Lance Armstrong said, “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”
When I was in an abusive relationship with a sociopath, the pain was overwhelming. I quit trying to get through it and gave into it. I quit and felt like it would last forever.
“Nothing lasts forever – not even your troubles” so said psychologist, Arnold H. Glasgow.
Trouble is, when I’m in trouble I ‘always’ think in absolutes, like never and forever. When I’m in never and forever land, I tell myself tomorrow is too far away to even bother caring about what happens today. I tell myself to quit moving through the turmoil because it is a forever deal. I’m never going to get through it. I’m never going to get away from it. I’m never going to get away.
When I was with the sociopath, I couldn’t see the possibility of freedom when I was mired in my denial of what was happening in my life. I kept telling myself that because I said I loved him, I had to stay true to my love forever. I had to stay true to him, forever and could never leave. I never let myself think about the alternative, “What if I could leave? What if I didn’t love him? what if….?”
Because I told myself I could never leave him, I couldn’t see that I was the architect of my distress. Caught up in the despair of believing ‘the pain of loving him’ would last forever, I convinced myself to quit trying to do anything different, to think anything different. I told myself there was no freedom for me, just this ennui of dying more and more every day.
I work at a homeless shelter. Recently, I had a friend tell me he believes that many of the homeless in our city ‘receive with the expectation they should receive and see no merit in contributing to the very institution or the society that gives them succour’. While I understand his point of view, and on the surface acknowledge there is some ‘truth’ to what he says, I also understand what happens to an individual when they become so lost they see no hope of ever finding themselves again.
In all of us there is a dark-side to our psyches. That place where light cannot find a foothold in the quicksand of negative thinking that pulls us down. Some will never trip over their shadows, some will never fall so far from grace they lose sight of the light. For those who meet up with sociopaths or who lose their way on the road of life, however, darkness will fall as they plummet into the despair of believing they will always be lost to the light. Devoid of hope, they will not open their eyes to the possibility of letting go of never and forever being there.
My life with the sociopath was like that. I fell into the dark-side and quit trying to swim to the shores of sensibility. I gave up on me and gave into him. The pain of my existence, of being me, of having to walk around in my own body was overwhelming. I wanted to die and thus did everything I could to make it possible.
The sociopath became my escape from living. He was my own personal suicide mission.
I see it happening everyday at the shelter where I work. People on suicide missions with a destiny they fear will never come.
And yet, despite the bleakness of their outlooks their human spirit keeps struggling to survive. To rise above the cesspool of negative thinking that inexorably pulls them into the vortex of their despair.
There is no easy cure for pain. Yesterday my gallbladder flared up and for a moment I felt as if the pain would last forever. I knew it wouldn’t and so I breathed deeply. Let the tears flow and waited for it to subside. It did.
Like all pain, it disbursed, eased, backed-off and was replaced with something else. In my case, a refreshing sleep from which I awoke to a beautiful blue sky-day filled with love and laughter. A walk with the puppies and a wonderful friend. A shopping trip to one of my favourite stores to scope out storage solutions for my new home and a birthday dinner for one of my dearest friends.
It was a day that started with pain and ended with love and laughter. The pain subsided, its memory but a distant reminder I must watch more carefully what I eat. The love and laughter, they live on, forever and a day, to remind me to never give up on living my life on the light-side of my thinking.
Thank you all so much for the support I receive here, even when my views are unpopular or need more clarification. This truly is a place of great healing.
LL, You raised 6 kids, and from what I hear, you did it with more love than was ever given to you. You are truly an incredible woman. It is your turn now, and you deserve every bit of help you get, every massage, every therapist. If you lived closer, I would give you massages, too, and I would do it joyfully, and it would be healing for me, as well.
