Playing Dirty - A Story of Post-Separation Abuse
Image by Cristian Palmer
A CASE STUDY (LONG READ)
DISCLAIMER: Narcissists are not all male. Using male pronouns to reference the narcissist and female pronouns to reference the victim-survivor is not an indication of the clinical data on gender in narcissism, but rather an editorial choice. This blog is written for female survivors of male perpetrators.
CONTENT WARNING
The narcissistic sociopath’s capacity for playing dirty should never be underestimated. Without a conscience and incapable of feeling remorse, there is barely any unconscionable behaviour that is off limits in a playing field that is hidden from public view, like the Family Court of Australia.
In this story, the narcopath – once a famous musician - was an experienced divorcer. He had a clear lifelong pattern of marrying women who could support him between million-dollar comebacks, then divorcing them and taking half (or more) of their wealth - whilst hiding his comeback fortune from the court[1].
His excuse for having no wealth of his own was - naturally enough - that he had ‘given’ half of his wealth away to all his ex-partners. Like so much of his life story, this was a mirrored view of the truth, distorted and twisted to fit his false persona – a reversed narrative. He had made and spent millions of dollars in his lifetime, but his ex-partners had all ended up with nothing much more than nervous breakdowns.
Coerced into becoming financially dependent on him in the lead up to another multimillion-dollar comeback and suddenly abandoned, his target could not see through the brain fog of grief and trauma to figure out why he had left such an apparently loving and peaceful partnership. She had already sacrificed so much for the sake of the marriage – in the way so many Aussie women still do.
We only have to look at Reality TV to see the cultural expectation that a woman will give up her career, her country, her independence for the sake of love.
Victim-survivors often do not recognise or understand the abuse until the aftermath. This is because they have been lied to, manipulated, coercively controlled under the banner of ‘love’. Their antennae for toxic behaviours have been damaged and they have been conditioned to tolerate abusive, confusing and deceptive behaviours.
The dirty tactics he would use to leave her with nothing drove the trauma deeper. Her mind just didn’t think in sinister ways. She had never been cunning. And she had never cheated in a relationship. She feared he would hide his assets and lie about his reasons for leaving, but she could never have imagined just how low he would go to ensure that he won.
The target insisted to her lawyers that they must be totally ethical in their conduct on her behalf. She naively held to the belief that truth would win over lies - that a court of law would uncover his villainy and meter out justice. Of course, this old furphy was just another bit of Pollyanna conditioning that bears no relationship to how things really are. Of course, lies, deftly used, are more powerful than the truth!
Combine the ability to lie with the ability to feel no emotion when doing so, taking pleasure in manipulating someone else into submission, the drive for power and money, and the vengeful desire to destroy a person, and the recipe for playing dirty is almost complete.
Add a garnish of a fan on the bench in the Family Court, a mountain of current publicity for the comeback and national honours bestowed on each group member, and sprinkle it with the pervasive social assumption of a Sugar Daddy dynamic in age-gap relationships. You have the perfect recipe for post-separation legal abuse. How can the Truth compete with those ingredients?
He took money from their mortgage account, over which he had total control, and gave it to his next target. He hid newly-created bank accounts, which when later revealed, showed half a million dollars made and spent in a year.
He ignored legal letters, offers and court orders - just ignored them until the eleventh hour on the steps of the courthouse. Then the target’s lawyers had no time to assess reams of information he then supplied. Even then, such documents were frequently illegible or missing large sections, so the victim was forced into further legal costs seeking disclosure.
He submitted sworn affidavits filled with egregious lies, including accusations of abuse and law-breaking of every kind by his ex. A wordsmith, his affidavits were written in a flowery style of prose that did not conform to the style required by the court, but which depicted a fictional partnership in which a poor unsuspecting superstar had been seduced and bled dry by a ruthless Gold Digger.
The victim’s actual self-sacrifice, loyalty, financial support and devotion over ten years was eclipsed by lies. Even the fact of her being an honest and ethical person came under question as he insinuated that she had lied in her affidavits (she hadn’t) and on her professional resume (of course she hadn’t!).
The lies were far more interesting and believable than the truth.
In describing her and her behaviour, he was actually describing himself and his behaviour – a lying, cheating, thieving slanderer. Reverse Attribution, or DARVO (Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim & Offender). This is what victim-survivors of narcissistic abusers can expect.
These works of fiction somehow drowned out the reality shown unequivocally in financial statements of a woman who provided 80% of the household income for 80% of the marriage, and shouldered 80% of the domestic and professional responsibility.
The truth, replaced by a lazy, deluded and irresponsible narcissist’s version of events, came to be the predominant narrative from which negotiations for settlement were then made. She was an innocent woman wrongly accused, and her lawyers were powerless to save her from total annihilation.
