by AlohaTraveler
Today, July 3, is a significant day for me. On this day, three years ago, I left the Bad Man. Let’s take stock of that moment in time:
- Total cash = $700
- Debt = at least $16,000
- Job = None
- Place to live, bed to sleep in, a clue = No
- Plan = None
- Me = A total wreck.
Between May of 2005, when I moved in with the Bad Man, and May of 2007, I have moved 10 times. This includes one move back to the islands in September 2005 and then back to California again on November 29, 2005. My car has 7,200 nautical miles on it and it shows. It looks like it’s eating itself. Cars aren’t meant to go to sea and mine crossed the ocean three times between July 3, 2005 and November 29, 2005.
Below is the Reader’s Digest version of my trials and tribulations.
Movin’ movin’ movin’
- Moved in with the Bad Man for one last hurrah after having been apart for 4.5 months. What was I thinking?!
- The great escape: Moved out from Bad Man while he was at work.
- Moved from one friend to another.
- Moved back the the islands.
- Moved out of the hotel and into a condo.
- Moved back to California again.
- Moved in with my employer as a live-in nanny.
- Moved in with friends who took care of me for four months because I was a WRECK.
- Moved in with another friend after four months of rest, armed with a new plan. Finally.
- Moved in with my dear friends, Eric and Jen. This is where I live now and have been living for over a year.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
Between July 3, 2005 and May 2007, I landed and lost six jobs all for various reasons.
- North Shore Resort: Resigned and left Hawaii for a second time. Finally, a good choice.
- Internet start up: Business went under
- “Wellness” company: Fired by a narcissist
(Noticed right away that the boss reminded me of the Bad Man. Shortly before she gave me the ax, I was told that it was suspect that she had narcissistic personality disorder. Upon hearing this, I had a massive anxiety attack.) - Internet company: Not the right fit
- Live-in nanny: Not the right fit again
- County job: Contract ran out.
Where I am today
I have a place to call home and have been there for over a year now. Shortly after I moved in, my friends gave me an old dresser. It’s big and heavy and feels like an anchor, a welcome anchor. I unpacked my suitcases for the first time in nearly two years. That night, as I lay in bed, I stared at my “new” dresser and I cried. Since I have been here, life has finally started to stabilize for me.
My symptoms of PTSD have subsided. Occasionally, I have a strange choking, coughing sensation in my throat when I have a distressing thoughts but I don’t have anxiety attacks like I did before. I smile more. I laugh more. I sleep better. I don’t think about the Bad Man and worry if he really was the one and if it really was me that messed it all up. I fully embrace and accept that he is a pathological, not fixable, person and it has absolutely nothing to do with me.
I have two jobs now. I have been at the first one since November of last year. I have been at the second one since March of this year. They are both in the area of social services and are an extension of the county contract I did last year. I have applied for grad school for an MSW and I am waiting to hear if I have been accepted.
I have paid off over $11,000 of that original Maui debt. Keep in mind that since I have been home, I have been unemployed off and on for at least 10 months and have worked for long periods of time for just $10 an hour.
I have started to date. At times, it feels like stepping out on thin ice, but I am doing it. I have started to rejoin the activities I loved in the past, such as sailing and baking and LAUGHING!
The road leads to you
I believe we will recover at the rate equivalent to the degree that we are committed to telling ourselves the truth. Now that you are here at Lovefraud, the truth is available to you and right under your nose. Will you accept it? It’s up to you.
Whatever it is you have lost, you will eventually get one thing back if you keep trying. Life might not ever look like it did before you crossed paths with a pathological partner but if you are open, it can look better. And at the end of the road, you will find YOU, and… another road… and maybe an old dresser.
Sitting in my “Big Girl Panties” today
- Debts = under control.
- Jobs = more than one
- A safe place to live, warm bed, and a plan for my life = check!
- Me = a whole lot wiser and not a juicy pick anymore for a Bad Man.
Kmillercats: Be careful when you say your symptoms are “permanent”. Your thoughts are very powerful and if you believe your illness is permanent, it will become so. Fibromyalgia is not a disease – it is a “syndrome”. A syndrome is a collection of symptoms where the actual cause is unknown. I do know people who have overcome fibromyalgia. I have worked with a few myself as a massage therapist and have seen great improvements.
Physical symptoms are manifestations of the poison in your system from the sociopath. These disordered folk are very toxic to be around. All of that negativity has to go somewhere. You absorb it and hold it in your body. The thing you need to do is release, release, release! For me, I seek out counselors who do various forms of energy work or trauma work. The aim is to remove the toxic energy from my system so I can be restored to good health – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Sometimes just breathing clears some of it out. But at other times, I need to pound and hit things or just curl up in a ball and cry. Releasing is the key. The more you can release, the more capacity you will have for joy and happiness. I am currently working with a therapist remotely over the phone who does a form of energetic clearing called “resonance” healing or something like that. It is very effective for clearing out the root cause of deeply ingrained issues. After one hour, I feel a huge difference, not only in the area I needed help with, but in other areas of my life as well. The forms of energy work I receive – the aura cleansings, resonance work, etc. (and I myself am a Reiki practitioner and massage therapist) work very well for me. However, not everyone can relate to that, so you need to find whatever works for you. Keep looking. If one thing doesn’t fit, try something else. I must have tried easily 50 forms of therapy before I found something that really works for me; and different things have worked at different points in my healing. The mind and body are connected, so with any form of therapy you try – even talk therapy – you should start feeling some of the physical symptoms lifting too. Sometimes you just need to talk. But the limitation with talk therapy for me is that not all therapists are skilled enough to recognize a person’s defenses. It takes a very skilled therapist to be able to read between the lines.
In the early stages of recovery, you just feel like you’ve been hit by a mack truck. You just need to function and take one day at a time. Eventually, your feelings will start to thaw out, and you can begin the grieving process. It’s much harder with a sociopath because the relationship you thought you had never existed. It was all a lie. It’s very painful and difficult to wrap your mind around – that the person you thought loved you deep down never loved you. And will never love anyone. That person is not even a real person.
Stargazer…
“… It’s much harder with a sociopath because the relationship you thought you had never existed. It was all a lie. It’s very painful and difficult to wrap your mind around ”“ that the person you thought loved you deep down never loved you. And will never love anyone. That person is not even a real person.”
This is what I found to be the most difficult part of all right after the relationship with my spath ended. I simply had no idea what just happened. When I started reading, talking and learning, it all began to make sense to me. It was still a very difficult time, but eventually I started to heal. I still find it amazing the damage these “people” can cause. But now that I’ve been away from this, it’s so much easier to look from the outside in….and to understand and move on.
carolann
I know what you mean, carolann. My relationship with the sociopath was very short lived. But it took me a long time to get over, and the devastation was so complete. When it ended, I was scratching my head saying, “WTF just happened here?” I didn’t even know who broke up with who because he basically discarded me, then told me I’d broken up with him. I never knew what a sociopath was until I was telling my pet sitter the story. Her eyes got really big, and she told me he reminded her of her ex husband. Then she told me to google “seductive sociopath.” He had every single trait. That is what led me to LF. They are all the same, right down to the limp they all seem to fake. It’s like they all went to the same school or something.
It is now over 5 years later and my life is so much happier. I am here to say you CAN and WILL get past it. Sending much love and healing to everyone here.
Star