Not long ago, Lovefraud received the following note from a reader:
Your articles have given me a lot of peace and the ability to see good in life again, though I’ll never go back into the mainstream of society because of the abuse and betrayal I’ve experienced. It’s sad that the vision and understanding one achieves after being victimized by a sociopath prevents you from ever being able to get close to anyone again. I’m working through that though, so I just take it one step at a time. Maybe you could write some more about that?
Yes, dear readers, we do need to take recovery one step at a time. But know that we can go back to the mainstream of society. We can recover to the point of allowing ourselves to open to love again.
For each of us, the experience of the sociopath was probably the most traumatic of our lives. The betrayal shakes us to our souls. But sometimes what gets shaken loose is the negative beliefs that enabled us to fall for the sociopath in the first place. Beliefs like “I’m not good enough.” “Nobody loves me.” “There’s something wrong with me.”
Those were my beliefs. They were buried deep in my psyche, hidden by my brains, writing talent and management ability. But my ex-husband, James Montgomery, plowed through my life, crushing the structures I’d built to present myself to the world—like my career, bank account and credit rating. With the structures gone, I came face to face with the beliefs.
The beliefs were wrong. It was the sociopathic upheaval that enabled me to realize that and let them go.
How did I do it? Quite honestly, it was painful. I cried. I raged. I released layers and layers of negative emotion. And finally, on April 19, 2001, I gave up the battle to make my ex pay me back.
Nine days later I met Terry Kelly. We dated. We fell in love. We married.
Friday was our fifth wedding anniversary. We still love each other as we did when our romance was new and fresh. Today, we exchanged mushy Valentines.
These have been the happiest years of my life. We enjoy each other’s company. We comfort each other in times of stress. We support each other in everything—in fact, without Terry, there would be no Lovefraud.
So yes, there can be life and love after the sociopath.
Please do not give up on life because of the terrible experience. If you do, then the predator will truly have won.
Instead, give yourself time and permission to heal. Find the blind spot within you that made it difficult for you to see the sociopath’s agenda. Recognize that you are now educated about this personality disorder, and you won’t be fooled again. Trust your intuition.
When we’re in the midst of the pain and trauma, it is difficult to believe that life can turn around. But we really do need to believe it, and allow ourselves to move, day by day, toward our own healing. Because healing can bring us love.
My hopes are…..
That he completely understands, from the outcomes thus far, that I will do whatever it takes to protect my kids…and myself…..
He can’t come around our home….He can’t harass us…..he can’t send proxy’s our way…..he can’t make threats….because if he does…..
I”M ON IT!
I do hope that, at some point….hopefully in 3 months…..or so….he will ‘let go’ and move on….
As long as he knows I got a noose around his neck, by my follow through thus far…..I”M DONE…it’s over…there ain’t no ‘us’ no more….their ain’t no ‘family’ including him…..he’s made his bed…..and I AIN”T SLEEPING IN IT…..
I just need to ensure he get’s that point….driven home….and tatooed across his forehead!
He needs money to fight me legally…..and all his money is ‘dirty’ drug money…..and he has been cut off by his ‘rich’ suppliers…..due to his own exposure of who he really is and taking advantage of them…..they got fed up! he’s not worth what they thought…..he was disposable….tables were turned on him!
FINALLY!
Life ain’t too grand for him…..currently…..and he doesn’t have a new supply…..he just lost 2 close family members (death)……and there are other things ‘on his mind’……
Like….how can he ‘settle down’ with his money he worked so ‘hard’ for by putting kids and me in danger…..the money he gave up ‘everything’ for…..AND CAN”T SPEND! Cuz he knows……I’ve reported him. He won’t work, because it’s just too hard…he’s always had it easy……so now what???
Was it worth it????
I’ve gotta keep ‘one leg up’ with him…..I just know him too well! (unfortunatley….a little too late!)
Ya’ll are awesome…..and I just love the boinkings…..I’m trying to keep a balance…….and ya’ll help with your loven!
XXOO
EB
Thank you, everybody for your replies. You’re right, I’m right, the guy is already showing enough signs. He did call the other day and say that ‘maybe what he needs is to grow a little, and when arguing, keep to the issues.’ That’s when I thought maybe I was being to tough on him. But the point that Mike makes stands, the guy didn’t care about me, my feelings, or show any respect at all for my viewpoint. He only said stuff about me when it was to criticize me for being ‘sensitive’. It’s all about him, in the end, and even if I have never in my life known what it’s like to be in a normal relationship, and what it’s like to have someone actually respect my feelings, I’m going to hold out some hope that some day, some where, someone will.
I suppose my fear all along has been that it’s just going to be me, alone with my impossible ideals, forever. The only time anyone ever lived up to my ideals, of being treated with care and respect, was my S-Path narcissist, who did so only long enough to get me hooked. I know I don’t have to tell anyone here how that goes.
