Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, the turn of the year, the winter solstice and all the holidays of the “dark” time of the year are celebrations of the miracle of renewal. The harvest and colorful leaf fall of autumn is over, and the seasons are turning again to the beginning of the annual cycle of life. Our gifts, all our gatherings, the lights and candles are all expressions of joy in our shared warmth, and our faith and hope in our survival through the cold months to the blooming of spring again.
This morning, reading in bed (Richard Powers’ Prisoners Dilemma), I found this line: “Inside each of us is a script of the greater epic writ little, an atlas of politics so abundant it threats to fill us full to breaking.”
It made me want to write you about the “politics” of getting over a relationship with a sociopath. Sociopaths challenge our faith and hope. Our faith in ourselves, and the goodness of the world. And our hope that there are happy endings for us, or that anything we do will be enough to prevail over the forces of evil or the random destruction that appears in any life. In some ways, this is the biggest challenge of healing — to recover our easy belief that we are precious in the world and that what we need is here for us. Somewhere in our hearts, we remember feeling that way. But we are struggling with a terrible lesson that seems to prove otherwise.
As I write this today, I am looking out the windows behind my desk at a grey sky. Sleet is coming and dangerous roads. The snow is frozen hard on the ground, and dozens of finches, cardinals and jays are at the feeders. At dawn, deer came to nibble on the ears of corn my son scattered at the edge of the woods. My furnace died earlier this week, on a day where the temperature never climbed above 25, and it was 12 hours before the repairmen figured out how to get it going again. Now, with the heat turned up, and me wrapped in sweaters and fleece and woolen socks, my fingers and toes are chilled by the cold that falls through the storm windows.
Elsewhere in the house, my years-old Christmas cactus is blooming beside a wildly-sprigging rosemary bush that looks vaguely like a Christmas tree. Wrinkled but still sweet apples, picked months ago from a local orchard, wait to be peeled and mixed with mincemeat for a pie. A leg of lamb is in the refrigerator for Christmas dinner with a man who was an untrustworthy lover, but a loyal and delightful friend. After dinner, we will go to the movies with my son to see Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes.
All of it stories of risk and survival, disaster and renewal, the fine edge we walk and the mysterious providence that brings us to each new day. Even the most blessed life encounters harsh weather, and sometimes we find ourselves in trouble that taxes us beyond our conventional wisdom. When our rules don’t work, and our usual insurance policies don’t suffice, we are challenged. And often, we don’t know what it means.
Does it mean that somehow we have fallen from grace, that our luck has changed and we are no longer loved by the world? Does it mean that we are broken in some fundamental way, and no longer dare to be comfortable with ourselves? Does it mean that the world is darker than we once imagined, and that we must struggle harder for less?
This is what a great philosopher called the “dark night of the soul.” In this midst of this challenge, there is something truly great happening. A kind of personal miracle that — depending on how we think about things — occurs in our intellect, emotions or spirit. When faced by something we do not understand and cannot manage with our usual tools, we are learning and growing. Like the germs of life stirring in the seeds buried in the cold earth, we are experiencing the birth of something new in ourselves.
Because the challenge is threatening, because it makes us question ourselves and what we know, the first part of the learning seems like recognition of evil in the world. Sociopaths seem to be dark messengers, informing us that our love, goodness and hope cannot triumph over their selfishness, greed and senseless destruction. But in time, we come to realize that this lesson is not really about evil at all, but despair.
This is about a war — profound and eternal — of belief. Are we, as sociopaths believe, essentially alone in an uncaring and untrustworthy world, forced by circumstance and entitled by the survival instinct to take whatever we can grab for ourselves? Or is there something about us that is blessed by connection to something larger — the love we share with other people, our dependence on the combined strength of our communities, our instinct that an infinite wisdom and strength exists beyond our imagining, larger than us, but also part of us? And that we are meant, by some birthright that we can hardly explain but that is clearly part of our deep character, to find lasting peace, understanding and gratitude.
What we ultimately learn from an intimate encounter with a sociopath is that this battle is not in the world, but in ourselves. The sociopath triggers our fears, our insecurities, our willingness to give up what we value for the illusion that the ultimate source of love or safety is outside of us. In their betrayals, in the brutal disappointments they return for our commitment to the gorgeous illusions they cast to draw us in, we are thrown back on ourselves. They prove to us, in a way that is a perfect mirror of however much we were willing to give them to make this illusion real, that the first source of our love, safety and greatest wisdom is inside of us. That, however important shared love and community may be, the foundation of everything good in our lives is inside us.
It is about what we believe. At base, under all the little rules we’ve picked up from parents and teachers, under all the little restrictions we’ve placed on ourselves as a result of old traumas, under all the lingering resentments or fears we’ve never resolved, is what we believe about ourselves and this life. It is what, under it all, we know to be the truth and the meaning of our stories.
