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Thursday 3 March 2016

I like it, I'm just not willing to pay for it


I have been taking the time to create some handcrafted items lately, and I have put them up for sale on our Alchemist's Laboratory shop web site.

I then got this email from the sites contact form:

"I like those pentagrams you make and was about to buy one, then I saw the price, what f**king rip off!"

This was my reply:

Dear Mrs X,

Thanks for your email, and your feedback. I thought I would take the time get back to you
and explain a few things about those pentagrams I make.

For a start they take between one and a half and two days to make, that is one person working
on them all day until they are finished. They are also made up of materials that have
been paid for upfront in order for them to be made. Also while making them the artist needs
lighting and warmth to work properly.

If you take the UK minimum wage of £7.20 an hour, for the 16 hours it takes someone
to make one, that would be over £115. That is without the cost of the materials or
the heating and lighting which is also required to make them.

So quite frankly, if you want to spend that amount of time and money creating something
for yourself, go ahead. However, if you like the product and you think it is overpriced,
I am terribly sorry, but as you can see above, it is actually underpriced.


Thank you for your email, but on this occasion I am afraid the "nearly a customer" isn't right.

Kind regards

The Alchemist's Laboratory

I survived a psychopath

This was a long time ago, I am now outside the country and feel I can at last post about this and I doing so in the hope that if this is happening to someone else, if you have read this, you won't be one of the ones who abandon someone.


I survived a psychopath, who isolated me and tried to kill me. I did that alone, because no one would or could help. Everyone thought he was such a great guy because he had the narcissistic superficial charm of a psychopath, and I have always been an introvert. When he tried to murder me and was taken away by the police, the police also thought he was a great guy and that it was me, the cheating slut of a girlfriend that was in the wrong, even though I had never cheated on him. My so called friends disappeared, and just left me to be murdered by that psycho, they were never my friends and if you abandon someone because they are in a violent relationship that they have no idea how to get out, then you are not a friend at all. If you don't know the signs to look for you might just think your friend no longer cares about you and so you shouldn't care about them either. If a friend says they are not allowed to call you or go out with you anymore. They are not saying that because they don't want to call you or see you anymore, it is because they are being threatened.

As much as I wanted to escape my relationship with a psychopath I couldn't, because he knew my family and where they lived and every time he knew I was upset with him, he would threaten to do something to my Mum or brother's car or property, or even them. Psychopaths also systematically groom all the people around you, turning them against you. I had no idea my ex had been talking to all my neighbours, telling them to spy on me because I can't be trusted and that I am a slut. And that he is such a good guy. Because I have always been an introvert and never really talked much to neighbours and keep myself to myself, they just believed him. Being an introvert is not a bad or evil thing, but when a psychopath finds an introvert, they are so much easier to isolate and ruin completely.

You might wonder how I ever got involved with him in the first place. Well when I first met him he also had all the superficial charm that he used on me. He made me feel so special, treated me so good and was so romantic and kind. He would write messages in lipstick on the mirror, leave me notes all round the place, make food in the shape of hearts, tell me how wonderful I am, buy me flowers. It wasn't until he knew I had fallen for him and his act, that the mask slipped and the true him came to the surface. He had already met all my family and they all thought he was such a great guy, because that is how he came across when you first met him.

When he showed his true colours he would say things like - all women are sluts - and would go on and on about the women from his past who cheated on him. I would try my best to prove to him that I am not like that and I am different, but nothing I ever did was good enough. Actually from that point on everything I ever did was wrong. I wasn't allowed to be in the bathroom alone for too long because he thought I might be secretly texting someone from there. I wasn't allowed to go for a drink after work with work friends. He had a tracking device fitted to my car. I didn't know about it at the time, but he always knew where I was. He would refuse to go to any family events or even just go to see them. He stopped me doing anything at all that didn't involve him. All the time I was trying to get things back to how they were in the beginning, I just wanted to make things wonderful again like they were at first, I didn't know at the time that that had all been an act.

After he tried to murder me it finally sunk in that the man I met and the man who was now in my life are two different people and the first one I met wasn't real. I wanted to escape the relationship and eventually did, on his terms not mine. He had used me up, there was nothing left of me at that point. I was broken and he knew it and so wanted a fresh target.

I did build myself back up, after a long time of treating myself like he did, thinking I was worthless and didn't deserve happiness. But he didn't completely ruin me and he didn't murder me, he might have done and all those so called friends would have just sat back and let it happen. We should all care about one another more and not give up on someone when we see someone trying to isolate them, as it is very dangerous for them when it happens.

I am lucky that I got out of it alive, my Mum was the only one who really knew what was going on and she didn't even know the half of it. I am lucky, every man I have ever dated has been a wonderful guy, there was only this one who was a psychopath. Often people don't know this happened to me, I don't talk about it much and it isn't like every man I have met since then I have thought would be like him. It just means I can spot them sooner and so avoid getting into something like that again.

If you care about someone, make sure they know that and that they come to you for help if they need it.