Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
My father appeared to be a very successful business man. Our family lived in a home on Biscayne Bay, had money and was very well known. He served as a pilot in the Air Force, was very good looking and extremely charming. From the outside, our life looked almost perfect.
Like any young boy, I idolized my dad. When in his presence, I was almost hypnotized by him. I was extremely attracted to the way he approached life. I guess it’s normal for a boy to want to be just like his father. I wanted to believe everything that he told me. As best I could tell, he treated me pretty well. He took care of me, gave me money, taught me to hunt and spent time teaching me lessons about life.
Unfortunately, these lessons were coming from a different perspective on life than most children are exposed to, from that of a sociopath. For the most part, sociopaths treat their children like possessions, and I was my father’s favorite. He treated me special and I liked it. All of this only added to my confusion as a kid, because much of the time he seemed like a great dad. Still, something wasn’t right. There were conditions attached to his love, and I knew it. This underlying uneasiness was causing me problems, too.
From as far back as I can remember I would have terrifying recurring nightmares. I didn’t understand why and didn’t talk about it because I thought it was a sign of weakness. I would wake up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath and feel as if the weight of the world was crushing down on me. I couldn’t breathe, and would feel a serious and frightening threat that I didn’t understand. This threat was extremely elusive and I couldn’t identify what it was. I didn’t know where the threat was coming from, only that it was close. It was always close, surrounding me on all sides. The dreams felt real. I tried to dismiss them as just “kid stuff”, but I was really scared. I hated myself for this.
I always felt unsettled and frightened. Something just wasn’t right, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It might have been just a small detail, but it felt really important. My mind would tell me that it just didn’t add up or make sense. With no point of reference, the only thing I knew to do was to let it go. Whatever the conflict, I was not able to reconcile the problem or rationalize what it meant to me. Consequently, I would bury it. What I was seeing was so frightening that I didn’t want to know the truth. A lie was more acceptable. I lived in this confusing space.
On the outside I probably appeared to be like any other kid my age. I made good grades, was fairly outgoing, had friends and tried my best to fit in. It helped that I always had nice things and could afford to do most anything that my friends did. My dad taught me to be respectful and to say yes sir and no sir when addressing adults. They liked that, and I was typically a favorite of my friends’ parents.
The problem was that while my father was teaching me some of the right ideas his behavior was offering a different point of view. This was my experience with my father, and it happened often. His behavior was raising questions that I could not answer. I can see them now, but at the time, I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing or feeling.
Being raised by a sociopath creates its’ own set of issues that must be dealt with in order to break free from the suffering caused by these experiences. Forgiveness is the ultimate goal, but awareness of my own altered view of life also needs to be recognized and addressed to really have any success with recovery.
The result is seeing the world through this distorted filter, virtually altering all of my relationships and life’s experiences. Simply blaming my dad was not going to set me free from the damage done. I needed to acknowledge how and why I behaved the way I behaved.
For me, as many of you know, The Process of Forgiving is what set me Free. But, I had to take responsibility for how I used this experience to harm myself and others before I could stop doing it.
If we continue to harm ourselves with the past, we are, in essence, repeating the behavior that we so despise. At least, that was my experience. As a result, I am very forgiving of myself, and others. I do not interact with sociopaths or harmful people, nor condone the behavior, but I do forgive it. When I do that, I feel peace, and I like that better than nightmares.
The funny part and most rewarding is that when I forgive and let live I stop attracting sociopaths and start attracting people who are kind, loving and forgiving. That, in itself, is a very valuable spiritual lesson. Now, that’s A Miracle!
Thanks for reading this. Hope you experience a Miracle today. Peace.
I think the reason we do not forgive (and hold on to the hate) is to prevent us from repeating the experience. (However, in some cases, that reason does not apply.) For example if you have an abusive husband, and you forgive him, you are more likely to enter into an abusive relationship again. However if you don’t forgive him . . . it acts as a preventative to accepting abuse in your life again. Just a though!!! To me, it feels natural NOT TO FORGIVE…So I don’t!
As many of you know, I have been in my situation for just about 6 years now. Just a few weeks ago, I broke 8-1/2 months of NC to ‘deliver a message’ and it reopened a communication with someone who has not only threatened my life on several occasions but has also made several reckless attempts at taking my life.
