There was a time when all I felt grateful for was the absence of his voice, for just an hour or two from the phone.
There was a time when what I was most grateful for was knowing he was somewhere else, somewhere where I wasn’t.
There was a time when I was grateful not to think of him, for just a moment, or an hour, maybe even, if I was really strong, for half a day.
There was a time.
And now, the times have changed. The times have shifted, the sands have fallen differently, ever changing, in the hour glass of the passing of the time when he was all I thought of, all I saw, all I believed I would ever live with in my life.
The times they have changed.
Today I gave a presentation to a group of about 50 people on how to make a difference — in your life, in the life of your community, in this city, in the world. My presentation as on behalf of The United Way, an agency that helped me get counselling when I first was released from the hell of that relationship that almost killed me.
I am grateful, I told the audience, for the support of The United Way because, they, along with my friends and family who stood by me, gave me the tools and the help I needed to start rebuilding my life. To start reclaiming all that was lost and so much more.
That’s the thing about a relationship with a psychopath/sociopath. The relationship leaves you drained — of all resources, of all energy, of all sense of self. We survived their passing through our lives and in the end, we wonder, will we ever breathe freely again? Will we ever feel like ourselves again? Will we ever trust, love, give our hearts again?
Recently, I was teaching a self-esteem course at the homeless shelter where I work. I asked the students, what are you grateful for? One man, about thirty years old, answered. I’m grateful for going to jail. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Because of being imprisoned, I got sober. And that’s how I want to live the rest of my life.
The conman experience was one of the best things that ever happened in my life. Sure, going through that journey was hell. I despaired that I would survive. I’m lucky I did. But, in having come out of the other side, I know, without a doubt, that that encounter freed me from my self-limiting beliefs that were keeping me from living the life of my dreams. That relationship forced me to look at myself and claim — I deserve all the world has to offer. I deserve to be free.
These relationships are hell. They test us. Try us. Destroy our belief in ourselves. Destroy our faith in humanity. And in the end, they leave us looking for a miracle, trying to find ourselves beneath the painful memories that keep us stuck in believing, we will never be free.
It’s all in our perspective.
We can look at their passing through our lives as the worst thing that ever happened to us — or we can look at their passing through our lives as the most astonishing thing that ever happened to us. We can find the value in their passing through or we can stay stuck in believing they were all we are worth. We can dig into the dirt of the turmoil, the angst, and the pain they dumped upon us and wallow in its weight, or we can dig out from beneath the dirt and claim our right to stand, fully illuminated in the sun of our new day dawning upon the truth of who we are when we choose to live up to our highest good, freed from the belief we are not good enough, not well enough, not enough.
We are enough. Just the way we are. We give enough. Do enough. Are enough.
Coming through the hell of that relationship I have had enough of living small, of living under the lies of someone else’s disorderly conduct. I have had enough of being who someone else tells me I must be. I have had enough.
Freed from believing someone else had the right to determine my worth, I claim my right to live up to my true value. I claim my right to determine my worth by every word, every deed, every action I take today.
I am not the woman who was abused.
I am a woman who has claimed her right to live freely in the rapture of now. I am a woman who claims her right to be all she is meant to be when she ‘turns up, pays attention, speaks her truth and stays unattached to the outcome.’ I am a Woman of Worth. A real WoW!
You are too.
If you feel less than, other than, bothered by or determined by his insistence that your only value is based upon what you give him or bring to him or what he gives you or says you are, shake yourself free. Give yourself the gift of knowing — he is just a conman, or conwoman. Their only purpose in life is to live off the well-meaning intentions of those around them. Their only purpose is to find their value in the devastation they cause in the world around them.
You are better than that. More than he could ever imagine.
Shake yourself free of believing he was the ‘worst’ thing that ever happened to you and embrace the reality of his passing through your life — you are free. In freedom, you can make choices that support you, nurture you and celebrate your magnificence.
Don’t let one man take the present of you and turn it into a burden for years to come.
Give yourself the gift of freedom. Acknowledge the gift of wisdom that comes with having lived through the experience of a conman in your life. Gift yourself the knowing — you are more than he could ever have imagined. You are more than you ever dreamed of. You are free to be your most amazing self because he is gone and you have nothing more to hold onto. The beauty of holding onto nothing is — you have nothing to lose. And with nothing to lose you are free to be your most incredible, amazing, magnificent self. Holding onto nothing, no one can take your most amazing self away from you.
Live it up. Live it free. Shift your anger and regret to gratitude and Live your best life yet!
I am!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May your life be filled with abundance, love and joy.
Jessica,
Don’t ever give a man money. Let him earn his own, get it from his family or something else.. As soon as you gave him money, you went down in his mind. You are on the right path.. earn your own living, get your education and forget about men for now.. this guy was playing you and if they won’t meet your parents.. dump them.. he didn’t want to meet them because he knew that they would see through him.
