It has been just over six years since the man who promised to love me ”˜til death do us part (and took the ”˜til death part way too seriously) was arrested. In the intervening years, I have grown and healed and cried and slipped and stood and leaped and wrestled with truth versus fiction. I have sought to make sense of his nonsense and dropped my need to understand him as I’ve struggled to find my one true self beneath the debris of his torturous ride through my life.
And I have survived.
I have stood up tall while the sky was falling down around me. I have turned sour grapes into the heady bouquet of sunlit days of wine and roses. I have uncovered lies. Torn away the darkness and peeled back time to find my truth within me. I have been drawn by courage to face my own culpability in all that happened. I have faced my fears and asked for forgiveness. I have forgiven and been forgiven. I have asked for strength and found the truth of who I am. For in the end, truth has overcome his lies. Triumph surpassed the tragedy of his abuse.
In the years since his arrest, escape from prison, stalking and subsequent re-confinement to eventual release I have ridden the rollercoaster of my emotions, sometimes confident in my knowledge that I would be okay, sometimes terrified I would never find myself again, never know peace of mind. Yet, through it all, I have breathed gratefully into the joy of being free. Of the gift of living without his lies poisoning my mind, without his deceit blurring my vision and undermining my belief in who I am. I have embraced the truth that I deserve so much more in life than him. I deserve all of this I have today, and everything better.
It has been a journey of self-discovery. A voyage into the wonder of being me, in all my laughter, tears and fears and sorrow. It has been a journey into self-acceptance, forgiveness, humility and self-examination. And through it all, it has been a journey of love. A journey of knowing, this is my one and only life. It is up to me to make it a life worth living. A worthwhile life. A life of joy and laughter. Love and beauty. It’s up to me in how I live it up — or let it slip away. It’s up to me to be all that I am meant to be, dancing in the light of my beauty, warts and all.
It is the greatest gift of that relationship — the wonder of knowing me. Of knowing I am okay, exactly the way I am. That I have all I ever need, or want, or desire, right here within me. That I am free to love without fear, to laugh without tears, to cry and spill my heart out. To walk away or walk into open arms knowing, no matter their embrace, I will be okay. Because I am a woman of worth. A woman alive. An enlivened woman, dancing in the rain, splashing through puddles, leaping for joy at thunder crashing and lightning flashing. I am okay, however I am, whomever I’m with, because I have me, myself and I. Fearless. Uncompromising. Honest. Caring. Kind. Beauty and the beast. Yin and yang. Sunlight and sunset. Dark and light. And always loving.
In my journey from the darkness of those days where I believed his lies and abuse were all that I deserved, I have learned to accept myself, just the way I am. To let go of regret and to give into hope. To let go of anger and fall into truth. To let go of fear and surrender to love.
I have learned that the past is only a memory — and I decide its value in my life today. That what someone does to me is nothing compared to what I do with my experience. That someone else’s lies are not my truth, unless I choose to believe them. That there is beauty in this world around me. That I can trust myself to know the difference between false hope and honest possibilities. I have learned that I have courage, that I can stand up and turn up for me without fear of falling under someone else’s assertions I am too weak, or stupid, or short or tall or fat or skinny.
I have learned that I am not measured by my past, but by how I move through each moment of today. I decide if I create harmony or discord. Love or hatred. I have learned that each step I take is determined by the foundation under me — and I create that foundation with every breath, thought, word, action I take.
I have learned that I am me. Unique. Special. Magnificent. A human being of immense worth. A wondrous, luminous child of God. Filled with the greatness of my human being. Capable of falling down and courageous enough to stand back up and take another step and another and then another. My journey is not measured in the falls I take. It is built upon the hands I reach out, the steps I build towards creating my higher ground where I become my best me yet. My journey is measured in the love I give and receive.
I have learned that being me, perfectly human in all my imperfections, is the greatest gift I can give. I have learned to create value in all things in my world. My value is in everything I do. In how I treat myself and those I love and the world around me. My value is not measured against what I have. It is created in who I am in this world of wonder when I live this precious life in the rapture of now, without fear that I am not enough.
I am enough. Just the way I am.
“So: bottom line is: she can torture all kids of people [including her girlfriends that love this gd]”
This line in my post has a typo: should read “all KINDS of people NOT ‘all kids’. Sorry….working and didn’t take the time to proof read…..
I got this online:
” The PsychoPath ”
“What he (the psychopath) gets he spoils and wastes…”
“Dominance and power are recurring themes
in the social relations of psychopaths.
They enjoy being in a position of power over others,
especially women.
The psychopath often plays jokes and tricks on others
to humiliate them or to assert dominance.”
“The central theme of Don Juan’s (the psychopaths’s) seductions
is not even the sexual enjoyment, but playing the trick…
While he gives no real love,
though he is quite capable of inspiring love of sometimes fanatical degree in others…
He is motivated primarily by the need to
dominate and humiliate either the person
he is ‘taking’ or, very often
someone connected to a person with whom he is involved.”
