Because there is so much discussion lately about pity, empathy and compassion in the wake of a relationship with a sociopath, I am writing this article to discuss compassion as it fits into the recovery process.
Before I begin, I would like to humbly remind my readers that recovery, by its nature, is a progression through different stages of emotional learning. If the trauma is major, these emotional states will be intense. And they will color our “sight” or view of the world and ourselves. I’m pointing this out as a warning that, unless you are in late-stage recovery, the material in this article may be irritating and you may find me a holier-than-thou pain in the butt.
If the farthest you have gone in trauma processing is denial, bargaining, anger, or grief and letting go, the related emotions will — and should — dominate your view of things until you learn the lessons of that stage and gaduate to the next one. Each graduation changes your world, and it also alters your perspective on how you felt before. For example, anger looks back at denial as a less empowered, less insightful phase. And denial veiws anger as anger as socially unacceptable or scary. This is just the natural progression of maturing consciousness. We look back from a larger perspesctive. We tend to block or demonize information from levels that are too far beyond where we are now.
So if this article doesn’t make sense to you, or it seems “nice but improbable,” or you find it irritating or nutty, it means it’s not useful to your current learning stage. Typically we can see into the next level of healing, even if we’re not fully there. Beyond that, it’s hard for us to intuitively grasp how it’s going to be.
As we observe on LoveFraud, there is a lot of learning in recovery. This article is about the end of the process. It’s an end so complete that, every “next time” we face a trauma, we know how the processing will end. It changes forever the way we approach healing and the speed at which we do it.
Defining compassion
Most of us grew up in the Judeo-Christian tradition where compassion is understood as a “social” feeling. That is, the feeling is about “we,” not just “I.” It’s associated with ideas about welfare as a community goal, not just an individual one. So we tend to define compassion as concern about someone else’s difficulty plus some level of obligation to help.
This definition of compassion is why the sociopath’s pity ploy is so challenging for us. It’s also why there may be resistance to my statements that I feel compassion for my ex, because I am aware of the painful identity damage he lives with. The assumption, I believe, is that it’s dangerous to feel compassion for an anti-social person, because that feeling comes with implied obligation to help. So it may seem inexplicable that I am aware of his pain, but feel no responsibility for alleviating it.
The concept of compassion that I am presenting to you today is somewhat different. It is more like a Buddhist or Eastern idea of compassion. This compassion is simply a state (of mind), not a process of identifying need and acting on it. This state of compassion may inform our actions — quite literally inform, by providing information — but the actions themselves are driven by other commitments or goals.
That’s all very abstract. Why does it matter?
Here’s why. The state of compassion which is open-hearted willingness to understand other people’s states and situations and to feel whatever feelings that produces puts us into full alignment with “what is.” It’s a vibrant awareness that keeps us gathering information, learning, and accepting reality without judgment.
It’s not that we don’t make judgments on other levels of consciousness. In a compassionate state, we may understand what’s driving a person who is dangerous to us. On another level, we may interpret this person as nothing but a threat and be preparing to defend ourselves or flee. But the compassionate level “sees” their state, our state, and many surrounding details. All that information moves “down” the processing ladder to refine what’s going on at the visceral self-defense level, the pleasure-pain level, our community-feelings level, and the cognitive level where we’re doing logical reasoning.
In other words, this compassionate level of awareness feeds all our processes by providing them with information that is detailed, perceptive and based on openness to active states and connections in our environment.
If this sounds like a hierarchy of consciousness, that is exactly what it is. There are lots of models for this hierarchy, which I’m not going to get into now. But I mentioned earlier that this is the end-state of recovery. That means recovery from a specific trauma. It doesn’t mean that we have this compassionate awareness in every area of our lives, but any specific healing process is over when we have processed through to compassion.
Our changing focus in healing
We’ve talked about denial, bargaining, anger, grief and letting go, and finally learning the lesson that changes our perspectives and/or life rules. This follows the Kubler-Ross model of grief processing. But Kubler-Ross was conceived as a model for people facing terminal illness. It described how people come to accept the ending of their lives. The model I’m working with goes farther, because it assumes that recovery is a doorway into a new chapter of life.
