After the sociopath is gone: In time…

Hot. Sunny. The slits of the blinds filter the light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Birds twitter. In the distance, traffic hums. The city awakens.

I helped my friend’s daughter move out of her house on Saturday. My friend’s daughter who discovered one morning that her fiance whom she was to marry in August was untrue. It was a tough time. A difficult day. Yet, amidst the sadness, a day of hope took shape. A day for new beginnings took seed. New ideas were planted.

JS, the young woman who’s heart is broken, did well. He was there too. The man who has lied and deceived her. The man who promised he loved her, and only her and yet, does not deny the two other women who believe the same lie. How can it be true?

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” said JS.

“Believe it,” I told her. “Believe it because in the willingness to accept the truth, your freedom from his lies awakens.”

We packed and carried. Talked a little bit. Not much. His presence was like a dark cloud threatening to storm. Glowering. Menacing.

In the end, she tried to remove her pictures from the computer. He had protected them. Read only. She had to ask him for help. He downloaded the photos onto CDs. “Now delete them from the computer,” she said.

“What about me?” he asked. “I want to keep the pictures of you. I want the memories.”

I could see her resolve wavering. I had stood with her while he downloaded the photos. It’s not healthy to stand alone in the presence of the man you loved and who lied with one breath. It’s not healthy. Your mind wants to play tricks on you. Your mind wants to tell you to listen to his lies one more time, just in case… Just in case this time he tells the truth.

“You have a choice,” I told him. “Delete the photos or give her the hard drive to take away and clean up.”

“I’m not going to give her the hard drive,” he said.

“Then delete the photos.”

“Why can’t I keep them. There’s one’s of me in some of them too. I want to keep the memories of my life with her for the past five years.”

“Your life with her was a lie. Delete the photos.”

“Why can’t I keep them if she can?”

“Because you cannot be trusted. You are the one who visits porn sites. You are the one who sends naked photos. Delete all the pictures she tells you to delete.”

He didn’t bat an eye. He didn’t deny. He deleted the photos.

When the packing was done, we drove in tandem, four cars carrying her possessions, back to her parents house where everything was to be stored in the garage until she could make plans for what to do next.

“Play your music loud,” I told her as we set off. “Let it blare so you can’t hear your head thinking. Your head will start to replay everything. It will want to re-write the script. It will want to change his lies to the truth. Play your music loud.”

Midway to her parents, she pulled her car over to the shoulder. We followed suit. She raced from her car to the grassy verge of the road. Knelt over, her body arched into a question mark, her shoulders shaking.

“I’m going to throw up.”

Her mother stood on one side. I stood on the other. “Breathe.” I commanded. “Breathe.”

I drew a long slow breath. In. Out. I leaned my body against hers. Wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Breathe with me.”

She began to breathe. Her body shook. Her hands could not remain still. Breathe.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to wail.

“You can’t do that yet.” I said. “Right now, you have to concentrate on driving. You have to focus on getting back to your parent’s house. That’s the job right now. Later. When you’re settled in, you can fall apart. You can wail and cry, but for now, you must not cry. You cannot fall apart.”

She nodded her head. After fifteen minutes, we got back into our cars and drove to her parents without incident.

She is a strong young woman. At twenty-three she is learning a life lesson that will forever change her perspective on love, on living, on relationship.

In time, the harsh edges of the pain will curl up and dry. The burnt embers of her sorrow will crumble and fall away. Dust to dust.

In time, the fear will ease. Slip back into the waters of life, into the river of tears flowing endlessly to the sea. Healing waters will replace the tears as she learns to live with the sorrow of having loved the one who is untrue.

In time, the sorrow will fade. Dissipate like fog in the morning sun. Rise up and clear away. Its memory a faint mist over the horizon, somewhere over the rainbow.

In time, she will smile again. Laugh again. Love again.

In time, she will see her strength. She will acknowledge her amazing courage. Her ability to do what had to be done, even when her heart was breaking.

In time, she will heal and in her healing she will rise up. A woman of strength. A woman with a powerful voice. A woman who has walked through the fires of his lies and found the courage to turn up for herself, in all her pain, in all her tears and be heard.

In time, she will heal.

And she will rejoice in the text message that tore her world apart. It brought her the freedom to find the truth and take action to save herself before she sank beneath the quagmire of his lies, lost to the world around her.

It takes time to build a web of deceit. Time to deceive the one who loves you into believing your lies are the only truth she needs to hear, to know, to see. It takes time to break apart a heart, chisel it into a million little pieces and scatter them to the winds.

It takes time to be deceived.

It takes only a moment of time for the crack in his facade to appear. It takes only a moment in time to step through the gap. And in that moment, the dam of his lies crumbles and the truth pours in.

And when we step through, when we face the lies, our hearts begin to heal. The tiny shards of glass cutting us apart from the inside out begin to soften their edges. Our hearts begin to heal as we pick up the pieces of our lives and begin the process of putting ourselves together again. Slowly, in time, we heal. We learn to sing and dance and laugh. To speak. To care and love, ourselves and those around us who are true.

And in our healing, we rise up and call out to others lost upon the road of their deceits. We call out and shine a light of hope for them to follow, away from the lies. Away from the pain of loving the one who is untrue.

In our healing, that is the gift we share. Our light for others to follow.

In time, this young woman will heal. And she will rise again. Like all of us who have survived and thrived after loving the one who is untrue. Like us, she is one strong, courageous woman. A wonderful woman of worth. A magnificent human being flying her true colors for all to see.