Men take care of women… and he has too many excuses and issues…
About the article.. I needed to read this…
I feel alone just now.. not that I miss him.. but just like on the edge and like I don’t really fit any where…
Dear Style,
Dear, I hear your pain “like I don’t really fit any where.” Style, the thing is that no one can give us happiness, and no one who tries to whittle us down to fit into a “square” hole is good for us. We have to determine where WE are and then let THEM fit in or GET OUT. We make our own shape, our own happienss ALL BY OURSELVES, THEN and only THEN .do we look for a man that FITS IN TO US.
I think too many times we (people who have in the past been abused/used) try to make ourselves in the “image of” what the other people (person) wants us to be, not what we ARE.
No matter what we do to try to make ourselves fit in with THEM, we never will, we have to be uniquely OURSELVES, then find a mate, not look for a mate and then try to fit in with THEM.
YOU are WORTH more than 100 of him put together, and 1000 of the guy with the “leukemia” who then turns around and says YOU ARE NOT YOUNG ENOUGH TO DESERVE HIM! ROTFLMAO Heis NOT worth the goo under your little finger nail. And for someone to say something like that and blame YOU when he is as unappealing as dog crap, has his “nerve” for sure. He was simply BLAME PLACING! UGH! what a creep.
In 2008, women earned approximately 77 cents for every dollar a man earned. I got this statistic at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193820.html
Ladies, please be careful about who you give your hard-earned money to.
Personally, I would have a hard time giving money to a man who is already earning 23% more on the dollar than I am, according to current statistics. Especially in this economy!!
If someone is cold, buy them a coat.
If someone is hungry, then buy them food.
But, I would never give someone cash.
You just never know what they are really using it for, unfortunately.
E mail rcvd earlier ….
Thank you for sending my clothes to M’s, as far as the bike and the
rest of my stuff please keep it with yours and i will try to get them
as soon as i get out. please tell D, i said i love him, and i am
sorry and happy holidays……
uugggghhhhhhh I am so angry at that email I could SCREAM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please keep it with yours …. I am not putting my stuff in storage… I have to sell or give away my things and I am expected to hold his stuff with mine like its going to storage its not going to fit in a studio jerk o–…… how can you email someone if your in “program” too bad there are no programs for people like you…… one’s where like the eskimos… when no one is looking they push you off the cliffs… too bad I did not know about the eskimos sooner when we were in new mexico it would have been the perfect place to just push you off the cliff….. no one would have ever found you… oh gosh now I sound just like one of them……..
I found this slide show helpful. It is about trauma, its effects and what is needed to overcome trauma.
http://www.slideshare.net/jschwartz/trauma-and-chemical-use-and-addiction
Louise, thanks for the article. For the first time in a long time, I’m taking a break from working and have a couple of things I’m REALLY looking forward to this weekend!
How can others say they warned about the S, when the only thing they tell you is a vague comment such as … he will only be a part time presence in your life…. how does that turn into , we warned you to stay away from him???? that dose seem rather vague like …..or you knew the risks involved?
They are very good actors… I guess if we fall for it and take the risks??? it must have been my fault… not anymore I know now who he is and who he will continue to be….
Spirit, I heard the same and oh, how it changed in the end! They are GREAT actors. My shock is that his own mother was the one who told me this. She wouldn’t give him a dime if his life depended on it. MY family bails his butt of jail, though. Go figure. I think that it becomes stronger from those who warned us because they had time to watch them pull their stuff on us, thereby convincing others they really are that bad.
Oh the emails….they know just what to write and it can really stick with us. It’s not your job to take care of his stuff. It’s his.
Hugs!
Cat
“he will only be a PART TIME PRESENCE IN YOUR LIFE” (quote) spirit
To me that says a GREAT DEAL about someone. It says they will NOT commit to an exclusive relationship with you or probably anyone else. so if you were looking for a committed relationship I would think you would see this as a pretty strong warning—-that said though, I have been warned much more strongly than that and STILL did not listen. I was told HE IS DISHONEST, HE WILL STAB YOU IN THE BACK and I did not listen and got into a business relationship with this person and guess what HE STOLE FROM US, HE STABBED US IN THE BACK, HE LIED AND HE CHEATED.
Most of the time by the time we are warned either openly or more “politely” we are so HOOKED we don’t believe anything.
It would be nice if we could pass the blame to our friends for not warning us, but unfortunately, it is SELDOM that a warning works. I know I would not listen so am not “throwing rocks” at you for not seeing the warning for what it was, I think, an attempt to warn you. That’s part of the psychopath’s talent is s/he can get us to ignore warnings.