To see the whole picture of recovery, it helps to look at the progressive shifts in our focus. Up to anger, and including part of the angry phase, trauma processing is about maintaining personal control the idea that this is something we can change or affect. First we try to control our reactions (denial), then we try to control how our behavior influenced the situation (bargaining), then we try to control the situation by force of will (anger). In anger, we grasp that the problem is external to us. To control the impact of such externalities in the future, we develop defensive skills and perceptions.
In the later stages of anger and this is one of the things that moves us out of anger we become aware that we’re dealing with something that was not in our control at all. While the skills-building makes us feel better about ourselves, we are still reacting to outside threats. This focus on the external continues through the grieving and letting go process.
Turning inward
Grieving what we cannot change leads, eventually, to letting go. We can’t fully let go in anger. Instead, we have to revisit the love or great value we felt toward what we lost. (This may be, and often is, something that we now recognize as an illusion.) Reawakening love, even to say goodbye, relaxes us back into ourselves, and opens us to the “lightbulb” learnings that typically release us from previous attachments or ideas of what we “must” have or do to be happy or whole.
In discovering what we don’t need, we gain freedom — more scope of action, feelings, and even intellect. But to explore the meaning of that freedom, we find ourselves “shaking down” our internal systems to see what makes sense now and what doesn’t. With freedom comes responsibilities, and we have more learning to do about how we will act, what we will expect, and how our feelings work in this new world.
As a simple example, a common learning from our experience with a sociopath is that, although we once needed other poeple to confirm our okay-ness, we realize we don’t need external validation to trust our values and perceptions. So flattery and promises, or outside opinons about our dreams or our guilt, may sometimes make us feel good (or bad) but they’re not ultimately as true for us as our own ideas and feelings. So how does that affect every other relationship in our lives? Working this through takes time and experimentation.
More to the point, perhaps, relationships with sociopaths teach us that we have the inborn entitlement and responsibility to take better care of ourselves. To take ourselves more seriously. To assign higher value to not just our survival, but what we do with our lives. And this imperative eventually brings us to a confrontation with how we really feel about ourselves.
Clearing the obstacles to self-love
This confrontation is usually shocking, something like traumatic. It’s mindbending to discover that we’ve been carrying around damage that has caused us to treat ourselves as badly as we accused the sociopath of doing. In fact, we could almost call the sociopath an agent of our own distrust and disrespect for ourselves.
But now we’re experienced enough to know that we didn’t do this to ourselves. We identify the externaliites and note how little control we had. Even working with memories, we can assert our right to our integrity, our right to thrive, and reject the old influences on our lives that once crippled us with feelings of unlovability, unworthiness, insecurity or despair.
This process of restoring self-love is the end stretch of trauma-processing. Our shakedown of our internal beliefs, rules and processes becomes more pervasive and profound. We are in touch with a need that we may have felt before, often masked in background anxiety or in addictive hungers, but we can’t mistake what it really is. We want to clear away anything that keeps us from being in touch with our true self the bright, good, authentic, perceptive, learning, feeling center that has been the source of our best social impulses and also our self-healing impulses all our lives.
When we understand that this center exists and feel its nature, we come home to something that has always been there. It’s an experience that is impossible to describe, but it is the beginning of making sense of everything in our lives. In particular, we see how much of our life story has been about our attempts to heal traumas and get back to who we are. We become more conscious of how unhealed wounds color our perceptions. Though we cannot resolve everything at once, each resolved trauma illumates more of our authentic self, and helps us tell the differnce between what is authentic in us and what is unfinished trauma-processing. In this knowledge, we become more understanding and able to comfort ourselves, and more accepting of our normal human pains, fears, losses, as well as hungers, attractions, and goals.
We don’t have to be perfect to love ourselves. We can make peace with who we are. We can become more relaxed about new challenges, because we accept that, win or lose, we’re going to learn something great. We can acquire a sense of humor about where we’re still developing and are not so good at being all we could be.
