Last week, I posted Letters to Lovefraud: Who we used to be, written by the reader who posts as “Panther.” She called herself a “new survivor,” having just left the sociopath and gone “No Contact” less than a month ago. She wrote:
Through reading various Lovefraud articles, I’ve realized that the veterans have so much invaluable advice to offer. However, at times I wonder how the voice of a survivor sounded right after the break. The reason this matters to me is because the veterans seem so much stronger than I feel right now. I cannot help but wonder, as I read through their wise words, if they have something I don’t have, which enabled them to get over this.
To Panther and other Lovefraud newbies: The only difference between you and the veterans is time. We’ve been on the healing journey longer than you have.
I left my sociopathic ex-husband in February of 1999. That was more than 12 years ago! I’ll tell you what I was like when the wounds were raw. Here’s what I wrote on page 287 of my book, Love Fraud How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan. In this part, I’m describing my state of mind, and state of being, when I discovered the treachery of my ex-husband:
James Montgomery proclaimed his love to me—just as he had proclaimed his love to 20 or 30 other women who had discretionary income and access to credit. I was just another pawn in a long line of women who heard the words “I love you” and believed them.
Why had this happened to me? All I ever wanted was what everyone wants—companionship, happiness, love. I was a good, considerate person. I worked hard. I treated people fairly. I did not deserve to be so exploited.
I paced up and down the hallway, my thoughts tumbling over each other, building into a mountain of pain and confusion. I leaned my back against the wall and slid to the floor, talking to myself. I felt like I should cry, but I could not. My dog, Beau, worriedly licked my face.
I was angry. I was outraged. Yet all I felt was numbness. I decided to call my therapist, Elaine Anderson. Luckily, she was available to do a session with me right then, over the phone.
I lay on the bed in my spare room, the meditation room, and told Elaine what I had found in James’ papers: Correspondence to his business associates that was full of lies. Letters from women asking for their money back. Stock certificates made out to many of these women. Proof that the corporation issuing the stock certificates was defunct.
The dam within me began to crack, and then it burst. I cried. I groaned. I choked. Emotional pain rose from deep within me to the surface of my awareness, like pus rising from a deep infection. Painful energy traveled to various parts of my body—my hands, my eyes, my heart. My hands clenched. I struggled to breathe.
I don’t know how long it went on. But slowly, the pain dissipated.
That was the beginning of my journey to recovery. I spent many, many hours curled up on the floor, crying. I also spent many hours envisioning my ex-husband’s face on a pillow and pounding it with my fists, pounding until I collapsed. I spent many hours with my therapist, coaxing the anger and bitterness out of my emotions and out of my soul.
The betrayal of the sociopath creates deep, deep pools of pain and disappointment within us. To recover and regain ourselves, we have to drain those pools. It takes time.
And then, as we drain them, we find more pain and disappointment in the pools, left over from injuries that we experienced before the sociopath. In fact, it was those injuries that made us vulnerable to the sociopath in the first place. Those emotions must also be drained.
Healing doesn’t just happen—we have to make a conscious decision to face all of the negativity head on. If we don’t make the decision to heal, if we just try to put the experience of the sociopath behind us without dealing with the pain—well, then it was all a waste, we didn’t learn anything, and we’re likely to repeat it by finding another sociopath.
Recovery is possible, but it takes time and commitment. Here the words I said to myself time and time again: “Just keep going.”
So to all of you who are just starting out, just keep going. I promise you, you can overcome, you can recover, and you can find peace.
Hi, all.
For the last year, I have been recovering from the abuses of my ex-path. By virtue of our professional association, I was forced to be in her presence until I decided that saving my life and my sanity was more imporant to me than saving my career. Early in our relationship, before we became romantically involved, I was having some emotional difficulties due to another situation in my life. I mentioned to her (the ex-path) that I was going to seek out a mental health counselor to deal with it. She said to me, “you don’t need a shrink”. (Just one of the countless invalidations I received while I was with her.)
After she was through with me and discarded me, I hired a therapist. I had to. The pain, disappointment, anger, bewilderment and all the torture she so subtly inflicted on me were too much for me to bear alone. She learned “through the grapevine” that I was getting some help and she became even more vindictive toward and contemptuous of me and her rationalizations, manipulations, and abuses became even more intense.
I had one semester let to go before I graduated with a master’s degree. I had to get away from her. Because of our association with our subject of study, (Oriental Medicine. Condsider: a psychopathic physician), my interest in and study of the medicine is now tainted by pain, anxiety and association with deception and betrayal. I’m finding it very difficult to reclaim my place as a healer and student of medicine.
Not only am I dealing with the loss of what I believed to be a great romantic love, I am dealing with the loss of my love for learning and studying my chosen profession AND, I get to deal in therapy with some very deep old wounds. I’m embarassed and feel ashamed and anxious in the associations with my peers. (I transferred to a different campus to finish my degree, but her minions, for G_d knows what reasons, just had to show up there, too.)
