Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
As I was wondering what to write about for my blog article this week, Southernman429 did me a favor and provided a topic. He posted the following on Dr. Leedom’s most recent article:
I’d like to pose a question to Donna, M.L., and Dr. Leedom”¦
Is it normal to go on with your life”¦ develop new relationships”¦ have new goals and new ideals”¦ years go by”¦ basically move on from the sociopathic experience”¦ but yet”¦ still feel a emptiness in a part of your heart, or a tugging at your soul”¦ a sort of grieving”¦ maybe partly for them, or about them, but also about yourself”¦ even though in hindsight, you have gained so much because of this experience and have used it as a springboard to a new life with a new mindset”¦?
Donna, I know that you have since re-married after your sociopath experience”¦ Does that bad relationship ever come up in your thoughts, affect your emotions or thinking”¦ even though you are happily married?”¦ At what point does this “go away—¦ or does it ever?
My experience with a sociopath
Let me answer the question by providing some background. I met my sociopathic ex-husband, James Montgomery, in July 1996, married him in October 1996, and left him in February 1999. In a short two and a half years, he cost me about $300,000, put me in serious debt, had affairs with six women that I know of, and had a child with one of those women. Ten days after I left him, he married the mother of that child. It was the second time he committed bigamy. I suspect he married her to get health insurance, because he had diabetes and I sure wasn’t going to be carrying him on my insurance any more.
I was divorced in February 2000. The judge awarded me all the money that was taken from me, plus $1 million in punitive damages, plus attorney fees. For the next year I conducted an international asset search for his money so I could get back on my feet financially. I never found it, and in May 2001, I had to bite the bullet and declare bankruptcy.
Those five years were the most emotionally tumultuous of my life. Fear, anger, betrayal, dismay, hopelessness, doubt, rage, numbness—I was wracked by every negative emotion under the sun. My stomach was always knotted. I couldn’t sleep. My face, arms, back and chest were covered with zits. Yet I had to hold myself together to deal with the divorce, get my business going again, keep my few clients happy. Frequently it all became too much and I collapsed into a puddle of tears.
I begged God to help me; I yelled at God for letting my ex get away with his crimes; I prayed to God to take away the pain.
The larger purpose
God didn’t take away the pain—at least not right away. I worked my way through it. Luckily, I had a wonderful therapist, a woman who I refer to as an energy worker. She helped me process the pain and see the spiritual reason for the journey.
I haven’t written this on the Lovefraud Blog (although others have), but I believe there is larger purpose for our encounters with the sociopaths. These traumas are opportunities for deep, profound healing. When our hearts and souls are ripped open by the sociopath, not only are we given a chance to release and forgive the betrayal of the predator, but we are given a chance to release and forgive the buried pain within us that made us susceptible to the sociopath in the first place.
But it requires work. The only way past the pain is through it. We must allow ourselves to feel, in all the gory agony, the traumas of our past that were brought to the surface by the deceit and betrayal of the sociopath.
It is a physical experience. It isn’t pretty. I spent many hours in the privacy of my meditation room, crying, raging, and finally collapsing when a piece of the burden was released.
In time, however, the pain within me dissipated. What replaced it? Love and joy.
Starting new chapters
To directly answer Southernman429’s question, in the past two years, there has only been one set of circumstances that triggered the old pain. It came each time I started a new chapter in the book I’m writing about my experience.
To draw up an outline for each chapter, I’d review my files, with all those massive credit card statements. I’d look at old e-mails, in which I tried to find solutions to my problems. I’d re-read my journal, where I wrote with raw emotion of the moment. Reviewing the materials brought back the knots in my stomach, and the incredulity that I let my ex-husband con me. But as I got going on each chapter, the knots relaxed.
I met my current husband, Terry Kelly, in 2001, about the time I finally decided to give up the financial battle and declare bankruptcy. I told Terry my sorry story on our first date—armed with the information that my ex was a sociopath. On our second date, Terry brought a copy of his tax return to prove that, unlike my ex-husband, he actually had an income.
We’ve been together seven years, and married for three. I have never been so happy. My life is full. There is an aliveness within me that I never experienced before. And it never would have happened if all the walls within me hadn’t been shattered.
The title of my book, by the way, is Cracked Open: How marriage to a sociopath led to spiritual healing.