I do believe the system failed me in many ways. If I start thinking about all the injustice in my life, my energy will fall, and I will spiral downward quickly. The way to avoid that trap is to take full responsibility for the way my life has turned out. I had the option to have kids when I was in my 20’s and living with a very kind spiritual man who was a grad student at my school. He loved me very much. Using birth control, I got pregnant twice, and I opted to end both pregnancies. I was too young and selfish at the time to even consider having kids. If I’d had even one child, the system would have kicked in and taken care of me as a single mother. My then bf would have taken care of me, too. It was my choice to end the pregnancies. Because of my choices, I was able to live a rich life in some ways – traveling to other countries and doing all kinds of interesting things. And I missed out on the joys/challenges of being a parent. I have no regrets. In any event, it is all in the past. I have discovered that the way to feel good is to raise my vibration by reinterpreting my life and changing my thoughts from victim-oriented ones to more positive and life-affirming ones. I may not get free massages from the state, but I have the ability to barter massages for massages if I want to. I also have the ability to pay for some massages sometimes. I am not completely destitute. I know how to do energy work. I can do it on myself and others. I can take trainings to learn more, and I can charge money for it if I want to. With the minimal amount of work, I can set myself up to do medical massages, which will bring in large amounts of money. I have many available resources.
In the Chinese astrology, I am a rat. Rats are notoriously resourceful and can make something out of nothing. I have always been this way, and this is how I survived my childhood. I always tell myself that my mother didn’t love me. But the truth is that there was *some* love or else I would not have survived to adulthood. She fed me, clothed me, and put a roof over my head. I do believe she did the best she could given her own issues and her personality disorder. When I look back on my own life and how selfish I was, it’s easier to forgive her for her selfishness.
I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on past relationships, even though they were not with sociopaths. I did not intend for the thread to go off on the tangent of whether my alcoholic ex was personality disordered or not. I was trying to make the point that when you do not live your life intentionally, you get whatever comes along. In that case, a guy with a big brown van with a white russian in the cupholder came along. He rescued me from a bad living situation where I had nowhere to go. He let me move into his house. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, I was enmeshed in a lifestyle I never really deliberately chose and had a hard time extricating myself from. This happened to me many times. Eventually, I became a stripper in order to gain my financial independence from men. Wow, I’ve had a hard life. Most people who know me would never guess.
Star,
There is so much I ENVY about you! The way you lived your life, is the way I had wished I had lived mine. The way you managed to take care of yourself WITHOUT any assistance and with internal resources, despite your upbringing is a HUGE strength that I did not possess. I think our upbringings affect us all differently. I was not taught to draw on any internal strengths, in fact, my spaths knew I HAD that ability and tried to sabotage any effort at self improvement. It created great fear of success as well as of failure. This is why the stories you share are of strengths I admire so much. Wish that I had had to survive as well as you do, Star. You’re pretty amazing.
Another thing I so appreciate about you is your honesty about what you did and didn’t do to survive. I’ve had two friends in the past that worked as strippers and they were super awesome women and single mom’s, one trying to get through college without using student loans and grants.
You’ve had a hard life, Star, but you were brilliant at using your internal resources, strengths and whatever tools were available to you to survive. They make some incredible stories of survival.
LL
One joy,
Going on what LL said, why don’t you give us a complete rundown of your skills, resources, strengths, and what you want. Maybe we can all brainstorm a way for you to get there. I know if you lived in Denver, I would be more than happy to help you out. I have been where you’re at and had NO one to help me. I think EVERYONE deserves a little help now and then.
One Joy,
yep, I have a house no one is living in and it’s in the woods. very quiet. just needs a clean up. Maybe you can find a job in tech up here in washington state.
LL, you have the same strengths too – you just don’t realize it. Just wait and see what you will accomplish in the coming weeks/months/years. I can’t wait to see your progress! I’ve seen so much already. Even though we’ve all had different life experiences, we are all standing in the same place – the present moment, which is filled with opportunities to reinvent ourselves. Maybe you will travel to China some day. Or take an Alaskan cruise. Or write a book. Or teach a class. I think you will be a great counselor, just as I see One Step becoming a great writer.
Thank you for everything you said. It made me tear up a little, feeling so appreciated. I will write a book one day about my experiences, keeping in mind that it’s not what we’ve been through, but what we learned from those experiences that makes for an interesting and inspirational story.
Oh and wait until you hear the chapter in my life about the psychic transexual I dated for over a year after I left the alcoholic. That one is quite the page turner. 🙂
LL, sky, star – thank you guys! Thank you for just taking me at face value on the net. i feel a big shield around me right now- it’s hard to let in your support on an emotional level, but i am taking it in on an intellectual level. I am fighting, and i sometimes react with self doubt and self dislike to setting boundaries with jerks. I spent time at the garden. It was good. want to start planting. had to talk myself out of that – it’s way to early.
