Just wondering what it means to you?

I asked my OT at our last session, and she said 'realizing you have choices'. I liked her answer. It made a lot of sense to me.

How would you define 'healing'?

To me, healing would be overcoming the symptoms of PTSD, as well as coexisting behaviors. In other words, no longer reliving the shock, the trauma, replaying it over and over in my mind, or trying to stop the overthinking by drowning it out in alcohol. Then, getting back to a normal, healthy functioning where I could work again. I was rereading through Dianne's list of PTSD symptoms and realize how many of them I have. It has been a year and a half now, but I still replay that moment, the shock, the regrets, the sadness, the anger at being abruptly left by a psychopath. No signs. No warning. One minute they are saying they love you. The next, they are gone on a whim.

I thought healing would be realizing that I was with a psychopath, that maybe that alone could help. I mean, I am supposed to be happy that I have "escaped", right? Reading up on all the research about psychopaths, diagnosing the person, realizing that the person wasn't necessarily who I thought she was as a means of finding proof or evidence of who the person was. But when you loved that person, the "illusion" as people say, all you can think about is how you could have changed the outcome, get that person back. I know, I am not supposed to want a psychopath back in my life, especially since she'd probably just hurt me again. All the justification and realization in the world can't stop that heartache and feeling of wishing things could have been different. You want to believe that there was something "real" there, and in a sense, there was, but after you realize that you were with a psychopath, you understand that "real" and "love" and "emotions" and all of their definitions for these things are on a different plane, like some other virtual reality. When you were operating in this world, they weren't.

So, that is it, healing to me would be walking around with an empty mind capable of being filled with all kinds of good thoughts, not the negative replay of trauma, feeling like a veteran who witnessed a bomb drop and can't stop thinking of the carnage. On a physical level, it would be the rewiring of the neurons in my brain, building new pathways and shutting down the old ones. Healing would be finding hope and believing in the goodness of people again, being able to trust. I've got a long way to go. I'm taking baby steps, but feeling a need to expedite the process. They say time heals all wounds, but sometimes it gets discouraging and feels like that time will never come.

Hi, I wish I had a majic answer. I have seen people heal and move on and know it is a reality but when and how long are still a mystery. It is a punch like no other that any decent person should have to suffer.

Continuing to reach out and express to us how you are feeling is a good thing, you haven't given up on healing.

Finding your center is the key.

If you are able to write, many times the picture will become less fuzzy. There is someting to writing that shows us an answer. Writing down your struggles can help unlock some clues toward healing.

You didn't do anything to deserve this pain. Would it help if you had a space here to journal and keep reaching out?

What happens when you relive the pain, do the thoughts swirl so fast you can't stop them? Are there specific thoughts you have that you can discuss? Any triggers that bring them on? Or is it a constant with no break from your mind reliving the whys and how things could have been different?

PTSD is hell, how can we get that center back? It is there but the pain is keeping it buried.

Recognizing the source is a step but the path out is the key.

I will be right back, have some doggie duties.

My heart breaks for your continued pain, the road is rough but there will be a way out, the work will be tough but the reward will be in getting the person you are back safely.

For me, healing didn't even start until after the ~30 years (off n on eight times) w/my Psychopath and now, facing the fear of(at least one of my two) having either inherited or learned some of the Psychopath father's ugly traits.

After many months of aggressive therapy . . . . and many more months of therapy in my/our future . . . . and the rollercoaster of hopelessness and triumphs, the following quote has become my savior in healing. It allowed me to hope . . . to actually embrace my tomorrows . . . rather than fear them.

For me, healing started (and continues)with acceptance.

"Acceptance is letting go of the hope that it could have been any different"

I had to focus on accepting who I am, and what or how it was I became (remained) in the hell of such a toxic relationship. Had to spend more time on me and less on him (had to cease investigation of every facet of HIS condition). I had to take responsibility for my thoughts and behaviors as opposed to spinning out blaming him and living in that victim mode.

I used to say I would die for my sons.
Now . . . I want to live for them
I think your OT gave you an excellent answer!

Much peace and many blessings to you in your journey.

Hi skyebluepaint,

Having some lightning but just wanted to let you know I'll be back as soon as it lets up.

Di

Dreama,
Thank you for your response. I think your answer is the key to healing. I am just having trouble getting there.


"Acceptance is letting go of the hope that it could have been any different"

"I had to focus on accepting who I am, and what or how it was I became (remained) in the hell of such a toxic relationship. Had to spend more time on me and less on him (had to cease investigation of every facet of HIS condition). I had to take responsibility for my thoughts and behaviors as opposed to spinning out blaming him and living in that victim mode.!


I think accepting my role in it has been difficult. I further think it is easy to get in that mode of placing blame, as you say, investigating his condition. Because, it is true, that in a sense I was a victim. Yet I don't have to keep living in destructive victim mode and certainly can't live like that forever.

Dianne,

To answer your questions:

"Or is it a constant with no break from your mind reliving the whys and how things could have been different?"

Yes, it is a constant reliving the whys and hows of what I could have done differently in the end, middle, beginning.