Dear Inthebreach,
Glad to “see” you again, and to know how you are doing. Even if it is bad, “knowing” is better than “wondering” about how you are doing, so I hope you will continue to come here and post. I keep you and your child in my prayers daily!
It is all such a long, drawn out, UNnecessary pain in the butt to go through all of this “drama.” Having a relative like that, in your case an aunt, in mine an uncle (my mother’s only sib, her brother) that I call Uncle Monster now that I know the extent of his abuse of not only his mother, but his children and his X-wife. I have seen the damage he has done to our family and his children and x wife that was brutal beyond understanding. How my grandmother, and then my own mother, his sister, enabled him, made excuses for him, hid his abuse if possible and tried to “pretend we are a nice, normal family” and to demand that the rest of the family go along with this posturing and pretense or suffer the consequences “in spades.” Now that I am FREE of this delusion, free of the delusion that my mother is a “kind and generous” woman that she paints the picture in the community as being, but I HAVE SEEN HER TRUE FACE, and it is as toxic as a “card-carrying psychopath”—her enabling is so toxic that I call it “psychopath by proxy” because that is what it amounts to. Of course, she does not see this, and never will, but now that I SEE it, I can detach from the guilt in trying to meet her twisted expectations of enabling the predators.
If my mother had been born in India in the time of sutee and my husband had died, she would have pushed me into the flames of his cremation so “the neighbors wouldn’t think badly of our family.” The only thing she cares about is PRETENSE of normalcy. Whatever that is.
I’m glad that you are recognizing what your aunt is, and how it may have influenced your acceptance of abuse from your X. I too, had a choice, but was “habituated” to enough dysfunction that it took me a long time to realize it was not “standard family procedure” in every family as it was in mine. At least I am out of it now, and you are getting out and healing. Hopefully this mess will all be over and you will be able to move on with your son, without the influence of this toxic man in your or your son’s life. (((((Hugs)))) and God bless you and your son.
OxDrover,
It is great to hear from you. A heads up, I think my aunt and her daughters are trolling this sight. Don’t know what names they are using but I am sure they will be found out eventually. Can be very charming but their talk will turn to egregious getting even plots against perceived enemies. I told them how much this sight helped me a few months ago and they admitted they had checked out the sight but were silent about it after that. How you could be quiet about this sight is beyond me. It is so full of great advice, help and moral support.
Heck, I really don’t care so much at this point if they do want to play games or pretense as long as I don’t have to deal with them. I am feeling liberated having them out of my life and feel much less depressed about my pending divorce because I think they thrived a bit on scaring me about a bad outcome. It was constant negative feedback and that’s not to say I am not feeling negative towards this divorce myself, but I can see where they fanned the flames instead of support in diffusing some things. I did make a mistake in referring to one of her daughters and the children of hers as a bit indigo in nature. The daughter looked it up on the web and decided to take revenge. They do have a history of justifying some horrid behavior and some extremely self serving beliefs.
I think you just nailed them as a whole in the influence they have had and the damage they have done. That was an epiphany for me when you posted about being “habituated”, to a part of my family that is terribly dysfunctional and the past couple years I have been stepping out of their “standard family procedures”, as you so eloquently state this. I have stood ground on my personal beliefs, standards and morals and this has not made me popular with them, whether they are speaking malicious, vengeful things towards others, treatment of children, other family members or whatever else. In that sense I have sown seeds of bitterness by not being silent as I was in the past, but rather, I have spoken up for what I feel is decent, righteous and respect of others boundaries. Should I have seen this coming? Probably, but I have been in a state of weakness and vulnerability since my divorce began…and they have been hyper aware of this and looking back ,overly interested in every detail of my divorce which now looks as odd to me as it should have to begin with. They are a small crowd, but they seem mighty. 3-4 people with a common interest of kicking you when you are down feels like an army at times and at others I see where they are weak. When a single person tells you that you are dead wrong in inappropriate behavior and you gather your adult children to go to war with that person…just maybe you are wrong, lacking remorse and conscience or it would be a simple one on one disagreement.