Cat, OxY….
Yeah that “warning” from his family… who also wont admit he is a P, S, N… No he is an “alcoholic”…. I met this guy I was 17.. I came from an emotionally charged back ground… and got hooked… 10 years later, he sealed the deal I was pregnant. Of Course he demeaned , devalued and discarded me when I was pregnant, I was after all FAT now… oh and he came back when he needed more rescuing, my child was old enough then to admire his narc father…. etc etc. I am thinking of writing my own book because It is a true account of years of this abuse, which I never realized obviously a couple years back I learned the Narc term and that fit then I heard borderline and that fit , then I recalled his youth fire setting , animal abuse and then that fit anti social… well as I have said before each of us must find our own way in our own time at our own pace so I learned the lesson here and now. Now I am going to look forward to a bright future assuming that my wishes are going to be fufilled this time with wonderful people , my degree , and love in there somewhere…someone who truly deserves me… he wrote me a note once, I was young, ( I kept them all since we were 17 and then he went to jail kept those too) he said why do you love me so much when I have never done anything to deserve it … hind sight red flag but already “in love” with the potential……….
anyhow… I feel that his family is a source of this It is my beleive that you can also learn the behaviors from those around you… and that one or both of his parents are Narcisstic… just based on the way he treats me and they treat him and me… and my child, I am the one discarded they just want the fresh meat( my child) watch out mama bear has got some nasty claws……..
Spirit,
I stored some stuff in an old buidling here on the edge of my farm for some people who are “users” and they had 24/7 access to their stuff. In march, part of the roof blew off and I notified them to get their stuff as it was getting rained on. they said “just put a piece of plastic over it” Well in April, I told them that I wanted it OUT by June 1 as I wanted to salvage some of the lumber etc out of the building and then doze it down, burn it and clean up the site. The last thing I heard from them in April was “WE WILL GET OUR STUFF OUT OF YOUR WAY BY JUNE 1.”
Well, it is the end of november and I HAVEN’T HEARD A WORD SINCE THEN. So, since this was abandoned stuff I took what I wanted of it and sold some of the rest, left the trash there.
I really didn’t expect to ever hear from these people again, I had started setting some boundaries for them about a year ago and had stopped contacting them after April.
So last night I get an e mail from the guy telling me that they hadn’t contacted me about the stuff in the old building because:
1) he had lost my phone number (but obviously he had my e mail address and could have contacted me during this 6 month period by that, my phone number is the same and only one digit different from my son’s phone number, and he knows that, so I sincerely doubt that is the reason he didnt’ contact me.
2) my son D had not returned any of his phone calls since January 15 this year. (well, yes, that is correct, because even though they had borrowed and not repaid money from my son a couple of years ago to buy a car, he had called D on January 15 WANTING MONEY and D had said NO!)
3) He says that he is “in a chair” (wheel chair) all the time now” This is a pity play as an excuse for why he made no effort to get his stuff moved for 6 months after assuring me he would, as I had arranged a man, trailer and truck (at his expense of course) to move the stuff for him and he had not taken advantage of that, because I think, as USUAL with him, he wanted my son to volunteer my truck trailer and his own labor to move this STUFF AGAIN! My son has moved pretty much this same pile of garbage that they have hoarded for years multiple times, lost count of how many times.
4) even though the guy had a key to the place and 24/7 access, he wants to arrange to meet me to “get his stuff”—WHY? The storage building is not behind a locked gate and they have made entry off and on since they put their stuff there without notifying us in any way. So why now to get access through US? Obviously there is some ulterior motive, I just don’t know what it is. And, don’t really care.
My son is out of state right now, but when he returns we will decide if we want to answer this e mail at all, and if we do, what we will say. My thought now is to ignore the e mail.
In the past they have ignored boundaries about coming here to my farm when i am not home, I caught the wife once time and boy was she embarassed and pithed off for sure. She was so tight jawed that it is a wonder she didn’t crack her teeth out of socket. Oh, wellllll…..that’s what happens when you try to be sneaky. she is also one to “pilfer” and to take things that belong to others…sometimes things of no real value, but she is OCD about hoarding stuff that would disgrace most land fills.
Both of them have self created financial problems from VERY poor spending habits and have worked themselves into a corner, and yet they have this feeling of entitlement that others are responsible for “helping” them because they are “poor.”
Not my problem, because their financial poverty is very self created by their sense of entitlement to others taking care of their needs. I’ve done my turn, my son has done his turn, and we are no longer available to meet their needs, or to feel sorry for their predictiment.
I suggest that whatever items of his that HE has decided to make YOU responsible for that you either put out for the trash man, or SELL and pocket the money. So what are you, the “Spirit Storrage FREE company?”