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I don’t know what happened to Lynn’s comments but I am guessing she made them and then deleted because it would make Deb mad. I thought Lynn’s comments were on point. I was thinking the same thing. Deb’s post is obviously an attempt at passive/aggressive blackmail and I have lived enough of that. I wish Deb all the best but I know that I am no help to her.
JoAnn, I have no doubt that it was a very difficult decision for you to make. Thank you for making a hard choice in order to help Deb and the rest of us. And I do believe you did it for Deb’s benefit too. I hope someday she will be able to see that.
Much love to you,
DaisyJoAnn,
I deleted my comments. They were not productive and I just didn’t want to be a part of that game anymore. A child is at risk and that a mother could use that to blackmail other mothers was just too hurtful.
But after reading Bev’s comment, maybe they were productive, because damn it, we have learned to see right through that kind of emotional abuse. Maybe somebody else has not.
Lynn
JoAnn, I respect your decision. I just feel heartsick about this and wish it didn’t end up this way. If I could just express an opinion which may be coming out of my ass, since I only know Deb from this board..
My impression is that Deb may be appearing to minimize things because she thinks she needs to put a brave face on. I’m familiar with a tendency to think one should do that, and to default to ‘other people have it a lot worse than I do.’ But at the same time, to be in great pain, so mixed signals seem to be given out. You want to reach out and tell people what is happening, but you don’t want to ‘tempt Providence’ as my mother used to say, so you try to give the impression it’s no big deal. I could be totally wrong. But I just feel worried about how she might be feeling right now, and where she will go to find help. xoxo
She has no right to minimize a bleeding child. Period.
That’s her MOTHER, damn it. Using her pain. Unfuckingbelievable.Sorry, Annie
My thoughts on this are included in my new editorial.
You can read it by clicking on ‘JoAnn’s Editorials’ on the main menu or just go here:
http://sisterhoodofsupport.com/personality-disorders-in-partners-of-sex-addicts/
The conversation between Karen, Daisy, March, Bev, Liza was beautiful. Really. It uncovered some things about our base motivations in our situations: financial security, not wanting to grow old alone, loving some of the day-to-day things we shared over years with our SA’s. I hope we talk more about these base motivations in other posts. You are all beautiful, truly beautiful.
It’s been a very upsetting and sleep-robbing experience for me.
I decided I had to take a stand. IMO, Katie’s trauma was being absorbed into the dysfunction of the family instead of becoming a catalyst to re-examine that dysfunction. The boundary revealed was that NOTHING, not even a child’s self-destructive behaviour, can challenge the adult’s commitment to their own dysfunction. Adding another therapist appt to the long list of appts, and adding another dangerous behaviour to the long list of dangerous behaviours was like Katie had past her initiation into the family business.
I know its harsh, but having seen this kind of crazy before I can’t pretend I’m not seeing it now. While this may all just continue without us, creating a break here is also another opportunity for Deb consider changes without being on view. She has a vast array of resource people to continue to consult. I hoped she would move herself out of her nightmare and we would be cheering her on. But that was always her decision alone. And this last episode made it clear there was no boundary anywhere to save anyone, except boundaries to protect the dysfunction. We have beent turned into a big batch of padding around this terrible truth to make it look like something was happening. But it wasn’t. It was a cycle of behaviours that many of us had come to recognize and predict, and finally escalated too far for me.
It’s very sad. But also points out the extreme aspect of codependency that Carnes is using as the norm assumption for his model.
Thanks, JoAnn and Diane. I understand the reasoning. I just don’t think she meant any harm. Just worried about her. More worried about her daughter, but her too. xoxo
Victoria,
Of course I am not diagnosing Deb as having any sort of Personality Disorder. I am merely pointing out that not only do our SA’s exhibit traits that are used to diagnose PD’s, other people who are not SA’s can also exhibit these traits.
And very often these traits harm others.
Anyone who continues to harm others either emotionally or physically in my mind is not acting in a normal manner.
As lay people, we should always be aware that there are disordered people out there in all walks of life and it is up to us to recognize these harmful traits in people we have contact with and set boundaries for what we will or will not accept in our lives. ~ JoAnn
Anniem,
Our SA’s do not mean any harm either.
Drunks do not mean to kill people on the road.
Intent does not excuse the behavior. The results, and the damage, are still the same. ~ JoAnn
I have left Deb’s post up, complete with her phone number. I do not control who contacts whom. But, for her privacy I will take the phone number down in a few days.
Just a little ‘mommy JoAnn’ caution here, if anyone does decide to call her, be careful about getting sucked in to her drama at the expense of your own healing work. ~ JoAnn
Jesus…this is exactly what I was afraid of. Very sad. Co-dependants manipulate and are often far sicker than their partners. I had hoped she might come on and say “I just cannot give him up right now.” As March said, that would have elicited a very different response. Perhaps in the end we could not help Deb. Perhaps COSA is the better fit for her. Just the same….I wish it had all gone a different way and I hope she and her family will be ok. big sigh Karen xx
Did you guys feel she was trying to manipulate us? I didn’t see that, but then again, I lived with a narcissist for 22 years and didn’t realize it, so I’m not exactly a barometer of noticing manipulation. xoxo
annie, it took me a while to see it. i remember when i first joined i passionately defended deb in a post… but over time, i started to get a sense of hearing the same thing over and over. sometimes i had the feeling that the chaos was actually being enjoyed… and as has been mentioned here, details changing, denial and minimization. i think once that minimization included her daughter’s cutting, many sisters weren’t able to left it pass…
Annie, I thought she was being manipulative from the very beginning when I joined the site 5 months ago. I really thought it was just me since until very recently no one else seemed bothered by it. I noticed that her advice, her stories about her own situation, etc. seemed to shift depending on who else was posting and what the topic was. Again, I thought all this time that it was just me, that I had missed things that had happened before I joined the site so I just ignored my feelings. But honestly, she made me very uncomfortable right from the get go. As I said on JoAnn’s editorial, I learned a valuable lesson in this. Trusting your gut doesn’t just apply to dealing with our SAs. I’m also not saying that I am always right, but next time I will share my concern with JoAnn and other trusted and respected sisters here to see whether anyone else is getting “that feeling” too. I actually got to the point with Deb that I was more stressed about what was going on with and around her than what was going on in my own life and that is definitely not a healthy place to be. It was becoming like an emotional black hole for me.
I got that sense, too, that she was somehow thriving on the chaos and only wanting validation and sympathy so she could stay in it? Goodness, I feel really bad like I am talking behind her back, which I guess I am. I feel like people really bent over backwards validating and sympathizing. But when she was challenged, she would often lash out and/or change her story. Which I didn’t have a big issue with when it mainly involved her- we all go at our own pace.
The minimizing and denial about the cutting absolutely did me in. No excuses when you are dealing with a child.
I think some people crave and thrive on the chaos in their own lives and the lives of others. They really don’t want the crisis, whatever it is, to end because they are addicted to the attention it brings them. Kind of like an emotional Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome.
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