Our lives, like the life of every other living thing, are about survival and growth and learning. Our lives are about understanding more as we age, an evolving wisdom that sometimes grows out of joy and triumph and sometimes out of pain and loss. Our lives are about trying, not waiting around for something to happen, but also believing that trying is not just us working at what we see. Trying also magically attracts new resources to us. Everyone here on LoveFraud knows how trying to get better brought us here, and here we found resources that simply zoomed toward us, challenging us in good ways to wake up to new ideas and use them. That is how the world works.
Our lives are also about seasons. Not just the season of age, but the seasons of mastery. We have little challenges to learn on a daily basis, and we have huge challenges that we inherited, and that are so much part of the fabric of our family’s history or the state of the entire world that a lifetime may not be enough to understand it all or master its opportunities. We learn the immediate things — how to change a diaper, work the e-mail, get along with a boss, drive in the snow. But our lifetimes are also about those immense inherited questions, and part of the meaning of our life is how much we do learn and how our learning affects the great whole.
Nothing, not one breath or molecule of these recoveries from grief and loss, is wasted. We are part of a great turning of seasons. What we do here is important. We are important. The world and the great spirit that gives it life force have given us a gift, an opportunity to learn something amazing. About ourselves. About the meaning of love and belonging, as well as solitary courage. About how to be whole in the face of adversity. About the great cycle of renewal in ourselves, and how truly dependable is the fact that we are meant to learn, grow, thrive, bloom again, and face new challenges as we feel strong enough for a thrilling new learning experience.
The earth is turning toward sunnier days. Seasons when we take the warmth and light for granted. So are we.
As Oxy likes to remind us, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Not just to endure. But to recover joy, confidence and belief that every bit of this is a gift, sent to us to help us clear our internal decks, get rid of fear and grief and anger, and open our minds to the bright spirit of faith and hope, peace and joy, understanding and gratitude that is our birthright, that lives in the center of our beings.
Namaste. The light in me salutes the light in you.
Kathy
Great post, 7steps, and once again a tiny little quibble.
You wrote: “And Kathleen YES I read your post about coming to trust ourselves and make better decisions etc. I would love to be in that place. I truly don’t kow if it is at all possible. When I have reached out with the olive branch I just get more reasons why I will be abused and taken advantage of. If people are toxic to me why would I even want to keep putting myself out in the line of fire? I did trust my middle sister, until suddenly I couldn’t. They act like they are catually ENJOYING the pleasure of hurting me. It doesn’t matter to me anymore how much they change ”“ because they are obviously capable of deliberarely causing another person pain.”
I never suggested holding out the olive branch to people who clearly don’t know how to treat each other respectfully. I said to withhold your trust and love until people earn it. Or alternately, give it conditionally — just as much as you feel that they deserve, in the sense of being trustworthy or able to return your love.
I do understand that there’s some larger ideal at work here. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything in the family supported each other and go along? But that ideal turns into one of the “rules” that has more to do with self-sacrifice than taking care of yourself, unless you know for sure that you’re dealing with people who respect, appreciate, understand and feel compassion towards you. From a totally practical perspective, why would you invest in people who have a history of making you feel bad?
I do understand the deep desire for a home to come home to. My history of giving up what I wanted, giving up telling the truth, and feeling responsible for everyone else’s feelings began in my family. Not just when I was younger. When I was in my 20s and came back from living for five years in Europe, nearly a decade after tried to protect my little sister by confronting my father about the incest in front of my mother and a minister who’d agreed to sit in on the meeting, I tried to bring it up with her. She told me that my father had told her it was my fault, and she believed him, and if I wanted a relationship with her, I’d have to never discuss it again. And you know, I decided to “forgive” them and acquiesced for almost two more decades, just to have a family, until I finally called them and told them I wasn’t taking the rap for this any more, and if they wanted a relationship with me, they were going to have to face the reality that a 13 year old girl would not seduce her father, and even if she did, he was the responsible adult and he was the predator.
So believe me, I know about what we do to be able to maintain the illusion of having a family that cares about us. And especially, especially if we never had that kind of family in the first place, how powerful the dream of family can be. And because we were not trained by our families to care about ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to expect other people to treat us with respect and compassion, we go on to try to take all the responsibility for making everything okay with everyone else in our lives. And get our hearts broken over and over when they don’t seem to understand the sacrifices we are making for them.
But 7steps, eventually we have to come to understand that what we learned at home was not for our benefit, but for other people’s. And that we deserved better. Just because we are alive, if for no other reason, we have a right to take care of ourselves for ourselves, to speak what is true for us, to judge carefully what we will and will not accept in our lives, and to enforce whatever is important for our self-esteem, our sanity, and our ability to not just survive, but to be creative and active producers of whatever our lives are about.
