Betrayed

When we meet people in any sort of "care" profession we trust them, we put our faith in them and we make ourselves vulnerable as they soon know so much about our personal lives and issues. Sometimes we meet a support worker that we are somehow involved with and feel an immediate connection and a mutual like that develops into friendship. Also often when your family is suffering and there are many services involved, you begin to feel the desire to help others in similar situations who may be feeling alone and misunderstood. This is what happened to me.

With all the support my family was being offered, my son was not improving and my daughter rejected all help. I felt useless, helpless and hopeless. I offered myself to the volunteering mentoring program. I did the training and gave it a shot. It was not successful so I moved to the young people's services and began volunteering and that has seemed to go quite well. As a result I have made that cross over of having certain support workers (some who worked with me or my son) as friends or social media friends or on friendly terms with. All of these, except one, have been very pleasant associations.

The one that did not was made more complicated when the friendship became physical and more than just a friendship. I have written about this particular relationship and the pain and disappoint it has resulted in on more than one occasion. These posts, the first one in particular deals with this.

http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/drugs-brought-us-together.html

http://livingwithmydrugabusingteenager.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/it-is-killing-me-to-love-you.html

However, after many months of trying my best to forget the heartache this relationship caused to not just me but my children (well mainly my son), it has resurfaced and I just need to work through this by writing about it.

When someone is an addict they can treat the ones they love very badly. Addicts can and do lie and cheat for their own personal gain. Usually this is for money for drugs, lessening their own guilt and also the fact that when they are on drugs or coming down they can become aggressive and hostile, treating those around them very badly. There are those who can just be downright unhealthy and destructive and toxic. Sometimes the behaviour is not a result of the addiction, but the addiction is a result of these behaviours! Unfortunately, once they are an addict, some use that as an excuse to apologise all their behaviours on their addiction, when in fact the unscrupulous behaviours started before and perhaps the drug use was to mask their own inner conflicts of their behaviours.

The man I was involved with was a senior drug worker, mentor, rehab manager. He has a past of drug addiction but then started using years after our friendship began (at least as far as I know). We were friends, chatting and drinking tea. This friend came around on weekends to do odd jobs for me and chatted with my daughters and got on very well with them. This friend would also come by during the week to chat, sometimes meet with my son here or outside. He seemed to genuinely care about us all. Everyone who knew him professionally had respect for him, liked him and thought he was very good at his job.

It took two years for it to turn into more than friendship and things were ok at first when we wanted to keep things as friends with benefits but then I fell in love with him (actually I believe I was in love with him prior to us starting a physical relationship). Actually it started with what seemed more of a relationship than friends with benefits since he came over for a family dinner, played the Wii with my daughters and spent the night when we "consummated" our relationship, so it was not hidden from my daughters.

Fast forward now. Lies and more lies. Being let down and stood up repeatedly. Contact became erratic and on his terms. He was separated, he went back to his wife, he got her pregnant, he left her, he promised more of a regular relationship with me and then less and less contact until there was eventually no more relationship, no more contact.

Fast forward some more. After months of no contact he reemerges and comes to spend New Year's with me and my children. He spends a few days with us. He spends time with my son on New Year's Day in a good and friendly assuring manner. That first day he spent with my son was actually in my home and it was wonderful. Eating, playing games with my youngest daughter, the two of them playing guitar etc. Later I found out that he asked my son for his blessing and he promised my son he would not hurt me. Than  it turned vulgar, spending the entire day day with him asking to get hooked up with drugs and doing drugs all day in the B&B my son was staying in. Much later my son told me this man told him all sorts of sexual stories and even confessed to sharing dirty needles with HIV positive drug user. This of course raised fear in my son that I could possibly have been infected. Also telling him other upsetting stories which were highly inappropriate. Oh, but wait, they were doing drugs, that in itself is highly inappropriate!

On New Year's Day, he got down on his knee in front of my youngest daughter and asked if I would marry him. She was so happy and giddy because since his arrival he repeated said "I love you. I love you so much" in front of my her and in front of my other children as well. He talked about going away on holiday, this too in front of my daughter. She too envisioned a happy life for us all, but more importantly thought she could finally watch her mother be happy in love!

