There is no straight line to healing after an encounter with a psychopath. No clearly defined path that says, step here, go there. For most of us, there are no tools in our lifeboats that will aid us in the process of letting go so that we can move on to live and laugh and love again.
Healing from such an encounter takes energy. It requires a personal commitment to doing what it takes to clear your mind, body and spirit of his or her lies. Healing takes time.
When I first got my life back after the psychopath was arrested I looked at the devastation around me and cried. How could a once vibrant, successful, loving woman have fallen so far from her path? How could she have lost her grace and dignity by loving such a man? I didn’t want to believe that woman was me. I didn’t want to believe my life had crumbled to such disarray. But to heal, I had to accept what was and let go of my disbelief that it couldn’t be true. It was true. I had loved a man who lied. I had fallen into his web and let go of all that I had held true.
Stepping Into Acceptance
That was my first step. Acceptance. Acceptance of my life that day, in that moment. It was in tatters. My home was gone. My life savings evaporated. My belongings disappeared. I had to accept where I was at without falling victim to wishing, ”˜if only’. I had to accept that I had done things that hurt my daughters, my family, my friends, myself. I had to accept that in order to keep the appearance of that relationship alive, I too had lied, deceived and manipulated. In giving into him I had to accept that I had given up on me to the point that I no longer existed as a separate individual. I had conspired with him in my destruction. I had to accept I was a victim of abuse.
Acceptance was hard. Facing the truth of what I had done and what I had become hurt. But, to be free of the past I had to face myself and love myself for the wounded, abused woman that I was and acknowledge that I did not have to stay there. I had to accept that only I could create the change in my life that I desired, that it was up to me. If I wanted to move beyond his abuse, move away from that painful place I found myself in, I would need to find my courage and turn up for myself so that I could step into forgiveness.
The Gift of Forgiveness
And that was my second step. Forgiveness. For all that I had done and said and become that hurt me and everyone in my life. For, no matter how blind or stupid or gullible I had been, no matter how unintentional my actions, I had betrayed the sacred trust I entered into when I gave birth to my daughters. In my betrayal of that trust, I had broken my commitment to be a conscious and loving mother that they could count on to be there for them when they needed me.
Truth was, I hadn’t been there for them. In keeping myself locked in that man’s unholy embrace, I had hurt them. They too had suffered through what he had done, who I had become and what had become of me. For all of us to heal, I needed to forgive myself and to ask for their forgiveness and be willing to accept their right to be angry without picking up their anger for them. In forgiveness, I could lovingly let them move through their pain without forcing them to let it go before they were ready. And in giving them that grace, I gave myself the grace to feel my feelings, without having to deny them, denigrate them, or escape them through searching for myself in someone else’s arms.
My Commitment to Myself
Through forgiveness, I found myself taking my third step. Commitment. To myself, to my daughters, to those who love me. Through my commitment to do what was loving and necessary to get what I needed in my life, I made a commitment to turn up for me, without fear, without judgement, without hesitation. I made a commitment that I would honour my journey, no matter how painful, and keep myself safe on the path to healing by not falling back into remorse, self-denigration, self-abasement and guilt. By committing myself to love myself, warts and all, I gave myself the grace and space to move into my fourth loving step.
Embracing Gratitude
Gratitude. Yes, he had hurt me. Betrayed me. But I was alive. I had the chance to heal, the opportunity to begin again. By stepping into an attitude of gratitude I chose to create harmony, not discord, with all my words and actions. To bemoan what he had done, to focus on his misdeeds would have held me pinioned to the pain of his passing through my life. I deserved better. And so, I embraced gratitude and let regret and remorse go. I did not need to get even with him. I did not need revenge. What I needed was to find my peace of mind, to create a life of harmony without him in it. Every night I wrote out my list of gratitudes, I thanked my angels, God, the Divine. I gave thanks for my life, my daughters’ lives, the love that filled my heart and the opportunity to make amends.
