He was arrested at 9:14 am on May 21, 2003. It was a sunny, blue sky morning. The birds were fluttering and twittering in the trees. The river flowed lazily by, meandering through the forest, dappled with sunlight, sparkling, clear.
We were in hiding. Had been since February 26 when we’d fled the city we lived in 1,000 miles away, heading west, heading to the US, he’d said. “I’ve got money there,” he insisted. “I’ll just leave this mess to my lawyers to fix. No sense hanging around waiting for them to get it cleared up. I’ll let you go once I’m out of the country,” he promised.
Like all his promises, like everything he’d ever said and done, it was all a lie.
On that morning in May, the lies fell apart and he was exposed. Two police officers walked in and took him away. “Are you on drugs?” one of them asked me as I sat, rocking back and forth, back and forth in a chair watching the scene unfold, a quiet, low keen seeping from my mouth. I was catatonic. I was not on drugs.
They took him away and I sat surveying the mess around me, trying to make sense of the mess of my life.
I hadn’t heard of No Contact with the abuser, but I knew after months of no contact with family and friends, I had to make contact with someone beyond the narrow confines of my world with him. He was gone. I had to reach out for help.
I called my sister who lived an hour away from where we had been in hiding. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t yell or scream at me. She came and got me.
No Contact was the only possibility. He didn’t have my sister’s number and it was unlisted. He did keep calling the couple who owned the cabin where we’d been staying. They called my sister, she advised them not to give him my number. He called my mother. She hung up on him, even though she felt it was rude. “He’s the man who almost killed your daughter,” I told her. “It is not rude to hang up on him. It’s vital to my well-being.”
I didn’t want to think about him but at times, my mind betrayed me. I’d be walking down a street and hear a cell phone ringing and it would be his ring. My mind would leap to thoughts of him. What was he doing? What was he saying? What was he telling people about me?
I posted No Trespassing signs in my mind. When thoughts of him intruded, I’d mentally hold up a sign and send the thoughts back to where they’d come from, my fear, my shame, my guilt.
I knew that one day I’d have to go through the thoughts of him and examine them, but for now, I had to give myself time to grow stronger. For now, it didn’t matter that I had to rid myself of his presence in my mind. That would come later. At first, what mattered most was that I build emotional strength so that I could eventually deal with thinking about him without making myself sick.
In those first minutes and hours and days weeks and months away from him I focused my thinking on me. On what had happened inside of me. On what I had to do to become healthy again.
The police asked me for a statement about anything I knew about his illegal activities. I had to do the right thing to show myself, remind myself; I was capable of doing ”˜the right thing’.
I wrote it down. It hurt. I was scared. What would he do when he found out I had ”˜told’ on him?
I couldn’t let my mind go there. The monster of him in my head was bigger than the reality of him, out there. Out there he was in jail. I had to escape the prison of my mind trapped in thinking of him. I held up my No Trespassing sign.
Focus on doing the right thing, I told myself.
I kept writing.
To remind myself that I was so much more than that five year relationship, that my life was made up of so many other important things than just ”˜him’, I made a list of things I’d done in my life that I was proud of. Being a mother topped my list. “What kind of mother are you really”, the voice of self-denigration whispered. “You deserted your children.”
I posted STOP signs in my head. Whenever self-doubt, negative self-talk invaded, I held up my STOP sign and consciously reframed the negative into more loving words. “I am a courageous woman. Yes, I did something I never imagined I would ever do as a mother. I was very, very sick. And now, the poison is gone and I am healing. I can make amends. I am reclaiming my life. I am courageous and growing stronger every day.”
I kept adding to my list of things I’d done that I was proud of. In Grade five I raised $122.00 for a charity by walking 21 miles. I was an honor student. Got a scholarship. I ran the marathon. Wrote a play with a group of street teens and produced it.
My list reminded me that I was capable of living in the world beyond the narrow corridor of his abuse. It reminded me that I was a competent, caring human being.
At first, I wanted to cry and cry and cry. At first, I did. And then I knew I had to build emotional muscle, to build my willpower. I gave myself a time limit for crying. It began with ten minutes on the hour, every hour. That was when I let myself cry. The other fifty minutes I had to do at least one constructive thing (Work on my resume. Phone about a job interview. Take a walk.) to take me one step further on my healing path. The ten minutes every hour became eight and then five and then only every two, then three, then four hours. Eventually, as I kept doing more and more things to take me on the healing path, I forgot to cry.