Was he high? No not really, but I did start to think he was on something. Later my son said they did "score" when they went to the shops earlier, but that he spoke about his love for me before they took anything. Also my son said that he did not take enough of the "right" kind of drugs to make him act like that because of the drugs, so even my son, a seasoned drug user, believed this man! Was he off his face and acting silly saying all sorts as people do when they are drunk for example? No. Was this behaviour self seeking in order to gain money or drugs or goods or food or accommodation? No. Was he off his face or having a bad reaction or a bad come down causing him to deliberately say painful things? No. Did he know of our insecurities and vulnerabilities and loneliness? Definitely! Did he know that he was the only man I opened up to and had a relationship with in the past 9 years? Yes he did. Did he know how much we all wanted to be loved and have someone who cared in our lives! Absolutely!

Moving on! While he was here I showed him how amusing it was that he has an alter ego account on Facebook in a pseudonym with two random friends that has not been used for years and it has popped up as someone I might know. He quickly grabbed my phone and sent himself a friend request!!!! I thought nothing would become of it.

A few days later he left early in the morning promising to be back in a few hours. I even gave him my daughter's keys and rather than saying he is ok without them and will just wait for me if I am not home, he took the keys making it even more believable that he would indeed be back. He never came. He never came back!

I won't go in to all the details of that,as it is all in my old post. Now let's fast forward again! On Aug 21st his falsely named Facebook name accepted my friend request. Also a week prior to this I got a suspicious email from the same 18 year old young woman who was harassing me during my friends disappearance earlier this year. The weird thing is that the e-mail from her was attached to a thread of e-mails from a former boyfriend of mine who visited me during the time I was in an on again off again relationship with this man and he was very jealous. Also suspiciously the email had a vpn redirect on it so it said it was sent from a few different worldwide locations. This "friend" had spoken to my son about how he uses a program that redirects his vpn so he can't be tracked. This email also had a suspicious attachment on it so I was suspicious about what it may contain, who sent it and why?

I was not in control of accepting this Facebook request, as I did not send it and was upset that this man or indeed someone else was looking at my person post, so I fixed my security that my posts would not be seen by this individual. He still only had the same two random friends and now me. He then started posting selfies of his torso, showing off that he has lost weight and become quite muscular.  I thought why do that when there is virtually no on on this Facebook to see the photos. As a few days past he bbegan adding some of his old friends and old co workers. More selfies aslo were posted, yet no contact was made with me. No message. No apology. No explanation. Why? Why do this to me? Why taunt me? Why add me to your facebook which I had no role in, only to ignore me and show me how well life is? Not because he is an addict, even if he publicly said he is an addict who is now clean but did lots of unforgivable things in the past for which he is sorry for. Why didn't I just unfriend him? I was morbidly curious and wanted him to contact me with answers because I thought I deserved that much.

Then after portraying his happy new life and still no message, I get a friend request from the 18 year old who swore she was involved with him while he went missing. I ignored it. I got a second request a week later from her. I declined it and blocked her. Morbid curiosity caused me to unblock her and I saw her post referring to me as an "ugly, old, slutty hag". I also saw that the two of them were together during the year and she posting an intimate picture of the two of them in July. I was hurt of course. Then I see a few days later that they are now friends on Facebook as well though he sore to me and his aunt in January that we can not believe a word she says, she is trouble and should be blocked! Well I notice his that part of his bio on Facebook says he is "prince of demons...." while hers just says "queen of cunts". It says it all and I hope the 44 year old man will be very happy with his 18 year old lover. I feel that they have more than likely discussed me and laughed at me and made me into a pathetic old joke. I feel humiliated, rejected, hurt, used, lied to about EVERYTHING! Not only that but because I accepted this man into my life and home he did betrayed and hurt children, especially my son, who was very angry and just wanted to punch this man if he ever say him again. My son has always felt let than and betrayed and ridiculed by people especially the males in his life, well just when he thought someone cared, he was kicked in the face again!

Has this man used me and deeply insulted me because he is an addict? Did he stay away from me for 9 months yet resume contact with a "girl"who was friends with his daughter because of his addiction. Did he promise to always love me and be my friend and help me because he took drugs? Did he promise my son that he would help him get a flat and asked for his blessing etc because he was an addict? My answer to these questions would be no, absolutely not.

Does he have people fooled and cheering him for his success in pulling his life around yet again and publicly admitting to be an addict who is now on the road to recovery and he apologises to all he has hurt? Yes absolutely.

Am I and my children better off without him in our lives? Of course. However, do I still feel I should have been treated with some dignity and respect? Yes. Do I still want him to apologise and explain? Yes, but I know that will never happen and that is why he is blocked from my Facebook. Do I in the corners of my messed up mind and broken heart want him to tell me he did not lie and he did really love me and always will. Yes, yes I am ashamed to admit it but I do. I loved this bastard like no other man before and he used me for whatever self gain it was, but he exploited my good nature and did not consider my feelings or my children's despite knowing all of our personal histories. Is it sick that I still want him to reach out to me and to reject the 18, even though I tell myself I would never have him back in my life on any level? Yes it is sick, but it is part of the sickness within me from my emotional scars of which I spike of in my last post "SCARS".

