By Ox Drover
Many of us here remember the pain of laboring in childbirth; we thought it was so painful we couldn’t endure any more without dying. Yet, even in that all-encompassing pain that wracked our bodies and our minds, in the back of our minds we knew we were giving birth to a New Life, and we were hopeful. We knew, too, that though we were giving birth to New Life, that it would not be an independent soul. We knew that New Life would require our tender nurturing to help it grow for many years.
I see our pain in recovering from the devastation of our experiences with a psychopath in a similar light to the pain of labor and childbirth, and caring for that New Life. I see that we are giving birth to a New Life, but this time, the New Life is within us, not separate from us.
Just as we had to labor with giving birth to our child, and just as that child was not capable at birth of caring for itself, we have the pain of the labor, and after the labor is over, even though we are still sore, we must nurture and care for New Life, which at first needs our total attention.
As the New Life, so fragile and delicate at first, requires us to completely care for her, and sometimes cries in a colic of her own that we don’t know how to comfort, nevertheless, we must continue to care for that infant New Life within ourselves. We must nurture this New Life and teach her as she grows to care for herself, to watch out for her own safety. In the mean time, we must watch out for the safety of New Life, keeping it away from the psychopath with No Contact. Even if she cries for contact, we must protect her from herself and her desires for things that are not good for her.
We must nurture and feed the New Life, and reassure her that she will grow and accomplish the things that she would like to do. So she can learn to walk upright in dignity and self-esteem, we teach her that when she falls and bumps her knee, she can still get up. We must teach her how to set boundaries and require respectful treatment from those around her. We also teach her how to love and trust others, but with reasonable caution about whom to love and trust. We must teach New Life not to trust blindly, because there are those in this world who will try to use and abuse her, but in spite of that, there are those who will love her tenderly. New Life must learn to spot the red flags of abuse and to avoid them, even in those people that she loves.
Teaching New Life so many things that she needs to know to keep herself safe from danger, and yet experience the wondrous joy of this world, will require much of our time for a while. Because at first New Life is so fragile, so inclined to hurt herself by approaching danger, we must monitor her continually, but as New Life continues to grow stronger and wiser each day, she accomplishes new heights in learning and growth.
New Life moves from anger and fear into reasonable trust and caution. New Life learns to smile and then to laugh and experience joy. New Life learns to love with total abandon, but not to let go of her healthy boundaries. New Life learns that she is worthy of love and respect. New Life learns discrimination and learns to reject those that would hurt her from within her circle of trust.
Then one day we realize that New Life, within us, is us. We learn that the fragile creature of New Life becomes out life! Becomes us. We are free from the pain and the trauma of the old us and have become the New Us, the wiser, the stronger, with confidence in ourselves to keep ourselves safe, and pointed to the future with a New Life.
You’re welcome, Nomore! Thank you, Sabrina!
Sweet dreams, sweet people 🙂
Dear Espiritcoach,
Welcome to Love Fraud, and I am glad you found this healing place. It truly is a life saver, and KNOWLEDGE=POWER, I suggest you read all the archived articles first, and continue to read and blog on the “current ones”—validation of your trauma is an important step, and believe me, the validation here is total, we have all been “where you are.”
Healing is a long road, and a journey, not a destination, and learning about them, and also LEARNING ABOUT OURSELVES, is important to our success. At some point, it is no longer about THEM, but about us, and why we allowed the abuse and didn’t “get it”—-until now. I realize that in the past, I have been victimized by a series of predatory Psychopaths, and though I would somewhat heal from the acute trauma of that particular event(s) I didn’t completely move on to a NEW LIFE, because I didn’t go on to the LAST STAGE of fixing myself, the thing(s) about me that made me vulnerable in the first place, the over caring, the enabling tendencies, the lack of boundaries for abuse, etc. NOW I AM WORKING ON ME. I am trying to nurture my NEW LIFE inside me. Loving and caring for that NEW LIFE. I am living WELL now, which is the best revenge there is. I am no longer focused on them, or even what they did, but that was PART of the INITIAL healing that had to be done….the walking through the firey pain of “labor” to get to where I could start taking care of tht NEW LIFE.
WELCOME, and so glad you are here! God bless your journey and we are here to hold your hand as you travel that road to Healing!
