After the sociopath, proud of my healing

It was a weeknight in 1996. My talented teenage daughter sat at the kitchen table, dutifully doing homework important to her. Meanwhile, at 48 years old, I was behind my closed bedroom door, on my bed, chain-smoking and weeping on the phone to friends who generously gave me their time.

“How can this be?” I lamented. “Last week, I felt so loved, like everything was falling into place. And now, with a few snide remarks about my ‘failure to comprehend basic math’ and other cruel criticisms, here I am again. How can this be?” I swallowed another TUMS tablet, trying to ease the acidic ache in my stomach.

For two long pre-Lovefraud.com, pre-YouTube years, friends gave me their time, listening to my anguish over a relationship with a ‘partner’ who was anything but a partner. I recall a session with a therapist when I tried to convince her that I could handle the abuse if I were strong enough—for the sake of love. She looked at me wide-eyed, clearly seeing a broken soul before her.

Did my daughter enjoy a homemade snack prepared by a nurturing mother that night? She did not. Does she recall my sitting beside her, inquiring about her studies, maybe learning a little myself? No, that memory does not exist. 

It took two years of back-and-forth breakups and make-ups in what I now recognize as an essential classroom of my life. Toward the end of that ordeal, worn down with stress, I developed a persistent cough and bronchitis and even broke my leg from not paying attention to the curb. I had to cash in an insurance policy to cover missed work—money intended for my children someday.

Finally, I graduated, thanks to the unwavering support of my friends and rare magazine articles. Years later, sometime after 2006, I discovered Lovefraud.com, which helped me see what had happened to me in a new light and that I was not alone or flawed. I learned about ‘trauma bonding,’ a phenomenon where unresolved pain draws us to someone who embodies those old, unhealed wounds. I learned that since the people who first hurt me were long gone, I had found an ‘understudy’ to reenact my unhealed history. On Lovefraud, I learned that I was not disturbed. I was taking proud responsibility to heal. 

Fast forward to me helping Emma pack for school in another city. Folding laundry together, I apologized for that lost time, for how my preoccupation during that non-relationship stole precious moments from her. My daughter looked up and said she’d known that I was trying to get help. She said that her friend’s mom had spent months away from home while healing from cancer and that she understood I was healing too – on the phone, reading, and sharing with caring people. “You did your own kind of chemo, Mom. You’re well now, and I am enjoying that too.” 

They say healing leads us to a place where we’ll never regret the past. Today, I am so happy to be able to refer others to Lovefraud.com and to celebrate this online educational healing community. What a difference from yesteryear. The heartbroken can attend specific, knowledgeable courses, celebrate victories, witness daring decisions, and applaud graduations bravely earned.

Today, I can examine my flashbacks rather than shudder in shame. I have educated myself and now fully understand, as often stated on Lovefraud, that the roots of my pain were not my fault. I can be proud of my healing. 

Eleanor Cowan

Author of A History of a Pedophile’s Wife, etc.