take on the contours of an epidemic. In 2014, the federal government estimated that 9.4 million American adults had seriously considered the idea.

And there’s an inherent lack of closure to suicide. Even when people write notes, they can reveal so little. Suicides often leave loved ones, acquaintances, and co-workers to question themselves for the rest of their lives. And in their own grief, they, too, can entertain dangerous thoughts. With suicide, you have that added trauma to it. The ‘why’ question of trying to search for meaning when there is no meaning available—If I only had a note. If I only talked to the last person that they talked to. The ‘onlys’ can be torturous. Julie Cerel, Ph.D. of the University of Kentucky, and colleagues have published a series of articles that address the extent to which people are exposed to suicide. One study examined the consequences of suicide and found that each one could affect 135 other people.

The fundamental mystery of suicide has long made it an object of fear and contempt within the medical establishment. Since the 1950s, public health officials have tried hotlines, individual therapy, group therapy, shock therapy and forced hospitalizations. Doctors have taken away people’s shoelaces and belts and checked in on attempt survivors every 15 minutes to make sure they are still safe. They have coerced patients into signing contracts swearing that they would not kill themselves. They have piled on psychiatric medications with ever-more invasive side effects, only to watch the number of suicides continue to climb.

Even now, most mental health professionals do not understand what to do when a suicidal person walks through their door. They’re untrained, they’re under-resourced, and their responses can be remarkably callous. In an emergency room, an attempted survivor might be cuffed to a bed and made to wait hours before official admittance, sometimes days. Finding help beyond the ER can be harder yet.

But There is No More Narc

The Narc died last year. I know where she went, and I pity the devil. How long before he was on the phone to God trying to work a deal?

But she is still winning. This is how a narcissist operates. She is not even on this planet and she is kicking my ass. Friends are telling me I am allowing her to do so.

They are totally right, but there is so much to this.

“You’ll wake up tomorrow and she will remain dead.” “She was a shit stirrer who can no longer troll you unless you allow it.”

Nobody can understand unless they lived it because of the poison that infiltrated my life. The hell I went through ripped away my ability to feel happiness and left me in perpetual darkness with little hope for anything but more darkness. The light at the end of the tunnel pulls away and gets no closer, it never draws near.

She shredded my faith in myself and in humanity with words intended to maim and destroy. Words that demeaned and shamed me into shadows of the person I once was.

Hope and love were repeatedly offered then snatched away with callous intent for her amusement. Someone that was trusted to have my best interest in mind who instead trampled through my life like I never mattered and had no worth or value. The goal? Demean him. Destroy him. Take everything that matters to him. Stomp on him. Blame him.

She never cared. She never loved me. I thought she was SUPPOSED to love me, and I was supposed to protect her. But I was not trained for any of this, and therefore ill prepared for any of this.

And let me be clear, it was hard to keep the end of this toxic relationship out of the public eye (The public eye? West Boca and her family) because the narcissist demanded that everyone we knew choose sides. As soon as possible, she told friends, neighbors, the Rabbi’s in our synagogue and its members, and school acquaintances in person and on social media her version of the story of our breakup. That was terribly distressful. During our entire relationship, the narc insisted on extreme privacy about our interactions together, and now she was spreading all kinds of misinformation and slander and trying to ruin whatever was left of my name. And let me tell you because I did not fight her in this court of popular opinion, the narc’s lies stood without challenge.

Gossip was a manipulative tactic she used (correction, mastered) to make me the bad guy and to garner the narc as much sympathy as possible. It can also work effectively to reengage you with them and bring you under their control.

I was gradually and meticulously slowly killed from the inside out with malice and intent and was left to fester and rot. Let’s be clear, I was left to die, and she was still looking for sympathy!

I Miss Them Every Day

But I digress. My sons are with her family. Florida law considers them young adults, but adults none the less. Her final act was the day after our youngest son turned 18. He was a senior in high school. The narc marched into the principal’s office with him. She had him tell the principal he wanted nothing to do with me.

