Single White Female

Well, not exactly. It is the internet, you know.

Many of us remember the disturbing hit movies “Single White Female,” “Fatal Attraction,” and more recently “Gone Girl.” I think back to a line in the movie “Sleepless in Seattle,” where Tom Hanks’ character “Sam” references the movie “Fatal Attraction” and comically says how, “…It scared the %*!# out of every man in America!”

And rightfully so, because it should. As humorous as the line was in that movie, untreated personality disorders are certainly no joke.

The shared theme in common within all of these movies is a main character with severe and untreated Borderline Personality Disorder https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/histrionic-personality-disorder whose behavior turns sociopathic (Antisocial Personality Disorder). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder

So grab the popcorn, get comfortable and put your feet up. Ladies and gentlemen please sit back and enjoy the show. Our featured presentation is about to begin. Roll film.

When I began this blog and research journey it was to share, educate, and to identify patterns to some very sudden, bizarre, seemingly out of character, and unexplained mysteries that had (at the time) rendered me instantly shocked and bemused without explanation, and to help anyone else on that same rollercoaster ride of confusion or worse, anyone that is still experiencing manipulation and covert domestic abuse disguised and presented as love. I wanted to provide a place where understanding, education, awareness and outside validation were available to abuse victims. I have received many deeply touching shared stories, messages and thanks from my followers, fellow researchers, and readers and my heart is full hearing I am making a positive difference in others’ lives. It has been a bizarre journey of discovery into the very unfamiliar. Even graduate school and post-graduate trainings did not and could not have prepared me for encountering what was yet to come with these types of severe hidden addictions and disorders. This blog has since become a part-time passion project, a supportive, compassionate crusade for any and all victims of domestic, physically invisible, mental, psychological and emotional abuse. It is ultimately to help create a relatable place for victims and survivors—for Narcissistic Abuse Awareness and education.

There are indeed people who are completely immune to recognizing and acknowledging their own egregious manipulations, their haughty arrogance, and cruel use and treatment of others through their own untreated mental health disorders and ever increasing addictions. Until you experience it first-hand, it’s unimaginable to think of a human being in this way. They cannot see their behaviors accurately beyond their own deep seated feelings of inadequacy and self-entitlement. There will never be any time in between relationships with these individuals. No time for normal, healthy questioning and processing of why they’re never happy long term. There’s no time given to internalizing thoughts of one’s own accountability, consequences, and fault. There is no normal, healthy act of healing or growth after a relationship ending for these individuals. They end each one suddenly without explanation, unless of course someone who has been abused before begins to recognize, begins to catch on and leaves them first, which certainly doesn’t go over well with a Narcissist who must always be in complete control at all times. Each relationship failure after all is a loss no matter how bad or good it was when referencing normal people and normal relationships. With personality disorders such as these, there is no sense of normal feelings of loss regardless of the unique specifics of each one. That’s because there is no object constancy or normal, healthy human attachment for these types of people with these types of personality disorders.

That is why they work so very fast, so very quickly, it’s what they’re desperately trying to avoid. Accountability. A new partner is a (temporary) distraction from these thoughts and eventual (inevitable) consequences of their actions. They cannot be alone–they especially cannot be alone with their own thoughts. It all catches up to everyone eventually. One cannot simply run from themselves to a brand new Narcissistic supply indefinitely and forever in repetition without it one day catching up to them.

You see, their brains simply do not work like normal, healthy brains because well, these are not normal, healthy people. There are hidden infidelities, addictions, perversions, self-inflicted inadequacies disguised as (false) over-confidence, professional fabrications, and years of outright lies and deceit from those who are sadly, shockingly, anything but the man (or less often, the woman) you knew them to be. There is often no warning. An overnight 180. That is how it happens. This is the true nature of these abnormal individuals. That is the pathology of how they work.

Through my in-depth clinical research and professional interviews with other clinicians, as well as other exploration I have uncovered and discovered some of the darkest, most devious situations, individuals and abhorrent lifestyles I had ever heard of in existence. The stuff of prime time drama and televised unsolved mysteries. The kind of stuff that is so twisted, you just can’t make it up. Truth is sometimes more shocking than fiction. Through that clinical research, and through the many loving, wonderful souls who reached out with their continued friendship and offered support during the puzzle piecing discovery efforts, those who also shared their own personal experiences and stories of things I was completely unaware of–long-time mutual acquaintances and friends, exes with incredibly similar/familiar stories of witnessing substance addiction, (one had sadly been undergoing cancer treatment at the time, and is thankfully healthy now. It also left an innocent child to go through years of therapy and counseling. I literally broke down in tears upon hearing that story for the very first time, although it explained much) the patterned infidelity, and 180 degree sudden personality changes, business associates, colleagues, former employers, college associates, neighbors and even family, —some of whom have been witness to repetitious behavior pattern for many years, they helped teach what they all already knew. I will be discussing this and more in greater detail in my book.