I have been on this ‘healing journey’ for just about 6 years now and it has been a nightmare. Why? Because I allowed someone into my life that is a psychopath.
At first, on my journey, I thought that forgiving “IT” was the only way I could heal and that’s just not true. I don’t have to forgive “IT” and I doubt I ever really will. But, since “IT” is at least 1,000 miles away from me and we only communicate by IM, now, or email, and because I AM STEALTHED in the knowledge and the resolution, nothing he says bothers me anymore. It just rolls off me and away from me.
FORGIVENESS IS NOT A NECESSARY COMPONENT to HEAL!!!
Changing YOUR perspective is.
I have gone from wanting to commit suicide over all this, to a place in my life, where I AM strong enough to withstand the force of the ppath winds as they blow! I have ventured back into the storm and am coming out of it un phased. Seriously.
After having spent almost 9 months NC with “IT”, educating myself, reading, learning, listening, watching, I can see now, that everything I thought and learned is true. There is no more doubt. It isn’t a prevention to healing NOT forgiving them.
I will never forgive him for the things he has done to me yet, I am not allowing that unforgiveness and that spite and that disdain I have, eat me alive. Does that make any sense? You can stealth yourself and not hate to the point that it self destructs you. I have found that place. And, I think that this is as good as it’s going to get.
I continue to make chat with him because that is what is right for me to do. In order to enable me to ‘live with myself’. I don’t have to be in love with him (and I am not anymore); I don’t have to feel sorry for him (I don’t; he made his own choices); I don’t have to be joined at the hip nor set myself aside any longer. NONE of that. And, if the communication gets out of line, it can just as easily be UNDONE and it was DONE. That’s all there is to it.
They don’t change. I am telling you: I have gone back 3 times now to check and they just don’t change. I think 3 times over a period of five or six years is quite enough; don’t you? I mean, if a person was sincerely contrite of heart, you would know and I see NOTHING like this at all. NOTHING. Only more of the same.
You will know you are healed when it just doesn’t matter anymore inside your heart and your head and life. THAT is how you know you are healed. My ppath is neutralized from the knowledge I have gained. As long as I keep him away from me, physically, I will be just fine and intend on being just fine.
Right, Stargazer – we need to learn to navigate that hate and resentment so that it is not a continuum of the torture they like to inflict. Hating and extreme bouts of it is one of those intertwined time bombs that is left in our life afterwards.
Stay strong; remember your value and your worth.
I am so good now. SO VERY GOOD. Getting better all the time.
Happy Sunday you all.
Remember all the :::red flags:::
Dupey
I think Sarah’s perspective about LACK OF “forgiveness” being a way to hold on to the resentment and hate so that we do not slip and get back involved with them is a good point.
There comes a point though,, when we are “safe enough” and secure enough that we will NOT resume the relationship or let them close again when I think we CAN let go of that hate and resentment, that bitterness of soul, and to me that is “forgiveness” and it is safe to do it. To me, that point is the only point I can truly have PEACE of soul and spirit and mind. When I nurture that hate, or retain it, it eats at ME and destroys my peace.
When the neighbor “Crazy Bob” sued me for $50,000 after the aircraft crash when the plane my husband was in crashed in his pasture and Bob needed “$50,000” for HIS MENTAL ANGUISH….I was so outraged I literally wanted to kill him. I lay in my bed at night trying to figure out a way to kill him and not go to jail. I was as revengeful as my psychopathic son, I wanted to take Bob’s life. I truly did want to murder him. I even came up with the “perfect” way to kill him by actually provoking someone else to do it by making them so angry at him that they would kill him. I have no doubt that my plan had a good chance of working.
But you know, one evening when I was lying there in my bed with my plan going through my head, I realized “I’m just like Patrick, I am letting this eat me alive AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE THAT WAY, THINK THAT WAY.” My conscience kicked in and stopped me from thinking that way. Now I am not going to tell you that over night I “forgave” or got the bitterness out of my heart…it took some time and some prayer and some working hard at getting the bitterness at Bob out of my heart, but now I realize just how EMPTY Bob is, how pitiful he is and how devoid of real caring or love he has. He is pathetic, empty, and he isn’t worthy of my bitterness or hate. I won’t waste one second of my life hating that pitiful pathetic creature.
