Few, if any, walk away from their experiences with psychopaths completely unscathed. They may leave us bankrupt, homeless, or destitute. They may feign victimization, as they continue to wage their assaults, further insulting what we actually endured at their hands. Their thirst for destruction may be almost insatiable when it comes to us.
Those are just the tangible losses. Let us give equal time to the emotional confusion and trauma. Many of us suffer from PTSD, depression, or serious physical medical concerns, as a result. Living through experiences with psychopaths, or those with such features, is an incredible feat.
While we tend to focus on the negative consequences, we should also take time to examine the positive ones. It’s important! Here’s why….
Defeated? Don’t answer yet
Human nature and our culture tend to leave us concentrating on what we do not have. If a psychopath enters our world and then exits, leaving us in turmoil, we think this is a bad thing. We mourn our losses, feel bad, and wish things were different.
This is normal. Typically, we don’t enter relationships to leave them. However, when these folks touch our worlds, no good can come of the connections. As a result, as we progress through our journeys, we can come to learn that we have actually been given second chances by their departures.
The little things that are not so little
For example, from the day the person I learned my life lessons from entered my world, I spent a lot of time sick. I am not talking about major issues. Mainly, I experienced lingering colds, strep throat, unexplained fevers, bronchitis, pneumonia, and the like.
It seemed that I visited my doctor frequently for minor, but legitimate, concerns that needed some level of attention. Almost a year and a half ago now, I saw my doctor for a regular check up. She told me that she was surprised to see me. She assumed I had left and gone elsewhere.
I must have looked at her strangely, because she backtracked, explaining that she only mentioned that because she had neither seen nor heard from me in that time. I thought for a moment. It was true. I had not been sick at all.
Similarly, several years ago, my dentist advised that I should sleep with a mouth guard. Apparently, I was grinding my teeth fairly seriously. I recall waking many mornings with my teeth clenched shut. I remember trying to convince myself, while half awake, to unclench my jaw, but could not. I had to fully awaken first and consciously force myself to separate my teeth. The result, serious headaches that sometimes last lasted for days.
Last year, even at the height of two separate court battles, the same dentist indicated to me that he could tell the grinding had stopped. So, what does this indicate? These individuals bring undue harm. Their departures, even if only partial, can change us for the better.
One day at a time
I am not saying that all of the bad magically disappears one day. We may carry many of the scars for years or even for life. However, we can re-emerge with the help of our attitudes and awareness. Even if they persist and seem truly unable to move on, we can work toward freeing ourselves from the burdens. They no longer have to matter to us. It takes time and can be very difficult, but know that it is possible. Once, we invested in relationships that were destined to fail. Now, we can concentrate on rebuilding ourselves successfully. It truly is an example of gain, diguised as loss.
Okay, I’m having a “recovery crisis.” I read this article, again, and I need some help in processing what’s happening.
I’ve been crying for 2 days, now, off and on. It has dawned on me precisely what I “don’t have” and what all that I lost to the spath. Fifteen years, for one thing. Then, the financial ruin and subsequent destitution. The state of my entire life – the exspath convinced me to forego continued education to earn higher degrees that would have (at least) provided SOME sort of ability to sustain myself.
WTF is going ON!? For so long, I had such serious resolve and it’s just in the wind, it seems. Could someone please explain what the hell is happening, here? I cannot stop crying and I cannot stop focusing on what a wreck my life is at this late date in my lifetime. I’m having absolute crying jags and feelings of deepest despair – I “know” that my life isn’t over, academically. But, I don’t “feel” that there will ever be a bright spot, again.
Thanks
Aside from these crying jags, I’m feeling intense anxiety. I am feeling very afraid and actually spooked. I’m jumping at leaves blowing across the ground and the most random things like a lightbulb blowing out.
Just some sort of explanation so I can get a farking handle on this. I haven’t felt like this for a good, long while. Perhaps, it’s the “anniversary” of the meltdown. I don’t know. I am feeling hopeless and fearful. I hate this.
Truthspeak:
This is part of the healing. I know it feels terrible, but it happens. We think we are recovering and then boom…the feelings of defeat and despair come out of nowhere and we are in shambles all over again. You will be OK…you will!!! It happens to me all the time. Up, down, up, down. It truly is part of the healing process. I KNOW it feels absolutely dreadful and we don’t want to feel this way, but I don’t know if there is much we can do about it except get through it. You will be in my thoughts.
Truthspeak:
The feeling spooked things sounds like PTSD to me. I have it, too. I am very jumpy and jump at loud sounds or I just tend to be anxious. Ohhhhh, it probably is the anniversary! I forgot about that. These anniversaries can make us feel weird and bring back all the memories of what happened. It will get better.
Or you know…you say you had such strong resolve before. Maybe that’s it…maybe you have been trying to be too strong and kept too much in and now you are finally crumbling? Is that a possibility…kind of like a delayed reaction thing?
Louise, thanks for your responses. I was a wreck for about 6 weeks after the exspath left. I dealt with that mess, immediately, by getting into some serious counseling.
All of a sudden, I’m hit with the Hammer Of Despair! I hate this, because I’m not a blubbering lump of goo. I just haven’t been able to pull myself together the past few days.
And, I don’t like being frightened. I want all of the lights on and so forth. The TV is up so frigging loud that people in the next county can probably hear it. I just don’t know what’s happening, and if I know what it is and how do manage it, I’ll pull myself together.
Thanks so much.
Truthy,
There are a few things that have helped me when I’m in that situation. First, just cry it out, just as you’ve been doing. It is healing although it feels awful. Then be grateful, most of all that you aren’t a spath. Because NOTHING could be worse than what a spath does to himself.
