From the inside it can be hard to see the bigger picture. When a person has mental issues and wild imaginings then it is hard for that person to understand that what they think is true, isn’t true.
It takes time I know, because I remember what it felt like when I was struggling, depressed, panicky and frightened of the world.
When I was in the hands of people who were manipulating me I couldn’t see it, or chose not to see it. In some ways we may choose to be blind because it suits our ‘wanting to be right’ and also ‘wanting to believe in the person who us abusing us’, or we want a dream to come true, so we ignore the hints and the truth before us.
The shame of knowing that we have been fooled for many years makes us want to accept lies even though it is obvious that they cannot be true, then we don’t have to face the truth, at least not out loud.
I remember as a young man being deeply in love with this young woman and people over the years would drop hints that she was unfaithful. She was my hope and dreams. One female friend from my younger days even told me that while I was working nights that my girlfriend was going to the cinema with another man and holding hands with him in public – but I refused to believe this. My friend looked frustrated with me as I made excuses about her obvious “mistake”. Then I wondered if she had something against my girlfriend and that she wanted to get even by splitting us up etc.
I was turning my manipulating girlfriend into the good person that she wasn’t. And I was mentally turning my innocent friend (who was trying to save me from being used by my girlfriend), who I have known and trusted for many years into a liar. I just didn’t want to face the truth.
Living a lie was my fairytale. My fairytale was inside my comfort zone so I cuddled it, held to it as if it was the real truth and I refused to entertain any negative talk or evidence against my girlfriend and her character.
Finally one of my girlfriend’s good friends told me the truth and it all fell together in my head. This friend said that she felt very sorry for me because I was a nice guy and she hated seeing me so easily “taken in”. I was totally devastated and very miserable that I had been fooled so easily and that I had lost my childhood dream.
I asked my friends why they didn’t tell me about my girlfriend and they said it wouldn’t have made a difference because I never would have believed them. And they were right, I wouldn’t have believed them. I was living a lie, and that was why I was so easy to be used and abuse by her, and that is also why I was never happy. I would have turned against my friends before I would have turned against the woman I loved.
I found out that when I went to work on afternoon shifts that my girlfriend was taking a taxi to the local drinking establishments and just before I got home from work she would race home and hop into bed pretending that she had been there all evening.
I was an easy victim, but the main reason I was an easy victim is because I wanted to believe.
I wanted to believe in her.
I wanted to believe that I was the only one for her and that she loved me so.
I wanted to believe that I was her whole life, her hope and dreams and her future – I was very wrong. In the end I don’t know what I was to her, what I did know what that she was never going to be happy or satisfied with just me.
In my simple-thinking-innocence I was living my childhood dream of a happy future. I wanted to believe in life, that it was worth living, that for me that I could be happy.
Once I knew what was really going on, and how dishonest that she had been, I had to face the facts and end the relationship. I also felt a total fool because I was easily tricked, used, abused and publicly made a fool of.
If you are getting lots of hints believe me God is trying to let you know that things are not right. Look out of the protective square that you may have created for yourself, the one with all the daydreams and fantasies that you may use to keep your fairytale alive.
If nothing is wrong then no one has anything to worry about. But please do be wise, for your own sake and then think very carefully about this.
All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
November 26, 2013.