I do not believe he was aware of the Co-parenting agreement issued by the judge that the narc signed and continued to ignore, not to mention the child support payments that continued after her passing. Her attorney said that at 16 he really had no desire to spend every other Saturday with his father. The judge countered with “Tuesday’s, Thursdays, or Sundays would work too.” She ordered him to spend time with me.

But ooh that narc was smart.

It scared the narc that if our youngest spent time with his father, he would understand things may not be like the alternative facts she had been preaching. Maybe he would learn that there is more than one side to a story, and she was not about to let that happen. Maybe we would develop a relationship that a young man would like to have with his father. Maybe he would want me in his life. The narc could not let that happen! But take heed, the narc was prepared. She had him block his phone and ignore my texts.

We went to court three times over this issue. The narc was no dummy. She was betting it would take time to get onto the judges’ calendar. So, when in court, she agreed to all conditions sanctioned by the judge ordering me to spend time with him, sharing a calendar of school events, meetings with his teachers, etc.

Of course, those orders were disregarded as soon as the narc walked out of the courtroom, forcing my attorney to file two more motions. But as I said, she was a smart cookie.

Time was on her side. As each day passed, our son was one day closer to 18. Besides keeping me away, she, in true narcissistic fashion, devalued me to both of our sons. She explained how horrible I was. By the time she was done, Darth Vader was a better dad to Luke Skywalker.

She spent the last months of her life explaining to anyone who would listen how awful I was to her and both of our children. I committed the ultimate sin of asking the person who informed me of her passing just what he had heard from her about me. This was not smart.

• I stole money from narc.
• I stole money from our children.
• I stole money from her father.
• I abused the narc after the boys went to sleep. (I was told I was physically abusive).
• I “smoked drugs.” (That’s a bit of a favorite. I smoked pot before meeting the narc. I was not a genuine fan of it as it made me paranoid. So, I did not do it any longer once we started dating).
• I was an alcoholic. (She was aware I liked a cocktail after work. This was fine when dating. But like everything else, she filed this, and when the time was right;  she demanded I stop. Same with watching football on Sundays, seeing my mother, and going to the dry cleaners).

It’s Enough to Make You Want to Kill Yourself

So, the narc had me thinking anything had to be better than being trapped in a bed with her night after night. Death. Suicide. Fingernails on a blackboard. But I heard her. In my head. Her voice. She was renting space in there. That is was narcissists do. They want you thinking about them 24 hours a day. “Unbelievable. He kills himself and leaves a note for his mother. He left one for the kids. But does he leave me one? No. Because he must make everything about himself.”

More thoughts she would entertain entered my mind:

Thankful: “Oh my god, all the sympathy I will get from everyone! This is going to be great. Thank you. Thank you.”

Irritated/Annoyed: “How dare he do this to me.”

Excited: “Finally. It’s all about me. I better go through all of his stuff and see what I’m keeping.”

Pissed: The insurance doesn’t pay out for suicide, or the wait period has not yet passed. “How dare he do this to me? Why couldn’t he have waited just another 3 months! But no. So inconsiderate. Everything about him.”

Shame: She might care about how it may reflect badly on me for a little while, but she would likely make sure everyone knew how she did her best to help me, but I was just too far gone and refused to get the help she desperately tried to get me.

All lies, of course. She loved to lie. So this is nothing but a win-win unless the insurance didn’t pay.

But Suicide Would Be Tough

I mean, not the dying part. The note. What to say? And the narc had a point. Who to leave it to?

I was contemplating killing myself a while back, after the narc, during the divorce. I didn’t. I mean, if I lived all those years with her and somehow survived, should I really do it now? Every time I park the car or grill chicken, I hear that voice. “I don’t understand you. What is your problem? Do you not know how to park? What do you care if the car is hit? We have so much money? Give me the keys now so I can straighten it out!” Or “I absolutely do not understand you. Besides this chicken being ice cold, it’s undercooked. Are you trying to kill everyone? You have completely ruined this dinner! What is your problem? Are you a complete idiot at everything you do?”

