Agoraphobia at first sounds harmless, as “fear of open spaces” but in real life it’s a bit more serious than that. It becomes fear of just about everything.
A very bad combination for this is strong pride, so that you mask the effects as much as possible.
The nett effect in my case has been that SWMBO fell sucker to some people who assure her that practically everything she decides (except where it crosses their own expectations) — no matter how ridiculous, destructive or painful it actually is — will work out just fine & safe.
This gives them inordinate control over her, masquerading as personal independence, & the result so far has been to separate us, cast strong fear over our little childrens’ lives, & suddenly bust up contact arrangements, leaving me $1800 short on airfares (plus another $300 for earlier booking moves) & sans children.
Oh, the above expenses fielded on a Disability Pension.
I don’t think you need to have been through similar yourself to realise that this sucks miserably, but if you have, I’ll have your empathy as well as sympathy (which I have seen from a breath-taking range of people already). Empathy & sympathy, as helpful as they are, won’t grant me my children back, & along with SWMBO’s servitude to the terroristas, those kinder are in a truly dangerous position (I believe eventually life-threatening).
Unfortunately, it’s complex enough that I’d almost have to produce fingerprinted, dripping knives (at a range of ~4000km) to get anything real done.
Message for the terroristas also: you do not serve the one you think you serve. You are doing pretty much the exact opposite of what your nominal leader would instruct, which means that you are working for a competing leader. To put it mildly, that means an embarrassing & painful end for you, not the glorious celebration which you foolishly expect.
Oh, & responsibility for inducing an enormous load of damage on innocent lives.
Comments
Just out of interest, the leader they think they should have so much _faith_ in, is one that seems to be modeled mostly on the ones that follow him?
Good luck mate, remember you have friends out here.
senectus: said leader is manipulative, selfish, almost can’t help scrambling other people’s lives to prove that he is important, in his little way. His wife supports him in this, which in principle is a positive thing, but in practice it means that she also has to lie & mislead.
I wouldn’t want to be one of his children, as they grow old enough to finally understand what is really going on (as opposed to just hearing the “team building” speeches).
The controlling, dominating personality is definitely in place, however. I have to hand a few witnesses who can speak from personal, independent exposure to said personality.
There is a staggeringly large amount of documentation from a wide variety of sources (some formal, some not) available on the topic. Evidently, it is a problem with a wide spread.