I will never forget this "friend". I do not know if I will ever trust another again. I will still wonder about him and I still wished he loved me in a healthy way. He is scarred as well and dysfunctional too and uses all the wrong crutches to survive (drugs and sex and emotional manipulation). Is this because of his addiction, again I think not, I think the addiction came because of his emotional damage and now it is a convenient scapegoat.

Well I hope this new scar of mine will start to mend now that I have well and truly exposed it to the light!

Scars

Well it has been a very long time since I wrote on my blog, especially since I was writing at regular intervals before. There is so much going on that I will write a few entries with specific issues, in hope of updating my readers as to what has been happening over the last several months. This one will be more about my introspection over the last few months.

I have been spending more time than usual trying to figure out why life has been the way it has been for me and my children. This has led me to try to understand my own life and why things have happened the way they have long before I married my ex husband, long before my children, and long before my son's addictions. I am wondering what is it about my behaviour, my patterns, my background that may have taught me dysfunctional traits that have led to make decisions that have created more and more dysfunction.

I have come to the conclusion that two major elements of my life have led me to be where I am today. Firstly the relationship with my mother and her premature death. Secondly, the traumatic onset of my bowel disease (ulcerative colitis) at a very young age (7).

I had a very close relationship with my mother. She was a stay at home mom until I was around the age of 6 or 7 and again from the age of about 10 or 11. I loved her and looked to her for comfort and assistance. She was my everything, she loved me unconditionally, she was a wonderful role model, she was self sacrificing, she was nurturing and hard working in everything she did. She was gentle and loving yet also a fierce lioness who would always step forward to protect or defend my sister and I. My illness must have caused her great worry and it was when I became ill and spent a lot of time at home and hospital rather than school which was the beginning of my somewhat less than ordinary social development.

I can not recall how many years I was at home, but during that time I did not go outside and play with the neighbourhood children, or if I did I have no memory of doing so. I know I missed a lot of school so the "normal" development children gain from the social and societal structure that school gives and teaches us was absent in my life. We had no real close family friends, no family what so ever in the same country let alone near by. For this reason my mother became even more important to me.

                                                    My mother and I before I became ill.

As the years went on I eventually began trying to do more things and though I missed much of my school years, my mother encouraged me to continue  education and sign up to community college. She was supportive and encouraging. I started taking one or two classes in the evening and eventually worked up to attending full time during the day. In the beginning it was very hard for me, though I was intelligent enough and eager to learn, I lacked the past experience the teacher expected of the students. I was ready to quite early on, however, my mother sat with me and we did the work together until I became more comfortable and confident with the work! When the first year was a success, and I started my second year, my mother encouraged me to apply to University and I was amazed I was accepted to all I applied for. My mother was so proud, I know she was. She wanted a bright and successful future me, even more so given the circumstances of my childhood.

Basically my mother was always there for me, always helped and advised and cared for me. I did not have the typical childhood in which I built up social circles and learned coping skills based on normal social development as other kids do through going to school and being part of a group. I did not live in a family in which there was lots of activity. There was no extended family, my parents only had one couple who they were good friends with and they were older and therefore their children were very much older than my sister and I. So while I spent a lot of my childhood at home, the home was quiet and I depended on my mother for all my learning and needs.

My mother and father did not have a healthy relationship and my father (as most men in those days) saw his main role as provider who went to work and earned money to fulfil his needs as husband and father. My mother and father fought often and seemed to have a love hate relationship, very much having their ups and downs. They eventually divorced when I was about 12 or 13.

They say women look for someone like their fathers to marry, I think I have always searched for someone to take care of me, love me  and support me as much as my mother did. I was just getting my feet on the ground, second year of studying at UCLA, loving it and doing well. Learning how to talk to people and socialise. Feeling better about myself, my life and the future. Then out of no where my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given 3 months to live. My world crashed. My life changed. I cared for my mother at home. I took her to her doctor appointments, to radiation and chemotherapy. I cooked and shopped and cleaned and tried my best to maintain my academic studies. My mother and father were no longer together and my sister no longer lived at home. I watched my mother deteriorate and suffer and eventually saw her take her last breath after hearing that haunting sound of the "death gurgle".

