By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Someone posted one of those “signs” on my Facebook page today that everyone forwards and shares, which I call “one-sentence wisdom or humor” but this one struck me as suburb wisdom.
The past is where you learned the lesson.
The future is where you apply it.
Don’t quit in the middle.
We have all had the misfortune to learn our lessons the “hard way” in associating with a psychopath (or two), but actually I think “misfortune” may be the wrong word, because learning things “the hard way” means that we will not forget those lessons. “The burned hand never forgets the fire” is another way to say it. Maybe we have actually been fortunate to escape from the psychopath when we are still able to escape, and when our “burns” were not fatal. We read in the newspapers, on the Internet, and see on television the faces of women (and men) who did not escape with their lives from associating with a psychopath.
Now that we have escaped, I think we need to apply those lessons learned in the past, to the future. We can’t quit in the middle.
Treating the wounds
While I realize that many here on Lovefraud still have open wounds, sores that are still bleeding or weeping, that are still painful to touch. The pain caused by those wounds, by the physical, financial, and emotional wounds can be horrific. Worse, still, can be the pain of treating those wounds.
I recall my son D’s burns after the plane crash. They weren’t quite severe enough for him to be hospitalized since he had a trained medical person at home, so they sent him home with me with a car load of creams and potions with minute instructions on how to cleanse and re-bandage his burns daily.
Each day I would pre-treat him with a dose of morphine to numb the pain somewhat, though he said it didn’t actually numb the pain, just made him where he didn’t care. Then I would start the process of taking off the old dressings, exposing his wounds to the open air, then wash the burns, removing the old, dead skin, then put on the creams tenderly and carefully, and then replace the bandages which went from the tip of his fingers to his shoulders and back.
I can’t even imagine just how he must have hurt, but my own empathy for him as I treated his wounds was extremely painful to me as well. I know there were many times he wanted to just “give up” and many times I wanted to as well. Just quit! It was too painful to go on treating the wounds! (Just an aside: my son’s wounds healed successfully and unless you know where to look with a magnifying lens, there are no scars visible.)
Emotional wounds
There were times I felt the same way with my emotional wounds in life. It was just too painful, I just wanted to QUIT! Anything to stop tearing the bandages off and treating the wounds again. It was too painful.
After my husband died, I was in such emotional pain that I didn’t want to do the grieving. I didn’t want to tear those bandages off and treat those wounds of my loss. It was just too painful. So I became vulnerable to the psychopaths in my life. The new boyfriend looking for a new “respectable” wife to cheat on was not a successful way to end my pain and grief. I had quit in the middle and didn’t apply lessons I had learned in the past to the future.
Associating with psychopaths leaves us with wounds of all descriptions and levels of damage. Those wounds are difficult and painful to heal, but we must not quit in the middle. Therapy is painful. We have to tear off the scabs that keep us from being able to heal and allow new growth. Whether the therapy is from a professional or is self administered, it is painful to expose our raw inner selves to the open air of examination.
Applying what we learned
When those wounds are healed, however, we must apply those lessons learned to the future of our lives. We must watch for the RED FLAGS of disordered people in the future associations of our lives, and when we see a RED FLAG, we must HONOR that red flag by running as fast as we can away from the person(s) waving it. If not, we will be burned again ”¦ and again ”¦ and again.
Our healing processes start out in learning about the psychopaths, but they end up being about learning about ourselves as well. Learning why we were vulnerable to the psychopaths in the first place. Fixing those vulnerabilities and using the knowledge we learned from our past, to make our futures better.
Don’t quit in the middle.
How do we know when we are “done” learning these lessons? It has seemed to me that the lessons come in succeeding layers, and I can “stop” at any time, if I think I’ve learned enough… or if I need to or want to take a break. Early on, I figured I was “done.” I took a break but not because I felt I needed one; it was because I thought the lesson had been learned.
As it turned out, only part of it had been learned — a very important part — but still incomplete.
I like being older because the process of life has shown me that if I’m willing, I can keep revisiting these experiences and connecting them up in interesting ways, revealing new insights and lessons.
In other words… the early lessons were about self protection (to guard against vulnerability). I needed those lessons badly! But later lessons have been about such things as forgiveness, appreciation, love, spiritual growth. I’m so glad I have hung in here this long (and survived the earlier, more dangerous period) because now instead of “running as fast as I can” AWAY from something, the positive momentum of wanting to keep learning lessons is pulling me TOWARDS something good, a more expanding and growth-oriented perspective.
I know that the experiences I’ve lived through, along with my willingness to learn from them, have brought me to the place I am at now. I think… I must still be in the middle somewhere. 🙂 Can’t wait to find out how it all turns out in the end, eh?
20years, my feeling is that I’ll never be “done” as long as I’m still alive. And, I’d rather be learning and moving forward than accepting abuse and stagnating! LOL
I’m looking forward to the spiritual growth to kick in – I’ve abandoned much of what I held dear and not necessarily because I’m angry with Great Creator (or, whomever). I think I’m trying to sort out my place and all of that, and I still am not finding simple joy or rapture (or, whatever you want to call it) in the beauty of a sunset, the laughter of a baby, and the antics of Nature. I know, and truly believe, that this will redevelop into a keener understanding of how the Universe works.
Thanks for the hope for Self, 20years – something to look forward to! 😀
Oh, and this is a very, very “on-time” article for me and I thank Joyce for the words of hope.
For whatever reason, I’m posting quite a bit, today, and I’m drinking in as much as I can, as well. I’m hoping that this onrush of give and take is an indication of some upcoming personal changes.