I want to know how long and why this all has to go on. Why do the abusers keep walking into my life at ever turn. Even though I dumped my family, the x-Spath, various abusing co-workers and bosses, I landed a new job, in a new place, where I didn’t know anyone. And now I’ve got two s-paths (a married couple) abusing me as my superiors at work, not to mention the old ones who are still trying to harm me from a distance (and succeeding). And I know it’s not just me seeing demons everywhere – the abusive couple at my job have a long history of abuse, several people are on to them, but can do nothing about it. All I do is put up my blocks, every single day, and watch the blind and the witless around me fall for their every trick.
Why so many, why won’t God help me set myself free from this never-ending nightmare? Why can’t I break free? Why won’t this let me go? I have nowhere else to work, because of the kind of work I do (very very few jobs), and quitting would just make me all the more financially vulnerable. I don’t know what to do to make this stop, and my health is suffering, and hyper-vigilant by necessity, and I am so very tired of it all and angry about why this even has to happen in the first place.
Why? What did I ever do to have to live this way?
Sorry for the rant, I just can’t take it anymore. And then again, I have no choice but to keep going through this until I find a better way. A life that’s free of s-paths and narcissists. How will I ever find the protection and stability I need if I’m being attacked all the time!?
Psyche
Phyche,
I am sorry you are feeling so anxious. I am taking a big breath now for you. And sitting with you awhile.
And (((big hug)))…today, I give hugs. We need it.
Wow are you ever smart for listening to yourself! You are aware and knowledgeable. Hyeralert…? we must have to go through that for something…protect ourselves.
I don’t have answers to your questions. Can I relate? YES!
Take care of YOU!
Dear Psyche,
I don’t have the answers either, but OH YES I can relate. I sat down once and made a list of all the ABUSIVE people I knew or worked with and topped 55 on that list that Ii would say were AT LEAST HIGH IN P-TRAITS.
Dishonest and hateful people ARE everywhere, but it makes the ones who are NOT that way SHINE all the more!
Don’t lower your standards one inch, NOT ONE INCH. Because if you “settle” for being with ABUSERS so that you are “not alone” the thing is YOU ARE MORE ALONE THAN EVER, AND IN DISTRESS AS WELL. ((((hugs))))) and just keep on doing what is RIGHT, it WILL pay off in the end. You’re a smart cookie to catch on to this creep so fast. GOOD JOB!
Please don’t get discouraged, Psyche.
You just saved yourself a great deal of time and misery by spotting the red flags early with your most recent guy.
You are miles ahead of other people, who continue to walk around in La La Land….and may continue to live in their own ignorance until the day they die.
Now that’s sad….don’t you think that’s sad? I think that’s sad.
Just keep going FORWARD, Psyche. That’s all any of us can do.
I truly believe that you will find everything that you are looking/hoping for in your life.
Because you have your eyes open, and you are AWARE of the world around you.
And, when the right one comes, you will be able to recognize it because of your life experiences.
It’s just a matter of time before things fall into place.
Thank you for your kind and encouraging words. I’m just tired, really tired, I can’t say how tired I am. And I’m tired of being tired on top of being tired. I know, everybody here has felt the same, and I don’t feel so special in all of this tiredness, I’m just mad as hell about it, and all we have to put up with in this damned life to get a five second break here and there from the torture.
Usually, I’m much more hopeful that there’s good in all of this bad, and I know in my heart of hearts that there is. If I didn’t have faith that there’s good in this bad, I’d have done away with myself ages ago. It’s just that I don’t *feel* like there is at the moment, and I’m so angry about how much these rotten people have gotten from me, from my quality of life up to now, and how I gave it to them, in all of my earlier blindness, and how being a jerk really pays off in the short term for so many, so often.
Thank you for understanding and giving me a place to be understood and vent. I’m just really really angry right now. I don’t want to take anyone’s hope away that there is something better. I do believe that we’re all like the phoenix who rises from its own ashes. We’ve all been crucified for our own sakes, and for the sake of what we believe in (our own self-worth and for our understandings of what is good and right in this life). i do believe that there’s good on the other side of these trials, but I’m dying for a break, and thought I had found one in this new guy.
But right, it’s back to the battle front for me, and no body, for no reason, at no time is going to get respect from me when they don’t have respect for my feelings and what’s best for me. Damn I’m mad right now. Just wish I knew how to take it out in an appropriate way. Mostly I just want to go around telling people off and what they can do with all of their self-serving logic, manipulative half-truths, and willful ignorance.
Rrrrrrrrgh.