We gain a new perspective, a kind of distance from ourselves that relieves us from fear and criticism, but encourages us in our progess as evolving people. That perspective also gradually aligns all the levels of consciousness behind a new “boss,” a new highest, deepest level that is more open and smart, while being more tolerant and supportive of our humanity. All of it our need to physically survive, our genetic attachments to family, our drive to bond and reproduce, our dependence on community, our desire to make our lives meaningful, and all the other needs that come with being human. Compassion is like having an angel in the “top office,” influencing the way the whole company works.
But here’s the thing about compassion. As that open-hearted awareness anchors our internal workings, it also changes the way we see the world. Our perceptions are a reflection of our inner lives. We see from where we are in ourselves.
Compassion and Sociopathy
Compassion is a state of awareness. As I said earlier, this definition of compassion does not require us to act or react. It simply provides a new and more refined set of information to the rest of our systems. In the case of identifying a sociopath or finding reason to react, the identification is made with openness to understanding their state, including the wounded pain of their broken humanity. But compassion feels this pain without becoming involved in it. The information made available to our defensive systems may be simply that this person is wounded, extremely needy for personal support, but is apparently unable to heal or return support to other people. His needs are bottomless and not fixable by us.
Sad for him, and sad for us to know this about him. But it clarifies our response. Compassion tells us there is no potential for a mutual relationship and nothing to be gained by trying to help.
People who have read me here for a while, know that I am committed to changing social systems that, in my belief, create the circumstances in which children develop affective disorders — inadequate nurture, environmental violence and direct abuse. Sociopathy is an affective disorder, which may have genetic factors of predisposition, but is powerfully affected by environmental factors. I can’t change sociopaths, but I want to help reduce future suffering (and all the suffering it causes) at the source, where children are learning despair of trusting anything but themselves.
My way to change those systems is to help individuals stop the cycle of damage for themselves. I believe that we can heal our old damage, so we are no longer perpetuating or supporting the transmission of damage through generations, communities and other human systems. If we don’t get well, we are part of the problem. If we do get well, we become living solutions. Some of us will change the world just by being human beacons, people who inspire other people to learn to love themselves and discover with the powerful rationality that compassion brings. Some of us will use the information compassion brings us to actively work on human systems to create a better world where human potential can flourish.
So that is compassion in my view. I hope this clarifies what I mean when I talk about compassion, and why some of you may find my perspectives and my language so different. I hope that, in my voice, some of you hear the voice of your future.
Namaste. My angel high-fives your angel.
Kathy
PS. This article is not about what’s wrong with you, being a more loving person so you’re treated better, or accepting or forgiving bad behavior. If it even seems like that, come back and take another look at it in a year or so. In the meantime, don’t worry, you’re doing fine and exactly where you’re supposed to be on the path.
Clovis, would not a disconnect from oneself be helpful? dissassociate from oneself? like disconnect oneself from who you think you are and what you went through and how you felt for the other person? until you can go into the courtroom and the person you be divorcing from mean naught to you. is it not possible to go to a place where one can tell you you have won the lottery or have terminal cancer and it means naught to you. go to this place and facing the person you divorcing from should not be so painful. choose not to be yourself who is painfully still in love with this person. choose to be something else and this person be most foreign to you. there be no suffering in nothingness. be a table, a sunset, someone or something else or everyone else. chose not to be yourself if that is a painful place to be. we need not dwell in ourselves or our circumstances. it could just be a place to visit or watch from afar.
autisticsouls, thank you for writing so much information. It helps me to understand more.
I understand your husband’s desire to belong more easily in the world of everyday people. As you are fortunate in being able to smell bad people, you are also fortunate in your state of being nothing and everything. In our world, this is very rare, and hardly valued. But I understand what you’re saying, and I am glad for you. But his desire to be more socially acceptable is very common in the everyday world, kind of a chronic disease. Many people in this world feel judgment all around them, and become judgmental in return. So in an everyday way, he’s being “normal.”
I am sorry a pretender took advantage of his wishing not to be an outsider. Not all communications trainers are bad people, as you know. He was unlucky. Not necessarily bad at reading people. Sometimes pretenders say they will do something, and then steal the money we pay them. And there was really no way to know what would happen, because they are very good at pretending.
