I wrote the following nine months after the p formerly in my life was arrested. I was asked on another thread, was there a moment you ‘knew’? Knew that you would be okay. Knew it was okay to let him go.
Yes and no. In those first heady days of freedom, every moment was filled with knowing I was okay. And every moment was filled with the fear I would never get through the pain to find the light of love within me. I had to make a choice. Had to decide — what do I want more of. Lies and deciet. Truth and harmony.
I wanted to share this piece with you because it speaks to the power of one word to release us from fearing life without them so that we can surrender and fall in love with life within us.
As night settled into its soggy wet blanket, the pooch and I went for a walk. The rain beat a sibilant hiss upon the shiny black road, the streetlights glowed iridescently, casting golden orbs of light, punctuating holes into the dark shadows of the night. I was wrapped in the misty blanket of a rainy evening, my skin moistened by the water-laden air, my breath a frosty vapor leading me silently forward. The pooch pranced happily by my side, her tail a constant metronome displaying the tempo of her happiness as we journeyed forth into the dark.
It was a mystical, magical evening. A night for quiet thoughts that drifted through my mind as effortlessly as the raindrops falling one-by-one from the pearl clad branches all around me.
I thought of love found and love lost and moving on. Of new relationships and old. New found love and love that never fulfills its promise of growing old beside me. Of promises made and promises broken. Journeys taken and voyages lost because the voyageur could not see by the light of the moon and lost his way among the stars. And I thought of my brother to whom I had never said good-bye and the P to whom good-bye was just another word for the door is always open until I say so.
For such a little word, good-bye carries a mighty wallop.
Good-bye can mean, see you in a while, or see you in a year. It can carry us into the night on the hope of tomorrow or it can sweep all hope away as we look back and see there will never be a next time, another day, or a new tomorrow.
For those who have journeyed into the valley of the S or P or N, good-bye is a word fraught with the fear that once spoken it can never be returned. It lays frozen upon our tongues, our minds numb in the fear it might slide out on a breath of air and change our lives forever. Terrified we might slip, we pack our hopes and dreams into that one little word and stuff our pride and dignity into the cracks of our pain seeping in beneath the door held fast against our fear that he will leave before tomorrow ever dawns. And all the while, we search for the perfect last words that will either make it all right or make him hear us, just this once, before he slithers off into the dark from whence he came.
And as we flounder in the depths of empty words and promises, we pray that there will never be a time to say good-bye but rather, welcome back, I’ve missed you. Spiraling into the darkness of the painfully long good-bye they began when they said, hello, we silently hold onto the word that will set us free and stumble through the words of begging them to please not say it.
But in the land of lies, the door we thought we held so firmly closed is always open, no matter how hard we push against it. Eventually, when we have worn ourselves out upon the welcome mat of our desire to be all they will ever need, we must face the reality that we will never have the chance to say our fond farewells. They have already left. Gone in search of new tomorrows. Of some other happily ever after which we never saw coming.
In their passing, we are left holding the shreds of our battered hearts in the basket of our dreams, frozen in time. Alone, forlorn, we whisper, good-bye, into the empty space that lays before us, hoping they will hear the soft promise of our hopes they will find out there, that which they could never find in us. We peer into the darkness of the lengthening shadows, our tears puddling around our feet, forming a river into which we fall, in fear of drowning as we cry out for one last chance to say good-bye.
Good-bye. It’s such a little word but it keeps us stuck on the dream of wanting them back so that we can have the last word that will close forever the door to our hearts they so easily open.
In the end, the best good-bye is the quiet hello we whisper within our hearts as we pick at the scab of our wounds that never seem to heal as long as they keep walking through the door to our dreams. Good-bye lies. Hello truth. Welcome back to me.
In our good-byes that are never spoken we will never find the key that will unlock the secret door to their understanding. It resides somewhere in the dark, beyond the edges of the light. But, beneath the scabby, jagged-edge scar of our disbelief, new skin is forming with our welcome home. If we leave it alone long enough to heal from the inside out, we will understand that he could never hear our good-bye. He could never cherish our hearts because he was always and forever, a figment of our imaginations. He was never true.
