By Ox Drover
In my journey toward healing from life’s pains, and from the PTSD and the pains caused by the trauma from the psychopaths, I think one of the hardest things has been to forgive myself.
I was raised in an abusive Christian atmosphere with a terrible, impossible definition of “forgiving others,” no matter what they did, no matter if they weren’t sorry, or how likely they were to repeat the abuse to me. I was programmed to try to meet my obligation to “forgive” when there was NO WAY I was going to trust them again. How could I?
While this previous “definition” of forgiveness of others who are unrepentant has changed post-trauma to a definition of getting the bitterness out of my own heart for what they did, but it does NOT INCLUDE restoration of TRUST or “pretending it didn’t happen.”
That done, I recently had an “ah ha” experience about “FORGIVING MYSELF” for the things I have done to others that were less than stellar acts. Acts that were down right nasty, vengeful, spiteful, etc.
Some of you may have read my little “parable” about how none of us would hold a grudge or get mad at our little pet dog that was injured and lying on the street with a broken leg, if we were to rush to our puppy’s aid, and in its blinding pain and fear it lashed out at us when we tried to pick it up and it bit us. That would be a totally different reaction on our parts from the way we would react to a dog that bit us every time we went to pet it or feed it, would attack us in our sleep or when our back was turned. Few of us would keep the “psychopathic dog” very long, but we would not at all be angry with our pet that bit us in his fear and pain. We would be understanding and compassionate, though the wound was deep and hurt like heck!
The old saying “there are two sides to every story” is one we have all heard, and many times that is true. There are in the above story two VIEWS—the one of the owner, and the one of the dog.
Many years ago I fell on some brick steps and hit my shin so hard that a huge bruise immediately rose up on my shin the size of half a large grapefruit. The injury was so unexpected, and so sudden, and so painful, that when my beloved husband reached out to extend me a hand to help me up, I immediately struck out verbally and actually SNARLED at him, “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
Another time, a couple of nights after my husband’s tragic and sudden death, a beloved friend of our family was there to console us, she had driven over seven hours to be there. She was very anxious and just kept chattering and chattering. In my pain, the sound of her voice was agony, and I asked her to please be quiet and go to sleep, which then upset her more and made her more anxious and she chattered louder and longer. I finally got up in her face and seething in rage, looked at her and told her to “Shut your lips, if another word or sound comes out of them I will hit you.” Right at that moment in my horrible pain I could have done so. I could actually have hit someone I dearly loved who is in no way anything but loving to me.
Looking back over these instances, I realized in my “ah ha” moment, that there are various things like this that I have done in my life that I am sure not proud of. In pain at various times I have struck out at the very people I loved who were there for me. I have also struck out at the psychopaths many times. I have said things and done things that I am sure not proud of. I have hurt people who loved me and were only trying to comfort me in my pain.
I also realized in my “ah ha” moment that I have not forgiven myself for these things. They still make me feel bad about myself, guilty, shamed, and imperfect.
How do I forgive myself for these things? Restore my own self esteem and trust in myself? I realize that I am human, and looking at the “parable” of the injured dog from the dog’s view point, I realize that those that love me realize, just like the little dog’s owner, that I was striking out in intense pain, and that those people still love me, and forgive me. That I also should realize that I have forgiven them when in their own pain they might have hurt me, so why am I holding myself to a higher standard than I hold others to? Why am I not allowing myself the same forgiveness that I extend to others, even the psychopaths?
I realized that I need to get the bitterness against MYSELF out of my own heart for being human. I acknowledge the wrongful acts I did in striking out at others, even the psychopaths, I feel great remorse for these acts, I have “repented” (made a promise to myself and others that I will not repeat this type of behavior), I have apologized, made restitution if I could, and in short, done everything I can to “make up for” these acts. The people I wronged (except for the psychopaths) have all forgiven me, and restored me to a trusting position in their lives, so I should also forgive myself and trust myself. Being in pain is no “excuse” for biting a lovingly extended hand, but it is definitely understandable.
My forgiving others, getting the bitterness out of my heart so that it does not hurt me, is important, I think, but forgiving myself, I think is just as important. My unkind acts or verbal assaults toward the psychopath did not “ruin the relationship.” If I had been perfect it would not have improved the one-sided relationship of all-taking on their part and all-giving on mine. My failure to please them was not my “fault” in any way. No one could have pleased them. My failure to see that and to cut the relationship sooner, to set boundaries and enforce them, rather than trying to placate them by allowing their abuse was not “right,” it wasn’t a good decision, but it is understandable considering the pain that I was in. It is now time to forgive myself for being human, for being fallible and making mistakes, and for even doing things I knew were wrong.
Dear LIG,
I don’t have anything NEW to say about NO CONTACT—everyone is right.
