128.03: Mostly Last Thoughts on Interlopers and Rumormongers
Targets are stuck between a rock and a hard place, right where the Narcissist wants them to be, damned if they defend themselves and damned if they don’t BUT basically isolated and defenseless.
Gregory Zaffuto
First of all, I’m going to talk about the Bullies, Flying Monkeys, Splitters, and Brain Rats a bit more.
Probably for the last time. Mostly.
…but only to make another point.
I’ve spent a bit of time over the last few weeks with my new Doctor working through the emotional damage the Interlopers and Rumormongers have wrought on my life, betrayal, and personal relationships.
Their bullying – and it is bullying – has created separate, unnecessary, and damaging hurt, loss, and confusion into my situation. As such, their ill-informed narrative, full of lies and half-truths has added a thick layer of bitterness and suspicion into an already emotionally charged ending. Considering how willingly they’ve inserted themselves into this situation, and now they have enthusiastically filled the vacuüm of C’s silence, I can only imagine what they were saying to C – and others – directly.
They are dangerous, manipulative, and cynical fuckers. As Dolly Allen told Warren directly when he contacted her with his dangerous and misleading narrative: “You’ve done more to validate Sean’s story than anything he could possibly have said.”
In my pain, and in their harassment, I’ve struggled to separate what is true about my betrayals, what do I need to own, what is real to me, and what is simply their shit projected onto me? As such, the ending of the relationship was never just between C and me.
The tragedy is C took specific actions that allowed it to become a group project. I don’t believe that was her intention or motivations…but as a friend said yesterday, I’m probably being idealistic and naive.
So, like so much, I could be wrong. Only C knows the truth of her intentions. I’ve consistently tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. More Grace than I’ve been allowed from her Vara.
It wasn’t enough that I did so much damage to C, K, myself, and to Us. These flying monkeys wanted to help remind me, C, and anyone else.
I’ve avoided the Vara’s bullshit for entirely too long to be nice and polite and try to stay focused on the principles. As a result, I surrendered my voice. So here is the reality: I’m angry, hurt, and finished and this is the way I see it.
So let’s get to it.
The crux of the issue is my brain is wired in a way to see the pattern and makes sense of it. Whereas someone else might be able to ignore it or simply get angry and be done I want to understand. I want to understand where it is coming from and where it is going.
It isn’t enough for me to say, “Oh, they are just hypocritical, ill-informed dicks.”
Even though they are.
Because of how I am wired, combined with my anxiety and life experiences, I take each word, divide it up and say to myself: “Is this true?”
Sometimes I sharpen it into a shiv and stab myself with it. Sometimes repeatedly asking myself: “Does this hurt? Yep. How about this? Nope. How about here? Yep”
….repeat until a self-flagellation mess…
I’ve been finished with that for months but I’ve tiptoed around the lawsuit, calling them out, or responding to it because I didn’t want C to think or feel something. I’m still sorting out the something is.
I know my intentions were to de-escalate the drama between C and I but I’m still sorting out the motives of why. The reality is there is no drama between C and I because C and I don’t exist.
In truth, I’ve been angry about the adult bullying – and C’s role – but I ate the feelings specifically because I didn’t know how to respond. The way the Vara responded, acted, carried stories, lied, manipulated the situation, story, narrative, and truth left me feeling both defenseless and isolated.
And that, was precisely, the goal of the narcissist Warren and his gang of fluffers.
And yes, C, had a role to play too but she isn’t a narcissist. I’ll get to that later.
I don’t know Warren or Norm well. I know they’ve dated for a few years. I know he drinks – a lot.
Over the seven years C and I were together I spent less than 10 hours with him…and never alone. Frankly, I’ve always considered him an arrogant and condescending fuck. He has all the emotional depth of a thimble.
I know his wife left him for another man and it was ugly. Norm told me a bit about the breakup and the resulting ugly. Have you noticed how our Ugly is always excused by the people that love us when convenient?
For a while, I took nearly every word they said personally and wasted months guessing whether they were speaking for C or for themselves. I know now it doesn’t matter.
For me the bullying started around Day 19 post-discovery when Warren created a FB Message with C and two other Interlopers and contacted me regarding the Day 21 move. It was the first time I heard from him.
This was done prior to any post or writing I did.
Now, a well-intentioned adult, with above the line motivations, would have picked the phone up, called me and said, “Hey, sorry about you and C. Can I meet you and help you move anything?”
I did have friends take that approach.
Instead, Warren created a theater where he could be the hero and have an audience. He created a FB message, invited his girlfriend, a man I considered a friend at the time, and C, and sent me this attached nonsense. This was the first contact post discovery with him.
He started out arrogant and demeaning and his contempt prior to investigation never wavered. He immediately started dictating the terms of my pick-up, threatening me with law enforcement, and generally playing the narcissist he is, all without ever speaking to C.
He couldn’t believe I deferred to the terms, conditions, times, and dates as established by C. She and I were even being civil.
It must be a trap, right?
He kept saying it was my plan and rules. Meanwhile, nearly everything I owned was being boxed and stacked in the garage. How could that possibly have been my plan?
He must have a very low opinion of C’s smarts and an overestimate of my brilliance.
