On this Christmas Day, I am filled with joy, happiness and love. It has nothing to do with Santa Claus being good to me, or the gifts I offered to my husband and family—after all, there is a recession going on, and it has affected us. Rather, I am filled with joy, happiness and love because now, after the sociopath, life is good. In fact, life has never been better.
This is a significant, even miraculous, change for me. In the years before I met my sociopathic ex—from age 20 to 40—I didn’t feel joy, happiness or love. Instead, I was mostly numb. If anything broke through the wall of numbness, it was longing.
Then the sociopath arrived, and promised me what I so desperately wanted—an end to my longing. He said he’d love me forever. He said that once his business plans succeeded—with my financial help, of course—we’d live in “the lap of luxury.” He promised that my dreams would come true, and I believed him.
We all know how that goes.
The magnitude of his betrayal was staggering. I coped as best I could with the legal and financial consequences, but emotionally, all I could do was collapse. It was painful. It was ugly. But as I started to come through my shattered circumstances, I found that what was also shattered was the numbness. And in its place, I felt the beginnings of joy, happiness and love. I felt the spark of life.
As I read the comments on Lovefraud, I see many of you also finding that spark of life. Many of you, progressing in your healing, are rediscovering what you had lost or forgotten, making you vulnerable to the sociopath. You are rediscovering your own inner light.
On this Christmas Day, I am filled with gratitude to all of you who are building the community of healing that Lovefraud has become. It is working. We are recovering. Although we are all at different stages of our journey, I promise you, it is a journey towards joy, happiness and love.
Merry Christmas.
“Finally, feeling the joy of Christmas”.
What an excellent post Donna. I could have written the exact same words myself. It is amazing how similar our experiences are. After the sociopath is gone, you are sort of reborn although it is a tough birth.
I also feel joy, peace and happiness this Christmas.
Last Christmas, just a month after the sociopath I was riddled with anxiety, sleep problems, OCD, fear of the future and I felt like a terrible person (from the projection – I was convinced I was a very bad bad person).
I have been a pilot for many years, and last year I didn’t trust enough in my reality reasoning to go flying at all.
This Christmas I am participating in a world cup within the air sport.
I guess you could call that progress.
I am still questioning though, how I could take and accept all that devaluation crap from her.
But I look at it this way: It is a confirmation of my own good character traits, traits the sociopath wanted to destroy, because she could never have them.
You are right, after this period of anxiety and depression, life is turning towards something very very positive, and the spark is returning. And what’s most useful about the experience is that I could change the things that led me to the sociopath in the first place, and a better quality life became the result.
Donna’s post should be proof to y’all who have gone through this valley of darkness that there is hope. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
I like that.
Merry Christmas.
Donna, Once again a heartfelt inspiring post. Merry Christmas to you and yours.
I would like to add anothoer note of hope.
Now that we understand what is a socio, and that we have been involved with one we can rejoice that A) We are not unable to have a good relationship, we just need to recognize the socio predator.
b) we had the strength and courage to get out, to relalize we were worth more than the life a socio had to offer. c) We are able to love, hurt, and heal. d) they can do none of the above.
Peace and love
Merry Christmas, Donna. A wise and beautiful post indeed.
The gift of the experience with an S/P/N is the opportunity for each of us to take back our power and to be the author of creative transformation in our lives.
May the New Year hold opportunities for healing and renewal for us all.
merry Christmas to all
well said donna….i so relate to the numbing and didnt realize that is exactly what is was til you said it…..i learn so much here……
im not yet feeling the love joy and happiness…but am now certainly open to it in a way i could never have been before….i do trust and believe i will find it though……perhaps its already here infront of me and i need to notice it
bunches of love to all, terri
Mele Kalikimaka! That is Hawaiian for, you guessed it…
Merry Christmas!
LoveFraud and all the readers here have been an ENORMOUS gift to me. Without this site, there would be a hole in my healing. Thank you Donna for creating this healing space.
I would like to send out a Merry Christmas wish to all of you in LF Land and also to a special woman and her 5 children that endured a whole lot. May the peace you have found continue to embrace and nourish your hearts!
Happy New Year to all of you!
Aloha
Happy holidays
This is my second holiday season spent joyfully away from Lucifer (a.k.a. my ex).
As phoenix1 (my blog ID) I would like to share, that you can rise from the ashes or whatever is left of your life after an experience with a sociopath.
