Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
Healing does not always look like what “I” think it should look. Last week’s post was another example. I checked it late in the evening and read many posts that sounded like my post was doing more harm than good to some. Frankly, it made me uncomfortable for a moment and I needed to think about what I was feeling. I’d prefer everyone to say wonderful things about these posts and get well immediately, but that is not how it works.
The Truth often makes us uncomfortable, because it means that we have a choice, and can do something about how we are feeling. The absolute hardest lesson for me to learn was that I am not a victim (there I go again!). If I am not responsible for my own happiness, then who is? Healing is not always easy. It often takes courage, faith and endurance, but it is always available. It IS up to us.
My experience was, and continues to be, that healing does not always look like I think it should look. In fact, sometimes it appears to be destructive, hurtful and scary. This is where Faith and fellowship come in.
Personally, I needed the help of others sharing their own personal experience as it related to my own journey. Many of them “thought” they were being harmed too, when in fact, they were on the road to Healing. This gave me hope when I needed it most”¦when things looked the worst.
The gift of this site is that Lovefraud provides a place where people can share and help each other. Those that have been through this and healed return to help others and that is a beautiful thing. I call it A Miracle.
For the ones returning to help, what was once a nightmare of pain and suffering has now become a beacon of peace, hope and freedom for others. I am pretty sure none of us saw that coming when we were at our darkest moments.
I certainly never thought my experience with my dad killing people would be a “good” experience”¦But hey, what do I know anyway??? Certainly not enough to tell someone else what Healing should look like! I do know that it feels good and for that”¦I am forever grateful!
Today is a great day for A Miracle!
A Course In Forgiving begins January 19, 2012. I did not come here to promote The Course, but to offer it to those that feel moved to do something more about the pain in their lives.
If you registered for The Course and have NOT received an email from me, please re-register, or email me at travis@victorythroughpeace.com.
There is no fee of (optional donation of up to $25.00) for the six week online course. This Course is designed to guide participants through the Step by Step Spiritual Process of Letting Go with weekly lessons, readings and exercises that are intended to open the pathway to healing and Peace.
If interested, please visit www.victorythroughpeace.com and click the link in the left hand column titled “Six Week Course Online”. For those that participate, I will be available by phone and email to share experience in addition to this weekly blog on Lovefraud.
Peace.
Donna Andersen
Travis,
I certainly agree with you. When I first started Lovefraud.com, my goal was to warn the public that con men were out there so that people wouldn’t lose their money. Helping people heal from the trauma of their experiences was not my objective.
But Lovefraud took on a life of its own, and became a community of people helping each other overcome the trauma. Healing is often a bumpy process, which is apparent in the comments that readers post.
I am grateful to everyone who has contributed to Lovefraud, making it a community dedicated to personal recovery and growth.
ErinBrock
Travis,
Thank you for this opportunity you are sharing with our ‘fellowship’ here at LF.
Healing is a camelion…..it changes faces for each of us. We never know when our breakthrough moments come, and usually they blindside us.
This is one of the reasons I believe……..everything happens for a reason.
Thank you again!
XXOO
EB
Oneday
Hello,
“Oneday” here. Last night was a scary experience for me. After getting into a discussion (fruitlesss) about behavior and the state of our relationship, my husband started to “gaslight” me. He insists that a few things happened a certain way and I know for a fact they did not. He said “then I must be going crazy. I think I am going to check myself in to a mental institution for a few days, months, years….” He then walked to the closet started to put on some jeans, shirt and I approached him asking him what he was going on, and could he just sit down. He kept walking and then he (seemed) to walk out the door leading to the garage. We have an alarm that chimes whenever a door is opened and I heard the chime and I heard the door downstairs near the garage. BUT I never heard the car start or the garage door open.
I started to feel scared. This is 11:30 p.m. at night and I have a daughter sleeping in the house in her room not far from ours. Again, I listen…I hear no garage door, no starting of the car. So I start feeling this very uneasy feeling in my gut. I go downstairs and start to feel like maybe he didn’t leave the house, maybe he is INSIDE the house just hiding someplace. A very creepy, odd feeling. I start to feel a little unsafe. I then say out loud, “If you are down here, please say something because I am scared.”
No reply.
I walk over to the garage, open the door a slight bit (few inches) peer out and notice all cars still in the garage…so yes, he is someplace around here. Maybe in the house??
AGAIN, I start to talk a little louder so maybe he can hear me if he is hiding someplace…asking him to please let me know where he is, I told him I noticed the cars were still here so he must be someplace in the house and I am now very scared.
Silence ensues. I then say that if he doesn’t respond then I will call the police.
Nothing.
My daughter upstairs hears me and gets upset…”Mom what is going on. Why are you going to call the police?”
I rush upstairs to try to calm her down and explain that her father was upset (she’s seen it before) and he left or I think he did but I’m not sure where he is at.
She becomes frightened and starts to feel like she’s going to throw up.
I literally have no clue what to do…call the cops? Call a friend? I call a friend who is slightly aware of my maritial situation. She is concerned and offers to drive right over. I explain that I can’t find him and I think it is possible that he is in the house.