One of the things we learn on this site is to be secure in who we are, and less vulnerable to other people’s opinions. You are very secure in yourself. You do not apologize for who you are. You are explaining yourself here, but you are not wanting to be different or thinking you should be. And that makes you sound very strong and stable.
Maybe your husband maybe is not so centered with himself. Maybe the difficulties of dealing with everyday people have made him think he would be a better person, if he were different. In my personal experience, this was the single most important thing in my vulnerability to the sociopath I knew. I didn’t like myself as I was and I didn’t appreciate my life, and my pretender told me that he could help me change myself and my life. I was so happy about the idea, that I allowed him to take advantage of me. And worse than that, I allowed him to influence me to do things that were not like me, and that I am ashamed of now. It took me a long time to get over this, and get well with myself again.
I think you see your husband facing this kind of risk. It’s understandable that he be accepted in the everyday world where we works. It just isn’t a good idea that he might forget that he was a wonderful person to begin with, and all he needs to is learn some new skills and perspectives. If he thinks they are better than him, he risks some kind of self-betrayal.
This is hard. Hard for him. Harder for you to watch and worry.
And though I wish I could give you some kind of perfect advice, I can’t. He’s out in the everyday world, and trying to learn how to navigate that world successfully. All of us who do that make mistakes and we get hurt. It’s part of learning how to do well. I don’t think there is anything you can do to protect him from his own ideas of what he wants.
He will learn something, but it’s hard to look into the future and know what that will be. He may learn to be socially successful and enlarge his involvement with the everyday world. He may learn that the obstacles are just too large, and give up those ambitions. Or he may learn something that takes him into an entirely new direction of interest. There is just no way to know.
I think the more important issue is what is going on between the two of you. I sounds like you’re in the middle of a very serious disagreement about personal values. And the real question is whether you two can respect each other’s values and what they bring to the marriage. Your lifestyle provides a stable, safe, loving environment for him to come home to. His success in the everyday world means money for the family and also provides him with self-respect. Can the two of you come to terms about the important things that each of your provide, as a result of your individual values?
This is a common problem between married couples who have very different roles in the marriage. If you respect each other, you’ll work it out.
In the meantime, the only thing I can think of that you can do is tell him how you feel, what you think and what you want. If you’re afraid, tell him that. He needs to know. But ultimately he’s going to do what he wants to do, just as everyone does. And he will have to learn from his mistakes, just like everyone else.
I’m sorry. I wish I could be more helpful. I’m grateful for the chance to talk with you, especially since my son has been tentatively diagnosed as Asperger. It sounds like you have a rewarding and interesting life, and I wish you the best.
Kathy
Polly, this is me hitting myself on the head. Of course, you feel that way, that relief of knowing that your not alone. I remember that. I just forgot it, because it turned into something else for me.
It sounds like you’re making wonderful connections, and I’m glad for you.
What you said about not wanting to be a counselor or guide, because you have other objectives, I understand. But you are so articulate that you could write your own book. But then, you’re going to be writing other things.
Sometimes people around here just make me want to cheer. Or make me feel cheered up. You’re one of them.
I’m off to bed. Have a great week.
Kathy
Aw thanks Kathleen!
I am so grateful for this site and will never forget the message you wrote for me when I was in the depths of despair when I first came here … do you remember it? You write such wonderful stuff for everyone but what you wrote that day about seeing the better future was the doorway to realising this wasn’t about him. I have a great respect for you – you’re a brilliant and insightful woman – now go finish that book so we can all get totally absorbed! I guarantee it will be a bestseller!
I agree with you about people who make you want to cheer – there is such inspiration here and I am humbled to think I am one of those illustrious folks (shucks wiping away a happy tear!)
Please tell me more about what it turned into for you – when you’ve had your sleep and done your writing – see we’re all going to be on your back now we know you’re doing something awesome hahaha.
