UPDATED FOR 2022: It’s the New Year, the perfect time to reflect on what we truly want in life. If you are or have been involved with a sociopath, your most ardent wish is probably for recovery. Here’s the secret that will enable you to achieve your desire: All true healing is internal. Therefore, be sure to work on your emotional recovery.
You may feel like I’m stating the obvious, because you feel like crap, and you want to feel better. Or worse, you are numb, and you can’t feel anything.
You may believe that fixing some external problem caused by the sociopath will enable you to feel better. If you can just finalize the divorce, get custody of the kids, move away, get your money back, or perhaps even get the sociopath arrested, you’ll be just fine.
The truth is that while all of these endeavors are important, even when you succeed in them, you still need to address your emotional recovery.
In our society, we tend not to do this. We work too much, run the kids around, buy a better house in a better neighborhood, engage in a social life, go to the grocery store, go to the gym — there’s always too much to do, not enough time, and the last thing on our agenda is dealing with our emotions.
And that’s why we never truly recover.
Emotional wounds and emotional recovery
The fact is, emotional recovery is hard work. The reason is that every betrayal, disappointment, indignity, loss, attack, insult and scare that we ever suffer — every negative experience of our lives — creates an emotional wound. These wounds stay in our energy fields until we do something about them.
In fact, it’s even bigger than that. I believe that we’ve all lived before, which means we have all endured pain, grief, brutality and other traumas in previous lifetimes. Well, guess what — if we didn’t deal with the wounds when they happened, we’re still carrying them around. (For more explanation on how this works, read my article, The Law of Attraction and sociopaths.)
So we’re all the walking wounded, all carrying tremendous amounts of internal pain, from the experience with the sociopath, previous wounds that made us vulnerable to the sociopath, and even from our past lives. This pain goes really, really deep.
Internal healing
Our emotional pain can be released, but it requires time and effort. The idea is to “process” the pain, which means that you allow your self to experience it. You cry. You grieve. You stomp your feet. You curl up in a ball and wail. Whatever you feel, you let it rip.
In the beginning, when you first learn of the sociopath’s betrayal, you do this naturally, and the intensity may be overwhelming. This will subside. As you go on, you’ll find that you have layers of emotion. Pain will rise to the surface, you’ll experience it, and you’ll let it go.
The more negative energy that you can find and release, the better you’ll feel. By releasing the negative energy, and replacing it with anything that makes you happy, eventually your entire internal balance will shift. With that, your whole life will change.
You do not need to wait until practical issues with the sociopath are resolved to start your emotional recovery. You can work on your recovery while dealing with life issues. In fact, when you do the emotional recovery work, you’ll feel more centered, you’ll be able to deal with the life issues more clearly.
New Year’s resolution
This New Year, I recommend that you commit to your internal healing. You can do it on your own or with a trusted therapist. You can use techniques like EFT Tapping — especially to get to the really deep emotional issues that need to be resolved.
Emotional recovery is an investment in yourself and in your life. This work will make possible the peace, love and happiness that you’ve always wanted.
Lovefraud originally published this story on Jan. 1, 2018.
Watch Donna Andersen on the Investigation Discovery TV show ‘Love, Honor, Betray’
Hi Donna. It’s me Lillian and it’s been a while. Thank you for this warm and encouraging new year’s post. It’s been a long time. 8 years since I first posted here. I visit every once in a while now. I am still not healed. I have only begun to recover yet again. You see the self-loathing and anger consumed me for years and manifested itself in self-destructive ways. I knew I was being self-destructive but there was nowhere for me to put all the anger I had inside. I did everything wrong. Fully aware of what I was doing. I hit bottom, or at least I hope I have. My depression was debilitating affecting work, friends, and family until I find myself completely isolated. Completely broke. My self-confidence depleted.
But somehow and through a random offer of kindness from a family member I have finally taken a full breath for the first time in eight years. A breath that is unencumbered by self-hatred and anger. It is a breath that is free of self-destructive effects. It is a breath of laughter. Of forgiveness for my own sins. It has an inkling of self-confidence somewhere inside. I didn’t have to do this the hard way I am sure. Somethings don’t come easy either. I made conscious bad choices because I hated myself as a result of my encounter with the sociopath. I am successfully choosing better things. one day at a time.
This site is the foundation for being able to know that there is a future for someone like me. That it isn’t my fault. And I have finally gotten out of my own way emotionally for 30 days now. Intellectually, I learned from my friends here that it wasn’t me but emotionally I was so pissed off. I’m back for more inspiration and to give back when I can. I wholeheartedly hope that no one has to beat themselves up to the extent I did to try and get back to that first full breath. I am still here. I am surviving. May we all have a year of magical thinking…. Love to all, Lillian
Lillian – so good to see you again! I am sorry for what you endured, but I am glad that the truth is sinking in — you were deceived, it was not your fault, and you deserve better.
Keep working on your healing. You can have the life that you want and deserve.