I receive a weekly newsletter from Brian Willis at Winning Mind Training. In his latest newsletter he quotes Lon Bartel, a law enforcement trainer in Arizona who said, “People change out of desperation or inspiration. Desperation results in short term change. Inspiration, results in powerful and lasting change.”
When I was in relationship with the sociopath, I made desperate changes. Living in constant fear, I was desperate to keep him happy. In my desperation, I contorted and distorted myself to fit the image he told me I had to fit. Most of what I did was about keeping him happy and my life, as it were, intact. Often, the changes I made were ‘inspired’ by his anger. I would do just about anything not to have to experience his anger, and he knew it. Because I believed him when he told me I could never be free of him, I didn’t look beyond the narrow corridor of my life with him, to see that away from him was where real change happened. Away from him was where my freedom started.
Using intermittent reinforcement, he trained me to be his co-conspirator in my self-destruction. He would rage and I would succumb. The breaks between rage and ‘happiness’ grew shorter and shorter, and I became less and less willing to tempt the fates by disagreeing with him. I learned very quickly that my silence and acquiescence bought his ‘good humour’. Eventually, it took less energy on his part to keep me silent as I fell beneath the weight of the sorrow that was pervading my life and my fear of his anger. Desperate for the return of Prince Charming, I kept letting go of what I knew to be right so that I wouldn’t have to face the Prince of Darkness raging before me.
And then, one day he was arrested and I was set free. In that moment I was inspired to make lasting change. To accept the gift of his removal from my life as a miracle, and to soar free.
Lasting change comes easy when we are inspired to create the life of our dreams away from abuse.
I am often contacted by women and men who are involved with an abuser. They write to tell me their stories, and to ask me how they can change what is happening in their lives. My response is always — love yourself enough to know you deserve more than his/her abuse. Love yourself as an abused woman/man and give yourself the gift of freedom by naming what he/she is doing and choosing to accept you have the power to change your life. You can’t change him/her. In fact, whether or not he/she can change is not the question. Are you willing to make an inspired change in your life by stepping away from him/her and stopping the abuse in your life?
Sounds easy — it’s not when the abusers voice is roaring through your mind, telling you lies you can’t believe but don’t dare disbelieve.
One of the hardest aspects of leaving an abuser is naming what they’re doing as abuse. Our minds recoil from the reality, fall back from the precipice of the truth. How could someone who says they love me, willing, knowingly, consciously choose to hurt me?
Believe it. Name it. They will. They can. They do.
Accepting that truth is frightening. If they could do it willingly, then what role do I play in what is happening, in what happened? Answering that is tough. We don’t want to be participants in abuse, and so cannot accept that we had something to do with what has happened to us.
The inspired choice, the choice that will create lasting change, is to accept — I am 100% accountable for what happened to me. Doesn’t make what he/she did right. And it doesn’t make me accountable for what he did. Abuse is never right. What it means is, I accept I can’t change the past, or what he’s doing. I can, however, turn up for me today and take 100% responsibility for what I do, right now, in this moment.
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Maria Robinson
It accepting that I am 100% accountable for my life today, I also accept I have the power to make inspired, not desperate changes. I accept the challenge of choosing long term change over short term relief from his/her abuse.
Hard stuff. Life changing. Liberating. But hard.
When we ‘love’ someone who is an abuser, our minds become twisted into the insanity of their crazy-making behaviours. Love shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, but we begin to accept the pain of loving them as part of the norm of our existence. In that acceptance, we let go of our belief in our right to live free of abuse. For some, living free of abuse has never been their reality. For others, the crazy-making of the abuser is new — and thus, a surprise, an unbelievable occurrence in their lives. Regardless of whether we were conditioned to accept abuse or accept it because of current conditions, we repeatedly explain it away when we say, “I can’t believe this is happening to me”.
Believing we are being abused is the first step to creating lasting change.
Believing we have the power to change our lives — and acknowledging we cannot change the abuser, is the next step.
Inspired change requires courage. It takes guts and it takes a commitment to self that overrides the voices in our heads telling us ‘this (the past, abuse, pain and turmoil…) is all we deserve’.
No one deserves abuse. No one deserves to live in fear.
And no one can give us the gift of freedom except ourselves.
Thank you M.L. I find your writings to be very helpful and inspiring. I believe that the longer you are away from the abuser, the more clear your thoughts become and it does take courage and guts. Even the healing.
Hi Rperk,
Thank you for your supportive words. And I agree — we do become clearer the more distance we put between ourselves and the abuser — especially in our thinking! that’s why No Contact is so critical.
I’m glad to hear you’ve got the courage and guts to heal — you count. You are making a difference!
ML
If I am “100% accountable for what happened to me,” then how on earth can I accept myself as worthy of something better? You get what you ask for, no?
…or do i just hear the ringing of my parents’ admonishments in my ears?
Thanks for the post M.L.!
I agree that acceptance is so very important along with the realization that someone saying they love you means nothing if they treat you abusively. It brings to mind, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Even if someone is not a Christian, this is a great example of what love is and what it is not.
