Splintered
I was splintered. I was fractured into a million little pieces. I collapsed onto my bed and cried after Mr. Charm left my home. He was heated over what he perceived to be my lack of help on the repair project. I had stopped working because I was injured after he had angrily broken a wooden plank sending small fragments of splintered wood flying everywhere.
A microscopic piece of wood actually propelled itself into my hand. So I took time off “the job” to attempt to remove the splinter and relieve myself of the pain. Needless to say, a splinter led to an abrupt end to the repairs, an argument incensed by Mr. Charm’s rage, and a heart that was broken to bits in the aftermath of it all.
As I fought to wipe away the tears from my eyes, I prayed for a resolution to my problem with Mr. Charm. This man hated me. I could not only feel his hatred towards me, but I could see it. I could not get past the look on his face as he had peered at me with such contempt. The look in his eyes had stripped me of inward dignity. I felt so small and ashamed.
It was as if he were disgusted with me all because of his inadequacies that had absolutely nothing to do with me. All the while, I stood in amazement at the work he had accomplished and was happy to be his cheerleader. My cheers for him did not matter. In fact, he did not care about any of that. None of my accolades and attempts at keeping the peace between the two of us even mattered to him.
He cursed me for everything he could think of – calling me names which loudly echoed throughout my home shattering the precious peace that was now almost nonexistent because of his presence. In a crazed and sadistic rage, he mocked me for my insecurities and faults. He mimicked my words and pretended to cry by making loud wailing noises to show his disdain for me. Basically, he ridiculed me for simply being me. He was angry because I had been unwilling to cave in and bow down to his control.
A Quick Hoover
This one-sided argument had been a major blow up which was reminiscent of the last crazy outburst Mr. Charm had directed towards me nearly a year prior. This time around, however, we were in my home instead of his home. Although I had tried very hard to keep drama at bay in my territory, it had arrived via Mr. Charm’s personality disorder. My once drama-free home had now become a shadow of its former glory of peaceful bliss, and here I was dealing with an adult male who had displayed an extreme temper tantrum over an injury that he had literally caused against me.
I figured that tensions would be high the next day, but before I had a chance to ponder what might happen next, he sent me a text message. Nearly an hour or so after leaving my home, Mr. Charm sent me a text expressing his apologies for his behavior. He apologized for losing his cool with me and asked for my forgiveness. He explained that he wished to take everything back that had occurred and would if he could do so. He said that he was simply stressed with wanting to do a good job but felt extremely frustrated by his inability to do as he had done with construction projects pre-stroke.
Unfortunately, I allowed that to be his excuse. I allowed that to be what would take him off the hook of being such a crummy friend to me. Yet, in the back of my mind, I was still calculating my exit. I rested on the fact that maybe the end results of this repair project would bring about the downtime that we needed away from each other. I accepted his apology because that has always been my personality – to accept an apology and give forgiveness.
Mr. Charm apologized because that was the “Christian thing” to do. He could not have what he had done against me hanging over his head. He did not want me to ever mention it. So it was better for him to take the initiative to do so. Plus, that is something that I have found narcissists to do when they do not want to let go of their targets. They give fake apologies that lack any genuine remorse for their actions. They slap band-aids on huge wounds hoping that their targets can dismiss the blood seeping through the band-aid. Narcissists essentially give lip service just to keep their targets hanging on as if on the string of a yo-yo.
Although there was no real need for me to do so, I apologized to Mr. Charm for my own reactive behavior. He actually said in his text that I had disrespected him. According to him, I did not seem to care about doing a good job [despite the fact that the repairs actually being for the improvement of my home]. He considered that I took for granted the work that was being done because it was being done for free. This is to the contrary, however. Nothing was for free despite him not receiving a simple cash payment for the job.
I paid him. I paid him dearly. I paid him with brand new tools, three meals a day, and a body which he mistook and lavished his hordes of verbal abusive rants against. I took everything that we did in the repair process seriously and did my best to keep an outward smile on my face. I gave of my time and surely disturbed my neighbors in the process. Yet, he was upset that I was not cheerful enough despite the difficulty it took to maintain a willingness to want to help him with a continual smile on my face while he was verbally beating me down.
He was a horrible “boss” and an unhelpful guide. I expressed this fact to him in text, but he seemed to ignore me. He seemed to scathe over everything I expressed to him. Instead, he came back at me with my not being able to handle man’s work in a manly way. According to him, I was too soft-hearted and did not understand the value of hard work. I was dumbfounded because he had not done the work on his own. He literally needed my help every step of the way. Yet, there he was in a text message calling me out for being a lazy, weak, and good-for-nothing female dog!
Even in back-and-forth text message disguised as his apology, he still could not let go and still wanted to belabor the point of what happened with the splinter as being my fault. My anguished heart of pain soon turned angry and bitter, and I found I could no longer responded to his texts. So, I stopped responding to his messages and left him on “read”. Within another hour, he texted me back offering to treat me to breakfast at one of his favorite restaurants. According to him, he wanted to show me that he was truly sorry for his behavior.
If he were really sorry, however, I believe he would have called me by phone. The very fact that he did not call me was enough to tell me what I needed to know about the sincerity of his apology. He had none. I believe he was still angry and wanted to throw me off via text messages with lies that he was truly sorry. If I had heard his voice over the phone, I would have been able to hear just how angry he still was against me. I was not fooled at all. He really thought he could play me, but I was on to him.
Yet, like the forgiving enabler that I was back then, I accepted his invitation to breakfast hoping that we would have a chance to mend what was broken. Deep in my heart, however, I knew it was too late. I was done. I needed this so-called friendship to be over. I was now over the fact that Mr. Charm was ever going to change. I stopped praying for a way out and simply decided to look for a window of opportunity so I could leave. It was over. I had reached my limit.
My Voice Unchained 