What, like 'stalkers in training,' or 'low-level stalkers?' Stalkers stalk because of intense emotions they know will drive you to reject them. They violate your privacy and enjoy control over your environment without regard for your body/mind. Depending upon how vested they are in you, there may not be any time for you to escape their clutches.. I am sure DeMarte could have explained this to her... interesting how she ends up excusing such abusive behavior as a 'domestic violence, PTSD, (baloney *cough*) expert.' I would imagine she should encourage separation of victim from abuser due to such a important triggered pattern of abuse. That's THE warning sign for something major on the way, restraining orders, law enforcement involvement, etc etc.
Travis Alexander's Journals and text messages
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What, like 'stalkers in training,' or 'low-level stalkers?' Stalkers stalk because of intense emotions they know will drive you to reject them. They violate your privacy and enjoy control over your environment without regard for your body/mind. Depending upon how vested they are in you, there may not be any time for you to escape their clutches.. I am sure DeMarte could have explained this to her... interesting how she ends up excusing such abusive behavior as a 'domestic violence, PTSD, (baloney *cough*) expert.' I would imagine she should encourage separation of victim from abuser due to such a important triggered pattern of abuse. That's THE warning sign for something major on the way, restraining orders, law enforcement involvement, etc etc.
I'm hanging my hat on his promise that he'll discuss his trial strategy. I fully expect to read that he knew the full extent of her psychopathy early on ( from reading texts, IM's, emails, her journals, etc.) but that he decided against a narrative of psycho killer and went with fatal attraction.
As difficult as it is for me to imagine after what we're seeing in the full May texts, I have a sickening feeling her psychological torture of TA was even worse and more extensive than we know about or even suspect.
I have to say it has occurred to me it is even possible she physically abused HIM, as in, struck him in rage, and that he felt too humiliated or ashamed or "guilty" or conflicted to tell anyone, even his confidante Regan.
Nope, no advanced voice feature. I'm a masochist, eh? LOL. My choice. I bought a sweet laptop but my son loved it so much I gave it to him, sitting in a chair for long stretches to use my desktop is too uncomfortable, and I broke my brand new HD Kindle Fire this summer vacationing at the beach.
So old and tiny phone it has been for many months. I'm hoping Santa has taken pity on me and there's a laptop under the tree, or at least, that Santa has realized the house would be much cleaner and meals better if I could just sleuth and post more efficiently.
About what happened on May 26. The texts include TA telling a friend later that day that he had been punching the heck out of his brand new punching bag out of sheer frustration.
Frustration. Not fear or panic or anger, if he is accurately expressing how he feels.
I think I can relate. Please, no need to reply to the personal aspect of the following.
It took me close to 45 years to realize that my mother is a full blown narcissist, and from what I've learned here, very likely has borderline personality disorder.
Why it took so long to understand that is a direct result of the damage caused by her mental illness, which is why I think I feel such deep empathy for Travis, and why I understand why he simply couldn't see JA for who she was.
It is telling to me that TA experienced her lies as psychological torture. He found her constant lying literally unbearable. What he was begging her to do on May 26 was to stop tormenting him with her lies, that he could tolerate anything else she did to try to destroy him, but not the lies. I completely understand that feeling.
There is IMO very little that is more damaging, more excruciating, than being made to question one's own perception of reality. Being told over and over that what is clearly white is actually black is crazy-making UNLESS one decides at an unconscious level to simply submit and accept that white is black.
That's the first step, though, towards "giving" the tormenter complete control, which of course is the tormenter's objective. There is less and less possibility of reclaiming oneself after white is black, because once white is black it becomes less and less possible to trust one's feelings or perceptions. After white is black comes hostility is concern, self doubt is healthy introspection, forgiving the tormentor is the only acceptable form of love.
Once white is black and one cannot trust one's own feelings or perceptions, one is constantly off balance. Ironically, the only relief from feeling this special flavor of confusion and profound unease comes from the tormentor reinforcing white really IS black.
Until that sickening feeling in the pit of one's stomach returns again, that something, something just beyond reach that has no name, is WRONG.
After not very long that thing that can't be named becomes oneself, which is very much what I think happened to Travis. I'd love to see his texts before he met JA. I have a feeling he needed less validation of everything he felt.
I call seeking that validation "reality testing." I still do it, because even after coming to terms with the fact one was tormented, and even after understanding the dynamics of that torment, it is often enough very difficult to trust one's belief that white really is white, and has been white all along.
Denying Travis the truth of his own perceptions I think was especially painful to him (as she knew) because it was so incredibly important to him personally and spiritually to believe the best about others, and to want to develop the best in himself.