At this point, I am pretty terrified. I just want to run out the front door and go to a hotel with my daughter. But I don’t want to upset her.
Anyway, I ended up calling my husband’s cell phone number. He answers “Yeah?” “Where are you?? This is really freaking me out and Kris is awake and upset. What is going on?”
“I’m in the garage” he tells me.
How scary and creepy is this? I just want it over.
I slept in the same bed in the guestroom last night with my daughter and I’m going to hire the attorney asap today. THIS is just bullshit.
He, of course, offers a “sorry” before coming back to bed.
I let my daughter sleep in today since we were up from 11:30 – 1:30 a.m. last night dealing with this type of behavior.
This is a helluva way for a child to grow up.
I was just so scared he was going to pop out of the closet and do something scary. He tells me that “you saw me in the garage” when I opened the door a few inches to peer out there. AND the truth is I didn’t see him at all. Point is, he’s a lunatic.
God help me today.
Thank you for letting me share this….I need some support.
Thank you.
Ox Drover
Dear OneDay,
I’m sorry for your experience last night but glad that it made you decide too call an attorney and be DONE with this as quickly as possible.
Your husband ACCOMPLISHED what he set out to do—scare you and scare your child. That’s what they do.
The road to and through divorce will NOT be without bumps but you will be better off without this gaslighting and without this being frightened.
Hang tough! God bless.
Ox Drover
Travis, I thought your article last time was good, I was sort of unsure about the opinions of others on it, but I am NOT in the same place that they are about the word “forgiveness” though I have worked hard to “work through” that word and my own definition of it as getting rid of the bitterness in our hearts for OUR OWN SAKES, not the sake of the abuser. Forgiveness is for us I think.
Anyway, I think you are right healing looks different for each of us, and I do agree 110% that WE are in control of our healing, our emotions and our feelings and beliefs and we must take command of those things and harness them for our own good, not allow them to be highjacked by the psychopaths in our lives. I appreciate your articles very much Travis and having both a sperm donor, I never really saw him as a father, and a son who have committed murder, I can relate to your situation very much. I do believe that GOOD can come from even the worst of situations though but we must MAKE IT HAPPEN.
sharing the journey
Travis
I may have been one of the posts that was unforgiving of the P in my life.
I am glad that you see that we are all travelling our paths and are at different stages.
What your post allowed me to do was to release a huge amount of anger–not at you–but at the P.
This helped me greatly and has opened a damn to my feelings that were numb.
Thank you
xxx
donna dixon
Hi Oneday,
Towards the end of my marriage I had become so scattered I was sure I must be going crazy. I was in such “shell shock” that I just couldn’t grasp how a wonderful marriage had gone so bad…..well during this time I felt it took a huge toll on my daughter. Mine was in her late teens at the time time but I look back and really think I wasn’t there for her totally and a lot of that had to do with being in the path of the Spath!!
I don’t know how old your daughter is but your mental state means everything to you and to HER. You are making the right decision. Any father (and believe me, I know this first hand) that can play the kind of games yours and mine have played with little regard as to how it affects their children is scum.
Mine is still playing games with my daughter but we are both in a better place to deal/or not deal with it.
Travis ~ You are a HUGE inspiration for all of us. Please keep posting!!! Many thanks!!
New Beginning
Travis, your post on compassion had a tremendous impact on me. It allowed me to stop beating myself up over having compassion for my ex-husband who adversely impacted every nook and crannie of my life. I now see this is the way that “I” cope with the experience. It’s neither right nor wrong, it’s just my way to heal.
Thank you for walking out on that limb, Travis.
Peace
~New
MoonDancer
I think I will always be a fence sitter when it come’s to forgiving the people who hurt me intentionally, with no regard for the life time effect and scar’s it has caused. Sure, I know I am responsible for my own happiness, now that I understand what motivated them to do the things they did I am no longer a victim. Yes my journey to understand ‘them’ did become more about ‘me’ and in the process I was able to let go of so much guilt and shame that was never mine to begin with..
The thing is ‘they’ look at me as damaged, not realizing they did the deed, if that makes sense. So I remain in no contact with them ( those that are still alive ) and they dont have to face the truth of who they are..because they are believed and I am discarded as the crazy one…maybe I am….and if so I earned it the hard way.
I like what Mia Angelo says [Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could of been any different…] Now that I can wrap my mind around…..I am not angry, anger takes to much out of my right now…
aussiegirl
“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different”
I like that Henry. Sums up how I feel too, which kinda makes it look like I have “forgiven”, even though I said I never would!
I do know that things could only have gone the way that they did go – that nothing I might have said, thought or done differently would have made one iota of difference, because the Superspath’s plan was the game he intended to play regardless of what anyone else said or thought or did.
I can’t say that I am not angry at him or for what he did to me – I feel completely justified (and always WILL) in my anger; but what I can qualify that with is this – my anger does not consume me, does not eat away at me anymore, does not affect the way I treat other people or the way I now live my life.
Whatever anger I feel, it does not overwhelm or diminish in any way the person I am today or the life I plan to live tomorrow.
That’s good enough for me.