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.
Skylar, sounds like you and I are in the same position. I can relate to the 95% of the time. Just wondering, remember thinking, reliving. And my heart goes out to you having to deal with other Ps like you do. It can only make your situation that much more difficult. For me, he is a first and a REAL piece of work!
Kim Frederick, I too am with you. My S has a CPS record, previous jail time and all I want is him to go to jail and stay there!!! Where he can’t hurt anyone else! And thanks for the tip on Love Addicts!
I want to add that I’ve seen posts about NC and some of you wondering what you will do or say if and when they try to contact you again. I too think about that constantly!! Part of me wants him too so badly. Maybe to think he still cares and part of it was real?? But by now I should know that isn’t the reason he contacts me! However, if he did, I think I would say:
You are pathetically predictable! Take your small d**k and enormous ego and go f**k yourself LOSER! I’ve figured you out and I’m free of you!
I know I shouldn’t even think those things but it helps me stay MAD and focused I guess!
Sarasims,
being mad is ok, but you are still thinking of him as a normal human being if you think that response would hurt him. It wouldn’t. He would like you to show ANY emotion. It’s what he feeds on. He loves knowing that he hurt you. Or that he can make you feel good. Either way, your emotional response gives him power.
So, the correct response is be BORING. No emotional response.
The only other way to hurt him is to say hurtful things, but in a boring tone. For instance, “it turns out you are a malignant narcissist, go google it. Gotta go. bye.” Or “your d**k is too small I like big ones, go google it. Gotta go, bye.”
Or, “You are boring me. call me, we’ll have lunch sometime, gotta go, bye”
Remember, these will cause narcissistic injury and they can be dangerous when they feel slighted. Unless you are certain you can protect yourself, don’t do it.
To answer the question about “how long?” AS LONG AS IT TAKES. That is different “lengths” of time for each of us, and we will go back and forth between sadness, wanting them back, hating them, wanting revenge, crying, etc etc. rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat. AS LONG AS IT TAKES.
Keep in mind, this is the GRIEF process (google Elizabeth Kubler-Ross” and you will get some information on this grieving that will help you put some words and thoughts to the emotions you are feeling and realize that they are NORMAL.
Mainly DO NOT RUSH this, or set time limits on it by days, weeks, months or even years! It takes as long as it takes.
BE KIND TO YOURSELF. When you find yourself BLAMING yourself, realize you are “bargaining” and when you find yourself crying realize you are depressed, and when you find yourself angry, realize and admit you are justifiably angry.
One day you wil stop and realize that you have ACCEPTED what is, the reality of it all. Even then you may “back step” into anger or sadness, but each FORWARD step leads you closer to RESOLUTION of the grief and complete acceptance of it all, the PAST IS PAST, and it is OVER. Keep your faith in yourself. ((((hugs))) and God bless each of us!
I have always believed that each person who crosses our path in this journey , was meant to be! If the lessons didn’t have to be so hard to learn! But that hopefully helps us to not fall as hard again. And when at first we feel how horriable the lesson is, we heal to see how necessary it was. For our own good!
Skylar – OMG, ALL this time and I have never thought of it that way. But you are sooooo right! And yes, every response I’ve ever given his is that of emotion….trying to rationalize and make him understand that he hurt me, or being really angry – trying to hurt him like he hurt me. You’re right, it isn’t possible bc he isn’t normal! I see your point. You have really given me another view to reflect upon and I think I get it. Thank you for being here!
OxDrover, It really is a grieving process isn’t it? It is sad that so much of our precious time has to be spent hurting this way bc we are good people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and encountered the S. But I do see your point. And I guess the bottom line is that when we ACCEPT the reality of it all and vow to go NC…..we DO begin to heal. No more “what if” he calls, “what if” he writes? It just simply isn’t a viable path for us any longer and we vow that to ourselves so that we can heal. Thank you for the strength and encouragement. And yes, faith in ourselves at this time I believe is more important than ever. Hugs back at ya!
The P I was involved with wrote: “By the way, I remember the day, at age 35, that I first made the conscious
decision NOT to try to catch a snake. It was the first time in my life that I had even thought about it. Before, any snake was something to be caught, even rattlers. I don’t do that anymore, but on a recent trip caught 2, though passed on the rattler, (which came closer to getting me than any had come, ever before…)”
I share this because it is telling in so many ways. As a young teen, he had lots of snakes in his home. He professed to love them.So he had been catching them for a LONG time. So it is remarkable that he was 35 before he thought about the option of not catching them! This is a doctor. Very good at memorizing facts, but very immature in other ways. Notice he seems to contradicts himself about “I don’t do that anymore” (a P contradicting himself? What a shock, huh? :-))
And also notice what this writing reveals about impulse control, about flirting with danger, the lack of healthy fear.
A perfectly normal person could write all this I suppose, except the not thinking about something you’ve been doing for 20 years seems a bit remarkable, especially when you know others certainly raised the issue! P’s don’t think about what they don’t want to think about and it is DIFFICULT for them to think about ethical matters. They avoid it, get frustrated if they even try I’m sure. And I’m not sure how deeply he thought about the ethics, it may have been more just realizing he didn’t have to give in to his impulses each time. Who knows!!!
By the way, when we had just turned 16, he took me on a date to see a play. It was the Glass Menagerie which has snakes in it. It was the last night of the play. After the performance, he left me in the car alone, said he had to get something. He came back with a knotted pillow case and put it on my lap and drove off. He started driving and the pillowcase started moving. It was full of snakes! I had too much pride to show fear….and I’m sure I immensely disappointed him by my refusal to show any emotion about it. It was a sign of the thrills he got from upsetting people.
Again, by itself, it could seem like just a rather mean practical joke. But when you see it as part of a larger pattern, you begin to realize it is another red flag.
To later beat ourselves up for missing some of these red flags is unreasonable. Of course, many of their red flags are clearer, especially in retrospect.
PS the note I quoted from was three years ago, I am NC of course!
justabouthealed – that’s interesting and very disturbing at the same time. My SP also had this love for snakes which I couldn’t understand at all. I thought it was just something that he did bc he thought it was cool. Now that I think about it, he led a very double life. The him that he wanted everyone to see….devoted dad, hard worker, sweet guy….but then he had this really dark creepy side that no one knew existed.
Another interesting point that they don’t think about what they don’t want to think about…considering whether it be ethical, moral, etc. When I first met him, he showed me this really compassionate caring side. One that “seemed” to consider right from wrong. Knowing he had done bad things in his past but wanting to change. Over time, of course that changed. When I finally figured out that he was with another woman while with me – and tried to figure out what I had done wrong, what was going on…I just wanted to talk it out…..his response to me was: “you spend too much time thinking, it is what it is, people will do what people do. I told you I was sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it ever again. Just leave it alone.” And that was it. It was his way or no way. And he CAN literally do things without EVER giving them a second thought. Turn the thought process off completely. People will do what they are going to do…..too bad! So what who it hurts. I even heard that he and this other woman he was seeing locked her small son out of the house when they were having sex and the child went to the neighbor who called the police!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s just as bad as he is – so it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I think he’s finally met a SP woman.
The red flags were so very much there but I was so in love that it didn’t matter. I kept thinking he would have the “AHA” moment when he realized he had made a huge mistake and I was the best thing that had ever come into his life. But of course, I know have come to the realization that he is not capable of such a thought process. Nor is he willing or able to love bc his thoughts are not those of a normal, functioning human being. Now it is you and I who have to pick up the pieces of our good and caring hearts and find a new tomorrow full of happiness. One without the dramas of a crazy person in our life.