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.
Onguard,
I found out by researching sexual addiction. “My” S. told me and showed me from the beginnig that he couldn’t be mongamous. I thought I could deal with that since I enjoyed his friendship and the sex was beter than I could have ever imagined (he has had lots of practice.) That is how I stumbled onto the N/S/P sites.
Ox,
You’re nutty! You gave me my first laugh of the day. Thankyou.
Dear Onguard,
I’m not meaning to scare you for sure, but to “forewarn is forearmed” and they are so predictable sometimes.
Looking back I can see that the interaction I had with my P-son GAVE HIM AMMUNITION TO SHOOT BACK AT ME IN THE FORM OF BULLETS—that is why I say NEVER PUT ANYTHING IN WRITING that might later come back and bite you in the butt.
They will NOT be honest with you. You have no responsibility to be honest with them. That was a BIG mistake on my part was being HONEST WITH THEM. They formed it into bullets to shoot back at me.
Vengence is FUN to them. DRAMA is FUN to them. Your PAIN IS FUN TO THEM.
That is why NO CONTACT is so frustrating to them. It totally DEPRIVES THEM OF CONTROL iof the relationship and the situation. In the past, they acted and you reacted. NOW, the shoe is on the other foot, YOU ACT (with no contact) and they are having to REACT to try desperately to get some ANY reaction out of you. By going NO CONTACT, you are maintaining CONTROL and that is very frustrating to them.
AFter we went no contact with my P son (he is in prison and the only method he has of contact is letters) and he started wrting this barrage of letters with various “themes”–some were pity me, others “give me iinformation or I can’t fix this” DUH!?! Even from his prison cell he had appointed himself ruler of the family. He was telling us all how to live our lives, etc etc and ordering us around on how to do this and do that. This man has been in prison for over 20 years, more than half his life. He was a teenager when he went in and HE IS THE EXPERT on how to live your life outside?????????
What arrogance.
As soon as your P gets another fish on the hook she will leave you alone (at least til that fish gets off the hook) she may be preying on one of the other “potential fathers” right now. I just have this gut feeling that she knows the baby isn’t yours, she just thought you would be the “best” choice for a victim at that time.
A lot of this is almost like they learned the moves in a psychopathic dance school somewhere that they all seem to attend. But by keeping your head, not letting her distract you, and no contact, YOU are playing the tune now. We get into the worst trouble when we let them hold the fiddle and we dance to their tune.
By concentrating on YOUR HEALING, and taking care of YOUR business, your needs, and IGNORING her attempts to get you to react to her “bait” (the baby) you will come out better in the end. IF at the birth of the baby she can prove it is yours with DNA, then you have other decisions to make, but in the meantime, I would suggest you take care of YOU and no contact her. Oh, and save all her emails too, you might need them for evidence some day. Good luck and hang in there! You’ve come to a good place here.
I found out by reading Dr. Robert Hare’s book, “Without Conscience” about 1994—I just wish I had put it into practice at that time.
well. Guess what. She emailed me on a different account. “I have a doctors appointment on Tuesday if you have any questions for the doctor”.
That’s it.
I do not think no contact bothers my exes in the least. They don’t like the way I expose their lies and pull off their masks. With me out of their lives, that is one less thorn in their sides. It bothers me more than them, torments me at time, because I know they don’t really give a crap if I’m alive or dead.
But I’m feeling a whole lot better the last few days, because I realized one truth. It’s not that they don’t think about me, heck my daughter says my first husband still talks about me all the time, it’s that I’m a threat to their lifestyle. According to these guys.. I’m a threat.. they are SCARED of little me.
I can’t tell you how empowered I feel just by this switch from feeling rejected by lovers to feared by enemies. I’ve tried to work with every P I’ve known, to get them to consider changing their ways. I think a lot of them have the need to believe their own lies, and I threaten that. I make em feel like the scared, helpless little boys they really are inside.
My mom was the same way at first. She once told me, “I feel like I’ve never been able to get your approval.” I told her, “Mom, I hate to say this, but it’s the children that need the approval of their parents.” That was the very beginning of our healing, because she accepted what I said and took it to heart. If only a few more of these people would do that, right.
I deference to Wini, I will point out that the Lord had been working on my Mom for about 15 years at that point, and her heart was much softened.
onguard.. sounds like she wants the baby I guess, unless she’s trying to start a fight. And dude, I’ll say it again, you can’t kick her out of your life if you care about that kid. Try to work with her in a new way, now that you know her for what she is.
Oxy, your stats are a bit depressing, but I feel like I’m facing them squarely. I think the reason I was so vulnerable to this player in the first place was because I was grieving, like you, only not a death. I was grieving the failure of my second marriage, which felt like my “last chance”, and mourning the passing of my youth.
