When the sociopath was arrested and I awoke to the devastation around me, I was overwhelmed with one, undeniable truth. I was alive.
I didn’t think it was possible. Hadn’t believed it would happen. I had spent so long in those final months wanting to die, wishing I could, thinking of ways to make it happen and waiting for him to make it happen, I couldn’t believe I actually was alive.
Yet, I was.
How could that be? What was I supposed to do with this unexpected gift of a lifetime?
In Jackie Nink Pflug’s book, Miles to Go Before I Sleep, her survivor’s story of being shot in the head by terrorists and left for dead when the plane she was on from Athens to Cairo was hijacked, she writes that she was happy to have gone through the hijacking . It is an inspiring story of overcoming the odds, and persevering in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles such as a learning disability she now has because of the damage from the gunshot to her brain.
And yet, in spite of all she went through, in spite of sitting for hours on a plane parked at the end of a runway waiting for the hijackers to come and get her and kill her, she is grateful for that experience.
I know what she means.
In the aftermath of the relationship with the sociopath, five years after waking up from the nightmare of his abuse, I am grateful for the experience. It has taught me more than I ever could have known about myself, about my weaknesses and more importantly, about my strengths. It has taught me the value of love, of turning up for myself, of becoming all I’m meant to be. It has taught me that life begins outside my comfort zone. That I cannot heal or change what I will not acknowledge. And, it has taught me that I am 100% accountable for my experience. It’s up to me to live my life fearlessly in the light of this moment, right now. It is the only moment I’ve got to get real and be real with where I’m at and who I am, because who I am is enough. I do enough. I am enough. I’m good enough.
For me, that experience was the springboard that launched me into my personal growth and development today. That trauma led me away from limiting beliefs where I was the victim of my thinking that mired me in the fear of never being good enough — without a man, without the right outfit, without the right car or job title or address.
Sure, before the sociopath walked through the door my life was okay. I was on the path to self-awareness, working every day to be a ”˜better me’. I meditated, was in therapy. Had two divorces under my belt (the first one which I seldom counted as I was only 22 and it lasted only 13 months). I had two amazing daughters. An ex-husband (the father of my daughters) with whom I was still friends. I had a great career. A home. A bank account and savings. I had nice things. On many levels I had it ”˜all’. But, I always felt there was something missing. Something wasn’t quite right in Oz. And that something was, love. The true love of a man. Love of the happily ever after variety.
I was ripe for the pickings when the sociopath rode in and swept me off my feet. I had just ended a relationship of three years after finally giving up on trying to weather the storms of my lover’s unpredictable mood swings and depressions. I had loved, truly madly deeply. I knew I was capable of doing it again. And so, when the sociopath fed me his lies of love everlasting, I fell gracefully and gratefully into his arms, swooning with relief that at last my ship had come in, my Prince Charming had arrived. Here was a love worth waiting for. Here was my dream of happily ever after come true.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know and what I didn’t know almost killed me.
There’s a lot I didn’t know about sociopathy and about the sociopath I fell in love with. And, there was a lot I didn’t know about me. It would take that relationship to awaken me to the truth of what I didn’t know about myself. Like, how to stand up for me, my needs, my wants, my desires. Or, how to stand rooted in my light, grounded by my values, principles, beliefs and not get pulled into the vortex of someone else’s bad behaviour because I was too scared to set my boundaries. Before the sociopath, I didn’t know how to be me without the fear of losing the one I loved because I never felt good enough just the way I am.
The sociopath had his game. He played it well.
And in the end, he lost.
Somewhere out there, he’s still playing his game. It’s what he does. It’s all he can do. Maybe someday he’ll awaken to the truth. Maybe not. He is no longer my responsibility. I am.
I’ve been blessed. I no longer have to play his game. I no longer have to play any game. I get to live my life, right now, as if it’s the most precious and wondrous life I’ve got — because it is.
Once upon a time I fell in love with a sociopath. I didn’t know how far I’d fall from grace when I fell into his arms. In having landed on this side of my reality today, I’m grateful for the journey that brought me here. Reality is, I can’t change what happened even if I wanted to. Accepting that journey as the gift that gave me the freedom to step into the wonder and joy of being me, makes a difference in my life today.
I cannot change or heal what I do not acknowledge. When Prince Charming rode in and swept me off my feet, I fell hard upon the road of life because I was searching for a shortcut to happiness. I didn’t trust myself to create the life of my dreams. I didn’t trust myself with my own happiness.