It was years ago, but it feels like earlier today. In fact, it was earlier today when I pulled into a parking spot and nobody critiqued me about the trajectory of the angle I parked the car on. I just pulled in, turned the engine off, and heard the voices in my head informing me that everybody on the planet hates me because I am an idiot.

Self-Hate Plus the Narc

To my surprise, there are no magic hats in which to stuff rabbits of arrogance, jealously, or denial into another dimension where they disappear. Maybe there are turbans or bowlers, but I didn’t look around much. 

I was 33 and single when I moved from New York City to Boca. I had a crazy job at Cisco Systems. By crazy, I mean it was 12 to 15-hour days. Add to that my territory was 50 miles from my house and my manager wanted me to fail so he could bring in a sales rep from a competitor. But I was at 138 percent of my target and it would look suspicious to have a rep way over goal fired. Too many questions on the inquiry.

Most nights I would come home and drink a six-pack of beer or smoke pot. That was on the days that my system engineer and I did not smoke while driving back from Miami to the Fort Lauderdale sales office. It was my reward for making it through the day. A good friend (despised by the narc) had access to as much pot as we wanted. So, many nights I drove to his apartment, got stoned prior to going to dinner, and drove home, assuming I remembered where home was. I stopped thinking about anything over two hours out. I stopped caring about my future. I’m not saying if you smoke pot this will happen to you, this was my experience. I was 33 years old going on 15. Marijuana was my escape. I didn’t have to face how much I hated myself.

I didn’t move to Boca Raton and sacrifice as much as I had to become a full-time loser. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Every time I turned on social media, I was jealous. It seemed like everyone I knew had a happy life, good marriage, and was getting ready for retirement. It was because they were getting up early and doing hard work. Poor little me. Poor little privileged white male whose only real problem in life had been his ego. I hated myself and for somewhat justifiable reasons: I was not good looking, boring, always grumpy, inspired to do nothing, never not tired. I felt like the picture in “Back to the Future” where everyone slowly faded out. I felt like Ben Carson’s eyes look.

So, I made a plan. I put money aside for pain pills (it’s Florida; I figured I could buy them somewhere with cash) and then went to CVS  to buy another fifty of something that, when combined with alcohol, would kill me. I had done research. My Google history was hilarious, in the most macabre manner.

I had manic days where I felt good, followed by the lowest of lows.

Late one night I was writing suicide notes. Thoughts that came to me:

• Just write a normal suicide letter and end it with LOL.
• Put a note that looks like I was investigating someone, cover it in my blood and make it look like some mobster or cult murdered me (or both) into an investigation of which I got too deep.
• Long serious letter. Ends with “JK I’m at Joe’s house.”
• “No, but seriously, I shot myself in the woods behind the house.”
• “My mother always told me I could do anything I put my mind to. She also asked me constantly if I lost my mind. I’ll be here all week, or until the neighbors notice the smell.”

With suicide, people think no fight was involved, they merely think that the person couldn’t take it and felt weak. They forget all the mental struggles the person faced because they were invisible and sometimes unspoken and unexposed to anyone. This attitude of society is wrong.

Back to the Narc

And if you talk about the situation, others will not understand and will simply conclude on their own that she must be right–you are psychotic. It’s a no-win situation. Say nothing and it tarnishes your name. Say anything and it confirms your craziness.

And if you talk to your own kids about the situation, you are drawing them into the middle of your relationship problems with the ex-narc–which is a big “no-no.”

Does going “no contact” include going no contact with my own children as well?

According to the ex-narc, the boys, now 18 and 20, were not ready to see me and had not been since the judge ordered a Co-parenting agreement 3 plus years ago in family court.

One problem and this is the absurdity of how a narcissist chooses a partner, she was enamored at how other people reacted to me. Because she had no empathy she copied or mirrored others to not stand out. She had to play along to get along. People forget that most narcissists want nothing more than to seem like a regular person.