LL, I live faaaar away from you. I am not in the US, which is I haven’t had a serious discussion with sky about her cabin. I can’t work in the US.
re moving to another city – i am open to it. my health issues are now dictating where i can live. I don’t think that i could live in a bigger city at this time – i couldn’t handle the smog, so i now have to go places and check first. $
really – all this will take time. everything will take time. i have to be patient.
i feel too overwhelmed to write about my skills and talents – i am having lots of problems with toxins, which gives me lots of panic. i can only deal with a bit at a time. i had started looking in the adverts at places the other day – and today i should have responded to an email – but after talking the landlord and some difficult stuff with someone else – i couldn’t. i feel unsafe and i can’t make another move today. i see how wrecked all this makes me.
BUT i think writing about my skills and talents is a very positive ideas – i just can’t deal with it emotionally right now. I am very skilled, talented and competent in many ways – i am also mired in self hate, PTSD and have fairly sever environmental sensitivities created by bad dNA and chemical/ toxin injuries. i have learned to cope with a number of health issues and worked hard to heal a couple of bad ones – but this stupid thing affects where i live, work, go – even which bus i can get on. and it affects my adrenal system and my cognitive ability.
god, i wish i could shake this feeling of horror. i am having the panic/ fear feelings i had when the spath was f***ing me over.
Star,
Thank you! But it’s hard to see any strengths right now when in a lot of pain. I’m seeing bits and pieces of walking out of the mess, but I’m still pretty much standing up to my butt cheeks in spath shiat!
Interesting……last week in my DV class, there was a woman there who was just turning 50 this next week. We were sharing war stories with regards to our spaths and got into specifics with regards to tactics. Her jaw dropped when I shared with her some of the insights into her N and his tactics. By the end of the evening, she had said to me, “you’re very smart! you seriously should consider changing that degree you were trying to get into psychology!”
Well, that WAS the plan prior to losing my schooling. I see that as a possibility, but seem so screwed up right now, that I’m not in a place to pursue it. While sitting there, I realized, that I don’t know who I am or what I want to do or what I want to be. Just doing basic bottom line self care is overwhelming after years of neglect, ya know? I’m learning about that one thing at a time stuff.
I think Sky would be a BRILLIANT therapist!
I thought I’d share this now as it seems to be a running thing that’s coming up for me. I’m going to share this in group this next week too. Unfortunately, this has me very stuck and feeling very frustrated.
I’m still thinking about spath quite a bit. Ruminating, but in a different way now, yet the same. Now I’m moving into grief and anger BOTH. The relationshit, in my mind, is permanently over. That is a new hurdle jumped for me the more educated I become about spaths and motives, etc. That this is a real true illness.
I have felt such anger and sadness that I feel like bawling my head off sometimes, but then I stop. I can’t let the tears come. It’s the same thing over and over. I”m wanting to grieve and mourn what was lost as a result of the relationship, but I just CAN”T. So the last few times this happened to me I was trying to allow the feeling to come up that prevents the emotions from breaking through the surface.
It’s the OW thing. It’s the shame and guilt. It’s the “karma” aspect to it all. I knew early on there was something wrong with him. I remember telling him that I thought he was NPD. I remember many MANY times wanting out and attempting to get out of the relationship, but he’d sucker me back in with the pity plays. I knew there was the possibility that it wasn’t truth, but I played the game anyway for YEARS more. There were times I begged him back (it’s recently that I’ve realized he loved that), and he would resist. Lately, understanding my own motives in the relatoinship, I realized I was COLLUDING with the predator. All the evil he was, I didn’t mind being either. I had to buy into his stories to be able to collude with him. To believe the fantasy, to wait for the carrot to drop. To drop my conscience like a brick and overlook that not everything he said was truth, that perhaps what he said his wife was doing or not was all a lie, that she wasn’t the evil bitch he claimed her to be. Everytime I would soften up about her and that he should work it out at home,I got MORE vicious stories about her and he would even go to the point of calling me, not saying a word, but allowing his wife to scream at him while holding the phone for me to hear. “see what she does?”