Pure poetic justice is a rare and unusual turn of events. That’s what makes it poetic. You see, the con can eventually become the conned. When karma, if you will takes over “she” can position the con on the receiving end of being conned, of being played. This is the beginning of our featured film.

What happens when you take a life-long, deeply troubled individual who single-handedly destroys his reputation and long-term friendships through revelations of his own poor choices and fabrications, years of coat-tail riding and use of others, and deep deceptions who unknowingly connects online with an also deeply troubled couple who is closing in on seven figures of deep indebtedness who have long lived above their means with homes, cars, substance and pornographic addictions, routine occurrences of 911 calls for unconscious face-plantings, recreational and cosmetic drugs and injectables, mental illness, revolving doors of polyamory/homosexuality/bisexuality, multiple foreclosures, liens, bankruptcies, spurious “foundations and charities,” domestic violence, assault, battery, restraining orders, injunctions (all things of public record), countless expensive plastic surgeries, multiple facial and body implants appearing to result from untreated Body Dismorphic Disorder and years of sudden repeated drastic weight gain and weight loss? A big problem in need of a solution. The solution? Enter online-internet dating.

Grab your popcorn…

It’s perfect. Look online for someone vulnerable and foolish with money to make their financial troubles disappear, or at the very least make a dent in them. Get divorced (but quietly remain pseudo-together as always), then marry and take all you can for as long as it lasts, for as long as one can hold up their BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) mask before it inevitably falls, and it always falls in time. When both parties have happily long engaged in an anything goes open marriage arrangement, what’s the difference? What’s adding one more troubled soul into the collective mix as they’re depleting the final, fixed, finite funds in one’s trust because well, it isn’t a replenishing resource. Especially if one has money to bring to the table that they do not. Especially if he too is running, trying to escape from himself and his misdeeds to so many in his close circle. Shared commonalities bring birds of a feather to flock together. An impending Hollywood style disaster awaits.

Imagine, he had secretly found his new Narcissistic supply (on internet dating apps this time not through personal introductions like before because he wasn’t single at the time), as he was well seasoned and patterned to do, but this time he had unknowingly become someone else’s internet prey in the process. By now most everyone knows the dangers of the internet, it is frequently filled with hidden criminals looking to scam people for financial gain. (This makes me think of another one of my favorite Hollywood movie lines, “Normal people don’t go trolling for dates online.”) Something he likely hadn’t considered or counted on happening, happened. Something he is likely unaware of and in the dark about. Or is he? Either way, even Shakespeare himself couldn’t have penned better irony.

When there’s a complete absence of the acknowledgment of deep, hidden shame and complete lack of humility and common sense, it leaves one dangerously vulnerable to becoming the victim themselves. The kind of scamming, desperate, devious intentioned people that even Narcissists were previously not used to associating with, even in their manipulative lifelong pattern of behavior. Recklessly allowing unauthorized use and blatant misuse by giving access to one’s work email account for use by an unauthorized user to threaten another– would have previously been out of character. A lowered level of lifestyles and deceitful deviousness quickly instills. The rural methods of conning begin, giving way to transitions from firmly positioned (somewhat arrogant) standards of Michelin 5 Stars to Waffle Houses and all-inclusive resorts, from hotels to motels, from penthouses to parking garages.

These are individuals with untreated Cluster B dependent personalities: Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder.* As if all the before mentioned things weren’t enough, imagine a whole additional set of afflictions as well–with pedophiliacs and registered sex offenders. The sheer candor and matter-of-fact tone of an individual’s tales can truly leave one at a loss for words. It had become so routine they were completely unaware of and unphased by this lifestyle’s abnormality. The attempted explanation one would offer for the pedophilia/registered sex offender status was said to be a “misunderstanding” with authorities that resulted from public urination and indecent exposure near an elementary school. Another fabrication. That is not how that happens. Frighteningly scary, unimaginable stuff. Things difficult to hear and read, and more difficult to write. More than most of us could ever think of and who knows how much more there is that hasn’t been shared and uncovered. These are the kind of people most consciously avoid coming face-to-face with in real-life and hope only to fictionally see on-screen (if that), inside of a theater. A darkness most of us hope to never have to encounter in our lives. While not all are online to scam another, they are out there—lurking and looking for victims to use in some manner in the world of online internet dating. It is however, earned poetic justice at its finest for any abuser. The predator becomes the prey.

This blog has certainly created tremendous waves with those both inside and outside of abuse. Some much prefer to hide out away from reality, to try to camouflage truth, to avoid the forest for the trees, to take the rural dirt road of denial and switch zip codes for a more simple minded populous that’s more easily confounded. To finally feel like the bigger fish is much easier in a new and much smaller pond. One that would require less effort to deceive, to brush things under a rug and pretend reality and truth doesn’t exist by starting over in a newer, simpler “pond.” (There’s a reason all these common expressions and sayings exist). To outwardly pretend to go through the motions, to try to appear to (once again) move forward while rapidly spiraling downward into yet another fabricated, dark abyss. Rose-colored glasses. Fake it til you make it. They don’t wish to have truth in from of them or to be reminded of their misdoings and ever growing illnesses. It makes it much more difficult to ignore it that way. It makes their roles that much more challenging to play. It also makes them vulnerable to becoming victimized themselves.