In our awakening to the light of a new tomorrow without him we discover, it was only the darkness of being without him we feared. And without him, we have nothing to fear.
In seeing the gift of his departure in the light of a new day dawning, we lift our heads and see, the sun is shining. As it beckons, we step into the light of finally knowing, the only way to say good- bye to what never was, is to accept it never will be.
Kathleen Hawk
Oh sorry, I meant that to be for lostnsad.
And honey, that’s a very blue name you gave yourself. What are you going to call yourself when you’re getting better? I’ve always kind of wished I’d called myself something like fallingup. If you wanted it, I’d give that name to you.
And another hug —
Kathy
struggling
Lostnsad,
I understand. Before I started researching I thought I was the only one that must be going through such craziness, how do you want someone out of your life so much and yet think you can’t live without them? It’s their crazy making. When he first left I was actually terrified and so very hurt. I had nothing left for him to take either. For years while with him I didn’t think I’d be able to get through it. It does get easier. Six months ago I didn’t know I’d be able to say that. I still have ups and downs but it gets better and better every day. Hang in there No contact really does help the healing process. We have a child together so I do have to have some contact which he tries to use to bait me with his crazy making. But the rest of the time is no contact, and it’s great. I struggled with it real bad at first, but I finally had to bite my tongue and get busy with something to keep from loosing the ounce of pride I had left. He acted like he was too good for me. Of course in his mind I guess he was, I was worthless to him finally. It hurts and is so… I know but it gets better, it really does. Happiness is easier when you don’t have someone like this in your life or at least your daily life. Have you researched ambient abuse? If I remember right it helped explain why and how the victim can feel and act. The more I understood the easier it was to let him and the pain go.
I’m afraid I don’t qualify to give too much advice being as I’m generally a big screw up, but I do understand and YOU are NOT worthless they are just really good at making us feel that way. Open yourself to the possibility that you may be lost so very much in your life but just maybe the best is yet to come!
pollyannanomore
Kathleen … what an incredible response – I am stunned at the level of self awareness you demonstrate and your unstinting sharing of your shames and celebrations. So many things you described resonated with me – feeling stronger around him even though that support was only present in tiny doses in the beginning and even though I was taking care of most things myself. I have caught his dark emotional contagion as well and it is so not me. I felt like just crawling into a hole today when I realised my mother would rather have me stay with this man because it suits her agenda to have me live nearby and she thinks why should my life be better than her’s? I have nobody at all. I messed everything up despite all my good intentions and the love I put into everything I did. I feel gutted.
Lostnsad – you will be ok now you have found this place. These people know what they are talking about and understand the craziness you have been through.
I so understand just wanting to fade away and disappear. I am so ashamed that I got it so wrong. I just want to run and hide for a long long time. You may think you are not far down the track but you are further than me. I am stuck with him still in the house – he won’t leave. We have been separated for 2 yrs and he is dragging out the legalities of splitting what little property is left. We also have six pets together that he refuses to discuss and sort out. I have lost over ten yrs to this man and he has broken my heart worse than anyone else in my life. I understand all the psych concepts for what happened in this relationship but it won’t make my eyes stop crying or my heart stop hurting. Read lots and learn all you can – it does help to make some sense of it all. I was much more upset when I couldn’t make sense of it and didn’t know about personality disorders.
Heavenbound – you are NOT a screw up. Don’t call yourself that. You’re a good person to offer such support to someone new and to open your heart in empathy with someone else in pain.
pollyannanomore
Shabbychic – I so relate to that … just getting through each day. I didn’t realise years and a whole decade were being lost int he day by day. The pain is much worse now realising just how much time has been lost – I wish someone had said something to me about self in five years though. Even if I hadn’t listened, it sure would have been nice to know someone cared and saw what I was living through.
blueskies
I know u guys probably think I am on ’e’ the way I am carrying on lately (I have major personal joy issues at the moment, I hope you can forgive my fluffyness:)xx but I just wanted to say something about how PHENOMINAL all of you LF writers and posters are.