If they don’t love or support or respect you, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t loveable or entitled to support and respect. It means that you’re not getting it from them. And the reasons have nothing to do with you.
One of the turning points in my healing — and I had some serious work to do on even believing that anyone would really love me or I was even welcome in the world — was when I had the astonishing idea that I deserved to be loved. When it came up in my mind, I wondered if I’d finally gone crazy. I brought it to my wonderful Buddhist friend, who knew the history with my ex, and he said gravely, “But Kathy, you can’t force people to love you.” Which was exactly the right thing, because it made me realize what I really meant. And I said to him, “No, but I can run my life like I deserved to be loved. I can choose people who are capable of loving me or anyone else, rather than wasting my time on people who aren’t. I can run my life as though I love me.”
That was a moment when a lot of fireworks went off in my mind. It didn’t matter whether anyone in particular welcomed me, understood me, respected me, loved me or whatever. It mattered that I treated myself that way. It was my job to live as though I expected to be treated well. And if I wasn’t treated well, to not waste time or energy there, but go find better places and people who were able to recognize me and appreciate me for who I was. I wasn’t garbage. I wasn’t nothing. I was a good, smart, hard-working, generous, dependable person, and I wanted to be around people who not only respected that, but were like that themselves.
As far as the family went, there was a lot of initial anger and rejection. Who did I think I was? It didn’t last long. My truth shook the whole family to their foundations, and they started getting more honest and, as they stopped holding up the whole edifice of lies, more compassionate with each other. (Except my father, who was a full-blown sociopath.) It was too late to change a lot of things that were in motion. My brother died early from complications of his addiction, but he became a better father in the meantime. My mother died feeling like she’d failed as a mother, no matter how much we tried to relieve her. If she’d just lived a few more years, she would have been witness to the recovery of several of her children and hopefully have shared in it herself.
But 7step, these changes began with me drawing a line. Telling them all that if they wanted a relationship with me, I had conditions. That I was no longer participating in their lies. That I was not going to be a victim or a scapegoat. And if they wanted me in their lives, they were going to have to respect my reality. They didn’t have to agree with it, but don’t expect me to hide what I think and feel if I’m around them.
Would you call that an olive branch? I wouldn’t. The olive branch — me forgiving my father for incesting me and my mother for believing I was at fault — was just an invitation to lie about me some more and make me a scapegoat for what they couldn’t deal with. What made a difference was when I said, “You want me? You earn it.” And if they didn’t want me, that was up to them. Because it wasn’t worth it to me to keep trying to be a good daughter and sister, if this is what I got back.
I hope this makes sense. I know you’re working on some hard stuff right now. I’m not telling you this to make it harder. But to help you get to a position that will begin to create the life you want. As I said before, it’s not going to make you popular right away. But it will create real relationships, if it’s possible to create them.
Kathy
oh no!!you all were right…i had a post on here last nite or in the last couple days that i was struggling with questioning if he was really a sociapath because he stopped the calls etc…
well …today he just got to me with a long message of he misses me etc …i thought it was too quite…and i am just trying to stay away from responding …luckily my gf was available and i have to get ready to meet friends in awhile for dinner…i have to stay on trac…cuz this is all so new and raw…
oh god!
Kathy,
I like this in your post to 7step: ““No, but I can run my life like I deserved to be loved. I can choose people who are capable of loving me or anyone else, rather than wasting my time on people who aren’t. I can run my life as though I love me.”
I still feel dependent that I still want to settle for a little bit of love rather than risk having no one in my life who cares about me. I wake up with a feeling of dread when I imagine my future w/out my husband. It sounds nice to nurture myself, love myself, or enliven myself, but I long for a man’s love.
And thus my stuckness in a relationship that broke due to lack of respect and giving and compassion.
DW
fahrahri and Dancing Warrior,
You’re both saying very much the same thing. Where you are right now is very okay. It is raw for both of you. And you don’t have to worry about all this right. Think of it, maybe, as a voice from your own future.
Right now, the biggest and most important thing you have to deal with is staying NC. It’s like you’re detoxing from an addiction, and the more distance you can put between you and the source of your pain, the better and stronger you’ll feel.
I’ve mentioned before that I almost wish we had little emoticons to say where we were, or maybe just how long we’ve been at this. I’m nearly seven since the day I threw my ex out of my life. I’m not sure how far into it 7steps or pollyannanomore, but I know they’re pretty far down the road.
Take care of yourself, both of you. I mean, be kind. Find things that make you feel better. Friends are good. So are bubble baths and music. Above all, you are learning to be your own best friend right now.
Big hugs and thumbs up to both of you. You’re doing great.