A narcissist wants you to fall in love with them, and then they want to use that love you have for them as a weapon they can use against you. That’s where the love bombing comes in early in the relationship.

They try to copy your emotions, emotions they don’t have. They try to use you as a mirror so they can gain access to your love and your trust. Once they gain your love, trust, and loyalty, it’s all over. They turn the tables on you and abuse you at every turn.

Narcissists are broken. They are a deep, evil black hole of nothingness. Nothing is real. There’s no such thing as love, loyalty, trust, none of that exists in the narcissist’s world.

A narcissist will blame their actions on you. They will accuse you of saying things like telling them to leave their own house when you said nothing remotely close to that, and they will insist and insist that you really said these things. It’s a never-ending cycle of things you will be accused of saying or doing that never entered your mind to do or say. She accused me of threatening to kill her by poison, by physical violence, by lying and driving her insane. The list goes on and on and on of things and the most horrible things that one can imagine.

She has no empathy or understanding of love. She only knows anger, rage, and jealousy. She spent her life, (over 50 years,) watching people, learning to mimic emotions, even cry on command. She had mastered complete control of her emotions, unless she got mad (which was over 90 percent of the time). In public, she held it in until later. It’s a skill few people possess.

The last time I stood up to her in court, she slipped up; she clenched up and her eyes went blank and dark. It was the “I’m going to kill you if you don’t shut up” look. My attorney saw it and whispered to me he knew I was telling the truth. But alas, he was one of the few. Most people see a victim, a responsible mom who loves her kids. A poor woman duped by a horrific animal who begged her to marry him… if they only knew the monster behind the mask.

That said, she could convince our sons I was evil.

They say they hate me and hope I die, and I should just kill myself. That is what I hear them say every night. Hang on. Let’s be fair and honest. I do not know what they say. I would guess they do not even waste their time thinking of me. I miss them so much. I miss them as the toddlers I bathed who jumped on me when I arrived home from work. I miss them as they were in middle school and I coached their rec basketball teams. I miss driving them to high school and hearing one or two words they would mumble as they tried to wake up on the way. I miss seeing them as young men in college because she took that time away from me.

Read all my essays and tell me I do not own this. I married her. I let her control and control and control me during our time together. I even let her control the narrative of the divorce. I just could never top her energy level. She was a true energy vampire and would outdo anything I would do. Somehow, she saw me as the enemy because in her life everything was binary. Black vs White. You vs. Me. Me vs Your Mother. Always one or the other. The energy vampire. The envy.

Always displaying either overtly or covertly the emotions of contempt or disdain toward me, then she was obviously in the one-up position, smug and superior, able to impute judgments on me, the target of the projected feelings.

Explaining the Narcissist

There are two principal reasons that narcissists so often feel these contemptuous and negative emotions.  One is because someone in their youth (in this case her father) projected this emotion on to them, and, in addition, he “imprinted” this behavioral expression of negative emotions onto her (monkey see, monkey do,) which she replicated in adulthood.

The second explanation for this emotional display is because of projected shame and rage. The narcissist, incapable of experiencing any depth of vulnerability, projects his/her shame and rage outwardly onto certain targets in order to not have to “carry’ his/her shame and rage within him/herself.  This projection sometimes takes on the form of disdain, disgust, and contempt.  Targets, not realizing what is happening, serve in the capacity of garbage dumps for their loved ones’ projected toxicity.

What role does envy play in the lives of narcissists? It serves as a constant symbolic scapegoat of why narcissists feel so empty.  Because narcissists have an inability to self-reflect, they use over-compensatory coping strategies to feel okay about themselves.  Envy is an especially useful tool because it serves to convince narcissists that their problems do not exist within themselves but live in their failing loved ones’ inabilities to perform to their satisfaction.

This is why when you are around a narcissist for any significant length of time you feel a deep sense of self-loathing.  Your narcissist has unwittingly brain-washed you with toxic shame interspersed with inconsistent bouts of normalcy.  Your person does not have to blatantly tell you you’re a failure, you figure that out yourself by your inability to make him or her happy and satisfied, if you were sufficient, your narc wouldn’t be experiencing disdain, disgust, contempt, or envy.