I heard from a friend tonight that she has her meth addicted grandson convinced that I have turned him into DCFS and his parole officer for abusing his house arrest (ankle bracelet), and the guy is furious, has bad friends in the drug culture and the ghetto where he and my aunt live together and this situation is getting more dangerous as her criminal case approaches where I will testify against her for the assault. I assume this threat is that she is going to manipulate her drug addled grandson into murdering me and/or my child or something heinous is planned for us. She just isn’t going to stop and she is a violent, manipulative person. I guess it wouldn’t be difficult to manipulate someone that was using an awful mind altering drug. Her grandsons girlfriend lived there for a year while he was incarcerated and this woman has been in a rage since he returned home because she can no longer influence the 23 year old girlfriend and control the girls infant and toddler. The aunt was screaming for her grandson to go out and do some more meth within a few days after he was released, knowing he had not had any drug or rehab counselling. She has kept the carrot dangling and firmly planted in his mind since he arrived home. I believe he was off house arrest on October 31, so I have no idea if he is back out on the street using ( why wouldn’t he be with that kind of encouragement!) He does have a history of violence and was abused all his life. I have never had a problem with him. He has never cursed, argued or treated me disrespectfully, but I have always treated him with kindness and dignity…still, all these people are on N/C and I can’t know what my aunt is stirring. If he is using drugs she may be able to convince him I have done these things to him and enrage him. The police can’t do much with second party statements and third party threats until something happens. I can only hope and pray that she is not successful in manipulating her grandson to harm us or take our lives.
There are so many new people on here and I am reading their stories. My love and prayers go out to them. There is also some really funny stuff on here too. Laughing in and after the fall looks healthy…but for me there is no laughing matter right now. I’m sick with concern for my child and I can’t let him know how bad it is. I stand at the window and watch him when he is outside which he want’s to know why I am watching him.
God bless you and your loved ones too. I appreciate your prayers and understanding in a mess of senselessness. Do you have any ideas of whom I would approach in my area to start an outreach program for people like ourselves to have group, face to face meetings, tell our stories and begin a support group?
Love and Prayers, Inthebreach
Dear inthebreach,
If you have a shelter near by, you might contact them and see if they have any groups already going on support, and join one if they don’t then you mght ask them about forming one and be available to help get it going.
I am hoping to get one going here soon as well, but just talked to my son C the one whose wife tried to kill him, and he is coming home “for sanctuary”–to do some more healing. My son D is going to the other state to help him move house friday and they should be back here on Saturday. I am absolutely thrilled.
He had planned to stay where he was until just before Christmas but his roommate moved his BPD girl friend into their living arrangement and the girl is already getting on with her “drama”–a suicide gesture and an “emergency room visit” and my son doesn’t have the “emotional reserve” to deal with this DRAMA and heal himself. I am hoping and working toward making this farm a sanctuary for people in need of healing from abuse (non profit foundation) as shelter beds are limited in number and limited in time (about 30 days) and also limited or not available for women without children or for men with children, so I am hoping to fill the need for a bit longer term needs for these people that need more time and just SANCTUARY to heal. It is fitting that my own son should be my first SANCTUARY CLIENT.
Yes, the family “enforcers” try very hard to make us “toe the family line” and it is sort of like the Mafia, you can get it but you can never get OUT. In our case, we are born into the “mob” and we are taught to toe that line–OR ELSE.
Any time some one attempts to break free of the family, the family goes into hyper-mode to bring them back into line. Iknow that I have gotten back into line many times just because it was easier to do so than the fight the increased pressure to conform.
I am rereading Dr. Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Traveled” right now, haven’t read it in years and it is a good time for me to reread it. Some good advice in there. I don’t agree with everything he says, but most of it is right on good common sense advice.
I’m doing very well now, but I know that I can be DERAILED at any time I let down my resolve, and fall back into the old HABITS as they are the “natural and familiar” way to do things that I have done all my life, so conforming to the new patterns is not yet so ingrained as the old ones, so I am cautious to keep an eye on myself and continue to grow and improve. That is a life long process.