I am very very lucky – I survived and am not so scarred or scared that I can still see how marvellous life is. So much of the shame was self bred – seeing others getting out there despite their limitations is encouraging in the extreme. And this site and the marvellous people on it – you being a major one of them – gave me the courage to start getting out there myself. I hope others who are isolated give it a go – life is so very beautiful – the spaths try to tell us it isn’t – that humanity doesn’t exist and that everything is dog eat dog – he was a liar. That might be his reality but it’s not the real world – or maybe that’s just the pollyannaish part talking again!
I actually am writing a book – I collected my rants and ravings over the months when he first left. It’s just in note form at the moment and I am unsure of how to structure it but TRUST that will come in time. I’m also writing out my revenge lol -I am giving it life on paper rather than with a knife in the real world.
That’s the better tomorrow you encouraged me to – the creative life I supported him in when I really wanted it for myself. You could see it for me but all I could see was desolation and pain. I’m just that if I’m lucky and get published my words encourage one person out there to give life another shot – free of pathology that drags us down. That’s how I hope to make a difference.
Thankyou for your guidance, belief, faith and love – it has not gone to waste and I am doing good things with it.
Have a delightful sleep!
Dear Polly,
I too want to “give back” to others who have been wounded, but I also found that I can (if I am not careful) get taken to the cleaners again, like you did with the young man you took in.
Last summer I took in a “victim” of a psychopath, who lived in her car and she was very articulate and very smart, and “so wounded” she came here to my farm where she could have had a safe place to leave her dogs while she went to work, even could have ridden to town with my son when he went to work.
Like your young man she didn’t seem to see a need to “help out” here and for weeks she never even offered to wash a dish, but ate at my table several times per day and a great deal of my time was invested in listening to her whine about how badly she had been treated, how badly she felt, she refused to take medication or to go to the doctor when I offered to get her to a free clinic, she imposed on me and my sons, was inconsiderate etc and I kept making excuses why she was so anxious, so depressed, so….this and so….that and on and on.
Finally she “settled in” and she decided she would be the cook for the household, but it wasn’t long before she started to get VERY angry if I moved anything in the refrigerator or my own kitchen, she still wasn’t doing much in the way of anything except cooking, but would take 6-8 hours to cook “gormet” meals but NOTHING else, not even keeping the bathroom which was reserved for her clean.
When her anger started to overflow her facial expressions I contacted a psychyiatrist friend and talked to her about this situation, and DARNED if I had not taken in a “victim” who was really a CO-ABUSER, who was a psychopath playing the “pity me” ploy and using her “previous abuse” as an excuse to be a mooch.
Of course she didn’t want a job and I have never seen anyone come up with as MANY EXCUSES WHY SHE COULD NOT EVEN LOOK FOR WORK….and of course she was way too educated and smart to take a manual labor job, but actually since I worked my way through college cleaning other people’s homes, that didn’t fly too high with me. LOL
I told her she had to leave and since I didn’t know if she had enough gas to get to the next town, I gave her $150 and she went into a TIRADE about how I had abused her, not taken her to a doctor or dentist and how I had worked her like a slave. LOL I had been fortunate I had NOT let myself get too emotionally involved with her but kept a clinical distance to some extent, though I had bought into her pity play some, but over all I kept my head….and as she went into this terrible crying fit of accusing me of all kinds of abuse of her, I just stood there with my “inner psychopath” clinically looking at the STEREO-TYPICAL PSYCHOPATHIC RANT. I did NOT feel pity for her, and I did not feel that I could “help” her or that anything she said had ANY VALIDITY because it didn’t.
When she drove off, I was not even sorry I had let her come there and wasted a lot of my time on her, because I REALIZED IF I WAS NOT CAREFUL, in the future I would easily fall into the ENABLING MODE and taking on emotional as well as physical oblligation to fix someone else.
I had given her an OPPORTUNITY, which she refused to use to her advantage, instead just loafing here rent free (I did tell her before she came she had to pay her own separate meter electric and any money she spent for her dogs or herself.)
I feel the same way about my son C. I gave him an OPPORTUNITY to use living here as a way for him to save money that he cannot do paying rent, expenses, food etc. and he did reimburse me enough to pay for what I fed him and for the extra utilities etc. so I wasn’t out any MONEY on my son, but he was DIS-honest with me, and DID NOT USE THE OPPORTUNITY I extended to him, or to honor the agreement he made with me about saving money.
