By OxDrover
I remember when I was a little kid, driving with my parents, sitting in the back seat sans seatbelt (there were no such things in those days) and leaning over the front seat, repeatedly asking my parents, “Are we there yet?” or “How long til we get there?”
Of course there had been no reasonable way for my parents to convey to me “how long” since I didn’t tell time when I was four, so there was no use saying “one hour” because I wouldn’t be able to comprehend what an “hour” was. Time is sort of fluid anyway, relative to what is going on. If you are bored, an hour is forever. If you are interested in something, an hour is very short. To a bored child in the back seat of a car, the trip seems to take forever with no end in sight. The trip is a price to be paid for arriving at the destination.
When I started the journey toward Healing from my prior experiences with the psychopaths in my life and family, I was in pain. I wanted the journey to be over; I wanted to get to being healed quickly. The journey itself didn’t interest me any more than the passing countryside had interested me when I was riding in the back seat of my parents’ car. I was tired of that trip before it even started. I wanted to be there!
Unlike the smooth ride in the backseat of my parents’ car, which required no effort on my part, this journey to Healing required me to steer and power the vehicle. I had to make sure I didn’t run out of fuel, and that the equipment was in order. Some days my tires went flat and I had to get out and fix them. Other days my emotional radiator boiled over and I sat feeling helpless on the side of the road with smoke boiling out from under my hood. Some days I was simply out of gas with no refueling station anywhere in sight as far as the eye could see.
The road to Healing was a terrible road, with huge potholes that seemed to appear out of nowhere, and sometimes my wheels would hit these potholes. My tires would sink to the axle and I would have to get out and dig and dig until I could get enough dirt pushed under them to get the car out. Other times, the road would be slimed with mud and I would skid into the ditches of despair.
From time to time I would see someone else along the road, and occasionally someone would come along when I needed help the most and offer me a very welcome hand.
I became so tired from this journey that I just wondered if I would ever get there. What I really wanted was someone to come along and offer me a magic carpet so I could just fly over all this terrible barren terrain and I could just get there to Healing!
Often times the signposts along the road were unclear and I wasn’t even sure I was even on the right road. Other times, some prankster must have turned the signs around because I would take a turn, certain I was reading the sign correctly, and wind up down a dead end trail with barely enough room to turn my vehicle around. At times like these I felt so utterly alone and stupid for not being more careful and allowing myself to get off the correct road.
One day when I felt that I just couldn’t go on any longer, that it was too much work to keep my old vehicle going with broken springs that seemed to make each rut, each pot hole, and each rock in the road jar my back teeth loose, I discovered I was no longer on the road alone. I looked around me and I saw other people on the road. Where had they come from? Had they been there before and I was too self absorbed, too weighted down with my own woes, to even notice them? I also noticed that some of these people were riding bicycles, some were on scooters, some were walking. Some of the others on the road were on crutches, or in wheel chairs, and some of these people were even crawling.
I looked around at these people and then back at my old vehicle with its rusting fenders, threadbare tires and leaking radiator, but I realized that it was not so “bad” after all. It might not have been a Cadillac, but I wasn’t having to walk or crawl. I realized there were others who were less fortunate than me. I felt shame in myself for being so self absorbed, for not realizing that I didn’t have it “so bad” after all. I recited the old saying about, “I cried because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.” I thanked God for my old vehicle.
As I restarted my journey I became acquainted with some of my fellow travelers, and we shared our stories, our pains, and our insights. When we would come to a crossroads that seemed confusing, we would help each other, and if one fell down, the others reached out to him to help him up. Having company on the journey made it seem less lonely. Though there was no magic carpet there to whisk me away to the destination of Healing, it was comforting to have company.
Sometimes I would pause and rest a while with a fellow traveler. As we traveled down the road we would meet new travelers, freshly injured, also seeking Healing. Those of us on the road would call to them to join us in the journey, comforting and supporting each other on the way. Sometimes the newly injured would join us, but other times, those bleeding injured souls would wander off the road or fall in to the abyss and no matter how we would call to them, they would not answer and sorrowfully, we would have to move on down the road toward Healing without them.
No matter how far I traveled it never seemed I was any nearer to Healing than before. As I traveled the road, it became smoother and I was becoming stronger from my struggles to climb the hills, cover the hurdles, get out of the pot holes, but I never saw a sign that said “how long ’til we get there.” I never saw a sign that said, “Healing 50 miles.” I began to wonder if I would ever arrive at Healing. I even asked some of my fellow travelers, “Are we there yet? How long ’til we get there?” No one could answer me. No one could tell me “how long before we get there?”