WE MAKE CHOICES—we can do the RIGHT THING or the WRONG thing. If a choice is NOT RIGHT–DON’T DO IT.
No one can MAKE YOU DO A WRONG THING if you don’t WANT to do it. If you know a thing is WRONG and you do it anyway, are you acting any better than they do?”
For YOUR SAKE, not his, make RIGHT CHOICES even if it is difficult to do.
That’s what life is all about, making choices, deciding what is right and good and doing that. The Ps don’t care what is right or wrong, they just do what they want to even knowing it is wrong. I KNOW YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT, don’t let him drag you down to his level. Take the high road! YOU CAN DO IT! (((HUGS))))
Okay the no contact thing…I am reading that all thru here and I guess I am just still in this denial stage or something. Why do I not wamt him to call me when he is stalking my phone like every 20 mins and then now that he isnt calling I am not liking it. Maybe I am the crazy one. Or maybe I am what he is.
hey wini…that other girl calling me..she has called me thru out our year long relationship each and every time they were together or talking again. I think one to shove it in my face and then another to see if I was still talking to him as well. Ofcourse when I confronted him every time he denied her and made some excuse for everything and said she just doesnt want him with me and that she is trying to hurt him thru me. (he claims that the only way she can hurt him is if i left him because of her)
Why cant I be where most of you guys are and see all this and just be out and not care. He has some crisis going on right now and just “needs” to talk to me. Also is sooo mad that he couldnt reach me last nite and thinks I over react to things that I hear and cant prove…He is big on that…..”proving things” (CAN YOU PROVE IT HE WILL SAY) but when I can how the heck does he come up with things that make perfectly good sense BUT DEEP DOWN I KNOW IT IS WRONG…..but blind me just is like okay honey…..duh….
Findingpeace,
That you are describing is what we call the “FOG”—you want to believe him, so you allow him to twist reality to fit his lies.
You are still in the FOG (denial) and the ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET OUT IS NO CONTACT. You must stay away from him, so the REAL REALITY, the truth, can sink into your brain. As long as you listen to his pleas and his lies and make yourself believe them (even though “deep down I know it is wrong”) you are letting him control you. LISTEN TO YOUR GUT INSTINCTS. He is a liar. HE IS THE LIE.
Don’t talk to EITHER of them. He will for a while anyway, probably try HARDER to get you to listen to him. He doens’t want to lose you , OR LOSE HER. He wants you BOTH to be his “supply”—-you are just a piece of meat to him, he cannot love anyone, he only USES PEOPLE—he uses you AND her. Let her have him, and you are the WINNER. If you keep listening to this man with his LIES, you are the LOSER.
Would anyone who loved you treat you the way he does? NO!!!! ABsolutely not! LOVE IS A VERB. iT IS AN ACTION, NOT JUST A FEELING. The ACTIONS show you what the feelings are, and baby THAT AIN’T LOVE!!!! NOT even close!
Take back your own power, kick this baxtard to the curb! Then start to heal, read and learn about them, what thye are and how they behave, and find PEACE. You don’t NEED PROOF, because YOU ARLEADY KNOW THE TRUTH. This is life, not a “court of law” where the guilty with a good “lawyer” can get off—this is LIFE, your life. Do you want to spend any more of your prescious life with such a baxtard!
Dear findingpeace: The other woman is hooked into his games too. Pray for her and pray for yourself too. Both of you, or however many women he has going (and you only know about 1, believe me, there are plenty more out there to discover) are ALL being played for his selfish needs. PERIOD. No ifs, ands, or butts about it. You made love to him, he masturbated with you. People are an extension of their masturbation process. Sorry, but it’s true. It’s true with your EX, it’s true with my EX, it’s true with all our EXs. They can’t feel, therefore, they can’t LOVE. Period!!!!!
They can read and they can watch TV and therefore, know what is expected … but they can’t FEEL to process LOVE. They mirror you. They mirror the other women. How he dresses and acts for you … if you could be a fly on the wall to see how he acts with others … he changes his clothes to their preferences, changes his MO … his way of speech, everything … He mirrors everyone he’s around. Why? Cause he can’t feel his life … he can only see his life and hear his life … but feel it. He doesn’t. He and the others that are like him are very clever. They have to be with missing a key ingredient of feelings … they have to substitute the illusions that they feel for others. They are walking, talking ZOMBIES … that look like real people. But, they are NOT real.
So, either keep NO CONTACT and save yourself … or be weak and give in … to continue the use and abuse over and over and over and over and over … are you getting what I am writing to you. If you see him or talk with him … you’ll be pulled into the horror of what he really is all about. Your life is about living … not dying. Live sweetheart, live. Let the health professionals work with him. Give him over to God. Pray for him. Pray that he asks God to help him. Pray that mental health professional will have the patience and stamina to break through the walls he has surrounding him.