It has been two years with a very long, very financially draining divorce behind me. I was only with him two years and it took two years to untangle the mess that he made of my life. It was a long exhausting process for me, but I have come out on the other side a stronger, (not skepitcal) but much more aware person. I am still trusting , but I no longer gloss over the “red” flags when I see them, that coupled with the experience…it will NEVER happen to me again.
The numbness that is mentioned so much, I think, is PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). In my case anyway, my therapist has and is a God send in helping me work through this. Anyone that has lived with a sociopath will experience this disorder to some degree. Please seek the help of a professional to help you through this! You can’t sweep it under the rug, you have to deal with the residue of this toxic relationship in order to heal.
I find it healing and enlightening to read about others experiences and I am so thankful that this site exists.
I was fortunate that my experience was short lived and my friends and family stuck by me and still do. You need all the love and support from those in your life that “truly” love you without any ulterior motives attached.
I have even found “love” in my life after Lucifer, love from a “good” man. Who knows if it hadn’t been for the experience with Lucifer, I may have never met my “Mr. Right”. I believe everything happens for a reason, it may not reveal itself right away but eventually it will.
Thank you for the hopeful and enlightening post Donna, the best to all of you, and a happy, happy, New Year.
Rebecca
Dear Phoenix,
I read the story of the Phoenix when I was a pretty small kid, and I have always identified with that bird, and I thinnk it is a very good analogy of all of us “rising from the ashes” of our former lives, brighter and better than before!
Thank you Donna, and all the LF contributors and bloggers. Happy new year and Merry Christmas!!! or Happy holidays, which ever applies! LOL
Hello and Merry Christmas to all and all a Happy New Year!
So with that being stated a present to all from me…
The New Year for me
By James
Once abused and batted and used
My sociopath just left me
A year of pain and dark days ahead of me
Crawling at first, then walking so slow
Wondering why my sociopath left me
What more could I do!
What more could I give!
To save my sociopath from leaving me
So now I walk a lonely road
So dark and cold, for I am so alone
But what is this I see!
A book on this road given to me
About a thing called sociopaths
I open the book and what a surprise
it is to me!
That other suffered by their sociopaths
Oh, what joy it’s to be
That other’s know about a sociopath
Soon, I grow and feel stronger with each path I see.
Studying from my book on sociopaths
Learning from each page I read
Walking much faster, then before
When my sociopath who left me
Now I look ahead with pride and joy
Knowing why my sociopath could just use me
And throwing away our dreams that
can never be with any sociopath.
I now look forward to the New Year
With knowledge of my sociopath
Stronger and wiser then my sociopath
Running not walking to meet my
New friends who also knows about their sociopath.
You can’t hide any more my sociopath
You can’t take my heart and dreams away from me
No, my sociopath , you will never take that From me
No never again for now I am free
from you my sociopath …..
Happy Holidays to you all!
This day, exactly one year ago, my ex-P left, leaving just one sentence by e-mail “Sorry, you deserve better.”
For nearly 10 years with him, he messed up my Christmas holiday. He would simply disappear or make up strangest excuses not to come and see me. Every year, I felt so miserable this time of year.
Not any more! I am building a new family of my own with dogs. My puppy came last spring. I named her “Spring” in Japanese. She is my baby. She taught me a lot about self-esteem. A few days ago, we adopted a new dog who is about three years old. This one has had a very tough life as a puppy and lost one of her hind legs. I tell her everyday “we are going to be a happy family from now on!”
This year, I have worked so hard for my recovery and learned a lot. Finally, I am having nice relaxing holidays with my dogs. I feel so fortunate to have a job, place to live, something to eat, good neighborhood friends, my therapist, and all of you in LF!
Those who have just got out from P/N/S, you are going to be OK!!
Trust me, life without P/N/S is soooooooo much better!!
Thank you, Donna for creating LF.
All of us in LF deserve the best of the best in life!
Yes chaos
“I do believe we all deserve better“
Strange but this was a current theme of my ex s/p insomuch how she would tell me how “she” deserved better then me. As I remember back how she always referred to how “she” deserved better and never adding her children to that request. One I day also remember how I told her the “we” meaning my children and I deserved better then her. At the time I not sure if I really believed that but after almost 3 years without her present and continues chaos (sorry for the pun Chaos) I do believe it today that we meaning my children and I do in fact deserve better and will someday get it…