The reality? You can never satisfy a narcissist.

The truth is that nothing can make a narcissist happy, because their agenda of dominance, exploitation, and oppression creates an ever-expanding chasm within their soul. The narcissist can take pleasure in the exercise of power and the subjugation of others, but they can’t feel happiness from any source.

They can’t feel the joy of a loving relationship – they’re incapable of love. They can’t feel the fulfillment of a job well done – they’re incapable of taking satisfaction from positive accomplishments – and they can’t feel the contentment of doing a good deed for others – they’re incapable of empathy.

Let’s go with that for a second.

The narcissist wrongly believes that by using or abusing, taking or stealing they’ll feel better, but it doesn’t work. The human brain isn’t wired that way. We humans feel happiest when we’re kind, generous and altruistic; not when we’re selfish, greedy or cruel.

Narcissists get a rush of pleasure when they “win.” Unfortunately, pleasure is superficial and fleeting. The pleasure the narcissist feels is similar to that of a drug high. It’s an intensely thrilling but ultimately meaningless experience that leaves them immediately craving the next rush.

One of the narcissist’s fatal flaws is that they can’t differentiate pleasure and happiness. They continue to chase after the former at the expense of the latter, which leaves them emptier and more miserable after every display of dominance.

I Should Have Known

When we were newly married, we saw the movie Hope Floats. When we walked out of the theater and I said that I didn’t like it (as evidenced by my snoring throughout the film), she flew into a rage. ‘What?! We love romantic comedy movies! How could you not get that story?!’ I remember thinking ‘Who is we?’ Her reaction was so full of wrath, it scared me to speak up. From that point on, more and more pieces of my true self went silent.

This exemplifies how quickly the benign can become malignant and destroy emotional safety. Even disagreeing about what you think of a movie can trigger your partner’s disapproval or anger. Living with or dating narcissists feels like you must tiptoe around minefields and are constantly on guard to not set them off. Narcissists take everything so personally because underneath their grandiose bravado lurks profound self-loathing—they need to be shored up by constant external praise. Their fuel is admiration, and they need you to reflect their magnificence because they truly don’t feel it themselves. Being that perfect, flattering mirror is depleting, and after a while, your needs become enmeshed with theirs. You lose sight of where they end, and you start. You become so busy shoring up the narcissist you have nothing left for yourself. You tend to disappear.

Meanwhile, as you are doing all that work to build up your partner, he or she may be busy tearing others down. The classic example comes from Snow White and the narcissistic Evil Queen. Maleficent needs constant reassurance from her Magic Mirror that she, indeed, is the fairest of them all. But once Snow White comes into the picture, Maleficent feels threatened by the competition and sets out to destroy her.

I tried my best to believe the fantasy that if you shore them up enough, she will eventually get around to taking care of me, too. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

In real life, narcissists need to cut down others to build themselves up. Even when you are in the glow of a new relationship, and the charm offensive is blindingly bright, watch for clues that all may not be well. If she needs to criticize others to show how grand she is by comparison, she will probably do the same to you. Besides noticing how she treats the people around her, look at her history. Is it filled with long-term friendships or littered with relationships—romantic or business—in which she has inevitably been wronged? If she easily condemns those she previously cherished, chances are that dark light will shine on you at some point, too. The narcissist who keeps herself elevated by putting down others eventually might become competitive, even with you.

Narcissists hoard attention, interrupt conversations so they can steer it back to themselves, and are more concerned with their feelings than anyone else’s. Their theme song is, “Enough about me, let’s get back to me.”

All of it led me down this path. With suicide, people think it involved no fight, they merely think the person couldn’t take it and felt weak. They forget all the mental struggles the person faced because they were invisible and sometimes unspoken and unexposed to anyone. This attitude of society is wrong.”

What Now?

