Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
By Shocknawe
As a fellow victim of a spath, I’ve been both heartened and heartbroken by the stories told on Lovefraud. Also, like many of us here, I have a natural inclination to feel for others and to do what I can to support and assist in whatever way I can to help ease others’ difficulties that’s a key reason we were targeted in the first place, isn’t it? My experience has caused me to try to understand the nature of suffering and what can be done about it. So if the members will indulge me, I’d like to share some thoughts that have come to me as I continue to process, and perhaps help those on a similar path.
In the immediate aftermath of the trauma of victimization, there is a palpable shock, a disorientation and confusion a feeling of suddenly being lost, without direction or meaning in our life. Combined with the actual physical trauma to our bodies, this period can be at turns, agonizing and terrifying. It is completely natural to seek relief from such pain and torment as quickly as possible in whatever way we think will work, and so we often become consumed by the urge to escape our misery; we may spend our entire lives in this search. We try to escape the pain in countless ways through analysis, trying to make sense of the senseless, or through some authority, or conversation with those close to us who may impart some perspective or rationale that will ease our minds, or simply through distractions of every sort to just help us get through our days and nights. (Hopefully, this does not include harmful alcohol or drugs.)
What these and other forms of relief-seeking share, and which we all understandably engage in, is a common thread: a belief that if we do something, we will bring about the end of our suffering, even if only temporarily, and restore to ourselves a sense of normalcy, before the storm. We in the West have a cultural bias towards self-determinacy in the face of adversity, and we are heavily conditioned by that culture to act.
I’d like to suggest a contrary approach for consideration to those currently dealing with our particular brand of anguish and misery.
The constant searching for escape from our pain is like digging in the earth again and again, in the hope we’ll harvest the fruit that offers the nourishment we yearn for. Maybe in a time of profound distress, what we really need is just the opposite: to cultivate receptivity and stillness, to simply provide the rich soil in order for peace to take root.
Rather than actively seeking escape, perhaps, as unnatural as it may feel to us, we need to be inactive to become inwardly quiet and allow the opportunity to focus on the purification of our hearts and minds. Instead of filling every moment with outward activity, chatter and escape, we could benefit from the solitude our situation forces upon us to create a space inside in which to heal. Through subsequent acceptance and openness, we become receptive to assistance from those aspects of our nature that have our best interests at heart, for some a Higher Power, which brings peace. In short, we don’t find it by actively searching, the relief we seek finds us when we create the space through stillness to allow it to happen. Not the space of a “time out,” but the eternal space we cover up and which is inside us all the time underneath our “lives.”
It may be that the infinite forms our searches for solutions to our suffering take, are in fact no more than escapes dressed in productive activity. Paradoxically, perhaps by dropping our active urge to find peace, and becoming quiet and receptive, we consent to allowing peace to find us.
Louise
Hens:
Awwww, poor Hens. We all know how it feels. Don’t beat yourself up…Oxy already did!! 🙂
candy
I see Ox is exercising her new found ability to ’empathise’ (or not)!! ((((passes Hens a 16oz steak to minimise the bruising)))))
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hens – that line…he was BLAMING you for his supposed experience. Does that sound like yo mama? Think there’s a deep hook there for you. do you have ‘the betrayal bond’? how about using it to work through this one thing independent of anything else. Really focus on what he said – don’t just let it cause rumination in you. ask yourself every day, ‘what does this mean to me’, or ‘what do I think that says about me?’
go for broke with it; go for freedom!
behind_blue_eyes
Hens;
How do they do it? By latching on to a needy provider and not caring that they a dependent. They also tell a good story of future plans that are most likely unrealistic, but enough to convince the provider they have direction. Eventually, hey either tire of the provider, or the provider tires of them, then they find another provider.
Of course, in the gay world if someone’s looks are good enough, there are ways to make money until either the provider comes along or to supplement what the provider gives.
MoonDancer
bbe…i am disgusted with the so called gay world where shallowness prevails…I am at the point where I dont care to indentify myself as gay..I am just me,
KatyDid
Hens
There are lots of reasons why you went by there. Curiousity, nostalgia, maybe when you took your friend to the airport it brought up feelings of leavings. Only you know WHY you went there.
Better question is why didn’t you “pass on by” and say, I got better things to do and better people to do them with. or ask yourself, what are you DOING to yourself?
Either way, it’s hurtful to you and I am sad for it. I don’t want you to ever feel that way and he makes me angry that you ever did. A pox on him.
A tangent to your moment of forgetting… I looked up the boy I had a crush on all through high school. Really thought I was in luvvvv. OMG. So glad for unanswered prayers. What a wanker.
I think your guy is like that. The longer you have no contact, if you ever do see him, you will be grossed out. The portrait of Dorian Gray curse.
So do something nice for yourself b/c I think if you were feeling good, you’d have no curiousity about him at all.
Bunches of loves
Katy
ps Shallowness is NORMAL in ALL sexes. Overwise we’d all have local support, but instead this is the only place offering consistent understanding.
behind_blue_eyes
Hens;
I am the same way. I believe the gay “scene” is shallow, plastic and largely dysfunctional. Funny, one of the things I like about this new guy is that he does not like the gay scene.
In my own plans to rebuild my life after sociopaths in both my personal and professional lives, I recognize the need to be more social in the gay community, but not in bars and clubs. I am also looking to expand my circles to where I can meet open-minded individuals who are likely to have gay friends.
MoonDancer
Hi Katydid – Your right about alot of things, I have passed by his place of work many many times over the past few years and not made that turn. If I really wanted to know about him I could find out, but I dont want to know.
Most of my ‘problem’ is not meeting anyone else. And gettin older alone is sad, I am not miserable, actually I am pretty content and count my many blessings everyday, just wish I had a special someone to count them with..whoa is me, ok I am not going to get on a pity party today I have to much to do…hugs to all….
KatyDid
Hens
I made the mistake once of lamenting not having that special someone and how I was “SSooooo close” to my dream of it with my husband. My friend gave me the proverbial oxy skillet. I was NOT so close with my husband. I was the FURTHEST away from sharing something special that I could possibly be. DUH on me. Plus, all the time I was with my husband, I was NOT available to meet ANYONE special, never mind a mate.
Now I have several special people in my life, good friends that would NEVER do to me or treat me as despicably as my husband did. No, I don’t have a mate, but at least I now have a possibility of meeting someone, which is WAAAYYY further on the good road than when with my spouse.
Hope you see this the same for you. L, Katy
Ox Drover
Henry, darling, it isn’t JUST the “gay” world that is shallow and superficial, it is the WORLD at large. LOL I’ve had a lot of gay “friends” ‘in my life and many of them do seem to be (on average) more superficial and shallow—focused on “being gay” rather than just being THEM….my granddaughter who is gay is JUST HERSELF, not focused on her sexuality or her sexual identify any more than I am focused on being “straight.” She is just herself, and I am myself, and you are yourself.
I think people who are homophobes, who FOCUS on NOT being gay are a lot like the gay people who FOCUS on being “gay.” Years ago when I lived in California where there is a pretty big openly gay community, as well as plenty of homophobes, the people I liked the best who were ALSO GAY were not the ones who focused on “being gay” like it was some badge of honor. I’m not PROUD to be straight…and I think people who are PROUD to be gay are not focused on being THEMSELVES but on assuming a “group identity” the way homophobes focus on NOT being gay. We had a couple of guys in our living history group who were big time HOMOPHOBES but they were rotten people and that was their way of “identifying” with others just as rotten as they were. They are no longer in our group, thank goodness.