He just assumed out of arrogance he knew it all and when confronted with the reality he didn’t know anything he chose to escalate his outrage demanding answers to questions about a situation that was none of his business. He inserted himself into the situation as a Hero, painting me as a villain, and C as a victim.
This is his SOP.
A day later C emailed confirming our plans and told me to ignore Warren. Which I did.
Mostly.
However, I’ve decided to include the entire message because:
- I can be a dick
- One of the accusations Norm, Davey, and Warren toss about is I twist the truth and misquote them. I think Warren’s words – and C, Norm and Davey’s silence – speak volumes about what was actually happening.
This is the complete conversation.
I’m sure there is a word for that right?
It was only after I essentially called out Warren for his ignorance and ignored him did the Ugly between C and I become incredibly Ugly and C went completely silent leaving Warren and the Trolls to fill the void.
Oh wait! There is a word for that!
This is a type of splitting. He is leveraging a triangle. It is completely a power play. It preys on our pain and confusion. His actions are predatory.
This is one of many examples over the last 9 months where Warren tries to control communication between C and I, and with me and others. He even went so far as to create an alias WordPress account to stalk me after I started ignoring his comments from his personal account.
It is one of a dozen examples where Warren’s grandiosity outstripped reality.
It took until early March, around Day 110, before I realized what they think or say is irrelevant to everyone but them. What I’ve decided is in their zeal to protect C from her pain, they picked up the crusade and as a result inserted their damage into our damage.
They don’t speak for C, even if she is culpable for some of their behavior. Even if, like Patsy’s emails, C allowed it, encouraged it, accepted it, it is still their choice.
Maintaining this narrative has been personally beneficial for the Flying Monkeys to believe what they imagine is true and create an entire social justice narrative around monster stories. There is no evidence of harassing, stalking, stealing her identity, or hacking her email or phones because there is none. I never tried stealing her mail. All the Interlopers have are overactive imaginations and too much time on their hands.
The narrative they fabricated allowed them to fuel the drama triangle, keep C and me emotionally stuck and adversarial while playing the Heroes in a situation that has nothing to do with them. They’ve made themselves more important to the story than they actually are.
As such, our hurt – C’s, and mine – is simply a game to them to be played. They don’t see C or me. They simply see an opportunity to exploit and embrace the illusion of closeness fueled through common enemy intimacy. It has allowed them to brag about putting the band back together because the appearance is more meaningful than the substance.
For example, they described my online journal to someone else as simply a manipulative attempt at garnering support, pity, and pussy. They cannot imagine anything I write, say, or do encompassing a courageous vulnerability in an attempt to learn and heal. They cannot see at times it is an attempt for my heart to reach C’s heart.
They’d never be vulnerable themselves. A shallow bravado is all they know.
It’s why everything I’ve done they’ve turned into an inside joke, relied on name-calling, acts of meaningless intimidation, and ridiculous memes in an attempt to minimize my vulnerability or undermine my humanity. At other times they’ve turned to wordy expositions to third-party writers trying to further intimidate and isolate me.
I’m sure there is a word for that behavior too.
In the end, Warren was reduced to bragging about his own imagined high school virility, sexualizing C’s appearance as a prize, all while demeaning me and my life.
Despite another Interloper’s experience with infidelity and life as a bigamist, he openly mocks me as a “punk ass bitch” and misappropriates Esther Perel’s quote about “wayward lover” as a sign I consider this a joke.
In these cases, it is their own toxic masculinity they project onto me. It is their own damage.
I’m not saying these things to demean them. They are fools but never underestimate the power of the mob. Especially a self-aggrandizing mob of Flying Monkeys.
Here is the only reason I am still discussing the Interlopers, Rumormongers, and Trolls: I can only imagine the harsh, swift, and judgemental pushback C would receive from the Interlopers if she ever decided to have even a curtsy conversation with me let alone spend meaningful time with me.
They have invested almost as much time into my humiliation as I have.
The reality is I think her friends and family would be shocked, but probably supportive if she were to talk to me. C and I had our problems but I think they recognize the C has always done what she wants, generally makes good decisions, even if it isn’t decisions they wouldn’t make, and is good hearted.
They know she doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.
I cannot force C to have a relationship or contact with me. All I can do is, for a bit longer, take the risk, face the uncertainty, and open my heart to her. That doesn’t make me weak or pathetic. In actually makes me powerful, strong, and brave. Many men and women would run as quickly as possible from their humiliations and broken pride but I am still here.
I will not be blackmailed. I will not be run out of my community. I will not be bullied.
I know what I did. I know who I am. With or without C, I know where I am going. I’m a 50-year-old man that betrayed his Passion, life, and self.
I don’t see my effort as wasting time by making myself vulnerable to her. I’m owning my life. I’m owning my self. I’m owning my Passion. I’m owning my power, my self-respect, and my Vision.
I know where I belong and to who.
That may never be enough now that the damage is done but without showing effort and talking about my intention C will never know. However, if she never speaks to me these are things that need to be done anyway.
Whoever comes next will have a better man because unlike the Flying Monkeys and Interlopers, I own my Ugly. I’ve embraced it. I’m learning to love it. I’m committed to celebrating my entire life and not just the pretty parts.
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