Truthspeak, speaking for myself only, I have found the “anger phase” to be necessary and helpful. I have a few things to say about that… again, this is ONLY from my experience, so I can’t speak for others:
1. I think the anger phase lasts as long as it needs to. I think it is a mistake to rush through it or feel bad, ashamed or guilty in any way for being angry. Outrage is a normal and natural response to outrageous treatment. Anger is a normal and natural response to being hurt by someone who tricked us. It is a step along the way while we get stronger… it is a more empowering response than feeling the pain.
2. I have found it helpful to ask God to help me find Peace, understanding, wisdom, to simply “see things differently.” It helps me to temporarily move out of the immediate locality of my pain, maybe go to somewhere more like at the hub of the universe (!) where I can enlarge my perspective.
3. The process has not been a simple, linear progression. I go forward, I go back, forward, back. I think this is very much like peeling off layers. So whereas it seems like “backsliding” it is, actually, “going deeper” to get at the root of it. In other words… I am much lighter and more joyful these days in general (a definite trend so I know I’m “growing”), but I still have flashes of anger over remembering past experiences. These flashes are briefer and go deeper and are more quickly resolved, nowadays. I do not view them as a regression. More like an echo, or an opportunity to extend my growth and understanding.
4. Going back to build on #1, above, while I have found that anger is a stronger, more self-enabling emotion than grief or fear or shame or guilt, this is where people can and do get stuck. So… stay as long as you need to, but know that there is much, MUCH more that lies beyond this stage. Anger really is almost only just the beginning. Anger is still a negative emotion that will eventually turn itself back upon you, and end up hurting or destroying you, IMO.
5. I think we get to progress as far as we choose to, and I also think it is important to honor where we are in the process and be patient with ourselves. As well, to honor each other’s process of life and learning — it is different for each of us, and all we can ever do is cheer each other on.
20 years and truthspeak, good conversation ladies! Yes, I agree we are NEVER “fully healed” so my analogy is not 100% right on, but my point really is that we can’t “think we are fully healed” because when we do think that, and quit peeling off layers, quit growing, we get into trouble.
When you throw a ball straight up, it goes up,up up, then for a second it stops—and as soon as it stops going UP it starts to fall DOWN! I too have felt I was “healed” after an encounter, a very painful one, with a psychopath, only to realize that it only made me more vulnerable to the NEXT ONE that I wanted to rescue me from further healing, further painful “dressing changes.” I QUIT IN THE MIDDLE….though I didn’t really know I was doing that.
Keep on learning
Truthspeak I like your number 3 above…good points.
BTW according to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who was a researcher of the stages of grief (healing after a loss) she says that the ANGER is a STAGE of that grief, not separate from it. Denial, bargaining, sadness, anger, and acceptance, but they don’t go 1-2-3-4-5, they go in random numbers and back again until one day you sort of wake up and realize you are in #5, the acceptance stage and you have been there and not “reverted” to the earlier phases. Google her up there’s good information about healing
We evolve. And its not a bad thing.
The desire to keep learning and growing is so critical to recovery.
The circumstances vary, but the experiences are so much the same because of this very process.
Yet, the grieving becomes a gateway – a opening to what is beyond. It becomes something that provokes us to find courage and insight, adamant and energy that we did not have before.
And it passes into new understanding on which life can be built.
I am sorry to know what I know now. But I would not give back the knowlege.
I am different than I was then and I would not go back to who I was that made me vulnerable.
It has been a profound lesson in humility for me. Over time, I learn to think of that as its own gift.
TTFN!
The end result of healing to me is getting to the point where I honor my life and what I’ve accomplished so as not to let anyone in that doesn’t belong, that could possibly make my life worse instead of better. I realize now that there truly was no place in my life for him, yet I allowed him in anyway.
It’s much easier for me now to recognize red flags with people and not minimize them by playing the bartering game with myself. “Well, that was a really crappy thing for him to do, but he makes me laugh all the time. Hmm, that was a very disturbing comment he made, but he was so sweet to bring me over a cup of coffee and some Fig Newtons the other day. Wow, I’m not even capable of conceiving of the things he’s capable of doing, but it’s so neat that we have the same birthday.” Not to trivialize, but I think you get my point.
Concerning anger, my favorite saying about that is “Anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Wow…..excellent insights, Silvermoon and survivor3.
These are words that I can cling to when the hope of emergence is being battered by those potholes on the Road to Healing.
20years, I agree with anger being an important part of the healing process. What I have a difficult time managing is the cycling between anger and despair, and this will work itself out in due time, as well.
A friend of mine sent me a really neat book for Christmas ’10 that I have referred to in recent months. She’s a practicing Quaker, which I really didn’t understand until I went to a Friends Meeting – really a very interesting and comfortable experience. At any rate, this book contains many quotes and writings by noted Quakers and there were several that dealt with anger, betrayal, fear, and despair. Each one of them points to the need to experience these feelings in order to heal and grow.
When my mind goes dark and fearful, I cling to these words and force myself to believe in hope and emergence. This, too, shall pass.
I have not commented in a while on any posts…what Im tired of is the spath projecting their bull crap on their victims…we all know they are sexual opportunists my ex claims he is not gay…but I’ve been told he did things for money…and he has lived on south beach for years…anyhow…Im tired of him trying to destroy myy life many times getting me fired from jobs..making it seem like Im crazy and obsessed cause he is gay…and Im abusive he is the poor victim ..he is no victim but I do have a mouth and he don’t wanna go to war with me….when I went to the cops in florida they also interogated me…he is the one with convi tions..no justice…before you judge investigate don’t speculate