I don’t know. She is dead and I have no relationship with my sons. I am not a part of anything they do or any decisions they make.  Before meeting the narc, I spent time with my nieces and nephews. It just clicked. With kids, what you see is what you get. No masks. Just fun. No hidden agenda.

I never thought about having kids. I was too busy being a kid, and I do not mean that in a good way. I was always looking for validation from others for the things I did. My mother. My father. My brother. My boss du jour. I finally, finally, finally had the girl of my dreams and that went up in smoke because of my childlike tendencies. My ability to do what I was told.

I finally had children. I loved every minute of my time with them. I miss them and spend more time thinking about them than I probably should. But, like everything else, it too went up in smoke. I embarrass them. They hate me. Why shouldn’t they?

Why wouldn’t the narc’s sister strong-arm her way into my kids’ lives upon her death, ignore the co-parenting agreement and the child support, along with my pre-marital property, and continue the trail of hatred and deceit?

Because I Allowed All of this to Happen

All because I tried to make it work with a narcissist. I just wanted to continue living my life. My parents wanted me to add her into the mix. But that could never happen. She had too much to be envious of, and I had no ability to fight her. None. Zero.

And in return, she hurt me even more. And while I know I am/was a decent person who might be just pointing out her real shortcomings subtly, she attacked me with full force. And then when I thought she told me everything that might hurt me; well, think again. She was creative and very mean — she dragged out everything I had ever said; she pointed out and aggrandized my imperceptible flaws and turned around every compliment she ever told me.

She didn’t understand that I was not getting back at her, because even the slightest criticism hurt her to her core. I disagreed with her about son number one’s haircut. That hurt her just as much and questioning her authority just as much as if I told her she was a loser in all areas of her life. She could not feel the difference — because for her, hurt is hurt.

There is NO Winning Here. You See That, Right?

You don’t? It still confuses you? You want more?

Spend long enough with them, and you already know all the ways they manipulate you. Stonewalling and refusing to tell you what the problem is. Silent treatment and being absent for days or even weeks. Not being there for you when they need them. Promising something and then doing it with someone else. Cheating on you. Comparing you to others and forcing you to question your own worth through triangulation. Exposing confidential information about you to friends and pretending it should have been all okay. Committing something against you and then blaming you for it.

So why not do the same to her? Show her how it feels. Yeah! That’s it.

Because…that’s why.

The problem is manipulation was her second nature, not mine. I know it’s not mine. She chose me as her victim because I am/was a decent person with basic human values, love, care, and empathy. I would go to the extent of saying that I do not have a mean bone in my body and I would never want to deliberately hurt anyone. That was/is me. I won’t change into the devil overnight just because someone hurt me. My conscience would never allow me to be mean on purpose. I can’t ignore someone in need.

That’s why I kept thinking suicidal thoughts. I was too nice and too scared.

If I manipulated her, I might anger her, and she would get back at me immediately — with her full near-lethal artillery. My hope that she would recognize her own heinous behavior would probably fall flat because she would go into playing the victim and blame me for hurting her and ruining her life. I could never teach her about basic human values — if they could teach her, she would have already learned it. I could not show her how hurtful acted because she justified her actions by her superiority — she was entitled to treat people as they wanted, but no one else can treat them the same way.

Someday

I know she’s gone, and I should be able to beat those suicidal thoughts. But the character assassination by proxy also served a further purpose. It caused me to cling tighter to her. And here come the voices. “It is a horrible and uncertain world out there. People you thought liked you showed they do not. The boys hate you. My family hates you. All of Boca hates you. Funny. Now even your family hates you. I am all you have got, so you better do what I want in order to keep me. Because one day I will end this and the boys are coming with me. And they will NEVER see you again.”

So, it’s time to move on. I know. One foot at a time. There is nothing more to it than rebuilding. Prove it to yourself.

You know that warm fuzzy place where life is so easy and everything makes sense? That’s your comfort zone, and nothing amazing happens there. If you want to make progress towards achieving things that matter in life, it’s just like physical trainer Jillian Michaels said, “You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

She’s right. All of your growth and progress is going to happen right outside of your comfort zone. And the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to break out of your comfort zone.

