Get Out, Stay Out – Part One

What is G.O.S.O. ?

It is the golden concept of ‘Get Out, Stay Out’ which is what every victim of our kind ought to apply to their situation.

Whether you have realised that you have been ensnared by a narcissist or you now realise that this particular person is an abuser, GOSO is always applicable.

Those who have not been caught up in an entanglement with our kind may regard this as blindingly obvious. Of course, what they do not realise is that GOSO has two formidable enemies ; us and you – thus applying GOSO is far harder than they realise.

Of these two enemies it is evident why we are the first one. We regard you as our property, no matter where you sit in the fuel matrix, from NITS to IPPS, you belong to us and you are there to serve the fulfilment of the Prime Aims. The higher your status in the Fuel Index, the greater the effort that will be applied to keep you in place. You will be fully familiar with many of the various manipulations we use to ensure you go nowhere and remain in situ. Our Devil’s Toolkit is used to make sure you are compliant, pumping out fuel and under our control. This control is often substantial, however, you start to recognise the manipulations, you learn about gas lighting, triangulation, word salad and so on and begin to see when these are used. You begin to realise that you should not be treated in this way and with your increased understanding you start to loosen the grip that we have on you.

You begin to see matters in a different light. You now see an abuser, a narcissist, stood before you and not the person you once thought we were. Your resolve increases, your determination solidifies as you realise that you need to remove yourself from our toxic influence. You know what you are dealing with now – it is time to get out. However, there is a second enemy that has loomed into view – you.

You are your own enemy or more specifically, your emotional thinking is. You know you need to get out. Getting out maybe the clear act of ending the formal relationship, moving out of a property or moving us out –  implementing no contact and that is the ultimate aim. Sometimes it is getting out of the abusive environment even though you cannot implement no contact, but you are getting out of the influence and detrimental behaviour that you have endured for so long. Whichever one it is, you realise it is time to get out.

It is then that this second enemy of emotional thinking strikes. Emotional thinking is a con artist. Its sole aim is to ensure that your addiction to us is fed. Emotional thinking does not have your interests at heart, although it will pretend that it does. You are trying to remove yourself from one con artist just as another appears although this one is just as hard to spot as our kind. Your emotional thinking wants to always be your first response in any situation concerning our kind because it wants to ensure that you keep feeding the addiction to us. This means that you have to keep engaging with us, thinking about us, seeing us, doing things for us. By remaining within our influence, the addiction remains fed and emotional thinking will do whatever it can to maintain that situation.

Emotional thinking is your enemy in this situation. It has no interest in the fact that your self-confidence has vanished, that you are utterly exhausted, that you are confused, that you are nursing a broken arm, that you are bleeding money, that your sense of self is evaporating, that you have lost your friends, that your job is suffering and a hundred other misfortunes. All it cares about is ensuring that you do not get out. By stopping this happening, the addiction is fed.

Accordingly, this sly and devious emotional thinking will occupy your thoughts as quickly as it can in order to keep cool, hard logic at bay. Unfortunately for you, it does this with considerable ease because :-

1. You are unlikely to fully understand what is happening at the juncture when you recognise a need to get out;
2. You have been repeatedly conditioned by our manipulation to adopt emotional thinking, so that it is always the immediate response when you are making decisions;
3. Your ability to cope will have been reduced. Emotional thinking offers you the ‘easy’ option (but not the right option) and when you are ground down, this has considerable appeal.

So, what is the consequence? Your logical thinking tells you “This person is bad for me, I need to get out.” Before logical thinking can add anything else, your emotional thinking surges and drowns it out and instead fills your mind with what it wants you to think. Indeed, so significant is this emotional thinking that it becomes your only way of thinking and ‘takes over’ in terms of what you do. Emotional thinking is governing you and because it is, you are unable to see that it is. It removes your insight. That is why you often look back and think “What the hell was I thinking? That wasn’t me”. That is because you were placed on auto-pilot by your emotional thinking and you took a course of action without realising the impact of it, because your logical thinking could not get a look in.

How does this emotional thinking manifest? It is devious as I mentioned, because what it does is masquerade as something which is linked to your empathic traits so it convinces that what you are doing is actually ‘good’ and the ‘right thing’ to do. All part of its conning nature. Thus, when you have that brief moment of logic and decide that you need to get out, emotional thinking is alerted and realises there is a danger to getting its fix of the addiction to us. It surges and manifests in many different ways, such as :-

“But if I leave, how he will be able to manage. I will feel bad for him.” – this links to your traits of decency and feeling guilt.