I never found anyone who was even near to filling my mother's shoes because I must somehow project the wrong energy since the men I have attracted or been attracted to have been anything but a caring, loving, supporting giving man!

This is one factor of my life, my past, my personality created by my childhood that has contributed to my life's choices and my behaviours which have resulted in difficult situations and upset. The other one was a byproduct of my illness that affected nearly my entire childhood. As I mentioned, this illness resulted in years of near isolation. That plus the pain and discomfort and doctors and embarrassing procedures, all contributed to a very sad childhood.

Just before starting middle school my family moved and I had missed a lot of primary school due to being ill. I had a year of home schooling in our new home. I was also put on a high dosage of steroids which created a child who had the look someone with Cushing's syndrome. When I started middle school I was still slightly overweight, with bushy eyebrows and I wore my hair in two plaits. I wore unfashionable clothes and was painfully shy. I became the middle school's perfect candidate for bullying or as it was called then "being picked on". I was called names and laughed at in class, I was the one no one wanted on their P.E.teams or any activity that we were put into groups or teams. I was laughed at and rejected during lunch and recess. I was humiliated on the school bus. I walked alone from the bus stop to my home with a group of children (mostly boys) walking behind me calling me names and laughing all the way home. I have blocked out most of the names I was called and only one phrase has stuck in my mind all these years, "whale on the beach, whale on the beach".

                                                        Me at around the age of 10.

Naturally this lessened over the years and my appearance improved, a lot,inside I felt like the whale on the beach for many years to come.

As a result this made it very difficult to "put myself out there" as an adult when it came to socialising, first because of shyness, insecurity, now because of age, depression and my parental responsibilities, I  now realise that I have had a need to be accepted and liked and "popular". I have been somewhat vain and often insecure. I want to be wanted as a result of my illness and my childhood.

The years of exclusion and then the bullying when I re entered the world during my most informative years, created such insecurity and self doubt within me. This was because of my illness and then the horrible way I looked thanks to the only treatment at the time, long term steroid (prednisone) treatment. I felt fat and ugly for a very long time and whenever life was stressful I immediately started to attack myself and felt fat and ugly and useless. I have been looking for validation all these years and that is maybe why I stay in unhealthy relationships because I want validation regardless of the health of the relationship. Perhaps this need of validation and approval and being liked is why I wanted to be liked by my children's friends rather than being the parent who treats their children with more authority. I am deep down inside afraid to upset my children, I want them to like me as well, maybe that is why I lack some of the strictness that maybe a parent should have. I want to be seen as the popular mom and the cool mom in my children's social circles. That is absurd when you consider that all stems out of childhood experiences of being rejected and unliked.

This fear of being rejected and ridiculed and not being accepted, along with the void my mother's absence has created within me, has made me into someone who is a people pleaser, someone who avoids confrontation, always seeking approval from most people who come into my life. Maybe this affected my parenting and I should have confronted the terrible home life much sooner than I did. Maybe I could have avoided some of the damage my ex husband did to our son's emotional well being. Maybe I should have been more confrontational and cared less about being "liked". Maybe because of these issues within me it has somehow made me insufficient with dealing with all the hurdles and obstacles and in so doing I have created more and more issues until our life is as we now know it, chaotic, dysfunctional and unhappy.

This is me!

The expression that something can "scar you for life" seems to be true. My scars seem to have affected me and my choices and my emotional health which in turn has affected my children's lives. No one can ever take the place of my mother, but I should not be looking for anyone to fill a void even if she was the soul provider of all my needs. I suppose in meeting all my needs and my social isolation I did not learn how to be self sufficient and build a life worth living due to all my avoidance behaviours. No one can erase the years of bullying and feelings of low self worth, but I should not have spent too many years looking for acceptance. Now I find myself living in a society which is becoming more and more obsessed on how many people follow us, how many "friends" we have or likes we get, I feel that it feeds on my insecurities and though I am no longer an adolescent or in my 20's I seem to succumb to that horrible competition when it comes to my online life, and I HATE that about myself.

The real question is, if I am indeed scarred for life, how do I make those scars less permanent? If indeed these aspects of my psychological make up have helped create this hugely messed up life, how do I move on from understanding it to changing it? How did these things contribute to my son's feelings and seeking solace in drugs? My daughter's anxieties and fears and almost emotionless existence? How will affect my youngest in the nest few years?

On that note my next post will be how these issues allowed me to fall in love with a compulsive liar, womanising addict which in turn caused not just me but my son and youngest daughter great betrayal and broken hearts.

Once I have addressed these more introspective issues I will tell then update you all on my son's roller coaster ride of a life.