In healing, I have been given the gift to grow and learn and expand beyond the limiting beliefs of my past so that today I can dance with joy in the light of knowing the truth of who I am — I am a wondrous woman of worth living this one wild and passionate life for all she’s worth. I am blessed to be me. Blessed to have lived the past so that I can be free to live today without fear of ever having to fear again that I am not good enough to love, to be love, to be in love with who I am, exactly the way I am today.
I wish I could bake a cake made out of rainbow’s and smiles and we’d all eat it and be happy!
Dear Jane,
Glad you are getting out and mingling and “keeping in practice” by going out. That is good and just getting out and going places some helps too.
My son D and anaother friend and I went out to dinner with friends last night to celebrate a birthday, just had a good time mingling and eating as a group and giving a hard time to our friend who just turned 60. It makes us feel like part of the human race again. I also like to “people watch.”
We’re trying to have a “balanced” life of work, play, long term goals, and short term goals—reasons to get up in the morning besides the fact we need to pee or let the dog out.
To have our days where we can look back and say “well, I accomplished something positive today” Maybe it was something we did, or an attitude we assumed, or helping someone else to cope, but did something on the positive side of the scale. Learned a new lesson, or anything that is working on the “balanced life” concept.
Sometimes I am finding myself in a “rut” and dont’ do enough recreation, other times I find I am in a “rut” and don’t accomplish all the “work” I think I should. Sometimes I do more than enough, yet still thinkn it isn’t “enough” so I feel down about it.
I’m looking at ways to decrease stress in my life, and sometimes the stress comes from WITHIN because I have all these “I shoulds” or “I shouldn’ts” and so I have to reeasamine those as well. Since I tend to be too much of a work-a-holic, I have to make myself recreate without feeling guilty abouti t–about the time or money spent on myself.
But learning new patterns and finding new balances is what life is all about I think, so as long as we are on the positive direction, I think any day is a success. Any negative day is just another opportunity for us to learn what went wrong, and to find a way to make it better for ourselves.
Have a good rest of the weekend.
haha!….I am such a space cadet!…haha.
I just reread my comment up there and I said..have a nice saturday. It’s Sunday!
It IS Sunday isn’t it? Oh man, did I travel to another parallel universe AGAIN?! hate when that happens…..
And thank you Oxy and Bev for the positive encouragement. I am blatantly aware that there are much more important matters in the world than me dating again. Just wanted to share with you peeps in hopes that other lovely LF members are aware that there is life after loving a PDI.
That it is possible to continue living with love, but with a more cautious approach to dating. Being with a man isn’t that important to me any longer but I do enjoy their company every once in a while.
And Oxy, darling, you seem so hard on yourself, doll. Or maybe you are incredibly analytical/logical, considering this and that. I think you are wonderful, woman. I’m pretty simplistic in my mindset, practical and earthy I guess you could call it.
Sometimes when my mind loops around on itself, that’s the time I put me in some good music and dance the thinking away….haha. I can only think so much before my brain explodes!
Yea, you are right, Jane, I analyze the crap out of everything I think, but that’s just me. Today has actually beeen a great day for me though. Hotter’n blazes outside today and humidity turning it into a steam bath so spent most of the day inside.
But today my son D came in and we have had some long time friends who have gotten themselves into a fix of sorts by poor planning and making bad decisions. Son D has idolized these people since he was a kid, and I tried to help them out, they turned it into enabling so I had to cut it off, and finally D is seeing that THEIR bad decisions and the consequences for them are NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY and that is a real beak through for him. I was just blogging with Tryingtorecover and she was talking bout her 15 year old kid not falling for her P-X’s lies and I told her how thrilled I was that her kid and my son D are learning about people who are abusive and/or users and how great it is that they can learn these lessons so much earlier in life than we did. And hopefully put them in practice.
It just gives me a happy feeling tht so much LEARNING about the Ps (which knowledge=power) is happening with this lady’s son and my son D and it is just uplifting—you can see it doesn’t take much more than a turtle race to make me jump up and down!
Nah, I’m not as hard on myself as I used to be, I used to think I had to be perfect, and anything less than perfect was a FAILURE—I’m lightening up on myself and giving myself credit for less than perfect, even a good effort is success. I am sure some of that comes from my FOO, where perfection was expected and a B+ wasn’t good enough. I’m learning to enjoy being second best, or third best, or terrible at something is okay too! When I go out with my friends and we do a sing along and we use the hand percussion instruments we have in a big sack, they give me a tamborine that has no drum head and no gingles (actually just a circle of wood that makes no sound) because I am always off time, but we all laugh and hve a good time–when we went for the cinco de mayo celebration with some friends who have a son the same age born on the same day (5-5-81) we took over the big table at the mexican place and were singing along with the band and playing our hand instruments (the line outside was looking daggers at us cause we didn’t eat and leave) and One of the other ladies and I got up and danced in the aisles and before long the whole place was up and dancing—between the tables, there was no dance floor, but we had a grand time! Not only can’t I keep time with the music, I can’t dance either, but that didn’t stop me!
