Almost three years ago, Lovefraud published the story of a man from the UK whom I called Tom. Tom’s wife left him for another man, took their children, had him arrested on false charges nine times and wiped him out financially. Here is the original story:
UK man says sociopath stole his life
Now, three years later, Tom still hasn’t seen his children. His ex-wife and her new husband, who also sounds like a sociopath, have removed the children from the UK. They live in France, at a small town near the Swiss border. “My heart bleeds every minute for the loss,” he writes. “It is a living bereavement and a nightmare from which I may never awake.”
I asked Tom if he was taking care of himself. Here’s his reply:
I have taken care of myself and for the most part I am okay. Some days are worse than others. I do have my very depressed and painful days ”¦ but I close my eyes, dream of days and memories of long ago, sleep and they pass.
I have to deal with my health and look after my parents. My mother phones me and cries about her grandson all the time. She has post-traumatic difficulties and says she cannot connect with her other grandchildren because of what she feels for my son. She feels a deep loss and is constantly worried about the kids. Every open discussion starts with them [opening the scar] and ends with them.
I am holding my own and my health has deteriorated but I am stable. I hold my family in the balance on many fronts. I am keeping it together but the pain is immense at times.
I am working and seem to have bounced back somewhat to where I used to be”¦ the years have been tearful, painful and costly. I don’t think that I will every really recover.
Releasing the pain
How do you cope when there is no resolution in sight?
I asked Tom about how he is taking care of himself because that may be, for the time being, all he can do. Emotional pain weakens us and makes it difficult to continue the battle. So somehow, Tom needs to alleviate the pain, even though his circumstances have not changed.
This seems counterintuitive—how can he feel better when his children are still kept away from him? The solution is to deal with the pain directly. Pain can be processed and released, even when the source of the pain has not changed.
Pain comes from wanting things to be different. The solution is to accept what is, for the time being, reality. This does not mean giving up hope. It does not mean quitting the legal battle. But it does mean letting go of the internal upset that keeps us trapped, and makes us ill.
How do we do that? We allow ourselves to feel the pain and grief at our loss. This is best done privately, or perhaps with a skilled counselor. We allow ourselves to cry, moan with the anguish, perhaps pound pillows in our anger. We continue until we feel a release, and then we stop.
Tom will probably have to do this many times—the well of his pain and grief is deep. But each time grief is released, it makes room for healing. And from a place of healing, it is possible to find the internal resources to continue the battle.
THANK YOU
Breckgirl, that link is really helpful reading.:)x I found this subsequent one really usful too:)x
http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/loser/part-2.html
I am also holding your hand and walkingwith you. I understand the horrible pain you’re feeling. I think it’s the powerlessness that makes things so hard.
My mother is a S. I’m her life-long target. She’s so good that she’s been able to get my sister (who is one of my closest friends) to believe that I’m abusing my mom. At least she knows Mom is crazy, but she thinks I am to blame for the horrible things she does because I “egg her on.”
I’m in my own crisis and am confronted with ditching Mom entirely (the healthiest thing) or staying involved so my 2 siblings aren’t stuck w an aging, going blind nut job. I’d feel so guilty leaving them to shoulder everything. And I don’t think leaving would reallyhelp me anybecause, like the evil husband who’s stolen the kids, I’d still be in her radar via my siblings – sympathetic sister especially.
Just try to hang in there and take it one day at a time. Your kids will eventually come back. I believe this because there’s nothing like having your own children to help you see the screwed up logic of a SP parent.
My brother told me that Mom once tried to strangle him, but he was being a jerk so he deserved it. I asked him why he didn’t stranglehis own teenagers and the lights came on.
So there is hope.
I’M AFRAID OF HOPE BUT THANK YOU
ninalinda… Your post resonates with me, my daughter lives 3000 miles away, and although she moved willingly (to get married) and we still talk, I miss her so much… I am in intense pain… but I still get to see her maybe once a year or every other year, and I talk to her on the phone a lot, so I can’t imagine the pain you and others feel at this loss, or what others go through when their child passes away. Your post saying you have to go through the pain everyday, over and over, it is so sad. I am holding you in my heart, you are in my prayers, I wish I could offer some kind of relief.
ninalinda,
Your pain is heartwrenching, and we feel for you. Many of us have been exactly where you are. It’s perfectly OK to express your pain, let the tears flow, and scream it out to the heavens. All I ever wanted in life was a “normal” happy family, and the P experience took it all away. For quite some time, I lost everything that meant anything to me. All I had was a job and a roof over my head. I learned to be grateful for that. Some P victims aren’t even left with that much.
