Editor’s note: The following was sent by a long-time Lovefraud reader who posts as “Aloha Traveler.”
February 16, 2012
Dear LF Readers,
I found this article below as I was cleaning up my computer files and thought I would submit it.
I wonder if anyone else has the experience of the “Old Me and New Me.” I hope you enjoy. See below.
Aloha
P.S. I left the Bad Man on July 3, 2005. So the below article has been hiding in the Aloha archives. :O)
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Dear LoveFraud Readers,
A little over 4 years ago, I was a post Bad Man train wreck. My life was a shambles on the outside and my insides matched. Today, though I am in a much better place, I am still struggling with some aspects of healing. I decided recently to find a therapist to talk to about my experiences. After several sessions, she suggested that I need to integrate the Old Me with the New Me. Apparently, I have abandoned the Old Me for a new and wiser model. But when I tossed out Old Me, I also tossed out my hopes and dreams. I decided that hope was a dirty word but after living like this for a few years, I realized that maybe this coping strategy is not fully healthy. I do need to have some room in my life for hopes and dreams. You see, I fell on my face so hard when I thought my dreams were coming true with Bad Man”¦ that I just decided I couldn’t handle the possibility of hoping for anything ever again.
So I live like a robot. I plan things and I do things, but I spend no time on hoping and dreaming. I hope for nothing. I can barely tolerate big displays of “love.” I hate love songs (I think it’s a bunch of hooey!) I hate weddings because I cry worse than the parents of the Bride, but not for the same reason.
Yeah… I need therapy.
The problem is, I can talk about the Bad Man in an oh-so-intellectual way these days, but if I talk about my dreams, the things I had always wanted in life, and the way Bad Man, for a brief time, appeared to be the embodiment of my dreams, I quickly crumble into a crying, whimpering mess with a tiny voice that can barely speak.
The letters below are my attempt to communicate with a part of me I left on a Maui beach. I left the Old Me behind in order to feel safe in the world. I am sharing my dialogue with all of you in the hope that perhaps there is another reader that might benefit from doing an exercise like this.
Healing from an abusive or pathologically exploitive relationship of any kind is a slow and painful process. It takes time. Here’s to taking another step forward. Come with me if you like. Aloha
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Dear Old Me,
It’s been over 4 years since you left the Bad Man and I haven’t heard from you. I know you and I don’t talk much these days. I wanted to let you know some things that I miss about you.
Old Me, you were so loving and I really admire that about you. You were willing to walk through fire for the one you love and you surely did. I know you got burned. How are those wounds healing? Remember that it’s important when you are healing to keep moving. Be gentle and take it slow but don’t let your wounds freeze up with scarring.
I know we don’t talk about it, but I miss so many things about you. I miss your open heart and your trust of people. I miss your innocence. I am very sad that you didn’t get what you wanted, and I know you are hurting. You know, Old Me, when you truly loved, there was nothing sweeter than that. Remember when you didn’t question people’s motives? Remember when “I love you” meant “I love you?” Remember when you had no real consciousness about pathological abusers? You sure got in over your head, didn’t you? Well, you didn’t know that you didn’t know. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were just trying to keep to your word. You said you loved and you meant it and so you did the natural thing. You tried to help, but you didn’t understand what you were dealing with”¦ a personality disorder.
I want to acknowledge you for the way you tried to help the Bad Man and for the true and tender concern you showed him. If he had been helpable, surely, your compassion and patience would have made a difference. You tried so hard to understand his wounds and his perspective. There was no rhyme or reason to it. I want you to know that none of it was your fault.
Love, New Me
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Dear New Me,
Thanks for your kind words. I want to acknowledge you as well. Ever since the Bad Man, you have overcome so much. You pulled things together against the odds, and the people who know you really admire you for the way you have turned things around. You have been a work horse with a singular focus. You have been a woman on a mission to save herself”¦ I guess you had to do a lot of cleanup work from me (Old Me) and my mistakes. Sorry about that.
By the way, New Me, I have noticed that you are beginning to stand up for yourself in a way I never could. I was so unsure of myself. That was part of the problem. I let Bad Man tell me who I was, because I didn’t know. I know you, New Me, would never let a man like the Bad Man sneak into your life. I know you are selective now about whom you allow to “coach” you. All of Bad Man’s attacks on me were truly his projections of his own flaws. There were MANY, weren’t there?! I am glad your wisdom allows you to have better discernment than I did.
New Me, I am proud of you for helping so many others. You didn’t let this experience go to waste. Your advice has helped many that were trapped in a situation like I was. For many people, you were a rope, a strong hold, and a shaft of light. Good for you. It’s healing to help others, isn’t it? And New Me, your life is going forward now and you are using your knowledge to help others in your career too. You have found meaning in your Bad Man disaster and you are doing something with it.
One last thing, New Me”¦ you (New Me) and I (Old Me) both have good qualities and we need each other. I am still you, and you are still me. Maybe we can work something out?
Love, Old Me
Great post, Aloha! I can relate, as I expect most of us on here can. I’m still in the robot phase and I really do miss the “old” me. This “new” me is still awkwardly unfamiliar without the “core” of what made me who I was for over 50 years. I know I must still “be there”……..somewhere.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
~New
Aloha,
what a bittersweet post. It’s ironic that now, with our eyes wide open we have the most potential and the most reason for hope, but it’s harder too.