From those who are just coming here in the foetal position, as I was when I got here, to those straightening up and beginning to stand tall, you are the most amazing collection of human beings I can imagine, even if you don’t realise it, there is something in you that CANNOT be broken, something that made you hold on to you, even if it felt like it was by a hairs breath, you have endured disgusting and sustained attacks on yourselves, your souls and hearts, the like of which (thankfully) the majority of the population have no clue about, yet you still had and have that solid unfathomable strength within you” to not give up”to survive. Every last one of you. I am so proud of LF and the people here. I can’t thank Donna enough for creating this wonderful gathering space☺xxxxxxx
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman (man;)
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman (man;),
That’s me.
lostnsad
Kathleen Hawk
Yeah, maybe the name wasn’t wise… lol
I do have a confession to make — while I have not spoken to him in about 2 weeks — I do have access to his phone records, his social networking sites, his gym membership, and lots of other things — so I can still SEE what he is up too. And while it hurts it also is helping me — I can see him calling certain women (others that he has used and is still using) and while it hurts me to know he is contacting them it also means — I’m NOT crazy — he hasn’t changed he is still doing his “thing”.
Because that was one thing he liked throwing in my face at the end was that HE had a job and was making money and didn’t need to live off or with no “bitch” anymore.
YET….I lost my job because of him (well because of me and my stupidity of being more obsessed with him than my own life)
And that’s the part that hurts the most now…I think that if I still had my job and hasn’t lost the respect of my boss that I had known for 15+ years that I wouldn’t be so bad off. But he took away something that I had worked so hard for… Maybe it wasn’t good that I so attached what I do to who I am (as just about every American does) but I feel like I have been blacklisted in the business area of where I live…. Everyone knows everyone and I feel like my old boss will bad mouth me and I’ll never find a good job again.
Sometimes I even wonder if he really was a P and if maybe I just want to think that… but then I read some of the posts on here and see the types of conversations and think OMG….
For instance…my ex wanted to “be with me but also be single….” which meant that he wanted to be able to fuck other women…. And not just have sex with them but play with their heads, get money out of them and so on…. We used to lay in bed and he’d be texting some other women and I could see what he’d write and it was so manipulative and mean — just like what he did to me — I’d be like what’s the purpose? And the answer was — it’s just what he likes to do…
That is a sick way — made me feel better… because I knew that it wasn’t just me….
I had thrown him out many many times and even tried to warn the new women he was getting in with… but not this time… because then he’ll just be contacting me and yelling at me and threatening me….
Did anyone here become abusive back? I did and I’d like to know if that’s normal… I’d call him names (I even used the N word — he is black and i’m white — i had NEVER even uttered that word until him), I’d spit at him, push him, and throw shit at him. It was like this anger that I had never felt before in all my life would just erupt and explode and I couldn’t control it. I wanted to hurt him… I KNOW that’s why in the oh say 6 months I stayed with him was mostly because I was doing everything in my power to make his life miserable….
He’d go out and I’d text or call him nonstop. Ask him a million and one questions — I’d literally do everything in my power to annoy the crap out of him.
The other thing that I find interesting is that before he left — I felt mentally cloudy… All I wanted to do was sleep all day and all night… I didn’t want to be awake at all. Now I’m so alert. I have even a hard time falling asleep at night because my mind won’t stop. I keep thinking of all the things I have done in the last 2 years and it’s making me crazy… Dealing with HIM being gone isn’t nearly screwing with my head as the realization that I allowed all of this to happen and everything I did…. It makes me sick and crazy and feel so incredibly stupid!!!
Kathleen Hawk
This is an amazing thread. Blueskies, I love your poem. Visual, powerful and blessedly concise.
I’m going to post one of mine here. (Like most of my writing, not blessedly concise.) I wrote it in mid-recovery from the sociopath, after the year with the therapist working on underlying incest issues. But it’s really about the struggle to find a new way of relating, while we’re taking ourselves back. (And maybe about being careful about how much of ourselves we share, before we don’t know someone very well.)
The Second Date
His mild brown eyes,
soft downy cushion eyes
that invite me to just rest
and not worry about a thing,
attach themselves to my face
as he asks, Do you hate men?
If I were you I would hate men.
I wonder what he sees in me.
If his long gaze into my eyes
imagines depths in me
where one iron link
blackened with sweat, tears,
a little blood still oozing.
pins it all together,
my old history in the hellish home
with all that came after, until now,
this autumn afternoon
in a Starbucks with soft jazz in the air,
full of students, retirees, tourists
in a pretty upstate town.