Kathy
Kathleen Hawk: I wholeheartedly agree with your point that our healing evolves when we realize that this is not about them — as you said, “They were just triggers or symbols or teachers that showed up when we were ready. Not, of course, realizing we were ready, or we wouldn’t have to work so hard to figure out what this is really about. Like babies who don’t want to be born, saying “No thanks, I’ll stay where I am, if you don’t mind.”
As you said, in coming to trust ourselves we are in a better position to make better decisions. We are blessed, and become a blessing to ourselves.
Kathleen,
your post to me is copied and pasted. read and reread.
this next bit is the ‘story’, without editorial about what i know to be true now:
‘M’ (the beauty boy aspect of the spath) was revealed overtime as having multiple personalities. the first, the early 20’s wild submissive, the second, a even younger girl. With words and life to support each. complex, nuanced words and stories; a mind so fascinating as to hold no anger for anyone. and much abuse in the past and much reason for anger and yet no anger – seeing it as useless. and when i first mentioned ire at some situation, he said, “i like how conflict brings out the fantasy violence in you.” and right there a superhero name was born. and we talked about her – and i realized that she IS part of me. and the longer the boy and i were togehter, the more she started to have space in my life.
I started to write a secret blog – her life. her mythic life as i related to him and his bf. and she knew the bf was bad news long before one step giving all more than reasonable doubt, knew.
She wove around through my history – and i saw that she wouldn’t have existed if i hadn’t lived as a dyke, and yet she seemed to not have a sense of orientation, beyond liking and wanting this boy – and being a loner. She was tattooed and knife wielding; knew what she wanted simlpistically, loved the boy WILDLY, had no things and saw the landscpae as shore and dunes and would pack a horse at the wiff of stupid – she was a avatar.
She is MY avatar. Brought to life by my being with him. And I MISS HER, AND I MISS HIM.
The day he died, she got very very drunk. He spoke in an irish patois – her speech was infiltrated by those round rolling ‘a’s (they still come at times) as she spoke to him more than anyone else during her day.
My friend came to get me very early – she brought me rum and tequilla, and we toasted his death in the woods, and i fell against her sobbing, weak at the knees. I gathered my sleeping bag, my money, my knife and my hat – and my friend drove me to the land i rew up on. And i drank – bare chested in the sun, drank till i puked in the dry riverbed. I walked up the slope to the burying tree and sat on my knees, looking out over the field, mind numbing, i feel over into the pine needles and lay until the sun went down.
i crawled back to my sleeping bag- unfurled on the stones and watched for the first shy star of the night – him. in the sky. stellar boy. gone.
……………….there is much more. but all i can do for now.
The avatar – she has been at times numb, drunken (although I am not drinking), fearful, knife raised and whilring, protecting herself….
most days when i ask after her – she is not well.
yet.
one_step, I’m sleepy, just moving from the couch to bed, and checked in for a moment, found your post.
You have written a beautiful story here, about shared creativity and the grief of losing a partner in that creativity. It reminds me a lot of the larger-than-life quality of my marriage to my second husband, the alcoholic poet who died. I feel for you.
At the same time, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing when we use the word avatar. We might be, but I’m thinking not. This part of you is not buried in your subconscious, but more unused for lack of opportunity. You are willing to bring this out of yourself for the right partner or the right circumstances. My avatar was someone else because I really did not know I had these characteristics in mself, or was even allowed to have them.
All that said, we might well be talking about the same thing, and I’m just too sleepy to understand.
What I do know, however, that this is a wonderful story and you’re a fabulous writer. You should write it.
Kathy
Kathleen – yes, I understand re definition of avatar – will pursue when i am more awake also. I onlyhad time to respond to a small piece of our post…there is more. It was very provocative for me.
it was larger than life – and that is how i am happiest (although i am reevaluating the stress on my system created by ‘larger than life’) I do not know about your husband, but perhaps over time i will.
there is a very seductive quality to the writing of, and about this story – I have my avatar’s writing and journal entries, also. And right now I can write little pieces of this story at a time; I do not want to be seduced by the quality of it.
it is most important that i keep grounding myself in the REALITY behind what was for me, a love story.
All I have wanted for the last few years was a partner in creativity. I am so sad to lose him.
It is so weird – he is she and she is spath….
but he was laughter and creativity and playing with words and laughing and playing and laughing…and wanting.
sob.
One Step – I lost my creative partner too – I am sorry you are going through all this. Please believe me there is another out there somewhere for you – one that will be much better because it will be an authentic person rather than a lie. Don’t let your own creativity slide because of this – that was real – it was the person on the other end that wasn’t. You can still create by yourself to get your esteem for your own work up again and in time the right person will come along and respect what you have done alone. It sucks huh?