Thanks again. 🙂
Psyche
Also, as a p.s., I don’t mind saying, even though I would never really do it, that I would love, at least in my mind, to beat these people until they were dead, several times over, while I asked them if they could feel a damn, bloody thing while I was doing it. And if they said yes, I still wouldn’t believe them, and I’d ask them if they were sorry. And if they said yes, I still wouldn’t believe them, and I’d keep at it. Mostly I just want them to feel the pain that they cause, and I want them to pay all the prices that they’ve tricked others into paying for them. And I want to see it happen, damn it.
Okay, for the record, once again, I’d never really do that. And I know it’s wrong, because in their souls, they already pay, every second of every day. But good freaking grief, I want, at the very least, better things for all of us who write on this page, and know all the things that we know, and have felt all that we’ve felt.
Psyche
Dear Psyche,
Darling I used to lay awake nights SO ANGRY that I would plot and “plan” my imaginary vengence on them….but you know, in the end I worked through that anger and that desire for VENGENCE because it was eating ME UP. Anger is a VERY normal and very NATURAL EMOTION when you have been injured, but we don’t want to hold on to it for too long.
You talked about your EXPECTATIONS of this guy being the one that would “rescue” you from your being TIRED…I think your tiredness is part of the problem as well. REST. Take care of YOU. The tiredness I felt after I lost my husband was terrible, and I THOUGHT THE NEW BF (my very own P!) would rescue me from grieving and being TIRED and ALONE, and gosh that did NOT work out.
Sure,. sometimes I am STILL TIRED, depressed (tiredness is a symptom) etc. but I only look to MYSELF now if I am not “where I want to be” in terms of life. I can’t look for someone else (even the best of men) to rescue me from my life. I have to do it myself, and THAT IS SCARY! But as I LEARN (and I am STILL having to learn) that I can depend on ME! Then, if I ever do find a man to SHARE my happiness with that will be wonderful, but NO other person can “make me happy.”
If that makes any sense at all. Hang in there sweetie, you are making progress and the fact that you SPOTTED THIS FRAUD right off the bat and did NOT fall for his PHONY “repentence’ IS A great sign YOU ARE RECOVERING! ((((Hugs)))) and my prayers for you for peace!
Thanks OxDrover –
For the anger, it has to come out, or it will destroy me. I want to get it out, because I never did that. Sure, I learned what we all learn – look at yourself, we can’t change anything but ourselves, and these jerks in our lives are a reflection of all that we need to learn and strengthen in ourselves. Love is a mirror, I get that now, like never before (and strangely enough) teach classes on related things at the university where I work. All those lessons that had been in front of my face in the books I have my students read finally hit home with me after this S-path experience (okay, after 40 years of experience with them).
Once I saw how this all worked, I learned and I learned well, on an academic, mental and emotional level, but the anger never got out. And now I see it doing things to my health, and I feel it’s blocking my recovery at this stage, and I want to find a way to get rid of it.
As for the new guy, I wasn’t looking to be saved, just looking for a break from the apparently un-ending line of abusers who seem to be attracted to me. I was looking for a sign that I had improved so much that the S-paths and abusers were no longer going to be making b-lines for me. I thought I had developed so much that I had stopped being attractive to them. So that’s the issue for me.
I also think that my being willing to drop kick all of these spaths out of my life means that I’m willing to save myself, even if it has cost me everything I once valued, and puts me through some more suffering in the process. I’m pretty sure it’s true for all of us.
So if you have some advice about how you let that anger out, and then let it go, please share! That’s next on the recovery to-do list for me. I don’t think I can let it go like a saint just yet, I need to feel it, to acknowledge it as my right, and then vent it in a healthy way. I never even let myself feel it much up to now, and I think that’s what eating away at my health and energy. It’s like I have a simmering volcano that just needs to explode and then I’ll be calm and ready to keep going again. But how to let that happen in the right way is my question now.
But yeah, I definitely agree, dwelling on anger would be counter-productive.
wait a second. What you said OxDrove is helping me get something critical about the problem.
I just want to write it down and say it ‘out loud’ so that I never forget that this is what I need.
I was angry for 40 years, and never once did I get the message that I had the right to be. I got the repeated message that I did not deserve or have any right to be angry about the abuse I was dealing with. Never once did I feel in my bones that I had the right to be angry, and that is exactly what I need to feel until I feel strong in that right.
No, I don’t want to act out on this anger or dwell on it, but I want to know that it is MINE, and I have every right in the world to it, and not only is it legitimate, I know that if I try to let it go without feeling with every cell in my body that it’s my right, I would be doing more harm to myself.
That’s actually what I think i need to do. Somehow I’ve got to convince all the cells in my body that this is my right, while they’re all echoing back to me the words of my abusers that I should just let this stuff go, get over it, that I’m wrong, that I’m sensitive, that I’ve misunderstood and focusing on things that don’t really matter. NO. My anger is my right, and finding a way to feel this might even do double duty, so that venting it won’t even be an issue. That’s what my gut is telling me now. Thank you.