At first, I wanted to tell everyone my story. Talk about what he had done. How hurt I’d been. How confused and scared and lonely. At first, I thought everyone knew what I’d been through just by looking at me. Couldn’t they see the scars? Couldn’t they see my pain? I couldn’t understand how the world could be so normal. I needed to embrace its normalcy. I enforced No Contact in my speech. I could not talk of him. I could not tell the story again and again. The only time I had permission to talk about him and what had happened was when I went to an Alanon or Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting. There, with the safety of the 12-steps empowering me, I could speak up and give voice to my pain, my fear and my hope.
The greatest danger wasn’t contacting him. He was in jail. My greatest danger lay in thinking about him. In remembering those gentle moments where I had felt his ”˜love’ embrace me.
“It was never love,” I reminded myself. “Love doesn’t almost kill you.”
I kept working at No Contact in my mind. Good times or bad, thinking of him wasn’t healthy for me. I kept my No Trespassing signs posted. My STOP sign handy. Over time, it became easier. A cell phone ring wouldn’t startle me. My body wouldn’t jerk suddenly at the sound of a car backfiring, or a door slamming. I wouldn’t cry at every turn. Sit in silence immersed in sadness. Thoughts of suicide were arrested before they even saw the STOP sign in my mind. I was building my will to survive. My will to rejoice in living life fully every day.
In time, it became easier to live without the fear I would always be the abused woman I had become. In time, it became easier to live with the possibility of life beyond his abuse, beyond the lies he’d told me about who I was, what I could do, where I could go and who I could never be. It became easier to believe in me. It became easier to talk, about him, about what had happened, about what I’d done to betray myself and those I loved without falling into despair. It became easier to love myself, not as an abused woman, but as a woman who had the courage to face her fears, to turn up for herself and love herself, exactly the way she was. A woman capable and confident enough to let go of abuse and claim her right to live freely in her own skin.
I was an abused woman. Today, I continue to grow and heal, to love myself for all I’m worth and to give myself the space and time to let feelings flow through me without having to stop them.
Today, I give myself the grace of loving myself enough to know, I am okay. The things I did that hurt those I love, and me, are nothing compared to the things I do today to create a beautiful life all around me. I am not measured against what happened back then, my value is in what I do today to make a difference, in my life and the world around me.
Today, he was just a moment in time, a small segment of my life. He has no value in my life today. My value is in how I live, what I do, say, how I think and look at the world through eyes of love. Today, my value is in me.
Dear Louise,
Thank you for this article and its inspiring message of your life and strong, courageous reaction to the abuse.
I have a lot of questions, particularly about your children, but those can wait. I want to tell my recent “story” and how your timely articles helped me gain NEEDED clarify!
Last week I was diagnosed with celiac disease (severe) and with a large malignant tumor in my transverse colon. I learned this news with no upset. I know my serenity was due to the knowledge of facing and surviving other life-treatening challenges, including my spouse of 46.5 years trying to kill me 7 years ago.
I know this serenity is real because I just talked to a cancer survivor at the drug store and told her my news. She commented on how serene I was facing this challenge — so even others can see it.
I’m not even sure I can describe the horrid feelings I have experienced since I told DD#2 (age 51) the news, asking her not to tell her father because I remain afraid of him. At first, she insisted on coming out (1800 miles) to be with me. Somehow, I felt “good” about this desire because until my sister (her aunt) died a little over a month ago, she hadn’t even talked to me for SIX years.
Then, last night, she said she probably wouldn’t come because she “had work to do.” It reminded me of so many instances when I was sick and that was her father’s response for not “being there” for me that I was thrown into severe confusion.
I had already been concerned about seeing her because how when I was sick (meaning after the surgery) could I ever handle not talking about the “past”??
This morning when I awoke I “Knew” I didn’t want her to come. But, how can I tell her without hurting her feelings?
After reading your article, I realize that “hurting her feelings” is NOT my job. I and my feelings are what is important now.
Making decisions so as not to “hurt others’ feelings” (including through my long “marriage”) was one of my biggest mistakes!!
It’s hard to explain how your article helped me make another decision — I will not even tell our oldest daughter (age 55) and our only son (age 42).