I never “loved” Bob to start with…so in a way that made it easier to hate him I think, but at the same time, it made what he did to me less of a “betrayal” than if it had been someone that I loved and trusted. I think it was just the outrageousness of HIM needing money to make HIS “anguish” at my husband’s death in his pasture better. No one except a psychopath would think that was reasonable. Sort of like the cowardly captain of the ship saying he “fell into a life boat by accident.” LOL
Letting go of the bitterness, the angst, the rancor allows me peace though.
Good Day Ox: I agree. There does come a point, where we are ‘safe enough’ and ‘secure enough’ in ourselves that we will NOT allow the relationship to continue on and get involved with them. Further involvement only leads to deeper ugliness. I can so see it.
I do not accept nor condone his behaviors.
Those behaviors has left me prior to 8-1/2 months NC, so very hateful and resentful, I was like a time bomb about to explode. The hate was eating me alive. INSIDE that 8-1/2 silent months, I found myself again and ‘who’ I am and what “I” believe and stand for. And I have learned that has nothing to do with “IT” but everything to do with ME and what I find acceptable and not acceptable. INSIDE that 8-1/2 months NC, I educated myself, with the help of all of you, here, at LF, and through counseling and therapy, I have educated myself enough that I have acquired a completely different perspective which allows me to put that ‘hate’ into the proper perspective. It has become something I can ‘live with’ now that isn’t destroying me any longer and the most important part, “I” think, is that it is making me stronger by doing as close to all the ‘right’ things as humanly possible.
I believe that when we opt for doing the right things, our name is remembered some where, some how – I never thought I would find this UNHATEFUL spot in me. Truly. I have it now. I still have a ways to go to get rid of the ‘addiction habits’ that like to spring up once in a while…PTSD issues, mostly, remembering things; like flashbacks; hurtful memories; but, I am so stealthed now. It’s amazing. And, I found that by ‘letting go’…by standing up for “ME” and claiming MY LIFE. MINE.
I am never going back into that madness and I can say now that I am strong enough to stand up to it and not be swayed anymore. I am so blown away that I find myself here. Truly.
There may be hope for me yet, Travis. 🙂
Blessings and love to you Ox…
Dupey
Dear dear Dupey,
Letting go of that hate, that bitterness is I think the ultimate release for us….they are no longer even worth the energy to hate them. The NIRVANA OF INDIFFERENCE.
The opposite of love is not hate, but it is indifference. Literally wouldn’t cross the street to pee on them if they were on fire. LOL
I’m glad that you are finding peace, Dupey, because that is the ultimate freedom from them, to be at peace with ourselves. To be happy within ourselves. To be content and satisfied with ourselves. (((hugs))) and blessings and prayers.
I don’t think it is forgiveness that causes us to go back to an abusive person. I think it is having unresolved wounds from the past that makes us repeat the pattern. It’s the addiction to them that makes us go back. It causes us to make excuses for them and stay in denial. This is not real forgiveness (making excuses) because it is not seeing things clearly as they are. When you truly see an evil person for what they are, why would you go back unless you were addicted?
But I really believe that before you can forgive, you first need to really feel the hurt and get to the bottom of it. If you haven’t gotten there, trying to forgive IMO is putting the cart before the horse. For me, whenever I get to the bottom of an issue and no longer have the “hook” or addiction, forgiveness just seems to happen naturally. At that point, they can’t hurt me anymore.
Ox: I have found that ‘indifference’ is exactly how I feel about it all anymore. You know it’s really ‘finished’ when the indifference sets in. There is no coming back from that ‘indifference’. It IS the ultimate release. No, they are then no longer even worth the energy to hate them. You are absolutely correct. It all kind of folds in on itself and you can nicely tuck it away on a shelf somewhere….
Beautiful NIRVANA of INDIFFERENCE.
What makes it all the sweeter is knowing that now it wants another chance and it isn’t getting that chance anymore. Never again. I get to see karma at it’s finest. All the cards have been played, all the bets laid….I am reaping my justifications now. I never thought I would ever see this day. Truly.