Making Amends
Making amends was my fifth step. Making amends does not mean putting straight other people’s lives. It doesn’t mean righting the past. It means, staying true to who I am today. To keeping my commitments, my word, my promises. It means consciously choosing each step of my journey with dignity and grace, treating my world and everyone in it with integrity, being honest and open about my feelings, my life, my journey. Making amends means asking those I have hurt what they need and being committed to do what it takes to give it to them. Making amends means knowing who I am today and being the best me I can be so that I can live my sixth and final step without reservation.
Living with Grace
There is no easy way through the pain of having loved a psychopath. But, no matter the darkness of the path, the rocks and potholes strewn across the way, the fierce winds that blow or stormy seas we navigate, living with grace gives me the courage to face life’s ups and downs without losing my way. Like a sailboat aiming for shore, my journey is not a straight line. I continually correct my course without losing site of my objective. Standing in my ”˜I’, staying focused on my journey, I am not pulled from my centre by the winds that blow around me. With grace, I turn up, pay attention, speak my truth and stay unattached to the outcome. With grace, I am free to be all that I am meant to be, confident that my best is good enough.
Star,
But I don’t know where you ARE lol!
ha ha I’m in Denver. It’s a nice central location.
Star,
WOW! That’s a beautiful place! I’ve only been to the Denver airport in passing to Wisconsin, but hey!! LOL! The mountains that surround it from the sky, are just gorgeous!
LL
Yes, it’s gorgeous here. Are you anywhere close?
You said you were mid country, something like that…
I live in close to Portland and it’s NOT maine!
LL
Star, I understand your doubts about Religion. I don’t think I’m really Christian, in the official sense, even though thats the tradition I hail from. I don’t believe that Jesus was the one and only son of God. I believe we are all the sons and daughters of God. I find the concept of immaculate conception almost offensive since I think it’s another way of abjecting motherhood and women in general. Do I believe in the resurection? Only if Jesus wasn’t really dead, but in some kind of coma or trance.
It is a patriarchal religion and I have feminist leanings.
I don’t know much about Buddahism, or Hinduism, or any of the others.
I will use an AA cliche, here: I thank God for AA, and I thank AA for God. The faith I have I got from AA.
You may not be interested, but for what it is worth, the two peices of writing that I did early on in my recovery while I was trying to find my higher power that most helped me were, “The Road Less Traveled”, and “My Father’s House Has Many Mansions”. The latter is about the psychic healer Edgar Cayse. I couldn’t deny the presence of some divinity after reading that book.
Something else I learned in AA that I know rings true for me is this: Self centered fear is the primary activator of all my charictar defects. What is self centered fear? To put it simply, it is the fear of not getting what I want, or losing what I already have. There is only one way to get rid of this self-centered fear, and that is to replace it with faith.
Now how do you will yourself to have faith? I don’t think You can, but I think you can make a commitment to working at developing something for yourself, one day at a time. Seeking, learning meditating, praying.
I’m a bit new-agey, myself. A few years in I read, “In The Shadow Of The Shamin”. It is about Native American spirituality.
Mostly, I think God wants us to be happy. I think God knows of our wounds and wants us to heal. I believe most of our transgressions are not “sins” but attempts at getting our needs met, but that most of the time they make us unhappy, and cause us to suffer.
I don’t know if any of this is helpful to you. I hope it is.
Star, I realize you have big time trust issues.
You don’t trust people. You don’t trust God, and you don’t trust therapists. Star, you’re going to have to let someone or something in or you’ll always have these feelings inside you.
Honesty, Openmindedness, and Willingness. That is HOW we recover.
I feel intense resistance from you. It’s natural to resist what most scares us.
If you have abandonment issues from childhood, you probably never internalized your parents love and learned to love yourself. Our parents love is also often our template for Gods love. So it would make sense if you also feel abandoned by God.