And believe me, I did quite a bit of crying, screaming, fist-shaking toward the sky, and wondering why. When the P takes your children, it is like rape–many here have likened it to soul rape. And the system, the authorities, often make it worse by blaming the victim and coddling the perpetrator. It is cruel. It is unfair. It is wrong.
No matter how bad it gets, hold onto the sure knowledge that you can survive it. Although right now it might not seem possible, know that even if you are totally alone in your struggle, this horrible experience can be turned into a gift. Your emotions and your heart are your strengths. You have a soul. You have the capacity to love.
Use this time without your children in your life to work on yourself. Read, think, study. Write. Get a counselor. Get stronger. Accept the reality in which you are living, and use whatever mental tricks you must (the plane crash scenario, etc.) to survive in the short term.
If you find that you are able to keep a small, secret nugget of hope in your heart, I would urge you to do so. I totally understand what you mean when you say “hope is my enemy.” I’ve been there. I could see nothing good on the horizon, no reason at all to keep going, but I kept going nonetheless, and today I can’t tell you how glad I am that I kept putting one foot in front of the other.
(If you are a religious or spiritual person, this can be your saving strength. A prayer in your heart–that no one on earth but you knows about–can sustain you through anything. I know this for a fact.)
Heal yourself. Tell yourself “I am going to make myself strong and capable, so that I will be able to help my children when the time comes.”
It may be that you will be able to reunite with your children someday, even if it doesn’t seem so now. As ThornBud says, baby steps. You have friends and helpers here who understand.
Thank you. I’ve been to couselors in the beginning but haven’t gone in a while. I have an appt tomorrow for one. I need help.
What do you do when the pain you feel just doesn’t stop? I fell in love with the coldest, meanest man that ever lived. He raped me, he lied to me, he lied to his friends about me, and then disposed of me like I was a piece of trash.
He wouldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, recognize me as a human being with feelings and needs. He absolutely wouldn’t acknowledge me as a person and therefore neither would his friends. He hurt me so bad. I can’t get over it. I never know anybody so cold.
Dear ninalinda,
I can so relate to your pain, and also to your solution. My P-son (my youngest of two) was lost to me by the time he started his acting out about age 15—he has been in prison most of the time since then, his last crime was murder.
Many years I held out hope (almost 20 years) that he would get out of prison and reform. But it was TOXIC HOPE, MALIGNANT HOPE that was like a cancer inside me.
I finally came to the conclusion that the child I loved was DEAD and the MAN who had his “organs” was NOT HIM. That man was a stranger, not my son. I even held a private memorial service for my dead son, and “buried” him. I got rid of all the photographs of him past the age of about 10 or 11, and as far as I am concerned that is when he “died” to me.
The pain was tremendous, and I grieved just as if I had physically buried my 11 year old son, but now, two years out, I am free of the pain of the loss.
Topday is the 5th anniversary of when my husband burned to death in a small plane crash here at our airport/farm, and I spent 4 of those years in the throes of PTSD because I was here at the time, and saw and witnessed the entire thing, but I am NOT having a melt down today, I am NOT still grieving, but am ACCEPTING of the loss of my beloved husband, and also the loss of my beloved CHILD. they are gone, but i can remember the good times with them, smile about the funny things we did together and have happy memories and not bad memories.
It has been a long difficult and painful journey to get to this place but I have done my best–sometimes that was one step forweard and two steps back, but over all it has been in a forward progression out of teh abyss of pain and fire.
No matter how bad it gets, or how hopeless we feel it is, we need to continue on the journey, THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL.
My faith in my view of God has actually been strengthened and it has helped me to realize that “God’s time” and “our time” are not the same, and that positive things can come out of anything, and there are lessons to be learned in even these painful experiences.
OXDROVER:
Job’s experience and your’s seem parallel in many ways. There are not words to convey to you any comfort, but we know One who has ALL Comfort -The God Of All Comfort. In the midst of your life of sorrow and pain, joy and light, you are able to comfort others. I can’t wait to meet you in heaven. When we know we are not alone in a pain that many others may not understand nor have felt to the degree that we have been allowed to, there is a sense of knowing God hasn’t somehow singled us out to suffer. I do believe the enemy of my soul has been after me since I was choked by my dad at 2 months old when he yanked me out of my bassinet and shook me for crying. My life has been seared by trauma after trauma, for as long as I can remember. I just read this morning that Bullies seek the weak ones to intimidate, and use power and control.
My faith has also been strengthened, and I know what surrender means in a way I never would have if these things had not happened. There is an inner something I cannot identify regarding life and the people in it that is as gift – a 6th sense. I don’t talk about it often, as it is holy and sacred. It is as nearness to my Creator.
OXDROVER, be encouraged that as you give to others from the bounty of your experiences, so too, will you be given the gifts that are eternal. Hugs, Housie