I continue to pray for you and your son, and keep you in my thoughts, continue to come here and read articles and blogs, this is such a healing place for us all, and we can hold each other up and support each other. God bless (hugs)
OxDrover,
Thank you for the information on seeking out a starting point for beginning or joining a support group dealing with p/s people. I will call tomorrow to the Center for Prevention of Abuse. If this type of support group exists here at all it would be there. I love the idea of the sanctuary you are forming and working on. It is a brilliant idea for helping others heal and have a safe haven. The incredible amount of information, empathy and support you have for others is going to be an enormous blessing for all who are fortunate enough to be in the presence of your care and there will be healing and good sound advice for them. Is it possible for you to get funding of some sort or even charitable donations as there may be those who are so damaged and suffering from their trauma that it could take a few weeks before they can function again? Besides the spiritual, emotional and psychological trauma people experience, I know from personal trauma I could barely function for a long time because my entire support system of friends and family are scattered around the country and I felt an awful isolation and depression for many months. Phone contact is not enough support when you don’t have the day to day physical presence of people to encourage you and help get you back on track of motivation to move forward mentally and physically.
I went to bed sobbing last night and awakened this a.m. at 4:40 much the same. It is depression and feeling overwhelmed again, but I am trying to fight it. Would be great to get a group going and I know it would be a source of strength and support for all involved. I think healing would come so much sooner because the nature of what we go through would be well understood-beyond what friends and family who don’t understand could comprehend. I would like to help someone else who is also suffering, get through this drag and drain on our souls. I think healing comes quicker when we can help one another face to face…a mutual healing of sorts.
Maybe this is what I really need to do too in order to start the healing process for my son and I.
As always, thank you for the prayers and wisdom. My prayers are with you and your children too. God Bless, Mercy and Peace. Take Care, inthebreach
Anytime anyone is attacked”..say a mugger”.there are lessons to be learned. But that doesn’t mean I thank the mugger. I wish I didn’t have to learn to protect myself against muggers! Maybe I’ve got weak biceps. Maybe I don’t know how to get out of a choke hold. Maybe I haven’t studied judo. Maybe I have bad posture as a result of my childhood. Maybe I’m fat because of childhood habits. Would I be better off figuring out what happened as a kid and getting slim? Would I be better off standing straight? Will I be stronger if I work out, study judo? YES. A healthier and stronger me!!! Even if I never meet another mugger, I may live longer and a healthier life. But sure wish I had NOT gotten mugged, none the less. Mugging me was WRONG. And who knows, maybe something else would have motivated me to change! Something a whole lot less painful!
We all have weaknesses”.every single human on earth. We all could make improvements. Sometimes, when something really horrible happens to us, it is the impetus we needed to make ourselves better. But the person who did the really horrible thing to me was NOT a blessing in disguise, in my mind. He is doing BAD THINGS, HORRIBLE THINGS. If I make changes as a result, the credit is ALL MINE. My PAIN motivated me, NOT him. And I had pain because I’m a GOOD person.
What I HAVE learned about my susceptibilities does NOT excuse what he did, anymore than someone discovering physical susceptibilities to a mugger.
EVERYONE can be seduced. EVERYONE. The book the BETRAYAL BOND really helped me. The author states a betrayal bond can happen to anyone (PHEW!), they seldom are alone (usually, but NOT always, there are previous traumas supported by trauma shame, trauma blocking, trauma reactions, etc.), that once you have a trauma bond (like in childhood) you are more likely to form another, trauma bonds are very durable (hello!), and they are about survival (danger and threat deepen attachments”.think foxhole friendships, think our difficulty in leaving).
Trauma bonds begin with promise that is later betrayed”a promise offered by power (they are your boss, they are your psychologist), by spirit (religious figure), by terror (child in a parent’s control) or by seduction.
In seduction, we believe in the story”(the tale that explains the situation we are in”hence they target those who are trusting)”the person..(something about them that puts their behavior beyond question”hence they target those who believe the best about others automatically)”the dream (some goal or something we really want so desperately”hence they target those who are hurting, often rightly, logically and understandably hurting) and the mission (some noble cause or meaningful vision”..like helping the poor guy”.that requires personal sacrifice”.hence they target giving people).
Basically we are targeted because we are loving souls who have often already survived bad things.
The book goes on to list the things that make a trauma bond stronger”
• Repetitive cycles of abuse
• Victim and victimizer believe in their uniqueness
• High intensity is mistaken for intimacy
• When there is confusion about love
• When there are increasing amounts of fear
• When children are faced with terror
• When there is a history of abuse
• When exploitation endures over time
• When the community, family or social structure reacts in the extremes
• When there is a familiar role and script to be fulfilled
• When victims and victimizers switch roles of rescue and abuse.