I know a couple who took in a P, she lived so far out in the country she couldn’t get a job, so they moved her into their house in town. Then she couldn’t get a job because her car quit, so theyy bought her a car. Then she was so depressed she couldn’t work, so they took her to the doctor and paid for the medicine, and of course she expected to not even help around the house–she did have all these aches and pains, you know! LOL Eventually, she latched on to an enabling and very compassionate man and moved out with him.
“They” are EVERYWHERE and as long as we are gullible and willing to let ourselves support them, they will hang on like a tick on a dog’s ear. We cannot fix them, but we are responsible for OURSELVES and if we are WISE we will not get hooked into thinking we are “helping” when in reality we are enablling. I learned from this particular woman, so I paid my “tuition” by the time I invested in her, and I am going to keep the LESSON.
In the future, I WILL help others and I am volunteering in a DV shelter and in some other groups, but I am NOT being taken for a “ride” by someone, ANYone who wants to use me for a host, like a parasite. I will not let my compassion, caring and empathy make me into a FOOL AGAIN!
Oxy… really come see me when you are in the Dallas area.. we can meet in a restaurant..
What’ca think?
Maybe that is what we were deficient in huh? I don’t want to turn like that though – then he would have won and I would be like him …
OOOps wrong post – that was for one step and referring to arrogance and self interest!
Oxy – you are right – there are leaches everywhere. I remember I was boarding with an older woman years ago and she was like me – would take anyone in. I paid my way and contributed to the household – would cook and clean for her despite her protests! She had a little outbuilding on the property and met a woman who had a big sob story – her children had been taken from her and she was trying to get out of an abusive situation with a violent partner. You can guess the rest … it turned out she was still claiming benefits for her FIVE children to different fathers even though they weren’t in her care. She sat home smoking every day and never got off her backside to look for a job – excuse after excuse. Turned out she was an alcoholic and drank every bit of money she got. She even stole money from this good woman under false pretences and tried to get her son (who’s marriage had recently split and was at home getting his head together) into booze with her.
I came home from work one day exhausted after a huge long day in the hot summer sun and she leered over her bourbon glass
“Why do you bother working? You should just get yourself knocked up and then you get money for free. You’re not very smart at all.”
The woman unseen to her was listening and turfed her out on her ear after that. And yes the tirade of how selfish and horrible she was came out. I couldn’t believe it. This woman had not charged her a penny of board or rent, had fed and clothed her, listened to her tales of woe and put up with her loud and raucous behaviour when drunk for months. She was trying to help but drew the line when it became apparent this woman wasn’t willing to help herself.
It’s a shame there are people like that out there because they make others reluctant to help. I know that in every city there are thousands of people having hard times who would love an opportunity of support like that. Most of us don’t get a chance after we’re grown up – it’s get on with it yourself and stand on your own two feet no matter what goes wrong.
But that’s the lesson isn’t it? You can’t help those who won’t help themselves and some people are too dumb to see the love extended to them in practical forms. I too am thinking about volunteering at a local refuge – I just don’t know if I could cope when the women go back to these bad men. It’s so disillusioning to see people given a hand up and then back they go still under the spell.
I helped a student a long time ago who’s family had disowned her for marrying out of her faith. She found out her husband was cheating on her online and was planning to install a new gf in the house while she was there. When she confronted him he became violent. I comforted her and re-assured her it wasn’t her fault. I also advised her to get out. But I didn’t leave it there. I went with her for appointments while she applied for welfare, I helped her find a flat that was subsidised, wrote references for her, helped her find cheap furniture and appliances and even gave her some of my own things. She was all set up in her own place and doing well on her own despite the grief.
And you can probably guess what happened. He called her and suddenly it’s all on again and she went back. I tried to talk with her – explained that it would all happen again but she wouldn’t listen. She gave up the flat, got rid of all the stuff and went back to being dependent on him again.
And sure enough two weeks later the woman from overseas arrived and when she protested he broke her nose. She came into my office crying the next week and asking for help. I said I will listen but if you want to leave you know what to do now – you need to do it. She left the organisation and last I heard she was pregnant to him and being threatened on a regular basis.