Everything he took from you still leaves him more empty than what you’ve lost. It was his intent to make you feel as empty as he does. But you won’t, because you have a soul. Protect that most of all. Time will heal you, but it only decays him more.
Truthspeak,
I’m sorry you are going through this latest wave of grief. I hope you can love and accept yourself while it’s happening, because if you can do that when you’re at your lowest, just think, the rest is a walk in the park. I don’t know about you, but when anxiety comes up for me, there is usually some pain not far underneath it. From the strength you have shown here, I have every faith that you can handle whatever comes up for you. It would not be coming up if you weren’t ready to deal with it. It might not hurt to have a trusted friend or counselor to talk to. I have a few friends I can call, and some of them are surprisingly helpful. Anyway, when all else fails, you can just lie down in your bed and give yourself a big hug and tell yourself the opposite of all the things your inner critic is telling you – how you’ll never recover, never get your life back, etc. Those things are absolutely not true as long as you don’t listen to them. You can not only recover, but you can make your life even better than it ever was. The grief and loss are very real, but they are not the final say in the story of your life. They are just a portal into a better life. This will pass – it’s part of the process.
Weird, I thought I had posted a post… but got lost somehow.
Thruthspeak,
Are you living circumstances a bit more stable than they were half a year ago? Why do I ask? You were forced to stay in survival mode for a long while there. When you’re surviving part of the trauma and issues are being pushed to the background to be picked up an worked through later when there is more time, space to allow yourself to focus on it.
If your living circumstances have improved to what it was half a year ago, even if only somewhat and includes more privacy (than the couple you had to cope with for several months), then possibly that’s the reason why these feelings come up now: you feel more secure to experience and deal with these feelings of fear and regret… ironically it makes you experience fear more at present.
Truthy, darling when you have a huge boil….it is sore, it hurts, but the ONLY way to heal it is to LANCE IT AND LET THE PUS ROLL OUT. That is what you are doing down, is experiencing the LOSS, feeling the LOSS, grieving the LOSS.
Grief is what we feel when we lose something that is important to us….(or a lot of things that are important to us) and the MORE IMPORTANT THE LOSS, the bigger the grief.
Google Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, thhis womann spent hher life time studying the “grief process” which consists of
1. denial
2. Sadness
3. Bargaining
4. Anger
5. Acceptance of the loss and moving on.
Now, nice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 rigt? NAW, THHAT’S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS. It goes 1,3,2,4,.5,2,3,1, 4, 2, 3, 5, 1, and so on, back and forth sometimes the emotions changing by thhe MINUTE or the hour or the day….and ALL are normal emotions to feel.
Eventually one day you will get to acceptance…and you will think, “whew,, I am okay at last” and them, BAM!!! you go back to sadness, or anger, and so on, but thenn one day you will realize…wow, I’ve been in acceptance for a whole day or a whole week or a whole month…or a whole year….and you realize that you are essentially healed from that loss.
Just like when my husband died….I was in denial, and thhen sad, then bargaining and then angry etc. and finally one day I was at peace with the loss and I can think about him without sadness, and remember the good things….with my son Patrick, I still have not reached complete acceptance because unlike my husband, patrick isn’t DEAD physically and I am still in danger from him so I get dragged back into the anger stage, the fear and other problems with him, but over all thhe little boy I loved is “dead” emotionally to me, and the STRANGER who is in the prison cell in Texas is not the “son” I loved and emotionally buried.
So you will cry…and from time to time I cry again…but over all the progression of healling from the loss, the grief will go on to resolution and acceptance if we allow it and help it in a healthy way. Lots of people though do not process grief in a healthy way but they FEED their anger, blame place etc. So part of our healing includes accepting our own part in the process of how it happened and making changes in our own way we Behave in the future and the way we make choices. It is GROWTH.
You are gonna be okay though! I promise you because you are working on healing. God bless.
Thank you, Louise, Skylar, Stargazer, Darwinsmom, & OxD for the pep talk and validatoin. These ARE things that I guess I need to process.
The living situation is more “stable,” but still extremely desperate. And, it is “private” which allows for me to ruminate and so forth. And, it is, indeed, such a substantial loss to grieve. Aside from the illusion that had been generated, I lost nearly everything tangible.
So, I’ll examine this grief and give it some due time. But, I have also got to disallow a grandiose pity-party. “Woe is me” can go for a set amount of time, and then it becomes tiresome and pointless. “Woe is a LOT of people,” is what I have to accept. There are many, many out there who are in worse situations than I’m in and have suffered far worse losses than I have.
So, today’s another day and another opportunity to sort it out and do something positive.
Thank you, each of you. How odd is it that there is so much more understanding and genuine concern from the folks on this blog than there tends to be in Real Life? I don’t talk to people in Real Life about my situation, anymore, especially when they ask how I’m doing.
As a strict aside, I heard from the person who sent me that personal check that I sent back. She claimed that she was “going to call” me after the hurricane to talk and asked in her email if I needed anything like food, blankets, etc. I only responded that we made it through the storm okay and didn’t even respond to the question about “needs.” ROTFLMAO!!! What do I need?! I “need” the exspath to be forced to pay back every check that he forged! I “need” to feel guaranteed that the exspath will be held accountable and face consequences. I “need” people to stop telling me to “get over it” and hear the words that I’ve spoken and process my experiences as things that could easily happen to them.
Thanks, again. And, I’m very familiar with Kubler-Ross’s amazing work, and it all applies. Sometimes, it’s just helpful to “hear” some common sense from others who have recovered from the same types of things.
Brightest blessings of gratitude