Even as I left the drug store (and before your article) it became clear to me that I “owe” them nothing. Their decisions to shun me these past six-seven years (BECAUSE I left their father) are the basis of these consequences of not being informed.
The greater part of the story is that I have had serious health challenges ever since I left in Jan 2002 and faced ALL of them alone (with God ever present) but essentially no communication with them. When I left, my internist had told me that the 10 months of sickness before I left was due to the TOXIC stress of my abusive “marriage” and I should leave or be dead within the year. I told my S?P:N this news and he knocked me unconsious and within days I was GONE.
Of course, he told them that I was lying and that he had never abused me in any way. It never occurred to me that our children could believe HIS lies for six long years — except that all four of them live with their families in the same communicaty. (Our son moved 35 miles away a year ago). I became very convinced he would hurt them if they changed their allegiance so I have just endured their sunning — with intense grief — and more health problmes due to the stress of it all.
I’m rambling. I hope this makes sense. But my point is that after reading your article, I AM going to focus JUST on myself.
I may accept DD#3’s (age 45) offer to come. She has communicated with me weekly (and daily during my March 09 hospitalization) and is an experienced surgical nurse — who had shown compassion that her siblings have not. But, I’ll see what transpires with her yet before making a firm decision.
The bottom line is that I have cared for myself (with God’s guicance) these past years just tine. I can “do this” alone, too.
Dearest Lily — thank you. If you could see me and hear me, you would know I am standing up, applauding you and your courage.
Sometime ago I read something very powerful — I trust myself to be responsible for my own happiness. And, I trust others to be responsible for theirs.
Your realization that you are not responsible for how your daughter will accept, or not, your decision, is empowering and inspiring.
I am sorry to hear of your sickness. I will put you in my prayers and if you are looking for a community to support you and a place to share your journey, http://www.caringbridge.org is a wonderful place — I have a woman friend who was recently diagnosed with cancer. She lives on the other side of the country, but, through Caring Bridge, I follow her journey and can post notes of strength, encouragement and hope.
Lily, you have given me a wonderful gift today. I love it when people — get it — when they stand up and say, I’m responsible for me and I’m okay with that, in fact, whatever life throws at me, I’m okay taking good care of me.
And don’t forget, you are not alone. There are thousands of women standing behind you, around you, holding out their arms, willing to support you. In Laura Day’s, “The Circle — How the power of a single wish can change your life” she talks about how we stand together in support and strength. Her book is well worth the read — and doing the exercises has great power.
This place is just one such perfect example of where a circle is formed and we stand together to create a space for healing to happen.
And I know, in what you wrote, you will take good, loving care of yourself.
Shine on,
Louise
Louise, thank you for your story.
It is a reminder for me that the past was just a fantasy he painted and I believed. Nothing was real, yet it could have killed me. How strange is that?
Lily,
I’ve been missing you and wondered where you were. I also have celiac disease – well, I’m not positive because I’ve never been tested, it may just be gluten intolerance. Either way, I have been off gluten since the early 1990’s. It seems difficult at first but it is actually very liberating too. And of course my health improved dramatically when I took control of my diet.
If you, at any time, need to talk about the gluten free lifestyle, I would be more than happy to share what I know and what I do.
Much love and hugs to you.
Skylar
Lily,
i dunno words i could posibly tell u. me too, i wish if u could see me now, just one eyes sight could say more than any word. what i wanted to write here and now, and for the future unhappy members is:
No one will die before his moment comes. We can not change it. We can not change what was writen to be, BUT we can change our lifes! It is not important how long we are gonna live, BUT IT IS IMPORTANT – HOW. And You, u chosed honourable life, being true to urself, honest with urself, in peace with urself. No one can be honest with others, no one can be respected from others, no one can be loved by others, if he is not all of it, at the first place, with ownself.
Just give me ur hand, dear. We can go through…in fact, WE ARE GOING THROUGH.
Take good care of urself, for urself and for all the ppl who trust u and love u.
Huggs
Louise, thank u for posting this story.
Me too, i used to be writer. Besides it, i used to be scientist, and alot of it. He devaluated me in my own eyes, killed all my skils and will to live. At the moment.
But not anymore.
Nomatter of how do i feel now, there are things i left behind, there will always be monuments we left,to remind someone on our posibilities, actions, deeds.