Oh yes, absolute self peace, Ox, I am finding now. I am almost completely there now. Almost. I just have one more door to shut and I will be finished. Completely.
To be content and satisfied with ourselves is all we really and truly have in this life anyways, when it comes right down to it; hm?
I am definitely:
DUPED NO MORE!
Star: I went back to see it for myself now and it is all true. Everything I have learned is true about him. Everything. I spent a long time denying it but it’s true. And, it’s also true that I was very much addicted and mind controlled for quite a few years, addiction is a great way to describe it. I was in NC for 8-1/2 months…while he continued to stalk me. I spent that time replenishing myself. Inside and out…I didn’t go back to feed the addiction, I went back to make peace with myself. I used “IT” to do it. I went back for myself this time. There is nothing more I have to offer that relationship. All I have left now is trying to piece back together something of myself so he doesn’t suck the rest of it away through my conscious nor my heart. And, that is so sweet to finally be there in that spot. I never thought it would come…
I NEEDED to see it one more time to settle myself.
But, it was only conversation over a computer…not in person or even on the phone. I went back to see it and hear it again. I had to know, once and for all. And, lo and behold, when I got there….I found a part of me I hadn’t noticed before!!!!!!
THAT INDIFFERENCE. I found the part of me that IS in control. I found the part of me that HAS choices and decisions too….
That sweet, peace giving, soul releasing INDIFFERENCE.
I have found that I can chat with him and it spurs NOTHING but INDIFFERENCE. He does not live with me, nor I with him. We have no children nor have we ever been married. Nothing normal or bonding us…so, this is so easy for me to do now.
I have seen it all for myself and I believe what my eyes have seen.
I am good with this. Truly.
There are no mistaken boundaries.
Trust me. Never will be again.
Right, Star, it is OUR DECISION to let this go. I used to counsel juvenile felons a long time ago and all I ever heard was “well, because of my parents, this or parents that…” Excuse me: We all have choice in our lives. Whatever our parents are or might have been has no effect on our choices. My biological mother was a heroin addict her whole life and I was born addicted to heroin because of her addiction, that doesn’t mean “I” had to choose to accept or be a part of that lifestyle. We will all eventually heal….We will get around to it in our own time, in our own way. We will find our way and we will succeed. It is inherent inside us. These people have no right to make us feel this way so all we have to do is rebuke it. Not like the ppath or spath rebukes, but the way we do in our own caring ways that got us into this in the first place. It all makes perfect sense now: the way out…
There was once a wise man who said to give unto others as you would want given unto yourself. It takes nothing from me to see, understand, be knowledgeable, more ‘above’ what has been given to me. I am fortunate that I was able to have this chance. This chance to really make it right inside myself before the door slams shut once and for all.
xxoo
Travis,
I see this is story of my step daughter, who is only child of ex-spath. I didn’t realized it before, I always said she is his master piece, he wants her to be perfect, which is sick. He even told me one day when she was 13 years old, that she needs to lose 5 lbs from her butt to look better, when her doctor gave her perfect weight and hight.
He was so obssesed with her looks behaviour, clothing, grades, that this girl truly didn’t have normal childhood. Again all this was just my observation of 4 years. He would stare at her if sitting on dinign table, which was so inhuman, I asked her one day do you like him staring at you, it is so scary, she shrugged her shoulder and said I don’t care. Then I realized she liked it, because it puts his 100% focus on her, even though it was a sick attention, it was his attnetion, and she was like hypnotised by him.
I used to feel I am not part of this circle, I talked some of friends, who are married second time and have daughters, they all told me based on the description, this is very sick thing happening in his mind and he may leave this girl for not having a normal relaiotnhip with any other man in her life….
When we split, my boys one day said, we feel sorry her her, and I asked why, my boys said at least we have normal life, she got that lunatic in her life.
I am beginning to understand where my low self-esteem comes from. Past experiences, especially from childhood when I was too young to understand, have left me feeling worthless. Selfish, toxic family members have crushed the child. If I made a mistake, I felt I had failed completely. Because I blamed myself I had no boundaries. Painful to admit but I would have done almost anything for anyone/slept with anyone who paid me the slightest attention, so desperate for love was I. I could see people who seemed to have friends and I was lonely. Prime target for a spathy!