I prayed to God for over a year for help to leave spath. I prayed earnestly. I used everything I learned in AA about addiction, I used the 12 steps. I was terrified of losing my home through eviction, (again.) I was very trauma bonded with spath which made it almost impossible to get away from him.
In the end, I WAS evicted and I went to a homeless shelter for about a month, but it was a blessing in disguise. It was my greatest fear, but it’s what broke the spell and allowed me to get away. It was Gods answer to my prayers. It was, in fact the only logical solution to my problem, but I resisted and I balked because I didn’t want to…I was too afraid. Self centered fear, again.
This is a long post and I hope it is of some use to you. I hate to see you so unhappy. (((((Star)))))
Kimmy,
That was an amazing post. I got a lot from it. What you say about self centered fear makes so much sense!
LL
LL, 🙂
Kim,
That was a great post above to Star, and I totally GET what you are saying about the “greatest fear”—my greatest fear was losing the farm/home that I had worked so hard to restore, that everything I had was tied up financially and emotionally here. The place I had been the happiest when I was a kid, my SECURITY, my HOME–and I resisted leaving here as long as I could, but when I did have to run, I realized that this place PLACE is not my security, not my home, it is just a piece of dirt–a spot on a GPS map–it doesn’t love me back any more than the psychopath can, it isn’t capable of loving or protecting me. I have protected the farm, I have loved it, but it can’t love me back. It is just part of the earth, it has no heart, no ability to love. It just lies there. Gives me a place to stand. I can stand anywhere. I can be happy anywhere.
Star, I understand your fear of trusting people, fear of being betrayed. If everyone you got close to ran away and betrayed you, it would be very difficult to build trust in anyone. So you would EXPECT that someone would betray you if you got close.
Just like this neighbor that you “got close to” (at least had sex with him) then he pulled back from you, hurt you, and reinforces again that when you get close to someone you get hurt.
My grandfather had a saying, “if a cat jumps on a hot stove, he will never jump on a cold one” meaning if someone gets BURNED by a “stove” (whatever that is) they will never approach a “stove” again even if it is not hot. Sometimes by just looking at something we can’t tell if it will burn us or not. The same with relationships, early on, especially, we can’t tell if that relationship is going to be one that burns us or not—so we should tread carefully in our approaches to that relationship…not get too close TOO QUICKLY. Once we do feel “close” to someone else though, we can’t expect that person to meet all our needs for companionship, love, etc. Relationships that LAST develop SLOWLY over time and mutual trust.
Sometimes though, when we are very lonely, needy, like i was after my husband died, we JUMP FULL ON EMOTIONALLY INTO A RELATIONSHIP before there is time to really get to know that other person—and in the case of myself, the other person was a P on the prowl, looking for a new “respectable” wife to replace the one who had finally caught him cheating (which he had done for the entire 32 years of their marriage) and tossed his sorry arse out. Well, I FELL for his line IMMEDIATELY and within a week or two I was head over heals in “luuuuuuvvvve” with him, he was gonna solve all my problems of lonely, insecure, needy, sexually, and every other way. Well, of course it didn’t work out that way, he love bombed me for a while, then started cheating on me, and things went down hill from there. I was hurt again.
I’m glad that you have felt safe enough to blog your feelings here. I think we all need someone to talk to. If talking to your imaginary image of Raymond helps you to be able to express your feelings and articulate them, then I think that is a good thing. It is obvious that expressing these feelings either just on line or verbally to “Raymond’ is a safe way for you to do so, and that you don’t feel safe doing them to another person directly.
I’m out of ideas on how for you to help yourself, since you have expressed that you don’t trust therapists or other people, on how you can make friendships, which you seem to want as much as you fear them.
Kim,
Awesome post.
The concept of Self Centered fear is very interesting.
And I believe you said something else profound earlier-
Which is just because I am not in am abusive relationship doesn’t mean I’m not addicted to them.
Deep stuff.
Walking away from it all isn’t just a walk in the park, is it?