I believe in miracles.
Not the rock your world, holy saints and rising apparitions kind of miracles. But rather, the light shifting, change your life, in this moment kind of miracle that takes you by the hand and guides you home. The kind of miracle that awakens you to the truth that this moment is all you’ve got. The kind of miracle that says, grab me and run with me or lose the miracle of your life forever.
I know about miracles like that. I got one on a sunny May morning five years ago when I had given myself up for dead. Well, not dead-dead, but rather, the walking breathing dead kind of living that leeches all energy from your body and leaves you without hope of ever finding a way back to the land of the living.
My miracle appeared in the form of a blue and white police car driving up and arresting the sociopath who had been lying and cheating and manipulating and abusing me for the length of our four year nine month relationship.
When first we’d met I thought his name was Prince Charming. I loved the view of the short cut to happiness he promised me and jumped onto the runaway train of his promises of happily ever after. I never expected to find myself lost in hell, in cahoots with the Prince of Darkness and praying for a miracle I didn’t believe I deserved, to set me free.
But then, that’s the funny thing about miracles. They don’t come looking for believers. They just appear, like stars in a darkened sky coming out at night. It’s not that they weren’t there all along, it’s just lost in the pit of despair, we lose sight of the miracles around us. Too frightened to open our eyes in the blinding light of day, we shut out the world and crawl into the cave of desperation, shutting ourselves off from belief and hope and possibility and even miracles.
It was a miracle the police found us. He was hiding out, trying to escape the country, and I was hiding behind the smile I’d pasted on my face, pretending to be the person he told me to be, or else. The miracle saved me from finding out what the ”˜or else’ might be.
Looking back, it was a miracle I was still alive. I had seventy-two cents in my pocket, a few clothes and my beautiful Golden Retriever, Ellie, who had travelled that rocky road beside me, faithfully keeping step to my faltering footsteps as I travelled further and further from life as I knew it.
I don’t know who said this, but I find it very powerful, “Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”
On that day in May, five years ago, I knew I didn’t get a miracle to live in pain and sorrow. I knew I got the miracle to live in joy. But, in the process of losing myself on the road to hell, I had become someone I didn’t recognize, someone I didn’t love. I knew I had to change. I feared I didn’t know how.
Change is always possible. Ending something that isn’t working for me requires me to change what I’m doing. When I awoke from that relationship, there was very little that was working in my life. So much was broken, so much was in disarray.
To change my life, I had to surrender my disease and embrace my ability to heal. To heal, I had to change the anger into forgiveness. The sorrow into laughter. The hatred into love. I had to let go of who I had become on that journey and fall into love with who I could become in healing by letting go of my fear of falling and learning how to fly free from the pain of the past.
And so, on that morning in May when my world changed and I began to see there was light beyond the darkness, I grabbed my miracle and set out to recover my joy. Step by step. Moment by moment. And, in the process I uncovered the greatest miracle of my life. Me.
I believe in miracles. I am one.
The question is: What do you believe in? Do you believe you’re some big cosmic experiment gone awry in one hopelessly lost human being, or a miracle of life, unique and magnificent, a shining example of the best of human being, full of possibilities, endlessly in love with the wonder and the miracle of being you?
It has been five years for me too and everyday I live and make progress feels like a miracle!
Yes, M. L. I too believe in miracles—the miracle of faith; faith in my myself, faith in the universe, faith in my God, and faith in the healing power that is within us all. That faith, that in spite of all the pain, the darkness of the pit, the lonliness of despair, remained flickering there, pulling me out of the fires of hell, that made me want to live even if I had lost everything. Faith that I saw the truth, the reality, and that if I was the only one in the world who saw it, it was still TRUE, still REALITY, and I wasn’t going to let it kill me or kill my faith.
A
I too am a believer in miracles and in the power of God. Even though he was sucking my energy and drawing me down into the dark pit, somehow I found the courage to get out of the relationship and stay out.
M.L.
I sure do relate to so much of your words.
I think I have mastered being realistic about Sociopaths and what they are and are not capable of… and what happened and all that…. but the celebration of me hasn’t quite started yet for me.
I need to work on this. I have been putting it off for various reasons… I think the same one that sucked me into the black hole of the Bad Man… to quote the words of a song, “I’m waiting for my real life to begin.”
