Posted by:
reinventinggrace
(
)
Date: July 05, 2011 05:19PM
AnonforThis --
You wrote
"Then there is this - With one certain individual, this person believes that any voicing of opinion is an attack against them. If you voice your opinion, make a suggestion, ask a question they don't like, **say** anything they don't like - you are attacking them; you are the horrible abusve person. It doesn't matter what it's about. Another individual baits me into fights, and I realize they are doing this now, and I walk away. Sometimes, I'm not able to physically though. This person also says that anything that comes out if my mouth is 'contrary'."
and
"I have tried so hard to change."
************
This sounds to me like you're "walking on eggshells." You have people in your like that are temperamental and faultfinding, and insist that everything be done their way. Sometimes warm and fuzzy, but usually a terror. They're manipulating you in ways that are so subtle and complex that you can barely even untangle yourself mentally, let alone be yourself and live your own life.
I was in this situation for 18 months in a relationship. It was terrible, unlike anything I've ever experienced before or since. My situation had nothing to do with Mormonism, it sounds like your situation may, if you have a controlling spouse that insists that everything be done his/her way, etc. Threatens in all sort of subtle ways, usually by throwing occasional tantrums and always being on the edge of one, sucking you dry emotionally for support, threatening to hurt themselves if you ever leave them, etc.
People that make you "walk on eggshells" often have a diagnosable condition called "Borderline Personality Disorder."
The good news is that there are methods by which you can untangle yourself from their talons. Even if they're your mother, husband, child, etc. It takes time, but I did it. I wish I'd have done it sooner.
I recommend the book "How to Stop Walking on Eggshells" 1998. You can buy it used online through half.com for $1 + shipping. Or you can browse it secretly at the library or bookstore. It was key to helping me recognize the situation I was in, and survive in it more comfortably, and decompress after I got out.
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Also, it sounds like your manipulating people may be using the Mormon church and "God" to justify their actions and criticisms. Whatever their intentions, you can easily isolate things at your end by simply asking yourself whether any self-respecting deity would stand behind the crap that is being thrown your way. Like "With one certain individual, this person believes that any voicing of opinion is an attack against them."
The answer is, obviously, "no."
Not that it's going to do any good to tell them that, but it is important for you to keep this in mind when trying to keep your mind sorted out.
If this is helpful to you, feel free to ask more questions and I may be able to answer more. I've done my best to forget about that chapter of my life...
RG
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Here's a couple passages from the 'net
Book review --
"Stop Walking on Eggshells: Coping When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder is a self-help guide that helps the family members and friends of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) understand this self-destructive disorder and learn what they can do to cope with it and take care of themselves. It is designed to help them understand how the disorder affects their loved ones and recognize what they can do to get off the emotional roller coasters and take care of themselves."
http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-
Personality/dp/157224108X
"In particular she chose to treat people with a diagnosis that she would have given her young self: borderline personality disorder, a poorly understood condition characterized by neediness, outbursts and self-destructive urges, often leading to cutting or burning. In therapy, borderline patients can be terrors--manipulative, hostile, sometimes ominously mute, and notorious for storming out threatening suicide."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201106/the-great-divide-who-has-borderline-
disorder-suicidal-cutters-per
Large parts of the book are available at google books. Try this line, or find it through a google search.
http://books.google.com/books?id=_8rw4jSWQNEC&pg=PA159&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#
v=onepage&q&f=false
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2011 05:28PM by reinventinggrace.