I can get out of my comfort zone. I know I can make it through the daytime. Nighttime? That’s a different story. The loneliest time and when the spiral starts swallowing me alive. My children were my heart (and still are). They are what I lived for every day. They are what made me drive to be a better person. I feel like a zombie walking around with the living, in a nightmare I cannot wake up from. There are days I do nothing but cry. But someday this will all come to an end and I must be ready.

Someday they will want to know what their father was like in his early twenties.

Someday they will want to know why I moved to Florida.

Someday they will want some advice from their father.

Someday I will tell them some things.

Someday. Hmmm. Why wait? This is pretty good.

Be Kind

It doesn’t take money. It doesn’t take time. There’s usually a choice – be kind, ignore the person/situation or be mean. Don’t ever be mean, karma will come back to bite you tenfold. Sometimes you can ignore without being mean. Mostly, just be kind. It’s the right thing to do.

Overdress

If you think you need to dress up, then dress up. It’s always better to overdress for a situation than show up looking like a schlep. (My dad taught me that one).

Don’t settle

I really don’t see millennials settling for things that don’t make them happy and I’m all for that – most of the time. If you hate your job, get another one. If you don’t like where you live, move. You’re not a tree.

Save some money

Pay yourself first and put it away. Don’t get through the month and then put away whatever you might have left. You may not have anything left. Put it away first. Added simple pleasure: it adds up quickly.

Never fill out your recipient’s email address on your email until you’re ready to send

Do you know how many emails get sent accidentally? Well, me neither, but it’s a lot. Don’t be one of them. It could have really disastrous results. I know of what I speak.

Make your bed

Nah, I’m kidding. I seriously don’t care if you make your bed or not. I think it’s a good thing so your bedroom looks neat and you start your day accomplishing something but really who cares? I’ll tell you who cares. A girl will always be impressed with a guy who has a clean bedroom with a made bed. Just make sure to wash those sheets once in a while. That’s much more important. Especially your pillowcases. Think about it. Maybe this will help.

On a side note, at Camp Brookwood, a counselor by the name of Myron Cohen would not allow us out of the bunk until beds were made with hospital corners! For good or bad I still make my bed with those pesky hospital corners. I curse you, Myron! (Truth be told, he is one of the best human beings who ever walked the planet).

My simple rule of “the more you. . .”.

You know, the more vegetables you eat, the more vegetables you will eat. It’s all about good habits. The more you practice your good habits, the more they become your good habits. (Unfortunately this can apply to bad habits too so watch yourself. . . repeating a bad habit can make it seem okay).

Mindfulness

This is pretty much the key to everything. Be mindful of your decisions and actions. Don’t get crazy with impulsive or spur-of-the-moment decisions. A little spontaneity is good. It’s fun. Rushing into important decisions, not so much. My grandfather gave me that one.

Marry the Girl You Love

This one is critical. It IS about you. You are the only one who knows who that person is. If you listen to your heart, all will be terrific. If you listen to others, well, don’t. Just don’t. Again, I know of what I speak.

Love Your Brother

Even when you don’t always like him. When it comes to the end of the day, he is the one who is there for you. You are lucky enough to have some good friends, but it still doesn’t compare to the unconditional love of family. The one thing I did correctly was to make sure you have each other. Do this until the day you leave this earth or I will make sure to haunt you forever.

Finally, know that your father loves you with his entire heart and soul

Enough said.

Maybe tomorrow will be someday. My kids, with a lot of help, are reminded I am their enemy. But I am not their enemy. I am a creep and a weirdo and everything else Radiohead sings in that song. Maybe I don’t belong here. It looks like I’ll be battling that one for a while. But maybe it will catch up to them. Maybe they’ll figure it out and regret it when it does. This epiphany won’t happen overnight. It’ll take them a long time and a good deal of experience and lessons in the real world. But it will happen… someday.

And you know what? I can’t wait for someday!