I have to stop this. I know this is it… but it’s not what I wanted at all.
Thank you everyone. You are all miracles to me. You are inspiring.
And Aloha — Recently I read somewhere that ‘wants’ are the things we see outside ourselves and say, I want that.
“Needs” come from within us.
Perhaps in ‘wanting’ what isn’t, you’re letting go of your need to celebrate YOU as you are. This is your real life. Our thoughts are the precursors to our actions which create the world we live in.
You are a miracle Aloha. Celebrate the miracle of you and discover a whole new world.
Hugs, ML
free; i can relate to what you say mine is in a new relationship and i feel bad that he is going to hurt her and lie to her ect ect. its been two months since he has been seeing her and i am just thinking what it was like two months in for he and i. the bad stuff hadnt really started to surface yet buti was feeling a bit uneasy even then. so yes it is a miracle that i am ok and have another chance at life and love but i do think about the damage he is yet to do to others he is young and has a lot of years left to do that. i am two months no contact at all and this is the first time since i met him i havent been calling or talking or seeing him, do you think he is squirming and ticking his mind over thinking what is she up to and why isnt she calling, i hope so and i hope he hates that i am not in contact. i get so much out of sharing here thank you all. there is a song out here in my country fo r the olympics its called i am ready to fly its really nice and sounds really nice the way the young girl sings it and evry time i hear it which is a lot at the moment i think it reminds me of what is happening in my life i think it is so approriate for me right now its like an angel sent that song for me at this time. does anyone know this song not sure if its only in my country.. thanks ..
The miracle isn’t mine. Atleast, not yet. I could list the things about my life, post p, that are good/better/best but they pale in comparison to the miracle that happened for my daughter. She doesn’t have to suffer through his “love” and secrets anymore. She has a chance to be healthy and whole and free from his lies and his touch.
I get my miracle if/when he is sentenced to prison for his crimes against my child. When I no longer have to literally stand guard over my children- then I can relax. Then I can be free.
I genuinely would like to know HOW you become free. Not from the psychopath, I have already done that, but from the past hurts. To move forward and like yourself again and just be ok.
I have read everything I can to get myself healed but have still not been able to really apply it. Now I pretty much live my life, “head down, mouth shut” and do not want to put myself out there for more judgement from people. My hands are shaking so bad even now as I type this. Fear I guess.
If anyone has been stuck like I have been this past year and can give me some direction, I would sure appreciate it.
rperk6069,
It takes time. I have a long ways to go in this healing phase, but I am so much further along this month than last month. My hands, also, were shaking like crazy, but they have stopped. You have to see yourself as having value. It truly does not matter what others think of you. If you are living a genuine, good life, then who cares what others think?
I continue to have flashbacks, and break into tears out of the blue, but this is all healthy. Our minds have to slowly work out all the confusion and the pain we have been dealing with.
I know that just because I am moving forward today doesn’t mean that tomorrow I will not slide back again. But, any progress is still progress.
Do things for yourself, that you enjoy doing. Have faith that you will feel better one day, that you will move on into a better place. No one deserves to live in fear.
Free: We have many similarities in our stories, but differences also. He was run out of the country early by my husband after he found out about our relationship. I had broken off the affair just the week before.
The S had already made the plan to move, but would not tell me, even after insistent asking. He was telling everyone else about his plans, but not me, supposedly one of the most important people in his life. Right!
It is good he is not here. Not only because of me, but because many people now know who he really is and would not readily welcome him back. Plus, it keeps me from doing things I might regret as I’m still not in the loving kindness phase of the forgiveness aspect of the relationship.
The thing that is hard is that there was no closure; I was too emotional to say what I really wanted to say to the cad. Too choked up with all the stuff from him and past relationships; I needed time to sort it out. I’m still sorting.
Black days do come, triggered by conversation overheard at a party, or my own dredgings up of some memories, but each day is better and the darkness does not last as long. Even the explosions are smaller each time they occur.
As long as we have outlets in our friends, therapy, and places like this, we will all heal well over time. Unlimited strength will show up at unexpected time; it will pass.
I thank the S every day for getting me to this place; not what he does or how he lives his life, but the things I’ve done and accomplished for myself have been amazing.
It is true that any progress is progress. Laying the shovel down was the first start; hitting him in the ass with it as he left would have been better!!!
Peace to you all.