Pray for God to help you through this catastrophe. Because you are in the tailspin of a severe accident and need time for yourself to heal.
My heart aches for you. Be strong … NO contact with him or anyone else associated with him. Don’t look back … look forward … you will get through this pain … you will heal … you will be stronger than you were before he came into your life.
Peace.
Everyone on LF blogging: If you think you WANT to play games with your EX to win him/her or get him/her back from another lover… think about what you are doing.
No amount of game playing, no amount of setting up scenarios to win him or her back into your life is going to work. Your EX is not real. That is why you are in the tailspin of the aftermath of the illusion of your relationship in the first place.
Your pain is real.
Your emotions in turmoil are real.
Your tears, your fears, your hopes and dreams … are real.
Your EX is not REAL.
So, as you find your own ego tweaking at you, making you wafflie back and forth … remember. If you go back, you really are going backward …into the abyss. Into darkness and all that that darkness entails.
Besides, you folks that want to play games to get your EX’s back watch too many movies, listen to too many MTVs, read too many lonely heart books … You really believe that you have to compete for someone’s attention to build your low self confidence? Do you honestly believe another person in the world will make you whole? Make you complete???? Use the brain that God gave you. Only YOU can do anything for you. No other person in the world can heal your heart. Only you can heal your heart. No one in the world can make you feel loved or feel safe. Only you can feel safe or feel the love of a real person. Real people can help you in life. They will always be there for you … but only you can live your life. No one can live your life for you. No one can take your pain from you … only you can ride out this pain … work through it … and heal yourself. Sorry, no quick fixes here. Believe me when I tell you this truth … YOU ARE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK.
God wants the best for you. Your EX is a lesson to learn. Learn the lesson … grow from the experience. Grow up, mature … and move forward with your life so that you can meet the true person that God created to share your life with.
Yes, your heart does break for your EX. As do all our hearts for the people we love. It’s suppose to. You can feel the emotions of the devastation that you are thrown in to. Be grateful that you can feel this pain. Anytime you need help, ask God to be there for you and log on and blogg to the rest of us that are going through this ordeal. We are all in this together.
Peace.
Heartoheart: I have been there.Crying and screaming like baby temper-tantrum. “This, too, shall pass.”
I am so sorry to read about all of the pain that everyone is going through. I am living it every second, and I would do (anything) to get rid of it. It’s really sad to know so many others are feeling this too. Reading these posts almost makes me feel like WE are at war against THEM. They are the ‘KINGS’ and the people who take their sides are their pawns-and exactly that, ‘pawns’ that don’t know any better. Just thank God that he gave us the power to see…It makes me shutter to think how terrible these people are, but I have come to so much enlightening since I started NC. It’s been 26 days (I did see him for literally a minute one day, but I’m not counting that). He has started the texting again, and funny that in his text, he even wrote “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused, but I realized that no contacting is the only way.” Darn right! Although if he meant anything he says, he certainly would stop, and I won’t hold my breath on that one! I have built up enough strength (at the moment) to not respond, NO MATTER WHAT HE SAYS, because it just does not matter anymore.
In the past I would run to another guy. I haven’t ever been alone either. So I am sure I was an easy target-I am so open, friendly, (and I have heard beautiful, but I am trying to be humble, and Ive never had any real high self esteem. I remember one post I read where someone said that the S resents (me) because they know (I) am better. Better? No one is better than anyone, as I look at it, thus, why I am also very forgiving and empathetic, and…a target.)
But I think these postings have helped me to understand myself and the world around me…as well as just finally having enough pain for one lifetime! This is my therapy. I talk to loving friends and family, but this is a therapy that reaches to the depths of my weak heart. I have so many questions that I have never considered before, but given answers to, and so many feelings I didn’t know how to describe. No one to REALLY understand. I thought I was alone in this despair. But connecting with you all has helped me so much, that I feel like a person again that I haven’t seen in a long time.
I am forgiving myself.
I am forgiving those (whatever-they-are-kind-of-humans)
I am accepting that God is doing this in my life for a reason. He does not give us anything that we can not handle.
Look at Oxy…I strive to be that strong. But strength comes from working out/exercising, correct? And it is not easy, no? This ‘work,’ the pain, is making us stronger, building us from the inside out. Forgiving and accepting is making us become better, wiser, more loving. What else could be better?