When plaguing mental illness eventually gives birth to individuals completely void of any authentic conscience, more often than not people are uncomfortable with it and feel more at ease to ignore its existence. Truth can often be a threat to a ulterior plan. Uncovering and exposing honest truth makes pathological liars very uncomfortable and uneasy within themselves and their environment. What had been uncovered went far beyond any expectations, it is the epitome of poetic justice. The kind of justice a healthy person couldn’t dream up, the kind of truth that’s more shocking than fiction, the kind that finds its deserving individuals and serves itself to them voluntarily, right upon a proverbial silver platter.

However, it is all deeply tragic and very sad. One simply cannot be without some amount of pity even for abusers, because it will very likely not end well once the masks do fall. We have all seen the before mentioned movies. Those characters were all based on real clinical pathology and BPD and sociopathic behavior patterns and turned into edge of your seat Hollywood drama. Even as cruelly and unconscionable as one may have been treated, a healthy person could not treat another person in these same ways, even after experiencing ongoing abuse. I am a deeply compassionate professional and a woman of tremendous faith. I believe in following the laws of God and the laws of our great land. God promises us, He sees all and He has the final word. There is great difference between justice and revenge, and neither of them is ever ours. Sometimes though if He sees fit and we’re very lucky, we get to see that promise fulfilled and hopefully with a ring-side seat.

I think the take away from this, or the moral of the story and impending final lesson of this “festering featured film” will be that this world is sadly full of many lost, misguided, and deeply afflicted and addicted people who are not now and never will be happy long-term. They can even masterfully blend unnoticed for years into society. It is important to finely tune your intuition and discernment of others to avoid becoming their prey. (You might also want to consider avoiding online dating apps for safety and security). These types will inflict their own inner pain and problems onto their victims and there’ll be new, even more future victims yet to come. Untreated they do not change, but become worse with time and with age. Adult children who become cognizant of the enormity of the increasing dysfunction, the existing addictions and illnesses, and the patterns of destruction that plague their parent will eventually no longer care and keep themselves and their families safely, far away from their mentally ill parent and their ever rebounding new partners.

Our society fuels the misconception of looking for one’s happiness through another person which can exacerbate an already existing skewed view of reality in the addicted and mentally ill. We do not find our happiness through another person, we find it within ourselves and through the kind of life we choose to live–whether it is kind, honest and lived with purpose, or of false personas, greed, envy, sin, abuse, deception, and ulterior motives of using another without their conscious knowledge. If that life is indulgent and greedy and lived only to serve one’s self, one will never be satisfied or happy long term. Everything will always be temporary. A ticking clock, awaiting inevitable expiration. They will constantly be looking for new happiness in another, then another and another, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. It is in giving that we receive. In constant using and taking, one is never satisfied, never truly satiated. Take these types of individuals as cases in point. People with a half dozen “marriages” and they still believe the problem is everyone else. It is the nature of their disorders as authentic love is not in their wheel house or their vernacular. Like every time before, they’ll convince each other through misrepresentation, mirroring and projection that this time it is different. Or, have they really? Angered, exposed Narcissists will blindly stop at nothing in an attempt to hurt their exposer, even at their own expense. It’s as if they’re intentionally poisoning themselves but expecting another person to be the one who suffers. It just doesn’t work that way. It is they who will suffer their self-inflicted pain and toxicity. Desperate times call for desperate measures on each and every side of shared dysfunctional triangles. It will be different all right, but certainly there is no happily ever after ahead for these cons. In all likelihood one is actually playing them both, and others. Two (through a sense of competition and mirroring) are reportedly beginning to dress alike and even physically resemble one another in a newfound disheveled, unkempt appearance. Ladies and gentleman, please enjoy the film…and as we all know, the inevitable sequels to come.

Learn, study, keep your eyes open, be discerning, identify and steer clear of any individual whom you suspect may have these untreated Cluster B personality disorders with co-occurring substance addictions. What you ignore you empower. In the end most abusers will change zip codes. They rarely stay in the same place once they’ve been exposed or for those at the tail end of their careers where their reputation is lost and is no longer of importance to them. To them it just no longer matters like before. They’re now free to openly live the kind of lifestyle they’d previously kept well hidden from view for years.

Once you are safely away from the abuse, that is when you truly will begin to live your best life. Get away quickly if you suspect any of these issues in your life and if they refuse to discuss it with you or refuse to get any help. Go no contact. They can and most certainly will take you right down with them if you don’t.

Enjoy the film and it’s sequels, and be grateful when you’re safe. Safe and free to now sit in the audience to watch the show and no longer have a roll in the film. Oh…and of course, most importantly, don’t forget the popcorn. 💜🦋

* https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/cluster-b