I have lived experience of this.Someone once told me the trick to an abusive relationship is don’t let the victim sleep. We know Alice doesn’t sleep and the kids or at least Ella doesn’t sleep. What the abuser does is keep you awake too so that you are too tired and wired to put up a fight. You become so tired you just agree and do as they say. They literally wear you down from depriving you of sleep.
My narc ex tried to control the way in which I slept, even to my position. I wasn’t allowed to wear clothes to bed - he tore a favourite tee-shirt from my body once - and I was physically put into the position he wanted me to sleep in (arms underneath the covers, only one pillow, lying on my right side) and wanted to keep the window open even in the depths of winter*. When I said ‘oh, for God’s sake, I’ll sleep in the manner I’m most comfortable,’ he’d shake with rage and bite his fist - the prelude to a beating. When I was more than ordinarily tired - being out for over 14 hours a day at work, for example - then would be the point that he’d hammer away at me, remorselessly and mercilessly, destroying the few shreds of self-esteem I had left (‘you’re so negative… I only keep you around because you clean the house… you’re not as bright as you think you are…’ and on, and on, and on until I begged him to stop - but he was only just getting started. If I went to the spare bedroom, he’d follow and hector me in there: if I went to the bathroom and locked the door, he’d open it from the outside by inserting a £1 coin into the lock and trap me, while lecturing, demeaning, degrading and attacking. I would bet my house that this is what Malice did to IG.She never let him have any peace. Her tale of the time when she ‘found’ him drinking whisky in the bath suggests, to me, that she forced the door and burst in on him. Narcissists like Malice enjoy picking away at someone’s sense of personal space until they feel there is nowhere left to go: it’s a kind of physical and emotional torture that they have elevated to an art form.
*ETA: if I moved position I was woken up and moved back into the approved pose. If I didn’t comply, I suffered for it.
*ETA: if I moved position I was woken up and moved back into the approved pose. If I didn’t comply, I suffered for it.
If only we could. I, for one, would absolutely love it if this nightmare were over by the end of the day. I would miss you lot like crazy, but it would be worth it to know that IG had peace of mind.Agree. Ioan would do anything to make all of this, including all of us, go away.
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