Very interesting academic paper by Jennifer Freyd on the concept of DARVO. Probably the clearest explanation that I’ve come across.
Well worth a read if you have any interest in the subject.
https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html
Another description in Metro: https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/13/guide-darvo-gaslighting-response-people-give-when-called-bad-behaviour-12847680/?ito=cbshare
Don’t ask why. We’re in the grip of a pandemic and I’m getting itchy feet.
Some more photos of St. Leonards-on-Sea taken during the long boring hours of lockdown. Some were taken in Rye, Dover and Eastbourne.
A selection of photos I’ve taken on my iPhone during lockdown. Post processing all done in Affinity Photo.
For over a year Chumplady.com has been my first port of call when I’m in the mood to laugh at the absurdities of life.
This is a very good article. I hope she won’t mind my linking to it.
The most frustrating thing about this bunch of silver spoon imbeciles running the country is their continuing reactive approach.
So we’re heading towards another lockdown are we? And then what? A couple more months of Eat Out To Help Out? Another clarion call telling us to get our lazy fat arses back to work? Who knows? Certainly not the government.
If we’re to sacrifice our health, our sanity, our livelihoods, and our liberty, how about some semblance of a plan?
We’re weary and fatigued but we’re ready once again to play our part in attempting to tame this virus. But we need Boris and his acolytes to do what we pay them to do and make good on their side of the bargain. To finally show some leadership.
We need a plan, Boris. We need a roadmap that gives us some idea of why we’re doing what we’re being forced to do. And if you’re not able to provide us with such a plan then please do us all a favour and stand down.
Let someone else take over. There’s every chance that they may not be able to do a better job than the one you have been doing. But there’s no doubt whatsoever that it won’t be any worse.
“How stand we now?-he told his tale
To Douglas; and with some avail;
‘Twas therefore gloom’d his rugged brow.-
Will Surrey dare to entertain,
‘Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?
Small risk of that, I trow.
Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;
Must separate Constance from the Nun-
O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
A Palmer too!-no wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye:
I might have known there was but one,
Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.’”
excerpt from Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott
She’s blunt. She’s brutal. She’s uncompromising and she takes no prisoners. But I actually LOVE Chumplady (who can be found at https://www.chumplady.com). I genuinely want her to have this old fellow’s babies. They would be beautiful. Spiteful as fuck but beautiful.
I couldn’t resist blogging the following answer that Chumplady gave earlier this month to a fellow chump traveller.
If anyone out there is in the position that I found myself in two years ago then this is the Alka Seltzer for your raging hangover.
Chumplady’s bloody funny, to boot. (BTW: If appropriate substitute ‘he’ for ‘she’.)
Dear It’s Still Just So Unfair,
At some point you’ve got to decide between justice and meh.
I’m telling you, as a survivor of this shit — choose meh.
Meh is my shorthand for acceptance. Take back your power and decide that this person no longer has the power to hurt you. Be grateful he isn’t actively in your orbit hurting you or those you care about. (People who bred with fuckwits have a MUCH harder row to hoe.)
People who have the power to hurt you are people you are invested in. People whose good opinion of you matters. You are no longer invested in him, and know he’s a fraud, so why internalize a bozo’s judgement?
If you get hung up on the injustice — and it is a real injustice — it’s absolutely traumatizing to be chumped — you will be tethered to a situation you don’t control. A powerlessness that feels a lot like being partnered with a fuckwit, really.
You don’t control justice, unless you mean revenge, which I discourage. And I’m not waving that off lightly. As I’ve written here before, I am peace, love and granola, but I had vivid fantasies of gutting my cheater with a fish knife. Stem to stern.
But why would I throw my life away for a fuckwit? Why should you? Their punishment is being them. People don’t have character transplants. Their crappy character and shit life skills follow them forever. Leave it to the laws of natural consequences — the arc can be LONG, but it’s there.
Focus on what you DO control — you. Meh is something you can strive for and achieve. Karma for fuckwits, not so much.
I don’t know if you ever truly feel indifferent about being chumped (says the woman who’s been writing a blog about infidelity for 8 years…) but you can accept that it happened, and you can rise above it. That’s a battle worth waging — gaining the new life. Meh just creeps up on you over time, as the new life eclipses the old life.
Read here awhile and thank your lucky stars that you don’t have deeper sunk costs. A $600 shrink bill is galling. Try 20 years and two kids. Try being a 50-year-old SAHM trying to re-enter the workplace. Or a man who had to paternity test his children. It’s not the Pain Olympics, but some perspective helps.
This is a little piece I wrote last week for Boxing News. I was very honoured to do so. Alan Minter was the first boxer I ever met. I was a 17-year-old wine waiter and he was drinking the wine. Our paths crossed a few times over the years. I liked him a lot. He was a very, very nice man.
Have no memory whatsoever of writing this. I did it five years ago apparently. Obviously wasn’t in the greatest of moods that day. I think it’s only the second poem I’ve ever written in my life. So I thought I’d re-blog it.
This is the world we live in
This is the world we live in:
Where people live and people die,
Where people fuck and people cry,
Where people walk and drive and fly,
And don’t know where or when or why,
This is the world we live in.
This is the world we’re lost in:
Where God is love and God is hate,
Depending on which town or state,
Or street where you originate,
For that is where they seal your fate,
And point you down the road you take,
This is the world we’re lost in.
This is the place we hope in:
Where bombs explode and all the while,
You go to work and try to smile,
And wonder why they want you dead,
Perhaps it’s something that you said?
More likely those who use your name,
To do their deeds and play their game,
Whichever case, it ends the same,
It’s you who is the one to blame,
This is place we hope in.
This is the place we love in:
Where people starve to death in pain,
And children die before they’re named,
For want of but a fist of rice,
That rains down on the bride,
So nice…
…to see that they are having fun,
Lives just beginning, others’ done,
This is the place we love in.
This is the land we dream in:
Where those who have are given more,
And those without are shown the door,
Where rich stay rich, and poor stay poor,
And live their lives below the law,
And kill and rob and maim and whore,
To raise themselves above the floor,
And crane their necks towards the sky,
But never know the reason why,
This is the world we dream in.
This is the land of freedom:
Where actions cost but talk is cheap,
About a megabyte a week,
Is all you need to squawk and Tweet,
And with that you can wipe your feet,
Of all the prayers you should be praying,
The info you should be relaying,
The demons that you should be slaying,
(Only saying…)
This is the land of freedom.
This is the world we live in:
A land of plenty for the few,
The rest of us must just make do,
And try our best to make it through,
This is the world we live in.