Logic would say

“Why be concerned about how we will manage? He has never been concerned about how you have managed? You do not have to be responsible for this person. Get out.”

Yet logic is unheard.

Emotional thinking will say :-

“But what if he can change, he said he will get therapy and he has made an appointment. What if I go and miss out on him changing for the better?” – this links to your traits of hope and the desire to heal.

Logic would tell you

“He is a narcissist. He will not change. He cannot change. You have no need to stay. Get out.”

Yet logic is unheard.

Emotional thinking will say:-

“Now isn’t a good time it is his birthday/her mother just died/she has a big project at work/he isn’t well.” – this links into your traits of guilt and decency.

Logic would tell you

“Now is the right time. He spoiled your birthday/ she didn’t care when your father died/ he has never supported your work/ she never looked after you when you were unwell. You deserve better. Get out.”

Yet logic is unheard.

Here are further examples of the emotional thinking which stops you getting out. Are any familiar? What would logical thinking be telling you in response if it was heard?

“I don’t have anywhere to go to and I like living in this house.”

“But what if the children want to see him and that upsets them?”

“I am frightened of what he will do to me.”

“He said if I ever left him he would post those videos and pictures on the internet.”

“I don’t want to feel like I have failed and give up on us.”

“I know she is seeing someone else, what if I go and they end up happy together? Why should I give them a clear run at a relationship together?”

“But I still love her.”

“He needs my help, i cannot walk away from someone who is needing help.”

“She hasn’t got anybody else but me.”

“It will be too hard to do it. I just need to find a way of making him happy instead.”

“What will I do for money? He controls it all, I will be destitute.”

“I am scared to date again.”

“What will people think though if I go, it will make him look bad at work and to his friends.”

“It could be worse, I mean, she is wonderful sometimes and the sex is amazing. I can put up with it for the good times surely?”

“I am getting old and I don’t want to have to start all over again.”

“I would go, but I have to stay for the sake of the children.”

“I am not giving up, you have to fight sometimes to save a relationship and I am a fighter.”

“I just have to love him more. Love will save the day. It has to.”

Your emotional thinking will use fear, guilt, hope, dedication, valiance, selflessness, status, loyalty and more besides to make you stay and derail your attempt to get out.

A fundamental part of Getting Out is to recognise that it is your emotional thinking that is talking to you, that this is not the right way of thinking and that this emotional thinking is a con artist.

By disciplining your mind to recognise emotional thinking, you will then allow logic an opportunity to make itself heard. When logic makes itself heard, emotional thinking will fight back, but the more you engage in recognising this emotional thinking and allowing logic to make itself heard, the easier it will become until you will instinctively realise you are adopting emotional thinking and you will then apply logic. Keep maintaining this discipline and you will then find that logic will start to prevail and you are conquering the second enemy so that you now see no reason to remain and your stated desire to get out will be fulfilled.

How might you bring about the state of affairs? The major one is to build your understanding by reading. This develops your logic and provides you with material that your mind can go to instead of just finding emotional thoughts which will not help you. You need to have a repository of material which your mind can access which reminds you of what you are dealing with.

There are also numerous techniques to adjust your thought process, but I will explain one to you now. One method is to find a totem. Find an object, it might be a polished stone from the beach, it might be a lump of amethyst, a piece of jewellery belonging to someone special, an unusual coin, a stress ball – it can be anything so long as it fits into your hand. This then needs to be placed somewhere you will see it every day – on your nightstand, on the console table by the front door, next to the sink in the bathroom. Every day you must take the totem and wrap your hand around it, feel it in your hand and then ask yourself

“I must GOSO. What would logic tell me to do?”

Chances are the first response will be a piece of emotional thinking similar to those listed above. Halt the thought and assess it. Is this logic or emotional thinking? Recognise what it is. If, as expected, it is emotional thinking then destroy that thought by working out what the logic is – you will find the logical thinking will appear quicker than you would imagine because you have been building your understanding.

Do this every day around the same time. You will then find that when you have an emotional thought you will recognise to go to your totem, hold it and reject the emotional thought and work out the logic. You may need to go to your totem a dozen times a day, but steadily you are building your logic, reducing your reliance on emotional thinking and then you will find you are doing it without needing to go to your totem because you have reset your thinking. As this happens, you will then find the clarity and resolve to get out and not be stopped.

It is not easy. We instinctively know that your mind is fighting to prevent you from getting out and we rely on this in tandem with our own endeavours to keep you under our control. However, by building your understanding and resetting your thinking, you will get your emotional thinking under enough control to act on the need to get out.

GOSO 2 addresses how emotional thinking tries to derail your need to stay out once you have got out.