Behind US will stay something good. Behind them will stay nothing but dirt on the road. And rains will wash it, washing every sign they ever existed.
Dear ANewLily,
I am so sorry to hear of your health problems.
And I am humbled by your acceptance and serenity. You are one very emotionally strong lady.
I have come to believe the hardest things that we do in life…..We do alone. I never would have beieved this in my youth but I have experienced it in my own life many times.
The really “hard” stuff you do on your own.
BUT alone doesn’t have to mean without support! YOU might have to “fight” your illness (alone) as no one can do that for you, but it certainly might be easier for you if your daughter (the caring one) can be by your side. And if she is a nurse that is an added plus….
You are really awesome Lily…..It never ceases to amaze me how strong the human spirit can be.
Louise, I hadn’t anticipated your reaction of approval of my newly made decision regarding my family who had shanned me for years! I was overwhelmed and gratified by the visual of you jumping up and down with approval.
I have never been “into” what people think of me so I just posted my story without expectation. I realize that sometimes it is really GOOD to know when people approve of you. I’ll change my mindset!
Thanks for the link to CaringBridge. I believe I was supporting the family who started it when their infant was very sick and then didn’t survive. Terrible — but I can’t remember their names — but haven’t forgotten them.
Skylar, I’ll remember your offer to share dietary info about a gluten-free diet — but not right away (I don’t think) All day I’ve been on the phone obtaining all kinds of info regarding the upcoming surgery (sept 29) and am totally worn out with “Your call is important to us..” and then waiting to speak to someone for 20 or more minutes!
Maybe I can post to Donna and ask her to give you my email address?
Thornbird, I totally identified with you about how our “bad men” try to degrade our talents and accomplishments. But, you are right that what our real accomplishments are will be lasting after we’re gone.
theirs won’t!! (BTW, I’m not afraid to die. I know where I will spend eternity.)
Witend, I never fail to pray for you about your troubles. You have a strong spirit, too! You are so correct about all of us having to do the really “hard” stuff alone from being born to passing out of this life into the next. We never dreamt that we wouldn’t have a life partner to share the burdens of life. dod we? but it wasn’t meant to be. For me, I am VERY glad I escaped. My days alone are so much better — even with everyday challenges! I know my Ex S/P/N wouldn’t be supportive in any way during this current health crisis so I am SO glad he isn’t anywhere around — even if occasionally his “empty suit” stuff tries to nterfere periodically in attempts to bring me down! He hasn’t succeeded yet — and he won’t!
Note: I already sent an email to DD#2 that I’d rather that she didn’t rearrange her schedule to come out here. I feel peaceful about it. Her reaction will be hers all by herself. (But, I’ll never stop loving her.)
It isn’t the first time I’ve thought it but today more than most I’m so SORRY that I didn’t know what I know now and had never accepted a second date with him. I gave my children the WRONG father. I had no idea that my decision would influence my children so much. But, life doesn’t have a rewind button — so we press on.
Lily, whenever you are ready you may have my email address so we can discuss eating a gf diet. It can be as simple as eating only foods whose ENTIRE origin is recognizable: meat, fruit, vegetables, corn and rice. No additives, no fillers. Spices are used but only the ones I know for sure don’t use flour as an anti-caking agent.
I also gave up sugar and use only agave syrup. Eating this way is very easy. But some people don’t want to give up baked goods, so there are lots of cookbooks and baking books for making “fake” bread and “fake” anything that usually calls for wheat. I am adept at these recipes but no longer bother. I just don’t need that type of food very often.
You are so right that there is no rewind button. Most of us would have pressed it, but since we can’t we need to ask ourselves what kind of lemonade can I make with these lemons I’ve been handed? Because thats all we got from the P’s – lemons.
Dear Louise,
As always, your posts and articles “hit home” and NC is definitely one of those things that is ESSENTIAL to healing.
EVen if someone shares parenting with a psychopath in which there is no way to totally go PHYSICAL NC, the EMOTIONAL NC is so important. To keep them OUT OF OUR HEADS & HEARTS is so important.
Thank you for a wonderful article.
For me physical NC was so much easier than EMOTIONAL NC, but that coming now, first with some of the psychopaths, and now with the rest.
I could not tell the story again and again.
This is a individual time thing for each of us. At some point you will stop telling your personal story and you will not think of him every day. Because Life does not depend on him! Your life depends on you!