Naivete made everything seem so easy.
Hon, Still keep your dreams albeit wiser. When my spath did a number on me I was 24 years old and devastated. I mourned but not in the way I should have. I couldn’t get the help I needed because I was working two jobs and had two small kids to support. Yes, my spath took financial advantage of a single mother (dog that he was) by promising me a future.
All he wanted was a quick marriage, me to help him pay off a long-standing debt and a quickie divorce. I couldn’t see through the mask of manipulation and lies because I was young, innocent and naive and blinded by what I thought was love.
In the end when I found out the truth, I almost took my life over it. How could I have been so stupid. The counselor’s back then were just as blindsided as the one’s today. They just didn’t get it.
They never told me my ex was a “sociopath.”
What they did tell me was something along the lines of this:
“what did you do to attract this type of person in your life?”
“Why was this type of person singling you out?”
I met him through normal means. I went looking for love and companionship through a dating service. I never in my wildest dreams knew that there were folks cable of such deceit by pulling the rug out from under you.
I knew something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put a name it.
Yes, I could have gone date hunting by going to clubs and outings like other women but I had a couple of issues.
I had two young kids and I couldn’t get relatives to babysit for me so I could go out and meet potential suitors. So I joined a dating service hoping to find an eligible single.
Big mistake. From my experience only a select few get lucky this way. But for the most part you run into a lot of predator’s looking for fresh victims and they in turn feel you deserved what you got because you sought them out.
By the time I met my current husband I had given up on men. I believe I even told him to get lost. LOL! But he didn’t. When I told him what my ex did to me he told me, “He’s crazy. Your gorgeous and petite like a Barbie doll.” “What did the guy want?” I then went on to tell him the woman he left me for was rich. Very rich. Maybe I did get lucky after all. Maybe it was a blessing she came along to free me. Our relationship would have probably ended further down the road but by her appearance I was put in the right place at the right time to meet “Prince Charming” so maybe her appearance was a blessing in disguise.
I always believe I turned out the winner in the game and when all is said and done and karma catches up with my spath (and it’s going to be a whammy) I’ll have the last laugh.
So yes, keep hoping and dreaming because Mr. Right is right around the corner. He’ll come looking for you when you least expect it.
He’s there, he exists. He just has to find you.
Joanie123
Joanie,
So glad you were able to get out early on! Mine went on for thirty years…..not sure I can ever let another man into my life at that level. I know first and foremost I have to be reach the point where I feel whole again on my own, without a signficant other in my life. Who ever knew this type of thing was possible? It’s the stuff they make movies out of but no one in our lives (including most therapists) believe it can be “real”. We know differently.
Be well.
~New
Off topic, BUT I came here to recommend:
“We Need to Talk About Kevin”
New movie with Tilda Swanson, and her son, from day one, is a psychopath.
I think Ox might find this film comforting especially. I was thinking of you Ox when I was watching it. The mother puts up with waaaayyy more, I think, than you did. You finally wised up and stopped playing his games. The mom in this film never fully gets it. She even visits him in prison and hugs him after….well…you have to watch.
Anyways, just wanted to recommend that, although the last scene ruined it. He supposedly “gets it” at the very end. The rest was perfect, but the last part just makes me think Hollywood came in and said that no one will want to see such a sad movie about an evil person.
Aloha, thank you for this letter. I want to be in a place where I am a ‘new’ me and I can write the old me a letter.
It’s really refreshing and reassuring to see healing like this, growth, and renewed wisdom. I look forward to writing myself one day. 🙂
Dear sweet Aloha, both of you!
You were one of the first here to welcome me when I came here wounded and bleeding that summer of chaos in 2007….and how much your support and comforting me meant there are not words to describe.
I admired your tenacity to work hard and pay off your debts, then keep on working and putting yourself through school. Those are the qualities I admire in “can do” people and you are sure one of those CAN DO folks.
Thanks for bringing this article out of cold storage! It is a wonderful one and gives me things to think about, about the Old Oxy and the STILL OLDER Oxy! Sometimes I think I have become too cynical etc. and you gave me a lot of food for thought! ((((hugs)))
Aloha Traveler,
I LOVE your article. It is SO timely. Or perhaps it’s TIMELY ALL the time! I have a bunch of little sayings. One is : “always steal a good idea.”
So I am going to do just that. Steal your idea. My new me is going to write a letter to the old me. It’s about time I held her accountable, and forgave her. The spath was NOT her fault. Nor was the learning curve. WHO lives their life as if evil personified lurked in the Seemingly kindest man! But some stuff was her doing, wasting time trying to fix what she knew was NOT her baggage, and trying to bargain with the devil ends badly EVERY time. (yep, an absolute that fits.)
Time for a glass of wine and some fresh paper.
Thank you and ALoha!!
Katy
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Panther, I have seen that movie advertised and I’ll probably watch it at some point…well, believe me I put up with a LOT and visited jails and prisons, and drove hundreds of miles to get there, wrote daily for decades! sent money! Kept hope alive….it was a FANTASY world of how wonderful life would be when my baby came home….welll……nah, that ain’t gonna happen. BABY needs to stay locked up where others can be safe, including me! I get it now, but took me til my late 50s to do so.