Anyway, there is much in the book about how to then overcome these trauma bonds which become addictive.
Another book that helped me is Emotional Rape. Three characteristics point to emotional rape: 1) hidden agenda 2) sudden reversal 3) you are left devastated.
Okay, time for me to get back to work! (speaking of addictions)
Donna, subtitle your book “Don’t try this at home” LOL!!!
inthebreach57: I just read back through some old posts and saw your blogg to me about your aunt wanting to be a witness for your soon to be EX husband in your divorce proceedings.
It reminded me of my EX boyfriend (who really is a good guy on most of his qualifications of being a person … but conveniently leaves out the ridiculous parts of his personality) … anyway, his dad died this past Monday and the memorial services were held last night in the Jehovah Witness Kingdom hall. The preacher who gave the eulogy was excellent describing Vinny’s Dad’s commitment towards his faith. His Mom and Dad left the Catholic church and became Jehovah Witnesses in 1960. The first 4 of their children were raised Catholics … then the switch. They had a 5th child while they were in their mid 40s and the youngest daughter was raised in their new faith.
Well, over the years the 4 original siblings in the family resented their parents for converting. So much resentment that the two oldest of the siblings didn’t attend the memorial service all together, and Vincent decided to make a scene and walk out during the eulogy.
A few minutes after Vinny left the services to go outside and rant and rave … I (yes I did) followed.
When I got outside he was ranting and raving that he told the elder in the church not to make a long eulogy over his father’s death and don’t have a church service … blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I said to Vinny “IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU” … it never was about you! Your father’s life is his life and this is his congregation and the people he spent the last 40 years with … get over it … because it was never about you! All roads lead to God. Period.
Anyway, you can just imagine the rest of this scene … what I am saying is … Narcissism of any form always perceives that the world revolves around them … always.
I would smile to my aunt when I saw her … but know that her being in the world doesn’t make her or anyone else for that matter the center of the universe. Your life is your life, live it anyway you choose feels right to you.
I wish you Peace.
Inthebreach, I think that those of us learn best what we teach, so my blogging advice to someone else is DOUBLE that advice to myself.
My sons and I are all victims of the Ps in our lives and the “Psychopath by proxy” (my enabling mother) and it has gone on for generations of dysfunction, but we are all determined that IT STOPS WITH THIS GENERATION. We would all like to help others to heal from some of the same type of abuse that we have suffered—the abuse of the psychopaths. We are working on a non-profit foundation, and we have a rather “heafty” board of directors lined up including two physicians, some politicians who seem to be honest good people, and therapists and others as well. I hope that we can come up with donations, but even if all we can come up with right now is out of our pockets to feed a single woman and her children to give them sanctuary, then that is what we will do.
Right now my son C has come home for “sanctuary”—after his wife tried to kill him, he picked up and went to another state. He has worked hard on his healing, but right now, he just wanted a place to come to where he could work physically here on the farm and yet have a stress free place of love and acceptance. Time off from “punching a clock” and meeting other’s schedules, to just walk in the woods or dig a fence post hole. He is more than “earning his keep” while he is here and I am sure will get a job soon enough as he’s had at least one full time job since he was 15, but right now, he needs the calm and peace and acceptence found here without having to stress out about a job.
So in a way, he is my first “client” here for sanctuary. We’ve still got to get a lot of paper work in order and our legal ducks in a row and I hope to be able to take in one or two clients at a time (apparently there is almost no way a single woman without children can get into a shelter, so the beds are not avaiilable for them, as women with children are considered more a priority.) Right now I can house 2 single women or one woman and children. As things progress I hope to be able to take in more with the infra structure we have available.
Just a quick comment to Donna…I think it was really your divorce that let to spiritual healing! Or so it seems to me in most of the cases I read of here, if not yours….it is the parting that starts the healing. No contact!
southernman429
Southernman, your story is so similar to mine, if you’re still on the site, please get in touch if 1) you’re in the uk 2)and she had a polish background, 3) and a made up illness..
Retribution…
IS she late 20’s/early 30’s with an 1 year old child and likes wigs and hair extensions?