Meditation on a devastating experience with a sociopath

Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following story from a reader whom we’ll call Barbara19.

Are you ready for the rain?

I recently went through a gut wrenching experience. I have not moved completely through the storm, however I am learning to dance in the rain.

Before, I would hide in a cave to escape the feeling of wet clothes and dripping hair on my skin. If I couldn’t find a cave, I would pull out my umbrella, which was as large as a carnival top – yes, the red and white stripped one with the red center flag – I was so used to my umbrella I forgot it was there, just like the white elephant who sat in my living room for 14 years.

Who wouldn’t want a cute elephant as a continuous houseguest? You see Kalli – the white elephant – never had to go to the bathroom or eat 4 tons of hay, ever. She just sat and watched, hoping to be noticed. She was my constant companion and I grew to need her to feel whole.

Now, back to the umbrella. Without warning, the storm began to rage and my umbrella was no longer enough for me and Kali. You see, it’s hard to notice the warnings, answers and obvious when you are covered by an enormously entertaining and attention grabbing umbrella. Soon, the rain began to trickle and permeate through my last layer of defense, my skin. It was time to stop the pain inside.

All different shapes. They are easy to fill the painful vacancy.

One day, and again without warning, my cover was ripped out of my hand and blew away. I watched as it flew across the sky like birds moving on when an undesired season is imminent….. they get out of Dodge.

I lost Kali too but I knew she wasn’t gone, just forgotten.

Then she returned, only this time she landed in my chest and her weight was unbearable. My constant companion began her metamorphosis into something paralyzing. She didn’t bring butterflies to my stomach; in fact, she wasn’t a butterfly or a frog. She was the unimaginable….. Loss…. and it consumed every ounce of me.

Have you had your mind spin like the lottery balls in the cage before the winning balls make their descent? It is not pretty. Not at all. Exposure to the storm without an arsenal of enabling tricks is rawfully BRUTAL and not for the unprepared. Unprepared, I was.

Rock bottom is not an aesthetically pleasing place. It’s a drag in every sense of the word. It’s bone chilling cold, pitch black, dead silent, damp and smells of wet soil. Keep in mind most people don’t smell the soil until radical acceptance takes place. Acceptance that you won’t literally crumble if you believe everything is going to be okay – you won’t, I promise – acceptance you are there for a reason and it’s okay to feel desperately cold, exposed and all by yourself.

The vulnerable well you are in becomes structural and you begin to feel your inner strength. It is in the darkest hour the magic happens. The real magic.

You plant your feet in the soil and begin to water. Then your cracks appear – not the ones which are oozing disgust, we already had those – the cracks which allow the most benevolent light inside of you….. to heal you. The light that brings knowledge: nothing stays the same and this too shall pass. Your roots grow deeper and with empowerment to help you push to your highest potential.

So you begin to truly breathe for the first time, you grow, you believe, you listen and you do.