As I traveled and the road became smoother, and there were even stretches of pavement that I could roll across without the jarring rocks and ruts, and I began to enjoy the journey. I would gaze off into the distance and see mountains and vistas of incredible beauty that filled my heart with joy just to behold. I had passed out of the terrible salt flats of hell and reached a place where there was beauty and joy, and the road was smoother. Even my old vehicle started to run better and give me less trouble, and I found refueling stations on a regular basis and quit forgetting to check the oil and tire pressure, so I didn’t have flats and other problems so often any more.
Along the road I had also seen some changes and growth in my traveling partners. They were becoming stronger and starting to sing as they walked or rode along. Even some of those in wheel chairs were beginning to walk again, and some that had used crutches had thrown them away and were walking straight and strong. It made me happy to see my new friends recovering and getting better and stronger; it made me feel good to feel stronger myself.
At times my new friends and I would talk about our former lives before we started on the Healing road, and sometimes we even missed some of those people we had had to leave behind. Unkind people who had wounded us, yet we loved and missed, but even those memories of our former lives started to change as we sang along the road toward Healing. We started to make new plans and put together new lives.
I would reach milestones from time to time, the milestone of setting boundaries, another one for forgiveness and a milestone for honesty. As I passed each milestone I felt renewed strength and stamina, but I wondered, “When will I get to Healing? When will I be there?”
Then I came to a milestone that said, “Healing is a journey, not a destination.” I realized that there was no end to the Healing Road; it would go on for the rest of my life. It isn’t about getting to some place and being there; it is about enjoying the journey. It is about growth and learning and companionship with others on the same road. It is about comforting others who have fallen, as there were those that comforted you when you fell. It is the shared experiences of seeing the sun shining on the distant mountains, or reassuring each other during a storm. Healing is about life—living life, experiencing life, and sharing life.
OMG Panther, do not feel bad for him. It makes me sick to think what he is doing to you. He is past obsessing and an out of control spath. I’ve been there and had one of those (okay two but the 2nd one at present time is not so aggressive, thank God!) If he knows you address, you might want to consider moving, and start hiding all info you can. You need to hide yourself for a bit too, and look into criminal charges against him if you can (and feel safe enough).
You just have to realize that it is not about you, but all about him. He is freaking out because he is losing his possession. This past spring, I had to step into my son’s relationship (he is 16) and save him from a spath. She had been telling him she would kill and hurt herself if he didn’t do what she wanted or if he ever left her. He had met her when we lived in a different state, but they became bf/gf over text messages and the internet. Once I found out ALL the stuff she had been doing, I put an end to the relationship. He was thankful and felt so much better (he quit acting depressed :). He said he was scared of what she would do. I did tell her mom what she was doing as well. Her mother (prolly the reason why she is the way she is) threw a fit and tried to get me to force my son to talk to her daughter. I finally had to threaten legal action to make them both stop and leave the poor boy alone.
Now, my son has awareness of this crap and he understands how they suck you in. My point was, she never killed her self. She did play a good game with it in controlling him. I read the messages she had sent him, and they were very disturbing esp for a child!
Also, FYI, my stalker finally quit stalking me a couple of years ago, after 7+ years of hell. Had he got the chance to get me, he would have killed me and my children. We had to run for a long time. It was scary, and I understand not wanting to open the door! He never said he would kill himself, but there were many times I wished he would. I sometimes wished something would happen and he would be gone from this earth. It was a nightmare that just wouldn’t end.
After they keep this up for a bit, you start to hate them and resent what they have done/are doing to your life. Then at times (at least for me) start just wish they would be gone and leave you be, even if they kill themselves.
I think I am just becoming very jaded (or w/e the word would be) from them. I have been hurt so many times by spaths, and I have seen so many awful things they have done to others. I cannot understand the point in them. Why are they here? And sometimes (when I am most hurt and angry at them like I am now) I see stuff like a spath saying they want to kill themselves, and I think “we couldn’t be that lucky.” I know it is terrible but something in me wants them to keep good with their word. Oh, I hope they haven’t got me too messed up to even be thinking that. Before Vance came and really jacked up my life, I would have never thought that (except for my stalker, my murdering spath-diagnosed uncle, and this very sick child abuser that still gets away with it-she helped the stalker. Yes, I had exceptions, but all would not think twice about taking the life of another.).
Okay, i am rambling. It has been such a horrible week. Dear Panther, I feel for you. Change your name and post unidentifying information about yourself. Get the bastard confused!