Now had she left him and stayed away I know for a fact her family would have welcomed her back with open arms, but she was too scared and too ashamed to make that first step. She wasn’t ready to believe the marriage was a mistake and he was a bad man, but bad man he was and she cut off all her options. Sad. She had such light in her but it will be beaten down by now.
When are you going to write a book Oxy? 😀
There has been so much written here on LF in the past couple of days. When I visit I get a vibe of so much work and healing going on. We are all traveling the same path, each at our own place on that path, yet it’s so reassuring to know that there is this community of fellow travelers here to come back to whenever the way gets lonely or scary. I know, for myself that the community on LF is helping a great deal with my recovery.
Kathleen, your support is awesome! I take away so much from what you have to share. This line you wrote really stood out for me;
“So if what I was giving these other people didn’t contribute to that building process, then it was just the same-old-same-old of pissing away my time and gifts, imagining some angel was going to show up someday and give me the cosmic Nobel Prize and a lifetime pass to do what I actually really wanted for me.”
ZING!!! I can really identify with this as being my way of thinking before. I’m going to call it BS now. Before the Sociopath 🙂
I’m really tired tonight. I’ve had so much letting out of emotions over the past few days. I’ve been moving into the mourning phase of healing and doing a lot of crying. In a way, I find the mourning phase way more draining than getting angry. Anger, when not expressed can produce so much stress and anxiety, but when it finally comes to the fore it’s energizing. Now going into mourning, I find myself tired. It also brings up some very personal stuff regarding loss and dreams and twisted up feelings with good and bad memories. I think part of the healing with that is keeping what’s good and reclaiming for myself and trash canning the bad. By that I don’t mean forgetting the important lessons. It’s more a matter of expelling all of the evil from what truly belongs to me and bouncing it back to it’s rightful owner.
While going through this, I have become more objective and observant of myself and noted my thought processes and what works for me. One of the things that I’ve realized I’ve been doing for a while now is RECLAIMING MYSELF.
one_step – I am going to quote a line from one of your posts above:
“was thinking this today myself ’”“ this is a journey to falling in love with myself ”“ ’ not sure how to do it. but wouldn’t it be grand.”
This is what I have been doing in a kind of way. I am in the process of writing an article about this, but I’d like to share a bit of what has helped me so far. Maybe it will help.
One of the soul destroying things that sociopaths do to us that really makes our recovery so brutal is their THIEVERY. One could call them the ultimate thieves. For not only do they steal financially from most of us, but really when you look at them they steal EVERYTHING. This goes to their complete lack of respect for boundaries (and our own lack of protection for our boundaries). But, going back to what it means for US, they steal from our personality; they steal our dreams; they steal our creativity; they steal our expressions, they steal our taste, they steal our knowledge; they steal our history; they steal our energy; they steal our sexuality; they steal our space; they steal our possessions; they steal our time; they even steal our like and dislikes…it goes on and on and ……on.
So, for me in my healing, I have started to reclaim bit by bit, in my mind ALL of what is TRULY and RIGHTFULLY MINE.
When something comes up for me that reminds me of a loss, be it of a part of myself or something that I used to love that now makes me sick or sad or triggers me in another way about the exSpath (and these can be very trivial seeming things that have an extremely emotional attachment reaction like for example for me there is a certain type of fabric), I say to myself, “NO. THAT IS MINE. IT DOES NOT BELONG TO HIM. THIS IS A PART OF ME AND I AM TAKING IT BACK!!!! He can’t have it. It’s mine. It belongs to me and I will NOT allow him to STEAL THAT FROM ME!!!!”
It feels really empowering saying this to myself and I do it a lot.
Also, another thing I am doing is recognizing things about myself that are good and giving myself personal kudos about them. This is like self affirmations. I do it in the moment when I recognize it, so the moment does not get lost. For instance, I have a great sense of humor. When I see someone appreciating that, I make a mental note to myself, and say to myself, “See. Remember that about yourself. YOU have an awesome sense of humor!!!” I do this whenever I notice myself feeling good. I stop and become in the moment and notice what’s going on that I am feeling about. If there is anything positive to notice about myself, I tell myself it.
