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Can't Stop Desiring You-know-who

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Dana1010

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There's this loop I have playing in my head like a broken video tape, a constant memory. It's a person who traumatized me several years ago. There's a sense that he's watching me all the time. I think it was not so much the severity of the trauma, but the way it keyed into larger, ancient traumas like it had been tailor made for the purpose--almost eerie. I alternate between fantasies of redemption and revenge (up to murder), but the awful thing, the thing I am struggling to admit to myself, is the underlying, deep, abiding desire I still feel for him after all this time.

I'm not generally into people who treat me bad. In earlier years, I did gravitate towards people on the sociopath/narcissist spectrum, because my father was a sociopath, and I suspect that I was caught in some renegotiation pattern. But I never liked it. If it makes any difference, the person in the memory loop was, in my good faith estimate, a sociopath.

I want to rid myself of this memory, but I don't know how. I feel extreme rage and indignation towards him, and feel that he's my worst enemy in the world at times, like I could literally kill him with no compunction. You would think I would be ready and willing to move on from someone I despise that much. But somehow I can't. The desire remains. No other suitor measures up to him. He makes everyone else seem boring. He was vastly out of my league and represents everything I want but can't have. I'm obsessed with him, and though I'm ashamed of it, and it disturbs me, and I'd die of embarrassment if he ever found out, I want him. I can't stop wanting him. In my head I see us together and then am overtaken by disgust at myself. I feel like a piece of garbage. Why do I desire someone I simultaneously want dead?
 
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I should point out for clarity that this was not a sexual assault. It appears this post has fallen flat. Feel free to leave feedback even if not all positive.
 
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I'd maybe start with working on the depth of those feelings if I were you.
I mean, if he's not in your life and you don't need him for an access to anybody else that you need in your life, and you're having the liberty of choosing when will he be in your life? The rest is well up to you. So your feelings are yours, your reactions are yours, and something you can tackle.

Maybe you could start at working at seeing him like just another guy. Point out why he's nothing special, nothing you need, nothing beneficial. Start focusing on other people beside him. Start focusing on where else you can get which experiences (sans the abuse) that you're actually after.
 
The opposite of love isn't hate... It's indifference.
So too, the opposite of hate... Is indifference.

Like @Kaia... It's the depth of those feelings. Long as they're there? Tie that binds you to him.

And it's a damn good idea to start looking at the boring. I make a point to think of my ex as just another low life prick. Not even a particularly inventive one. Mediocre coward. As long as someone is rose-colored-glasses amaaaaazing the best! (wuv), or seeing-red (hatred) disgust/the worst? They're going to sparkle like mica on the sand in the sea of other people.

To my mind, this is part of the whole forgiveness-Schtick. On why its good for people. I don't advocate forgiveness, but I do advocate anything which takes them off their throne in your thoughts. Whether it's fear, rage, or hatred keeping them there.

______

If I'm remembering right,.. There were a whole slew of posts on Monday practically spinning the homepage like a Rolodex. Glad this one got bumped. Think it's an important issue.
 
Second thoughts, Dana - also consider not only he wasn't special, but all the great traits you're seeing in him you're seeing because you found something awesome where there was nothing to give. Aka speaking about you, and not him at all. Speaking about your strength, not his. It may lead to finding many switches in perspective, because you're giving him credit for something you should give yourself, instead... which can be mind blowing on its own.
 
If I'm remembering right,.. There were a whole slew of posts on Monday practically spinning the homepage like a Rolodex. Glad this one got bumped. Think it's an important issue.
I know, right? I get zero responses to my issue on a PTSD forum? Is my life that fu*ked up? I know a lot of people here survived trauma at the hands of ex-SOs, so I thought some of them would relate.

And it's a damn good idea to start looking at the boring.
I'm sure it would help, but the problem is, he really wasn't boring--that would be the last word to describe him. He was fascinating. Bob Hare's deadly triad--good looks, high intelligence, and sociopathy. No, I don't want to start another thread about sociopaths--I'm just trying to convey how far a reach it would be for me to try to convince myself that he was boring. I know he was evil, but for some reason telling myself that does nothing quell the infatuation. He was more interesting than anyone I've ever met. I don't know, maybe I haven't met enough people.

because you're giving him credit for something you should give yourself, instead
This is interesting. I never thought of it that way. Reminds me of a quote from Goethe: "What business is it of yours if I love you?" Maybe give myself credit for having the sensibilities to see that he was the bomb :playful: (but also evil, so it's complicated)? Yeah, I think pretty much anyone could see that, though.
 
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He was more interesting than anyone I've ever met. I don't know, maybe I haven't met enough people.
You answered yourself though. Search criteria, considering what's 'interesting' in a person differently, a need to hang out with people who aren't hurtful bastards are all a possible course of action.

Reminds me of a quote from Goethe: "What business is it of yours if I love you?" Maybe give myself credit for having the sensibilities to see that he was the bomb :playful: (but also evil, so it's complicated)? Yeah, I think pretty much anyone could see that, though.
Look, you're spending time on that prick when you could be reading Goethe? He for reals worth that much? I dunno, maybe I have different priorities.
 