I pause, mentally cursing the lesbians
who taught me to tell the truth.
Call it rape, they said. It was rape.
I curse my therapist who said
the worst thing was that
there was no one there to help me
with my feelings, my stupid feelings,
so that forty years later
I’m just learning that it wasn’t about me,
unearthing a 13-year old
who went underground
because there was no one to tell,
no one to tell her
it wasn’t her fault.
I curse my father for giving me
a life story that creates such questions
in other people’s eyes.
The questions I hid from all my life.
If you didn’t want it,
why didn’t you run away?
Why didn’t you fix it?
Kill him?
Kill yourself?
Burn the house down?
If you lived through that,
how would you treat
anyone crazy enough to love you?
When I left my son’s father for a woman,
he shrugged and said,
it’s because of what her father did to her.
and when I left the woman
because I wanted another man,
she said the same thing.
When I fell in love with alcoholics
and people who used me for money,
even they said it’s because
of what my father did to me.
When I worked too hard and smoked too much,
when I bought too many clothes,
and gave away anything anyone wanted,
it was because of my father, they said.
Now, with the steaming cups of coffee
on the table between us
in this cheerful café, I look at this man,
wearing his carefully chosen weekend clothes,
his wire-rimmed glasses on a face
that speaks of concern for me,
I wonder what he is imagining now.
Am I a ticking bomb in his eyes?
A woman who will just crack one day,
pick up a kitchen knife
or a hammer and go after a man,
any man at all who’s unlucky enough
to be in the same room with me
when I finally decide
it’s time for tit for tat.
I realize that, after therapy,
after learning it wasn’t my fault,
after taking back my life,
there is a whole new generation
of questions to be afraid of,
a whole new set of reasons
to hide the truth,
to try to pass as someone else,
that there would still be
fatuous twits like this,
imagining they are being kind,
ready to name me
as some kind of monster.
a different kind of monster perhaps
than the mindless slut I once feared
being labeled, but now I have switched
From the moral cripple to the murderous bitch.
And I want to ask him,
is that what you would do?
Hate women because of something
your mother did to you?
Spend your life looking
for the perfect payback,
seeking the perfect Mommy avatar
to be your walking talking voodoo doll,
the more-or-less volunteer Christ to hang
on the cross of your pain,
someone like I used to be
when I made deals
with broken boys like you,
giving you anything, my soul,
my money, anything you could do to my body,
if you’d just protect me.
Cheryl Crowe is singing:
Every day is a winding road
behind the quiet talk at the other tables
in the Starbucks where this man waits
for an answer, his gentle eyes on my face.
I wonder how long he has been waiting.
I think I’m not ready for this.
He’s not ready for me.
There is no way to be ready for anything
in this world full of old stories
and lifetimes full of mistakes,
and nothing to do but keep trying
to do it better, praying
that even if we limp a little,
it doesn’t mean we can’t walk.
But first you have to be willing
to pick up your feet and move.
No, I say, I hate what happened to me.
I hate that my life was twisted by it
for so long, that I still
sometimes feel afraid.
I hate that it taught me things about people
I wish I’d never known.
More than anything, I hate
that it stole my father from me.
I loved him.
And I hate the confusion it caused
in my life for so many years.
I still have to work so hard
to understand things
other people take for granted.
Like when someone is simply being nice
or if they mean to hurt me.
And most of all, I’m sorry
about moments like this,
when someone I thought I liked
makes a mistake in talking to me
that may or may not be meaningful,
but I can’t get past it.
What kind of person would punish
innocent people for the crimes of another?
And from what shadowy doorway does
This man hear
my pain in terms of his fear?
Did I invite this
by telling you my story?
I don’t know.
But I know I don’t want
To see this in your eyes.
And I’m sorry but
It’s time for me to go.
This should be the end of the story,
But I really want to tell you
That this man surprised me.
That he smiled and said, courage
Is always a lonely thing
But it’s the only thing
That gives you something of your own.
Let’s get out of here
And walk down to the river
And see if there’s a canoe to rent.