Today is difficult. I am walking this recovery (and it IS recovery), out. Tears, sadness, anger, fear of the future at 62 (almost), shock – but thank God, no more denial. To me, it has been leaving an addiction to a person. I am going through w/drawal, but it’s only been a week and a half. If I hadn’t gone through the cult exiting, I would have nothing to compare this to. It feels so much the same. I KNOW there is another side. I hope I can get out of myself enough to offer hope for all of you. There is a book called TRANSITIONS, written by William Bridges. It is about endings and beginnings. The book deals with the neutral zone between endings and beginnings, and offers some validity as to how some of this feels. I have read most of the books recommended here long before I got out of denial. This has taken me years to accept, I think due to the severity of the trauma, and our cult involvement together. Some of the cult members committed suicide when they left, as they had no assistance in exiting. This site has been invaluable in validating my experience and walking me through another dark night of my soul.
Dear Housie,
I’m sorry you are having a difficult day, but in a way, I view this as a GOOD thing, more than a bad thing. In the healing, I view going THROUGH the feelings (the fire, as it were) is the only way OUT of the “burning building” of our lives. I too am 62, going on 63, and I realize tht this is a time in our lives when we “should” be basking in a lifetime of accomplishment, and instead we are like the Phoenix, trying to rise from our ashes, the ashes of our souls and our lives….but we WILL RISE. I am so glad that you are here, that you have a safe place to validate your pain, your feelings, and your healing! You ARE on the healing path, the journey toward recovering your spirit, mind, heart and soul that was so unfairly taken away from not only you, but all of us here. I too have a canoe that was parked most of my adult life in “de river DE-NIAL” and that is NOT a river in Egypt that runs north! LOL
Take baby steps and be good to yourself each and every minute of every day. It was difficult for me to be good to myself, but REQUIRED I be good to others no matter how horribly they treated me….but NO MORE. I am good to myself FIRST (not selfish, but GOOD TO ME) and I no longer have to feel guilty about being good and kind to myself. At least as good and kind to me as I was to others, even the others that abused me.
I now have a spiritual awareness of Christianity that I never had before, and that I had even had a twisted version of the Bible crammed down my throat that “justified” the treatment I received and was told I had to “forgive” or burn in hell forever! I realize now that the Bible doesn’t define “forgiveness” as “pretending it didn’t happen.” I also realize tht “forgiveness” does NOT mean or include “trusting the untrustworthy.”
I also realize I am a worthy person, and that I should trust myself….and fro now on, I will trust myself to put my needs first. I can’t even help anyone else if I am not healthy. Jesus advised his followers to NOT “CAST THEIR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE” and if that is not a warning against the Psychopaths I do not know what is. I will no longer cast my pearls of love before the swine who will “turn and rend me.” Hang in there, Housie, you are doing great!!@.......!! ((((hugs))) and my prayers for your peace.
Dear Housie,
I was at pediatric appointments from 9 – 4 today…my son is on the mend from a skull fracture and concussion and has a few more weeks of down time but was cleared for “light aerobic activity” — so we are off to “run the bases” for the first time in two plus weeks!
I remember celebrating in your joy yesterday and also being very matter of fact by saying…please remember its one day at a time…simply because I remember the break throughs and set backs from one day to the next. The most important thing to remember Housie, is that they set backs become less and less and the joyous moments come more and more. Just stay committed to the cause…let yourself mourn and go through the motions but stay connected to all the positive support you can get..keep blogging…sharing your journey…its a long haul …but its worth it.
You have gone through a difficult ordeal to say the least. I admire your strength to see the reality…get out of denial…and reclaim yourself. WE ARE ALL HERE FOR YOU!
Ill be back later tonight! Hang in there Housie! My prayers are with you!