I'm sure it would help, but the problem is, he really wasn't boring--that would be the last word to describe him. He was fascinating. Bob Hare's deadly triad--good looks, high intelligence, and sociopathy. No, I don't want to start another thread about sociopaths--I'm just trying to convey how far a reach it would be for me to try to convince myself that he was boring. I know he was evil, but for some reason telling myself that does nothing quell the infatuation. He was more interesting than anyone I've ever met. I don't know, maybe I haven't met enough people.

Lol... That's exactly my point.

Thing is though... It's not actually a persons attributes or skills that make them special. It's the way we feel about them (and their attributes) that make them special.

Say you know one musical genius. True genius, the kind that other musicians will move heaven and earth to play with. There's going to be a whole lot of "special" about them. Especially if they're your gateway into the music back-scene, so you get to see & experience things you never have before. All kinds of sparkle. And they're your friend, so all that sparkle attaches to them, as well. But once you've been in that world awhile? When they're in a sea of musical geniuses... The genius itself becomes unremarkable. It's the very bottom level entry requirement to get through the doors. Everyone has it. So what distinguishes one genius from the next? A whole lot of things. But instead of being a big fish in a small pond, they're now a small fish in a big pond. The only thing that makes them special is how you feel about them.

That's how you make people "boring". If you take every good AND bad attribute? You can find whole ponds of people who have the exact same attribute.

You don't even have to actually meet these people... Because you can pull from history & public lives.

Ex) Dude's evil. Okay. Check. Has he impaled 100,000 infants in front of their parents? Cromwell did. As a way to pacify/soften up the Irish when he invaded. Did he attach razor blades to canes and flick-slice people to literal deaths by 1,000 cuts? Not only did the Aztecs, but some serial killers & torturers have emulated that technique. Has he placed car tires around a person, emptied gasoline into their wells and set them on fire? Several gangs and a few cartels do. Does he rape children in front of their mother in order to keep her in line? Some of the so-called fathers of members of this site have.

Start making up lists of evil acts. Dude probably falls somewhere in the middle of that list. Which makes him mediocre-evil at best. Evil? Sure. Not doubting it. Lotta evil pricks in the world. But guaranteed, there's worse out there. People who were more motivated, more powerful, more inventive, more driven, more followers, more crazy, more sane, had broader scope, etc. As well as people lazier, less imaginative, less driven, etc.

Place him in a lineup of his peers, and guaranteed, he'll cease to be so remarkable. All of his sparkle is what you yourself attach to him. You can catch yourself doing it, too. Anywhere you want to defend him is where you can catch yourself adding sparkle. You nix the sparkle with rational thought. (Oh but no one... Yes, actually hundreds if not thousands... Oh but they were ABC, he could have would have if he were ABC... People who aren't born ABC, and have those same skills usually manage to XYZ instead; as hese hundreds and possibly thousands have... Etc.).

People we love and people we fear get the same kind of sparkle attached. Kill the sparkle, and they just become a man. Usually a quite unextraordianry one, at that.
 
That's how you make people "boring". If you take every good AND bad attribute? You can find whole ponds of people who have the exact same attribute.

You don't even have to actually meet these people... Because you can pull from history & public lives.
I like this idea. I guess my quibble is that secondhand accounts of evil acts perpetrated on others will never, to me, approach the one visited on me in my life. Millions of people starving in China will never mean as much to me as my own toothache--shi*ty, but normal.

Would that I could make him boring though normalizing and familiarizing myself with his world, but I don't have access to his world and never will. And vicarious access through history and public lives would probably only whet my appetite and leave me bitter and dissatisfied with my own life.
 
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Would that I could make him boring though normalizing and familiarizing myself with his world
I'd work on this, looks a lenses problem to me than a separate worlds problem to me. Daily violence? Daily violence everywhere you are? Utterly boring (and annoying, and a couple of other things depending what you need to be doing with it. We'll stick with boring because it's topical.) You seem to have an issue with exotifying it so much, but there really is nothing 'awesome' and nothing oomph in it.
 
Idk your story and what you feel is the attachment towards him, but I do find that when I look closely enough at these people, push my need for attachment aside, that they are all 'dressed up'. They find a way to do that with the people around them and the energy of those that follow the narc becomes more the thing than the narc himself. It is part of the game. I know you don't want to post about narcs again, nor do I usually, but I do find it comes down to them being a narc. They are masters at smoke and mirrors.
 
Hey, @shimmerz. I know that has a lot to do with it, and it does figure significantly into this issue. I just didn't want to hijack my own thread at the very beginning. You are welcome to post about that aspect of the issue if you think it's relevant--I certainly do.

I think sometimes his psychopathy is actually what impresses me despite myself. His ability to look through me and spot my weaknesses as though they were written on my forehead; his distance from humanity and humanness gave him a superior aura that's hard to define. I sort of envy his invincibility to pain, passion, fear, attachment, shame, self consciousness. I know that that's a world I'll never know as a human, and it just feels like we live in a relative prison of emotions while they fly free above it all.
 
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