Friday, February 5, 2010

Never find a man like him

France, night

I hope that none will ever experience meeting and being with a man like Gregory Anton. Who is Gregory Anton? one of the main characters of the movie Gaslight. A character able to play with the mind of Paula, a great frightened Ingrid Bergman.

I have always been very, very afraid of mentally abusive men. I always thought that mentally abusive men are very difficult to spot, especially at first. I fortunately never met someone like the main character of this movie, but I did meet abusive men, two at least. Those kind of men who need to make you feel so little and so wrong in anything you do, that you start to wonder how you could have lived so far doing and thinking so many wrong things. And before you can realize, you think what they think, even better, if they can, when someone ask you something, they will answer for you. When you have a decision to take, they will take it for you. Again, fortunately none of the men who played a role in my life have been so bad as this Gregory, but I do know that there are insecure men out there who would turn to be mentally abusive with someone who would let them doing so because she is in love.

This kind of man scares me a lot, because it makes you feel (or at least it made me feel) that you don't know anymore where it is up and where it is down, what it is right and what it is wrong. And one of the things this kind of man would say often would be that what they say to you or suggest you to do, or push you to do, it is for your own good........................and unfortunately, this kind of man can be pretty convincing, especially if you are close to him.

I had someone in my life, a man, very close to me telling me that I was mad and trying to convince me that I was going out of my mind.
And I had a man in my life, actually my first serious relationship, for whom anything I was doing, saying or thinking was a sign that I was a whore. Both cases affected me a lot. And I can say that in this second case, he brainwashed me so much, or at least he tried so hard, that I was afraid of dancing or talking to any guy or having fun when he was around to avoid him to get angry at me and tell me all those things.

It took me quite long after my first relationship to be able to have any confidence and trust in a man again. Fortunately, from that experience on I only had in my life wonderful men, even if unfortunately things didn't work out anyway. But I keep well in my mind the memory of how I can allow people I love to mentally abuse of me, to avoid that something like that could happen again.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello, it is so good that you haven't had another abusive man in your life since the first one. maybe you learned from that painful experience.

and probably if you ever see someone that is abusive in the future you will know to stay away.

that's the thing right? we live and we learn and we grow hopefully:)

my problem has been that i needed to learn to be myself, and not let people manipulate me into who they want me to be. i fight to be who i want to be. it's hard. it amazes me that so many people want to dictate other people's lives. i hope i am learning.

hope you have a nice weekend!!

audrey

fromtheworld said...

Hi Audrey, thanks a lot for keep following. It is nice to share ideas and feelings for me!
It is good to learn from past experiences, but sometimes it would be nice to not have to experience painful things to learn something about it....Did you manage to be the person you want to be? For me the most difficult things is that I am ok till I am alone, but when I fall in love I apparently have troubles to establish the limit of compromising to be happy in a couple. Sometimes I let people I love to run over me. Fortunately, after a while I am able to recognize that and react. But it seems that many people have an idea on how other should live their lives....
Have a great week end too. Is it snowing in NY? I love NY covered with snow!

Anonymous said...

'is it snowing in ny?' not now, but we just had a snow storm. i had to go out and walk in the snow. everything was white, streets, trees, the sky, all the cars were covered in snow. it was beautiful.

did i manage to become the person i want to be? i'm working on it. there are two really important places in my life that i need to make more like myself. but i really have come a long way in other parts of my life. i was following what people said i should do. it took me a learn time to learn that they were wrong, and that i must make decisions for myself based on what i want and need. not what they want me to do.

i'm working on it. it hasn't been easy, but it is getting better.

~audrey

fromtheworld said...

Hi Audrey. I should visit NY soon. As I said, I love the city with the snow! I heard from friends from different places in the USA that there has been so much snow that they were blocked at home. I love that. It is so peaceful!

Becoming the person you want, according to your desires and you needs is not an easy task. It is not for me at least. Especially when you love someone, family, boyfriend, husband, it is difficult to understand when they are giving advices for your best (for example it happens to me that when I am very worried or stressed or too much into something, sometimes I am not very objective) or when they are giving you advices based on what they would like you to do. Another problem for me has (and still is sometimes) been to understand what I truly want as a person and what instead I think to want because "it should be like that" or "everyone does that or has that goal".
Good luck with the work you are doing on yourself! It is not easy, but it seems to me that you already walked a long way to be the person you want to be!