Housie – I’m so sorry to hear that you’re having a bad day, too. I don’t think I can add much to OxDrover’s or LTL’s posts (these ladies have so much loving insight to share, we really are so fortunate to benefit from their attention, experience, and compassion), but I do just want to add my encouragement to theirs. It is an up-and-down road. Some days sure are better than others. Someone else on the site may have recommended these books, but I have found Eckhart Tolle’s books to be very helpful in my recovery. Focusing on the daily tasks at hand can help me to keep from obsessing and beating up on myself. It can help ground me and help me to be receptive to the good things in my life, and it allows my battered ego to recede a little and my healing spirit to come through. My dad was involved in a religious cult and so I know how difficult that can be to break free from. Thank God you are strong enough to hang in there and start taking care of yourself.
this may be out of place – but – i was raised in the jehovahs witness religion – I think it is a cult of sort – of course I think all orgnized religion is corrupt…
Henry – No, you are not out of place. I believe your thinking is correct. The cult I was in was similar, and when I was in tx in Wellspring (inpatient for recovery from cults), we had a guy there who was from JW’s and was suffering from the effects of mind control as much as I was. Thanks for sharing. Many people believe all organized religion is corrupt – it has been my experience that usually these people have been deeply wounded, but I found God outside of organized religion in a 12 step program. I have heard that religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people who have already been there…sorry, didn’t mean to digress from our common bond. Will write more later.
Dear Henry and Housie,
I’m going to add my 2 cents worth on this as well. I don’t believe that ALL “organized religion” is corrupt, but many times it is to some extent EXPLOITED by Ps for their own agendas. Even some of the “run of the mill” members will use religion and “fear of hell fire and brimstone” to control family members to suit their own designs…my egg donor did that to me, starting at a very early age. She created a fear in me of lthis vengeful hateful psychopathic god out to get me. She used twists of the meanings of Biblical passages and the FEAR tactic….no one can LOVE someone they are terrified of except in a Stockholm Syndrome-like way.
Now I have a SPIRITUAL LOVE for a LOVING SPIRIT, not an unreasonable fear of this terrible vengeful psychopathic “creator” out there somewhere waiting for me to “sin.”
I have heard many times from bloggers here that they have had “religion” used to make them compliant, or that their P pretended to be so “religious” and “Pious” as part of their mask.
ANY religion can be perverted to become a religion of “hate” or “vengence”—lookk what is happening with Islam right now. So many HATERS are teaching others to hate in the name of “God”—-but it has always been that way it seems, in that the “leaders” preach that “God is on our side while we kill others because they don’t believe like we do, so we need to kill them.”
Look what the Pharisees did to Jesus, and of course the Pharisees, to me, are PERFECT EXAMPLES of Ns and Ps using an ourward appearance of “religion” to rip off others.
Jesus exposing them made them plot to kill Him.
Henry, knowing what I know about your background, to have those same people (your family) pretending to be so religious while they did to you what they did is TYPICAL of the psychopathic perverts who pretend to be “religious.”
Sin all week and get forgiven on Sunday…..
I just stumbled onto this site today and oh how I wish I would have found it years ago. I was married to a psychopath for 5 years and he nearly destroyed me. I was so in love with him and he lied, lied, lied. It has been almost 20 years since we’ve been divorced and I am JUST NOW starting to feel like a real person again. He had me so confused that I made some terrible choices after we divorced. I went to several counselors, but none of them gave me the insight that your article did. If I had only know that my feelings were normal and that I would get better, I would have been so much better off. I felt like I was the ONLY person in this whole world with the feelings that I had. I kept making one bad decision after another, and didn’t know how to stop myself. I didn’t realize that I had to really take control of myself and MAKE myself stop doing those things instead of acting on my impulses. When you are taken advantage of by someone that you love, it can almost drive you completely insane. You no longer now what is real and what isn’t. You have feelings that you’ve never felt before and you look for answers in all the wrong places. This man, if I can even call him that, not only nearly destroyed me, he preyed on my 17 year old daughter too. I really wanted to die. I never tried suicide but I did think about it. I just wanted the pain to go away – it was just too unbearable. I see that some people have been able to move on after a year and I really commend you. I am remarried now, but I was single for almost 13 years and I was the most needy, clingy person anyone could ever meet. Oh I was so stupid during the years with him and the years after him. I thought he was the love of my life and it was completely devastating to know that nothing was real. My dear husband now is paying the price for what the jerk did to me. It is still very hard for me to give myself completely and I find myself asking him if he really loves me. It’s almost like I don’t really feel like he possibly could. I hope I get over this feeling, because the husband I have now is really a good man. He deserves to have all of me and to this day, I just can’t do it. We’ve been married for 7 years and I’m getting close, but still not 100%. Well, I could go on and on. I just wanted to let you know how this blog has helped me. I’m so glad I found you.