Peace
That is some awesome writing Icanseeclearlynow – hope you’re going to post it here. That is so so so so so so so (you get the picture 😀 true about them – they take everything from us and they do it covertly while in the guise of being helpful towards us. It’s almost like they say
“Here let me just help you with that heavy bag of shopping … whoops – how did your love of music get in my pocket? Oh well too bad – all mine now!”
They also take away our hope – this was perhaps one of the most horrible things to lose. But it is inevitable when you are stuck there and blocked at every move by them. Losing hope means you can’t even dream that things could be better. You stop imagining, daydreaming, having visions with music … because what is the point?
I am slowly starting to regain it again but it is tinged with cynicism now – his gift to me. I will start to enjoy the vision of an impossibly happy tomorrow and then a grey cloud overshadows it as I remember something. I can’t even articulate what it is, but it is spoiled and there is no point remaining there after that.
I know this is his influence on me – I was never like that before – the visions just got bigger and brighter and better – no doubts, no fears, no nagging voice saying ‘no won’t happen’. It’s not even as clear as a nagging voice. I have tried to catch what it is several times, but it is impossible – it isn’t a distinct feeling, it’s not a phrase – a grey gelatinous cloud that takes away the sun is the closest I come to describing it and physically there is usually a big sigh and I come back to dreary reality with a crash. I am wondering now how to bottle and grow hope. What makes hope grow? Probably it is some esoteric concept like faith. Or trust. ALways big things – never something simple like eat a slice of orange and lie down for half an hour. Or do a rain dance and then write a song and hope will grow!
Sorry you have been crying – I was there on Friday – we must be cycling through it at almost the same time. It’s horrible and you’re right it is exhausting. But it is also very cleansing and hopefully you have noticed the crying is dying down lately. Mine has and that alone is reason to rejoice. I still cry damned hard when I do, but it’s not every day for fifteen hours now. That’s a huge improvement for me.
I liked that line Kathy wrote too – isn’t it crazy? We thought we might get some kind of kudos for sacrificing our lives for others? It’s so true though – I think I was heading for the Mother Theresa award lol A golden sandal or something – now I am going over the line – God forgive me! Don’t strike me down yet! I am starting to finally get it!
Hey it’s awesome to see you finish on a high – you are starting to recognise and affirm what others see in you for yourself – I think this is the process of falling in love with oneself – it’s gathering up all those snippets and even learning to love the faults and woundedness JUST AS YOU ARE because you are perfect right now and there is nothing you need to make you whole. It’s an often repeated idea through both Buddhism and Christianity. I was listening to a recording of the Dalai Lama translated the other night. He said
“You don’t actually need anything to be happy. You don’t need the perfect car, the perfect house, the perfect body or even the perfect partner. Because right now at this very moment you have a mind and that’s all you need to create your own happiness.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean I can create happiness by myself though – it might mean I use my mind to phone up a friend who makes me laugh. Or I might google some comedy on youtube or go play with the dogs. The fact is it is the mind that can produce those things if we remember it is there and has these amazing functions. I often forget mine 😛 I forget I have the ability to problem solve and make solutions because I got so used to just accepting the status quo with the sociopath and now am unaccustomed to thinking for myself. it’s a habit that develops slowly.
Please be gentle with yourself – we are re learning so many things – not just thinking and reflecting things, but also practical things like how to make new friends, how to problem solve, how to pull ourselves out of various moods, how to accept what happened and forgive ourselves. Sometimes we just want the pain to stop now though – we think we’ve already suffered enough and deserve a reprieve from it. But just like the person who wants to lose weight … look how long it took us to get to this point … it will take time to go back. Your reinforcement will definitely help with this process of remembering and rebuilding. They hated every aspect of us so eventually we hid everything and became bland people who didn’t provoke controversy – the knack now is exactly to reclaim the lost elements once more with new insights and new patterns.
You’re on a good road even though it doesn’t feel like it at times – you have tremendous insight and your body knows what you need.
I hope you are feeling a bit better now 🙂