On Facebook, a former classmate made a comment about a woman who was married to a pedophile, but is now divorced, that if she doesn’t step forth, “She must be delusional! If she doesn't speak up against him and lets him get off again, it will be simply inexcusable!
The word delusional struck me, so I had to look it up.
-the act of deluding : the state of being deluded 2 a: something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also: the abnormal state marked by such beliefs …
Wow, she is right, the wife is delusional.
I felt it as an attack to call her delusional and to hold her accountable for whether he goes free or not.
I tried to write a few comments, and then thought I better explore this delusional thing.
What I failed to see is that the whole dance of child sexual abuse is a dance into delusion.
The ex-wife of this man ran away with him at 16, she was very much a child still.
The dance into delusion doesn’t start with revealing the monster first, instead you are introduced to a man who is charming and attentive, he is grooming you into delusion.
Somehow he feeds us a false sense of who he is and a feeling of being special with his attention.
What vital information is left out is the ultimate goal, the prize at the end, our bodies for him.
Perhaps it is hard for us to see ourselves so unworthy in another’s eyes, when indeed it is true.
There must be something that happens then that we will not change our minds. Does he then return to the nice attentive man?
What I hadn’t really understood, was that we FIRST had a wonderful image and belief of who he was, and we didn’t want that first niceness to shatter.
My mother said repeatedly, “It hurts me when you speak of him that way.” She couldn’t even say the word pedophile or repeat monster.
She didn’t fail to see him, she failed to give up her first impressions of him.
She became delusional when the indisputable evidence to the contrary arrived and she didn’t allow it in her mind.
I recall saying that her strength was her blindness, it seemed just absurd that she could hold on to a loving image of this man.
When you see her as delusional, it is hard to expect a different outcome.
What I know for sure is the drop out of delusion is a long fall into a sea of horror and pain, swirling madness and disbelief to see the juxtaposition our minds had against reality, the contrary is wide and vast.
What you are asking of these girls is to switch their hero for a monster, to feel worthless.
Delusion is a preferable place to sleep, you can delude yourself and escape the pain of reality.
It becomes like a drug of choice, to live in delusion, free of pain, suffering and knowing, in a land where ‘love’ abounds where the mask of normal is firmly put in place.
Yet our body feels the precarious ledge we are on, the razor sharp narrow line of where delusion ends and reality begins.
Our whole lives work to keep the delusion alive.
And in the end it is all for naught,
a monster roams free,
and a little girl is lost.
I M Perfect lady 