Image by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona
Meantime, grappling with complicated grief over a mountain of loss, anxiety symptoms that escalated with each passing day, and scrabbling to cope with a fledgling business, and maintaining a house and garden whilst debilitated by chronic pain, her ability to cope with daily life was completely overwhelmed.
She was suffering post-traumatic stress, which escalated with every dirty tactic employed by ‘the other party’. The social implications of divorcing a narcopath (isolation, poverty, not being believed, betrayals by fair-weather family and friends) drove her to the very depths of Hell.
She felt as if she was drowning in evil, and her God had abandoned her along with everyone else. Every bit of depleted energy was spent trying to save herself from drowning in despair. Many days, she gave up trying to save herself, since no amount of fighting the lies and unconscionable behaviour gave her even the slightest advantage.
She began to have panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares and suicidal ideation. She could feel herself drowning, and was powerless to save herself.
A midnight visitation by armed police who had been put on suicide alert by an over-protective friend tipped her into PTSD.
(PTSD is deemed a disorder from a single event when the sufferer has feared for their life or had their life threatened, and happens to @30% of people experiencing the same life-threatening event e.g., hostages)
The memories of childhood grooming and abuse rose to the surface and became intermingled with the present. Back and back and back her memory took her, trawling through the past, ripping scabs off wounds that had been made as early as standing in her cot screaming for love that never came.
Faced with abandonment, rejection, homelessness, poverty, and disablement, she suffered a total nervous breakdown. Complex PTSD.
(Complex PTSD from narcissistic abuse is easily mis-diagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder. However, this phenomenon is not a permanent condition or part of the personality. Whilst the symptoms are the same, the condition currently has no other name. In time, this condition will likely become known as Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome.)
Narcissistic abuse is about what has happened to you. It is not about who you are.
If she was able to leave the safety and security of her bed, coping with this hideous new version of herself was a full-time preoccupation. Never ending fight or flight, an inability to eat or sleep, waves of rage and fear, shaking hands and a pounding heart all day every day. A massive brain fog covering her ability to think straight, express herself or comprehend information. Meeting the vexatious demands of ‘the other party’ to satisfy her lawyers was exhausting.
She suffered the humiliation of having a sibling publicly declare support for her abuser by joining him backstage. The new phenomenon of being ‘left alone’ by friends who ‘didn’t want to get involved’ increased the isolation and aloneness. She found herself surrounded by the enemy, her opponent prepared to fight to the death - a person she loved and trusted, stooping ever lower and lower with his blows.
Her cat died. Her mother died. The tools of her trade were stolen. Her computer suffered a virus resulting in comprehensive data loss. Her life and home came under direct threat from a bushfire. Her siblings continued to criticize and betray her out of willful ignorance of her plight (and a habit of scapegoating her).
She lost the ability to control her emotions in public and had to hide from humanity. She adopted the lifestyle of a monk - disciplined, dedicated to spiritual practice, and searching for ways to inject some love, kindness, gentleness and compassion into this walk through the underworld.
It took 18 months and $80,000 to finally arrive at the day when she could cut all ties with the monster – divorce settlement. A final email begging him to refrain from gloating over his total annihilation of her life was the last contact she had with him.
Eventually, she found the final piece of the jigsaw that rescued her from the hideous emotional, physical and psychological symptoms of PTSD, and went into remission.
A decade later, she had not yet pieced back together a life most people take for granted - a secure home and job, loving relationships with family and friends, a large social and professional network, two legs to stand on.
But she had a small team of ethical, compassionate and wise people. She consciously let go of the rest, as her standards for friendship and association rose higher and higher. The closer she came to living by her core values, the fewer people rose to meet them.
She found contentment and healing. She survived frequent incidences of survivor rage – something survivors report as continuing for many years. She developed a solid, steadfast and enduring relationship with herself and her own deepest values. She became her own best friend.
References:
Strubler, David C., PhD. (2019). Tangled: Escape the 5-Story Tower of Narcissistic Abuse. [In Psychology Today].https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/doesnt-get-any-better/201909/tangled-escaping-the-five-story-tower-narcissistic-abuse
Thomas, Shannon. (2016). Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse. MAST Publishing House.
MacCallum, Margot. (2019). Healing the Trauma of Psychological Abuse - A Lived Experience Roadmap for a Mindful Recovery. Balboa Press.
Footnote:
[1] During the resolution and restoration phase of recovery (Thomas, 2016), she sought out the former victims of this man’s love-fraud, and found that they too had had their very lives torn apart, lost everything, had nervous breakdowns, and some had ‘still not recovered’ after decades. Like her, they had been left homeless, powerless and impoverished, likely suffering PTSD. Their friends will tell you they can’t bear to hear his name spoken, listen to his music or sit through another documentary or television advertisement featuring his famous band.