One especially cruel torment she inflicted upon him almost daily for the entire time she knew him was to essentially force him to choose whether to believe in and trust himself, or to capitulate and believe in and trust her, entirely at the cost of himself ("you've destroyed me from the inside out").
Viewed for a moment from that perspective alone, I see May 26 as Travis fighting to reclaim himself and his sanity. It was only when that refused to stop lying to him that Travis let loose with extreme anger.
I've always thought his anger was completely justifiable- now I see it as perhaps the only form of self-defense left to him. Perhaps it felt in one sense to him like an exorcism of sorts, that the only way to expel the demon inside him was to forcibly drive away the tormentor who had planted it there and fed it.
Frustration. Not fear or panic or anger, if he is accurately expressing how he feels.
I think I can relate. Please, no need to reply to the personal aspect of the following.
It took me close to 45 years to realize that my mother is a full blown narcissist, and from what I've learned here, very likely has borderline personality disorder.
Why it took so long to understand that is a direct result of the damage caused by her mental illness, which is why I think I feel such deep empathy for Travis, and why I understand why he simply couldn't see JA for who she was.
It is telling to me that TA experienced her lies as psychological torture. He found her constant lying literally unbearable. What he was begging her to do on May 26 was to stop tormenting him with her lies, that he could tolerate anything else she did to try to destroy him, but not the lies. I completely understand that feeling.
There is IMO very little that is more damaging, more excruciating, than being made to question one's own perception of reality. Being told over and over that what is clearly white is actually black is crazy-making UNLESS one decides at an unconscious level to simply submit and accept that white is black.
That's the first step, though, towards "giving" the tormenter complete control, which of course is the tormenter's objective. There is less and less possibility of reclaiming oneself after white is black, because once white is black it becomes less and less possible to trust one's feelings or perceptions. After white is black comes hostility is concern, self doubt is healthy introspection, forgiving the tormentor is the only acceptable form of love.
Once white is black and one cannot trust one's own feelings or perceptions, one is constantly off balance. Ironically, the only relief from feeling this special flavor of confusion and profound unease comes from the tormentor reinforcing white really IS black.
Until that sickening feeling in the pit of one's stomach returns again, that something, something just beyond reach that has no name, is WRONG.
After not very long that thing that can't be named becomes oneself, which is very much what I think happened to Travis. I'd love to see his texts before he met JA. I have a feeling he needed less validation of everything he felt.
I call seeking that validation "reality testing." I still do it, because even after coming to terms with the fact one was tormented, and even after understanding the dynamics of that torment, it is often enough very difficult to trust one's belief that white really is white, and has been white all along.
Denying Travis the truth of his own perceptions I think was especially painful to him (as she knew) because it was so incredibly important to him personally and spiritually to believe the best about others, and to want to develop the best in himself.
One especially cruel torment she inflicted upon him almost daily for the entire time she knew him was to essentially force him to choose whether to believe in and trust himself, or to capitulate and believe in and trust her, entirely at the cost of himself ("you've destroyed me from the inside out").
Viewed for a moment from that perspective alone, I see May 26 as Travis fighting to reclaim himself and his sanity. It was only when that refused to stop lying to him that Travis let loose with extreme anger.
I've always thought his anger was completely justifiable- now I see it as perhaps the only form of self-defense left to him. Perhaps it felt in one sense to him like an exorcism of sorts, that the only way to expel the demon inside him was to forcibly drive away the tormentor who had planted it there and fed it.
RickshawFan
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I'm hanging my hat on his promise that he'll discuss his trial strategy. I fully expect to read that he knew the full extent of her psychopathy early on ( from reading texts, IM's, emails, her journals, etc.) but that he decided against a narrative of psycho killer and went with fatal attraction.
As difficult as it is for me to imagine after what we're seeing in the full May texts, I have a sickening feeling her psychological torture of TA was even worse and more extensive than we know about or even suspect.
I have to say it has occurred to me it is even possible she physically abused HIM, as in, struck him in rage, and that he felt too humiliated or ashamed or "guilty" or conflicted to tell anyone, even his confidante Regan.
I believe LE did know the full extent of JA's psychopathy early on, if not down to every detail. IMO they had fleshed it out before EF interrogated JA. That's partly what was so impressive about that interrogation: EF knew so much....
Yes, it's very possible she abused him physically. There's always non-consensual sex as well. The sex tape could have been pieced together from much earlier conversations, i.e. before she got violent.
RickshawFan
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Ditto on mother as narcissist....If you're in it, it's very hard to see. Once you see it, it's very hard not to. Now, if only I could get my siblings to notice what is obvious to me....
There is something about the narcissism web that compels me to empathize with TA's situation more than might be likely.
