You’ve made your way through a few months of NC…you’re no longer obsessed with thoughts of the P during every waking moment of the day. You’re starting to feel the incredible relief that comes with being free of the cruel cycle in which the P had you trapped. Sure, you occasionally still feel triggered…you might hear a song on the radio that takes you back to a moment when it was all PERFECT…when you were being idealised…a moment when you felt loved, adored…a moment when you believed you were living your dream. You might see a couple holding hands, and for a few moments, re-visit the pang of your loss. But slowly as the days pass, you are beginning to have less of those moments; slowly you’re beginning to accept that it was all just one big sick lie concocted to reel you in, and make you emotionally dependent on the P. You’re grasping the fact that you’re well rid of this disordered sub-human creature who invaded your life, masquerading as a human being. There’s just one big issue still at hand – you’re wondering why it had to happen to you; you’re wondering what the purpose of all this was; you’re wondering where the meaning of it all lies. You don’t want to become bitter, but you think you just might, if you find yourself indefinitely unable to answer that question.
This is where I was standing 2 months ago – I could not for the life of me understand, after all the losses and traumas I had already suffered, why this had to happen to ME. I scratched and scratched below the surface of all of it, trying to find a plausible reason. I started having a lot of trouble believing in a Universe that actually cared about me…I began to imagine that all of the divine power I had always believed in, actually ‘had it in for me’ after all. This made me feel sick to my stomach – after the trauma of the sociopath, the last thing I needed on top of it all was to have every spiritual belief I had ever embraced, taken away from me as a result of the sociopathic relationship experience. This would have been just one more thing he stole from me and another part of me that he destroyed. In my struggle to understand, I actually stopped searching, I stopped trying to find out why and I guess I even began to prepare myself to embrace what I had always thought of as ridiculous – atheism. I even, in some kind of internal rebellion, began to enjoy the idea of being ‘free’ of every belief I’d ever held on to. I felt slightly afraid, as without a core fundamental belief system, what on earth was I going to hold on to? Where was I going to find meaning in anything? I’d always believed this is ‘earth school’ – a dimension in which we are given the opportunity to grow and elevate our souls, to learn, to fulfil our soul’s potential. This had always given meaning to my life, and suddenly in the place I was standing, being unable to find a reason for my relationship with the sociopath, everything began to lose meaning entirely!
Thankfully, the answers I had been searching for came to me almost immediately after I stopped frantically trying to find them. One Sunday morning, I stepped outside into a glorious Spring day, and I felt invigorated – ALIVE in a way I am certain I have never felt. The closest thing I had ever felt to this invigoration of my spirit, was after I had been extremely ill and bed-ridden for a few weeks during my teenage years, and I had stepped outside again for the first time. It was then, on that Sunday morning, that I realised how sick my soul had been for months on end. I realised that I now had a frame of reference within me on emotional health, on joy, and on being alive, the likes of which I had never had! As Kahlil Gibran says: ‘the deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more deeply you will experience joy’. That was the first ‘gift’ I found myself receiving from the sociopathic experience, on that sunny Sunday morning. My eyes just drank in the colours of nature, breathed in the morning breeze, and I stood in awe of simply being alive. I realised that I was appreciating being alive and being free, more potently than ever before, as I had faced a soul death and entrapment, the likes of which I had never before encountered.
Amazingly, those around me started observing the shift in my inner world. I noticed strangers staring at me in shopping centres, and when I looked at them right back, they would simply smile at me, and walk on. I know they were seeing my inner light burning very brightly, and they probably were wondering what it was. People began complimenting me in ways I have never ever been complimented before. Suddenly, I began to see a whole new ‘me’…a ‘me’ I had in fact always been…but a ‘me’ I had not embraced since my early childhood days. I looked back on who the sociopath is, and seeing my qualities of empathy, kindness, conscience and accountability highlighted so sharply against the sociopath’s lack thereof, I began to celebrate who I am, as never before. In retrospect I saw that being so intimately involved with him, I had seen up close every single thing I abhor, and so I re-embraced every single thing I am, in contrast to him. I began a journey of healthy self-love, self-appreciation, self-nurturing. This was an entirely new and foreign world to me, having grown up in a family that was for the most part cold and dysfunctional; a family where criticism was dished up about as often as dinners.
My new-found confidence has taken me back to pursuing and exploring things I always enjoyed, but never imagined I was any good at, only to find I am actually talented in those areas after all. Those around me have delivered extremely positive commentary on some of my ‘creative pursuits’. I’m now even considering a change of career, based on these self-discoveries. Best of all, I’m understanding that without the sociopath, I would never, ever have re-discovered myself. The emotional disaster he left me with forced me to look deep within, to evaluate who I am, who I want to be, and where I’m going to. I have not only recovered all the parts of me I ‘lost’ inside that relationship, I have re-discovered and recovered parts of me I lost long before that, during my growing up years, and during some negative life experiences. I have discovered my inner light burns more brightly and more beautifully, than I ever could have imagined. I always looked outside of myself to find the light that would feed my soul. Now, I have discovered instead that I AM all the light that I need. Today, I’m actually giving thanks for the terribly shattering experience which has led me to this place, the place where I needed to be.