But that’s not what he said
When he took my hand and stroked it.
You should talk it about it,
It might help you,
Is what he told me.
I took my hand back,
And walked down to the river alone.
Copyright 2007 Kathleen Hawk
Kathleen Hawk
lostnsad,
Sorry, if I’d realized you were posting I wouldn’t have inserted that poem. I just got excited by all the poetry showing up here. Sort of like our own “open mike” night.
Yes, self-hatred is pretty universal in the beginning. The way I beat myself up was calling myself too stupid to live. I was thinking that for years, even before I got him out of my life.
And as far as being abusive goes, this may not seem right to you, but don’t worry about it. There is a difference between being abusive because you need to make someone smaller to make yourself feel bigger (his problem), and flying off the handle because you’ve been pushed to your human limits. Yes, you may have said things you regret, things you wouldn’t say under any other circumstances. But when we get into full-blown fight-or-flight mode, political correctness or our higher social conscious can slip away, a luxury that we can’t afford.
As far as your job goes, welcome to the club. I am among the many people here who virtually destroyed our careers, because we were so emotionally twisted up and distracted by pain. The fact that most of us are such over-performers and over-tolerant of pain adds up to eventual disaster when we can’t keep all the balls in the air. Our grief and anger starts to bleed out in situations that have nothing to do with it. In my case, I simply imploded professionally. Couldn’t keep up the calm and helpful front that was necessary. Started reading everything as exploitation and abuse at the same time that I was terrified of losing the one important personal resource I had left.
Here’s the good news. All this chaos and destruction are giving you a chance to reevaluate your life, to rethink your patterns and redesign it. It’s a kind of very explosive mid-like crisis. If you start, as I did, with “what the hell is wrong with me?” you create a mental environment in which you can gradually untangle what happened, what you really wanted from this guy and your job, and begin to live in a way that is better at producing it for you.
All that is very logical and theoretical, and doesn’t do much for your raging feelings right now. Especially, if you like me, have a desire to bang your head against the wall and say “How could I have been so stupid?” But I truly the believe that the mind is ultimately rational. And that you were in that relationship for a reason. You were there to learn or experience something that you needed to know.
If I could give you any advice now it would be to pay attention to your feelings, listen to them as though they were friends trying to tell you something important. I think that’s the truth. And even though you’re hearing self-hatred at the top level, underneath that is the wisdom and guidance of the deep self that wants you to survive and thrive. Just sit with it, think about it, see how to you feel and listen to those feelings. The truth, your truth, is in there.
Kathy
skylar
Kathleen, your poem has so much vulnerability and courage. The idea that we are being defined by those who hurt us is one that I’ll have to really put some thought into it. It might be a good thing or a not. I feel that I’ve been vaccinated against a great evil, but at what cost? Can I still be me? How have I been transformed? How do I integrate all the meanings that I’ve found through this experience and make it one cohesive, FUNCTIONING whole?
Lost and Found (your new name),
yes, we all went through the struggle of being abusive back, thinking that we were standing our ground, being firm and strong. That’s not what we were doing and it’s not what you were doing. We were all being manipulated into REACTING with rage and violence. It’s what they want. Once you’ve done that they know that they have you. They own you. They can pull your strings because they can provoke your emotions. Next stop: despair.
lostnsad
Kathleen,
I loved your poem; thanks for posting it.
What you said “over-performers and over-tolerant of pain” — that is SOOOO true. I have an unbelievably HIGH tolerance for pain…
As for my job… I have about another 5 months to reevaluate things and figure something out as that’s when my unemp ends…
I’ve thought about moving and have had some ideas on different things to do or undertake… but then I talk myself out of them or I find that I can’t concentrate long enough to formulate solid plans. But then, I have NEVER been a planner — more a fly by the seat of my pants kinda person… and things always worked out for me…
Then I met him…. I can only hope that in the near future… I can look back at all of this and be in a better place…
I just have NO clue how to get there… I have several ideas for writing a book — but I’ve never really written before… I’m an avid reader but not a writer…
Maybe this all happened because I just allowed life to happen and went were it took me and maybe I’m supposed to finally step up to the wheel and control my own destiny…
That’s scary… Can I run and hide now?