Becky Sharp
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I know that Hope asked us not to respond to her words about her mother, but I have to pipe up and say that I know what hell it is to live with a narcissist. I was married to one for over fifteen years. The first years were wonderful because he was Mr Charming, but then things started to steadily become hellish as his manipulation became more and more controlling. And the lies. Actually, more than just lies--more like deceit and deception as his fundamental being. Finally one day when I was being deceived (about something very minor--the weather, of all things) a voice inside me told me that if I go along with just one more deception/manipulation I'd be down the rabbit hole forever. I took our son and walked out. I don't know where that voice came from. It was likely the survival instinct.
Hope, I can't imagine what it would be like to have a narcissist for a parent. My heart goes out to you.
Hope, I can't imagine what it would be like to have a narcissist for a parent. My heart goes out to you.
Thank goodness you still had that self- preservation instinct intact.
I think you can very easily imagine what hell it would be to have a narcissist parent, sadly, given your own experience. The only difference--though it is significant-- is that being born into that situation means there is no "before" to refer to or draw upon.
I think the killer chose TA as a victim because of his insecurities, which were all too easy for her to exploit. I also think, though, that she underestimated his inner strength. He did have a before, and though it was very compromised by the extreme abuse he experienced, it was a before that he had triumphed over in many ways out of sheer determination and a will to live fully-- character traits she couldn't possibly understand, having nothing of the kind herself.
((Rickshaw))). Being in, hard to see (Travis), being on the outside, obvious to see or at least suspect (all but a tiny number of his friends, notably Dan Freeman, but of course she focused on him too in order to exploit his proximity to Travis).
Ok, I now VERY strongly recommend signing up to BK's site (no, I don't get kickbacks if you do).
The very kind BK volunteer who sorted out the texts is helping answer questions about the text raw data in a new text-discussion blog. I'm posting over there too, but not sure its OK to post here from discussions over there. (???)
The very kind BK volunteer who sorted out the texts is helping answer questions about the text raw data in a new text-discussion blog. I'm posting over there too, but not sure its OK to post here from discussions over there. (???)
Yes! I just resubscribed yesterday after about 6 months of no access. The discussion IS very interesting.
Ok, I now VERY strongly recommend signing up to BK's site (no, I don't get kickbacks if you do).
The very kind BK volunteer who sorted out the texts is helping answer questions about the text raw data in a new text-discussion blog. I'm posting over there too, but not sure its OK to post here from discussions over there. (???)
pocketaccent
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Ok, I now VERY strongly recommend signing up to BK's site (no, I don't get kickbacks if you do).
The very kind BK volunteer who sorted out the texts is helping answer questions about the text raw data in a new text-discussion blog. I'm posting over there too, but not sure its OK to post here from discussions over there. (???)
Ditto!
Unfolding of May texts in progress at Beth Karas' site.
This reminds me of reading a good captivating mystery novel, only this a true horror story.
NotMyselfNEMore
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Ok, I now VERY strongly recommend signing up to BK's site (no, I don't get kickbacks if you do).
The very kind BK volunteer who sorted out the texts is helping answer questions about the text raw data in a new text-discussion blog. I'm posting over there too, but not sure its OK to post here from discussions over there. (???)
You convinced me Hope! So I went, paid my subscription (like MaLou, after no access for 6 months), and it updated my subscription to say it will expire 5 months ago! My payment went through, and I emailed them, but it's very frustrating - any advice?
NotMyselfNEMore
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No fair - I wanna see, too! Oh well, while I'm waiting for them to get back to me, I did have a thought while I was reading up in this thread -
I noticed there were several comments about Travis texting 'How dare you!' to a few people. There was a cartoon a while ago (maybe on adult swim?), where one of the characters (like an older, proper female type) would say that, in a huffy voice - my son and I used to say it to each other (and still do, sometimes). I'll see if he remembers which one - we used to say it all the time, though. FWIW
This happened to me. I hadn't used the site for about six months. I contacted them and it took them a few hours, but they got it resolved for me.
NotMyselfNEMore
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Thanks, MaLou - I just got an email saying to follow the link for the response to my problem - so I followed the link, (which requires a login)
- I log in, and my password no longer works - same one I that was valid earlier today, and that I used today when I paid them!
I emailed again, and am hoping for a response - but very frustrating!
Anytime I had renewed my subscription before yesterday, it was immediate, so I understand the frustration.
NotMyselfNEMore
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Me too! Site won't even let me re=register, and pay again (I'm sure they will refund or credit the overpay) - but it won't let me use my email address.
If I'm onto anything with my "how dare you!" quote, I found the source I was thinking of - from Rocko's Modern Life" (attached a youtube clip here): https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...eo-XJgQyg&sig2=M7a4sIk95mqsUlwLzoo7kQ&cad=rjt
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