I definitely connected, and understand now in a brand new light, the post about Forgiving, but not Forgetting. I always forgave, following the Bible teachings to ‘ALWAYS forgive.” I also thought that forgiving means forgetting and moving forward with that person. And who am I to judge, right?! But, I am not God. He made me human. And I can not live my whole life with always giving and no receiving. There are people out there that will hurt, betray, etc., and there are many who will love. Forgive, and move on. I’m on the road to building a security alarm in my heart-by listening to my head! I think that is what a lot of us have been doing-listening only to our hearts. And we certainly have some pretty powerful hearts, just look at these postings, but if we stop blocking our own voices in our head, we will realize that we are pretty smart too! Don’t feel guilty about letting go. We are loving, but we don’t deserve to always get walked on, it’s that simple. Opposites attract, and I’m sure we are easy targets to those who barely feel their beating hearts.
Give your short time to those who are deserving. But don’t forget, or you will be in a rocking chair wishing for one more minute with someone who is deserving and loving you.
As I said in my first post, I moved across the country, one coast to the other ( to get away from my first S, and to live with my sister, husband and nephew, whom I love more than anything in this entire world), and met my recent S the first week I was here (Big surprise since I had TARGET on my forehead). My sister and her family now left to go back to the East coast to buy a house where we are all originally from. And I am alone, and no longer with the S.
WHAT I WOULDN’T GIVE TO HAVE THAT TIME BACK WITH THEM! What a waste I spent with him, and not have more memories with my family.
Instead, I am trying not to regret the last year, or to keep beating myself up for choosing to waste my time with a waste of time!
But you forgive yourself. And you learn from it and to trust yourself that you won’t do it again. That is the best way to start being happy with yourself and living life again. I think this is happening in my life, this struggle of being so hurt and so alone, to make me a strong person that will someday be at peace.
It hurts, but no more dwelling… We are alive, and we were given the power to see what we went through, what kind of people we were with, mistakes we made, and who we want to be. Learn, forgive, and
Let go and Let God…
Just chiming in to echo everything OxDrover and Wini are saying.
To those of you in the early stages of getting away from an S/P, I know all too well the confusion and pain you are feeling. From the first moments of utter shock through the last stages of letting go of the fantasy, I know every bit of what you are going through. It is the most difficult thing in the world–by far the hardest thing I have ever done.
But it is worth it, and NO CONTACT is really the only way to get yourself back. I read every book I could find about psychopathy, I wrote in my journal every morning and every night, I read message boards like this one for TWO SOLID YEARS before I was able to institute real, meaningful NO CONTACT with my abuser. And once I said “enough,” the healing progressed and my life got better in ways I never even knew it could.
Believe us when we tell you NOTHING about them is real. They are illusions created to hook you and drain you of your resources. They really are a different person with each of their victims. You will not be able to truly see this until you are removed from them.
Be strong. Don’t go backwards into the craziness and confusion. Go forward into the truth, and into yourself as a better, more mature and loving person.
Well said Tood, well said.
I’m glad to see you blogging. I hope all is wonderful in your life.
No truer words could be written. You wrote it like it is. Pure and simple, to the point.
Peace.
Let me remind everyone while you heal yourself of this pain. No one but God knows why “they” are the way they are. God knows and all of us humans get a glipse of what they are all about, not all the details of their existance.
God loves all of us … even those that live away from God. Pray for them to get close to God. Let God handle them. Pray for yourselves. Pray for your loved ones and your enemies.
Pray to God in good times of your life and bad times in your life. God loves to hear from you … even if you don’t know what to say or how to pray … just acknowledge that he is the creator.
Peace.
Dear OxDrover,
Thank you for sharing a part of your life with me. I can only imagine what you had to go through to get to this peaceful stage in your life. I was in awe reading your blog. I honestly read your blogs as “gospel” as you have been through it all. Your words are so powerful and so meaningful. Thank you for being such a huge inspiration to me and the other LF bloggers! YOU GIVE US HOPE!
I read my younger sister, who is a born-again Christian, your latest blog to me. She was amazed when I was reading what you wrote about what Apostle Paul said to the Christians “be content whatever your state”. She told me that this morning she read that very same verse and even wrote it down. She has been very supportive during this difficult time. My mother has, too, but in her own “special” way.
I have been staying with her for the past two weeks and she has hugged me ONCE, when she picked me up from the airport. She is not the touchy, feely, affectionate, I LOVE YOU type. Thank God my father, who passed away 13 years ago, was. I can’t help wonder if SHE is the reason why I am the way that I am – searching for LOVE. When I was a girl, I remember she used to say and do some pretty mean things to me and my siblings but there is one thing she said that I will never, ever forget, “If it wasn’t for your Dad, I wouldn’t have had any kids.” She denies ever saying it…of course! It was confirmed by my younger sister, too.
As I go through this difficult time, I am forced to look at MYSELF and question why I am the way that I am. I’m sure many of us wonder why WE were the targets. I am trying very hard to forgive myself for being HUMAN but I don’t think I can until I know how I got this way.