I saw the red flags, knew I was going to hurt when we began the romantic phase of our relationship. What was it that made me want to be with her int he first place? Why did I stay with her? Those are (some of) the issues I’m dealing with. There are very large, deep wounds that I received in my childhood that shaped the way I’ve lived my life all of my life. I didn’t choose her behavior, but I chose to stay with her long after I realized (and denied) the toxic nature of the relationship. It’s so easy to vilify her and ignore my own responsibity in the r’ship. But I try really hard not to do that.
There may very well be “light at the end of the tunnel”, but right now, in the darkness is where I am. It’s hard, lonely, scary, but, (I read once), an explorer must be comfortable being lost.
“A murder of one” by counting crows.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/counting+crows/a+murder+of+one_20033480.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR8Sot4SWeU
Even before I knew what the spath was, this song spoke volumes to me.
Stopcalvin,
She said “Daddy is mean to you so I will be mean to you”. Out of the mouth of a 4 year old that just breaks my heart.
OMG, STop, that is so heart breaking to hear from the mouth of your child. My prayers for you and my heart goes out to you.
Sky, Great lyrics, and they DO seem to point to a psychopath, don’t they?
Welcome HappyJack! Glad you found your way here, there is knowledge and healing here.
Skylar..
good song..agreed..a song to understand what they are. Two healing songs for me are:
Annie Lennox:
Pavement Cracks, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib83r8KACcs
Kim Richey:
I’m Alright, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FceBnspGZzU
Zim
OK.
This is why NO CONTACT is so important.
It’s important not to talk or engage with them, more important to get them out of our HEADS.
My spath slept with his bartender, and others. Within a week of that he remarried his ex wife. Kept pinging me in the mean time, telling me he loves me. And now, I snooped on line, and he’s hitting on a young girl of about 27 years old. He’s 47.
Christ.
Does it ever end?
What’s wrong with me in that I feel bad about him hitting on yet another young woman? It HURTS me. It really does.
I’ve had “no contact” with my ex for close to 11 years now. He tried to contact me about three years ago (a phone call..his voice was shaking) and did so because I had made a phone call to his next victim’s [who possibly is his THIRD FRAUDULENT MARRIAGE by now..his THIRD WIFE..a backstabber] father or brother [not sure which but I’d left a message for him to look my ex’s name up on a web site where he is profiled, the message included that I’d heard from his first ex wife..which confirmed much of what he had also done to me] .. anyway, his voice was shaking [like a coward’s, but with apparent anger/anxiety, too..I guess he was terrified of being exposed]..I hung up on him AS SOON AS I HEARD HIS VOICE. Boy, did that feel great! Only now, I think he is STILL having 3rd party SPAM emails sent to me, just about every day. I just save them in a folder that I re-labeled today [thanks to a lovefraud bogger] “TOILET” .. HA HA. I know it’s him. Who else could it be? On some of those marketing spams, it’s as if he hits the “send” button three or four times [I can almost see him frantically punching, much too hard, the “send” button, again and again], because sometimes the SPAM arrives, one right after the other with the SAME content, sent [time line indicates such] SECONDS apart. Actually, sometimes it DELIGHTS me that he is so FRUSTRATED at being exposed that his poor little self must resort to such pitiful attempts at harassing [or is it stalking?] me. No. Can’t prove it’s him, but I more than suspect it is. I just laugh anymore.
Zim
Now, he is no more to me than a speck on a chrome-plated donkey’s fart in the cosmos..getting smaller and smaller as it reels through the depths of the constellations..and him..realizing HE IS NO SHINING STAR!
Zim
Happy Jack,
Yes, we get it. Confusion, pain, self-criticism, dismay. The feeling that all our dreams have been shattered. Realizing the betrayal, and just beginning to deal with it, is bleak. The tunnel feels extremely long and dark, and it diverts you from where you thought you were going.
Continue the therapy. Avoid the ex and all her minions. Work on clearing away your own pain.
Relationships with sociopaths cause many, many people to become physically ill. You will know this. Eventually you will be the wounded healer – the one who truly understands the pain and distress, because you’ve been there.
It will add to your understanding of what your future patients are experiencing.
Happy Jack,
Whenever they get between us and our truest, closest path, it is spiritually abusive. The affect on your relationship to your vocation is the result of spiritual abuse.
You are in the phase we call ‘shock and awe’ around here. I know it is very very painful. I think it is the worst phase i have experienced so far (2 years out). Please start reading. Kathleen Hawk’s series is a very good place to start.
We understand, and many folks in our day to day lives don’t. Many counselors don’t. It is a very difficult thing to have been conned by a spath. Recovery from it is nothing like recovery from other relationships. It takes longer and goes deeper. But it is possible.
Happy Jack
I’m with you. I keep thinking I’m moving forward, but then I take one step back and I’m right where you are again, in that same phase of pain that you’re in.
It does get better with time. I hope you stick around and stay with your therapist. Mine has been a godsend, if imperfect.
Superkid