Bastard.
I cannot grieve what is my karma. I don[‘t have that right. And that’s what stumps me. That’s what shuts down the tears. That’s what makes me so damned angry, at myself. I got what I deserved. I have NO RIGHT to feel any pain over this. NONE.
All because I was in collusion with the predator. I cannot forgive myself for this. I have similar feelings as you all have experienced just being out of the relationship. the pain, the fear, all of it…..but I can’t be okay to express it or really allow myself to feel it.
All the shit he slimed me with, the way he treated me WAS DESERVED. I wasn’t in a position of grace. I wasn’t in a position of wife. My part in it, was as evil as his.
I wonder over and over, would things have been different had I not been the mistress? I know logically that they may not have been, but at the same time through all of the slime, I just can’t help but wonder. He made sure I understood that every other woman who was “madonna” was worth being treated better than I was. I was, as he perceived me, a willing participant in deceit. I dont’ deserve to whine about it, complain about it, hurt over it, be angry about it, and he no less than told me that, showed me that on a constant basis, while also dangling the carrot of “you should have waited, I told you to be patient and wait (for him). He told and showed me that I was not to expect less than his cheating on me because I was only there for the soul purpose of relieving his issues from his marriage. “You knew what you were doing and you knew why, and that’s not my problem”.
I cannot cry. I cannot with the shame and guilt, lives ruined, all the anger at having him, not having him, blaming myself and him, being blamed.
I cannot get past that I deserve ever ounce of pain I am in.
And that completely shuts me down.
Of all the women he was with, I was hated the most. The very most.
LL
Wrong LL,
you were not hated the most. What you are perceiving is that he hurt you the most. and that you sacrificed the most and that he paid the smallest price for you. You are measuring yourself worth by what the spath had to pay for you and you feel you were cheated because he was willing to pay more for the other women. Your “dowry” was too small.
But you are the one who set the price (boundary) and you feel you were outwitted at the bargaining table. You think now, how do I set my price higher next time? The answer is BOUNDARIES, set them high and don’t give them any drama.
Most importantly, you need to realize that your boundary/role was set where it was, because it’s the same one your parents gave you. Sexually triangulated relationshits where you are the 3rd wheel.
I do understand how you came to feel this way. He wanted you to feel this way. My own spath never married me because he wanted me to feel unloved. And he even told me one day: “no one will ever love you”. Thank God that every stupid thing he did, I saw it as a reflection on him and not on me. But what I AM seeing as a reflection on me, is my TOLERANCE for spath behavior. That is a POOR reflection on me and I intend to fix it.
LL, Yes you made a mistake. Okay, let’s face it, as mistakes go, this one turned out to be a doozy. But you are NOT evil. Your motives were not evil. You were reaching out for love in the best way you knew how. You didn’t know he was a spath. You didn’t know what a spath was. You only wanted love, after living a life of deprivation. To me, this is completely forgiveable. It makes me sad because I know you only wanted to be loved. Now that you know a little about me, look at all the mistakes I’ve made! I’m sure you must know that when I was a stripper, many of my clients were married and lying to their wives. I didn’t care. I needed the money. I know what it feels like to do things that degrade you and make you feel ashamed. Please forgive yourself so you can grieve your losses. If you were really an evil person, you wouldn’t be feeling guilty. It’s your CONSCIENCE that causes you to feel guilty. You have one. He doesn’t. He is the one who should feel ashamed for lying and manipulating you. The shame should be his. Unfortunately, he will probably never feel it.
Sky,
I do understand what you’re saying. But I can’t GRIEVE this.
It is driving me CRAZY! I do not feel I have the RIGHT to grieve this.
This is something I don’t know that I’ll ever get past.
It has me stuck as stuck can be and I’m not sure how to remove the stumbling block.
That huge feeling of I got what I deserved and was treated as such and allowed it, prevents grieving. Yet I experience the same feelings as others here do with their grief and pain.
But when the tears start to come. It stops. It just stops.
THere is no grieving for me, Sky.
And there needs to be a way I can be okay to do that.
But I’m just not.
HE WAS RIGHT WITH WHAT HE SLIMED ME WITH.
He was right.
LL