Good for you, Oxy! You are enjoying the wonderments of life.
Who cares if you can’t dance, although I would need to see that in person to believe or not believe..haha. But it doesn’t really matter as long as you feel invigorated, vibrant, liberated in moving your bod to the music.
Man, it’s like the most positive addiction when I’m dancing. Nothing like it can compare to the exhilaration it causes me. I feel so alive and so in tune to my primitive, earthy, femininity when I am dancing.
And I sincerely did not wish to hurt any feelings by expressing my concern for your comments. I just think you’re great and I respect you. So there!…haha. **HUGGLES**
It’s been 5 days of NC until this morning. The x just sent txt “hope things going better for u”.
Last I heard was, “I would prefer that you leave me to raise this child on my own. You will not be around for the pregnancy and feel that it is better to raise the child in a home with one loving parent than in a situation where both are involved and the stress is high. Thank you”.
I ponder over the “loving parent part”. and “our” child is now “this child”.
Onguard,
She will flip flot and run “hot and cold” one day she will want you there and you are a cad for not being “supportive” and the next day “stay out of my life”—with her saying that last “this chidl” and so on my “bet” is that she knows it isn’t yours.
I hope you can maintain the No contact and not answer her, I know she will do her best to PROVOKE an answer, but hang tough. I laughed at the “loving parent” part since you described how “loving” she is to the kids she already has. LOL If that’s her idea of “loving parent” then I sure don’t want to be her child!
Onguard.. I always can sense your pain when you write. I relate to that little ploy your ex used to remind you about her bills. In fact, my cheater bf used the same line last time I talked to him, “I have enough to worry about, like my car being taken away and my phone being shut off.” Just a little reminder that we could send them a little more money.. if we really wanted to.
But I do NOT relate to you wanting the child of a P or S to be yours. I have raised four of my ex husband’s kids, and let me tell you, the 26 years of false information, hurt, bait-and-switch tactics, just the constant USING and abusing of the kids.. trust me hon you do NOT want to raise a kid with this woman. If it turns out not to be yours, think of the possibility that someday you can find a sweet and caring woman to raise one with.
congrats onguard…i know it is soo hard….and yes she will flip flop os oxy says as she tries to deal with her differing moods and wants someone to pick up the load for her and feels sorry for herself…….oh henry…id like a BBIGGG piece of that cake pls…….i sure could use it today tks terri
OxDrover, I feel like saying you and the others who respond to help people here have no idea how helpful all the replies, suggestions and advice given is but you already know. I really appreciate it.
Yes, the “loving parent” part fell on deaf ears. I’m not so sure the rare moment when a mother embraces her children and tells them “I love you” or food puts food on the table or washes their clothes counts as a loving parent. She hugged me and told me the same thing and with the exception of the beginning, I never felt loved by her. Her whole “my girls love me” thing makes me want to say they have no idea what love is. The lack of emotions, lying and no conscience is probably what I disliked the most. She may as well have hung me on the wall with my checkbook in my teeth and pulled me down when she needed something else.
I was reading up on co-dependency and while I can relate to some of it ”“ some of it I could not but not ruling that out at all because I think there is something to be found out there. I fall into the “clean addictions” aspect. I grew up at 7 working through my childhood with the family businesses. I did however have many friends. I’ve never been dependant on drugs or alcohol, I drink beer but rarely and often don’t finish a beer. On her side of the family the mom, dad and one of the two brothers drink excessively and the other brother does drugs. Like I mentioned, her and the family are pretty much distant. I first met her family about 3 weeks ago (more than 6 months into the relationship). I’ll quote her family “we are good people, we mean well”. Is that an apology in advance?
Ok back to the “child”. I now have a concern that IF” let’s say she cheated” not forgetting I have an std or something and the other guy wants nothing to do with the baby and I am doing the NC thing, I wonder if she will feel more opt to abort? I was amazed at the time she told me about her being pregnant how much she already knew her options for abortion. She mentioned taking a pill or something to abort. She just didn’t care either way if she had the baby or didn’t. ??? Weird.