Lostingrief,
We are accountable for what happens to us TODAY. The title of this article is, “After the Sociopath is Gone: Inspired Change.” As someone very wise told me following my abuse, “there is no need to keep looking in the rearview mirror.” That was in response to me continually beating myself up for not seeing it and not doing differently. I had learned great lessons and my job is to put those to use TODAY.
To get out of the traumatic bonds we were in, caught up in the cycle of abuse, it is empowering to accept that it is what it is and if we stop participating in it we can free ourselves. Often during abuse we start to think and believe that our well-being lies in the hands of the abuser. We are dependent on them. So we change our behavior to get the “best” out of them so we can have that Prince Charming and be happy. This happens through control and intimidation by the abuser. Recognizing this is what helps get us out of the situation. Recognizing that we have a choice that we were somehow made to believe that we didn’t have. That’s what abuse does lostingrief. It makes us think we are nothing and can’t have anything outside of them. Please understand that and don’t let the words of your parents ring in your ears. No one asks for abuse unless they are a self-proclaimed masochist. I know I’m not and I bet you aren’t either.
One of the lies that I was brought up to believe is that I am responsible for how other’s treat me. I was told that no one would treat me badly unless somehow I did something to deserve it. That is a lie. A bold faced lie that led me to think somehow I had control over other people’s behavior. It would be nice to think that at the heart of everyone lies goodness. On LF we all have found out the hard way that evil does exist. That people’s ill behavior towards us does not come from something we’ve caused. It comes from them.
So are you worthy of something better lostingrief? Hell, yeah! Must better than what you experienced! I have written before and I believe that no one asks for abuse. We believe lies when we stay in abuse and most notably the lie that our abuser loves us. One cannot love someone and inflict such abuse. It contradicts the very description of love like that noted in the bible. So please take care of yourself and walk strongly down in your present journey taking the lessons you’ve learned to empower yourself. Not looking back in the rearview mirror kicking yourself. Kick them LOL. Not yourself. But note how knowing what you know now can prevent you from getting mixed up with that type of abuse again.
Love and hugs!!!
Yes! I was also brought up with the lie, although in my family it was, “no one can ride you unless you bend over.” (how crass)
I’m doing okay. Just in the ”I-can’t-believe-there-are-people-like-this” phase. And especially the person who I loved so dearly for so long, and who I thought loved me. Yikes!!
Already feeling better, less anxious … less on edge every second. I just wish the dreams of him telling me, “gee, you told me you’d love me no matter what and NOW you don’t want me anymore? what a LIAR you are!”
LOL … the lies!!! Wow!! Never-ending, unbelievable, countless.
TOWANDA!!!!!
Good article M.L. I remember when I was in the fog with my abuser and I didn’t have a name for it. I told him “we have something very unhealthy going on here” and we have to figure it out or let go….” I knew I didn’t want to live like that, at the begiining their were moment’s when the hair on my neck would stand up and I would think to myself ” oh god what have I done? what have I let into my house?” but I waited too long to end it, I gave him the rope he intended to hang me with. But in the end the rope I gave him saved me, he found fresh humanity, someone that didn’t see the evil that I had come to fear and love. He took my identity and became part of me and I became part of him. And when he looked at me he saw himself and that was too painful for him. So I was devalued and discarded…and still trying to put me back together. And yes this has inspired change in me. I never want to experience anything close to this pain ever again. So I am changing, not desperatly but with inspiration and a clear mind…….
as much as my relationship with him, was bad, and hurt like hell. im so happy that im not in it anymore. i thank the other women for coming into my life and taking the loser from me. as much as i want to be mad at her im not. she doest see it, and if she does she doest want to believe it. in time she will learn on her own. I sit here and i think, he doest deserve any of my time. he doest deserve my company. He and they will never understand what it means to care for someone else and to respect them. I deserve to have someone be faithful to me and not have other relationships behind my back, and i will never allow that ever in my life again. If you cant be true to me then you dont deserve me.
This weekend i was looking at some court information though my county website and there was a link to look up previous cases. I just happen to look up my x. the things i found on him was unbelieveable. every girl that i heard about though my relattionship with him, and every girl he was involved with the past years all sued him. some had PPOs on him. he never told me that these girls sued him. i wish i would of found this website two years ago. any man that i consider dating i will be checking out.
hiya Blondie, you sound so much better… I think you and I are gettin on with life. Someone said in an earlier post “If somebody steal’s your man, the best revenge is to let them keep him” and Like you I am so glad it is over, but still feeling betrayed and used and humiliated, but not listening to anymore sad song’s he ain’t worth that……good to see ya on here
i have blogged on every thread, making up for no internet at home I guess. Part of my anxiety is thinking he is in love with the new guy and will be happy ever after and I failed him. (oxy where is your skillit?) Intellectually I know this can’t be, because he was still wanting to get nekkid with me after he met new guy. And he is all over the “CHAT”room’s looking for NSA sex….
yes henry im moving on with life. it feels good and nice. it might be sad sometimes but just think about all the these you dont have to deal with anymore. just think of all the things you can do now. i still wish i never spend two years with someone like him, but everything happens for reason, never forget that.