Dear Kat,
“mourning the passing of my youth”—yea, I can relate to that. It seems like “only yesterday” that I was 25 and now I am on my way to 65! That “bright young thing” is no more! I am no longer the “whiz kid”—I am a “mature woman”—or “old bat” depending on your point of view! LOL
But, I have also learned that there are some really GOOD things about being older! No more PMS. No more worrying about how high a heels you can wear and still walk in. No more worrying if you gain 5 pounds. No more worrying about the “latest styles” or one or two gray hairs—heck half of them are gray now, and I don’t dye them, I EARNED them and I’m proud of them.
Yea, it was nice to be the “hot young thing” or the “whiz kid” but there are really some advantages of not having to stand in front of the mirror for an hour with a curling iron trying to get your hair to do “just right”—now I wash and comb and sticker up on my head and go. I’m no longer worried if I break a nail or my eye lashes are not curled just right.
I’m not a slob when I go out, but I don’t have to dress up to go feed the donkeys any more…they don’t care and neither do I! LOL It’s not about how I “LOOK” ANY MORE. It’s not what OTHERS THINK about me that worries me any more.
I try to DO what is RIGHT and go on with life. If someone doesn’t like that, welllllll TOO BAD, I’m no longer concerned with making everyone in the world HAPPY. That’s not my job. I’m not in the business of making everyone think I am great, beautiful and smart. External beauty is EXTERNAL and FLEETING–internal beauty is everlasting and wonderful. “Happiness” that comes from external things is just like “external beauty” it is fleeting and easly lost. Internal happiness and peace is FOREVER no matter what happens “outside.”
Sure, my husband is dead. But the joy we shared will always be with me. It’s still here. It can’t be lost just because he is dead. I can still enjoy it, and make new memories that are joyful, even without his physical presence. I don’t JUST LIVE IN THE PAST JOYS, but they are sure nice to have as a “storehouse” of good. I want to continue to make new and joyful memories today and in the future. Live each day in joy. When days come that there isn’t a lot of joy, I can always take out a “package of past joys” to chirp me up.
Kat, I agree. I noticed the same things, RE: “They don’t like the way I expose their lies and pull off their masks”. Prior to understanding or exposing her for who she is I noticed the relationship diminished with each confrontation that exposed her ”“ not even knowing what I was doing at the time.
Again I see the word “threat” brought up. She felt I was a threat to her a few times that I recall. I mentioned this earlier but she said “are you threatening me”, or “is that a threat”? when no threat was made. Something I said or asked her made her feel I was threatening her. I also recall her saying “too much damage is done” when we would discuss another moment of moving forward with the relationship. She took any confrontation I made, shot it down and made me think I was nuts for asking or confronting her on a lie or whatever.
Here is a shocker” 11 days after we met (our 2nd or 3rd time together) she said or did something that made me fire back with “are you playing me”? I remember saying it as if I felt I was being played and I remember being a bit upset over whatever it was; I was serious when I asked. Red flag!
So far with the NO CONTACT (at least removing the txt msg) capabilities, I feel more empowered. She simply can’t txt me. That helped a lot.
Dear Onguard,
you are so right, any independence on your part, any confrontation of her lies IS a threat to her “house of cards”–NO CONTACT is power for you, is control for you. That also may be a “threat” to her, but at the same time, it is the only POWER YOU HAVE IS TO CHOOSE NOT TO INTERACT with her.
Hopefully, she will move on to another victim, and I hate to say that, cause it sounds like we want someone else to get zinged, and that isn’t the case, but it is a fact of life that they do move on to the next victim when we refuse to be the victim any longer. Good luck! Keep your strength and keep your power!
Wonderful! I too was waiting for Prince Charming to pluck me out of my unhappiness although there was nothing technically wrong with my life at the time. I was just itching for it to be filled with love of the ever lasting variety. I wanted him to build me a life I loved because I didn’t think I was capable. After giving him the reigns to my life for almost a decade and watching everything burn to ashes, I now think I am a safer bet to build my perfect life than anyone else could ever be.
I know some of the things I want and only I am committed enough to make those things happen. To relinquish my power to someone else is to give them free reign to ruin my life. So I am responsible for building my life the way I want it. And if I meet someone who can contribute to those dreams then that;s great. But it’s not a required element anymore. I CAN do it all by myself. I don’t need to give up my life and dreams to have a relationship and I never will again. The price of watching him destroy everything was just too high for me. Too many wasted years.
Many thanks – you have a wonderful gift for expression – you pack so much meaning into so few words and always convey the intricate details that only those in relationships with sociopaths can know. Please keep writing!