softhearted
Posts: 21
Joined: 4/3/2008
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quote:
ORIGINAL: marieToo
I've experienced relationships in which red flags were there, but I saw them as something other than warning signs, I explained them away, or my mind distorted them into whatever I needed to see them as. Then after it was over, and not even immediately after, but some time after it was over, it was like a fog lifted and I saw things as they actually were. Looking back, I can't believe I didn't see certain things the way I should have. I'm not sure what it is that makes me temporarily blinded like that, except maybe being emotionally involved or maybe wanting something to be a particular way so badly that I convince myself that it's good when it really isn't.
I can analogize this with an optical illusion. It's like when you're staring at something so closely that your eyes and brain begin to contort something to look like something other than what it is. But once you step far enough away from it, blink your eyes and look again, it all comes into focus with complete clarity.
This is so much like what happened to me, except that the man himself was an optical illusion, not just the relationship. Just about everything he told me was a lie, but most were plausible lies, and it was my first D/s relationship. (I mention this last only because he was very experienced and I had no benchmarks for what being a slave was about.) And then, yes, it became easy to distort things, or to allow his "you are being a bad slave when you do X" to convince me not to do X. "Who is serving who?" he asked, and I crawled back into my "I'm being a bad slave" box. And, yes, he chose me because I was vulnerable emotionally and used that vulnerability cleverly and cruelly. His actions helped to trigger a major depression, which made it extremely difficult for me to think clearly or see what I should have seen.
It didn't take long for the optical illusion to become visible once it was shattered because of the shocking way things ended. I had lent him a laptop (not to mention way too much money) and, when it started to become clear (much much later than it should have) that he would not ever find enough time for me (he claimed to be working virtually around the clock, yet didn't pay me back a cent), I asked for my things back. He asked me for more time, while twisting my emotions by accusing me of enjoying humiliating him, and then vanished. I wrote to every email address I knew and silence. A month later I heard from another slave of his who told me that he had had back surgery. And then another month of silence. I was frantic with worry about him and finally thought to contact the woman he hosted his website. Rather than being the casual friend that he had said she was, it turned out that she had been seeing him for much of the same time that I had (as well as earlier periods of time) and described him as a "master of deception". Once I got the letter from her telling me the truth about him (no back surgery, having moved in with another woman I knew nothing about, barely working), I could see that everything from his first letter to his last were lies. (And the purported slave letters came from him, of course.)
I am not saying that I am purely an innocent victim. There were, as you say, clues that things were not as he said. I was far too afraid of abandonment. I had idealised him to the extent that I became unable to see him for who he really was. But predators — and there's no doubt that he is one — are remarkably good at manipulating people and twisting things around and breaking a woman down. He's done it to a number of women over the years, almost all of which were very intelligent, and he will undoubtedly do it again and again, because that is what he does and what he is.
A year later I am still grappling with why I "fell in love" with an illusion and allowed him to abuse me for far too long. There were many times that I should have walked away and didn't. I willingly, perhaps eagerly, suspended my disbelief because he seemed to be exactly who I was looking for: an intelligent, creative man in control of his life, highly experienced in BDSM. He played me masterfully, to be sure, as he's played so many others, but I wasn't a prisoner and in theory could have walked away and didn't. Being emotionally vulnerable does not give one an excuse to park one's brain at the door, but it also doesn't give an abuser the right to take advantage of it.
It's scary to know he's on the prowl again (he has two profiles here). It's scary to know he lives a couple of miles from me, although he's not allowed to have any contact with me. I feel compassion for his future victims and wish I could warn them. And every month I will be reminded of him, because the court has placed him on pre-trial probation that requires him to pay me back some of what he owes me each month, so it will be a long time until I am entirely free.
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RE: Crossing the Line of Harm - 
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