They are the cold-hearted predators of society,
doing as they like,
impervious to other people’s feelings, undiagnosed, incurable
— and in your life.
“They are superficially stable,
but then you find out
they are on their third marriage, they have a mistress,
they dissemble, manipulate others and have no conscience.
On the face of it they are extremely effective.
But if you can be objective enough to discount their success,
there is something not right about these people.”
Many women will recognize this type of person,
and many fall in love with them.
They know exactly how to lure you in,
pursuing you quietly and relentlessly.
Male or female,
they meet you after work,
and take an interest in your life and desires,
that no one ever showed before.
If you show signs of losing interest they just look at you with big wide eyes and that’s that.
Soon you may be married and then it becomes clear,
when the charm has worn off, that they are totally self-centered and quite incapable of seeing your way of thinking.
Psychiatry has failed to define what exactly constitutes a socialized psychopath.
But for women involved with one, it will be the most difficult thing
you ever do, to walk away.
The problem lies in the refusal to see that A is A.
What you know in your bones, is in fact a truth.
Instead of denying the evidence of your senses
it is quite common for the woman
to begin excusing the behavior, justifying the unacceptable
and as a result,
suffers the most humiliating mental and emotional abuse.
Rescuing these people and accepting the unacceptable,
inevitably results in the woman becoming the victim.
These people are not mad, but clearly abnormal,
not murderous but capable of extraordinary mental cruelty.
Most of the crimes psychopaths commit, tend to be
“crimes of the heart” and/or “casual cruelty”,
they are cruel, manipulative people
who leave a trail of broken hearts and often broken lives behind them.
“Once having drained what they can from one source,
they turn to others to exploit, bleed, and then cast aside;
their pleasure in the misfortune of others is unquenchable.
People are used as a means to an end;
they are to be subordinated and demeaned
…the pleasure they gain from their ruse often flags
once the rewards of deceit have been achieved.
Before long, their true unreliability may be revealed as they
“stop working at” their deception or as their need grows
to let others know how clever and cunning they have been.”
“Exploitation is easier to accomplish on-line. The level of exploitation is all over the place. Clearly the most dangerous are the Cyberpaths.
These sociopaths, psychopaths —
unwholesome, psychologically scattered individuals
— can exploit you in truly damaging ways.”
“A psychopath/sociopath gets great gratification
in the act of hurting someone
for absolutely no reason…”
Do the quotes above
pertain to anyone you may know
or
have known in the past?
Chances are,
there is someone in your life
you either have known
or
will know who is psychopathic.
And this is what we are:
The True Believer.
You’ve been through a lot in your life. Broken and bruised, you still keep going. You tend to hold promises dear to yourself. You would never lie to yourself. You b…elieve in people and you see the true beauty in everything. Family and friends, whether small or big, you keep them close to you; they mean everything to you. You couldn’t bear to break anyone; it would hurt you the most. You don’t believe in happy endings, but you do believe that there is always light to every dark; hope to every lost cause; beauty in the filth; two sides to every story. You believe that no one should be alone; you’ve been through that as well. Congratulations, true believer; keep being honest to yourself and others. Let no one tell you otherwise. You walk a long road, believer… Don’t stop
twice, this is amazing stuff.x Where did it come from if you dont mind me asking? it sounds like an ‘insider’s’ perspective.x
The first one came from a search from geocities. I can go back and research the link.
The second one: believe it or not…was my evaluation from a quiz on facebook…..
http://www.geocities.com/letthisbethereason/pages/psychopath.html
This is the actual link to the first article on the psychopath.
I’m a little behind, having been MIA lol, but I went back to find Skylar’s suggestion, on Saturday, 29 August 2009 @....... 1:31pm. to add an additional thought.
She wrote, “This might be offensive to some but the answer is to tell a small, inconsequential lie.” to ferret out a S/P/N’s real “identity.”
When I first escaped 7.5 years ago, one of the most troublesome events was finding out that “someone” was leaking private information to the STBX — which he was subsequently twisting and using against me in the divorce proceedings. I had a pretty good idea who it was but wanted to KNOW for sure.
I “fed” her, and no one else, an inconsequential, harmless but interesting piece of info — neither a lie nor a truth — and waited to find out how long it would take to come back to my ears. Exactly one week! –
I was “sick” about it for two weeks and then made the realization that she had never been a friend — I had just befriended her. I immediately went NC on her and didn’t even know yet what NC meant!! Good decision!
This kind of thing “works!”
This is absolutely beautiful. I so admire the eloquent way in which the words are written, to be so visually expressed in the joy that is for you.
Absolutely beautiful and worth every word of printing out.
Another for the bathroom mirror!
Thank you for this post!
This was the one for today, the “Good Morning” post to set the tone for the rest of my day.
I’ll be examining this concept and working on it today.
🙂
Great wording, too. Such beautiful sentences and descriptions….
Stomping in rain puddles….yup 🙂
Good Morning LF! The sun is up over here! Rise and Shine!
Good morning Panther!
Glad to see you being so sprightly and methodical over there in “Sauerkraut-land”!