"Are there specific thoughs you have that you can discuss?"

Because it happened so suddenly, as in Psychopath only had an affair for a couple of weeks prior to coming home to me (and I do believe this is the truth, because I could sense behavioral changes in the weeks prior to it happening), the repetitive conversation in my head is how I could've stopped it. I write and rewrite a letter in my mind or out loud, that first email response after her bizarre, sudden cut-off letter. If I'd really thought about it, I could've figured it out, so I feel stupid for not realizing. When not redrafting that perfect letter, I am wishing I would've gone to visit her, help her pack, be the one who was there to listen. If I'd been there, it would've never happened. I know from her history that she enters a state of emotional hysteria when moving. She even said she "regressed", which one could interpret as she regressed into that childlike state of depending on others, or the psychopathic state of using others as her counselor. I could totally sense it from afar, but felt helpless to do anything about it, so just waited for her to come home where I could support her. When not thinking about the end of the relationship, I think about the beginning. After I finally acknowledged feelings for Psychopath, and told my current partner, whose father was sick in another country and I knew she'd eventually have to go home that I wanted to break-up, I didn't fully do it. In other words, I broke up physically and emotionally and told her I was going to pursue the new relationship, yet I continued sharing a house with her for 9 months until she left because she was dependent on me in the US and I felt an obligation toward her. I didn't hate my former partner by any means. I just knew where the relationship was headed, and was ready to move on to pursue a new future. Yet, I didn't fully move on. The Psychopath always resented me for that and I hate myself for not being stronger and taking the appropriate actions I should have to end a relationship. I guess it is a bit hard when you are gay. There is no DIVORCE, no lawyers or serving papers, so how do you make the end of a significantly long 9 year relationship official? I didn't see Psychopath as "the other woman", but she felt that way. Of course, she should have in the beginning because she was hitting on a married woman. Yet, once I made the decision to pursue the relationship with her, she shouldn't have had to feel that way and that is my fault. In the middle of the relationship, after I had moved out on my own and was waiting for her as she was overseas, I regret I didn't cut off all ties with my former partner. The fact I had any friendship with her also annoyed the Psychopath. I could tell her a hundred times that I was hers, but she would never believe it because I still saw my former partner, who always held out hope we'd get back together. In essence, I didn't want to be in an affair situation or put anyone else in that situation, but essentially it seemed like we all were because my former partner didn't want to stop seeing me, and I wrongly allowed her to do so. I just waited. I was kind of in this dream, fantasy world of waiting for the Psychopath to come home, hoping we could finally live together, spend the rest of our lives together, raise a family together, but she never came home. In the end she said to the man that she had a "sort-of" girlfriend, which may have been how she felt, and for that I feel awful. I mean, here I was totally in love with her, but I allowed my ex-partner to still see me because I didn't know how to get rid of her and I did like and enjoy her company. So, although I can focus on the end and that is where I am stuck, I feel sick that the reason she did what she did in the end is because I hadn't taken actions in the beginning.

But, like a psychopath, I don't think she honestly cared. In other words, she was so blinded with her desire for me she didn't think about anything else. She said it herself in the end, "I ignored the consequences." In other words, she just wanted what she wanted at the time. So, she could write the words that she was "hurt" in the end, but she never expressed true hurt or anger. She would express petty resentment or annoyance, but not sincere hurts. When I read her final letter, it was the first time she had ever written or said the word that she was "hurt", and I felt it just reading her words. All I wanted was to find a way to alleviate that hurt, and yet I couldn't reach out to her.
She was utterly dumbfounded by my reaction in the end, she didn't understand how I could be so hurt she had cheated on me.

So, that is it, wishing that I could've done things differently and had a real, complete relationship with her, married her. In other words, I guess, in a sense I am jealous of those who married psychopaths and dealt with their bizarre language, inability to express genuine emotions, and even lack of empathy, because at least they had a chance to fully realize who those people were and be grateful to get out whereas I feel ungrateful that I never fully could get in, in order to want to get out, if that makes sense.

Hi Everyone,
The answers you have posted here already are very helpful to me, and I find them quite moving in their simplicity. I am currently struggling with the question of 'who would I have been had I not been so damaged by this person who brought me up?' That sentence about accepting that things couldn't have been any different I found very helpful, also the knowledge that although I had no choice in the matter then, I do have choices now.

I am nearer the beginning of the journey, I suspect, so maybe my take on it is different. I would add that healing is calling things by their proper name. If you have dealt with a Psychopath, you have probably lived with a lot of lies, double-think and secrecy, and have been taught to shut up and put up, or possibly that you are mad when you try and speak out. Healing for me, as I am just now discovering, is about speaking up, naming him as what he is, dropping the pretence that everything was hunky dory, and admitting to myself and others that I went through something terrible. But here I am on the other side! There are parables in both Christian and Buddhist literature about this, about both Jesus and Buddha meeting a demon on the road, and looking it in the eye and saying 'I know you.' The simple fact of speaking out, recognising and declaring something to be so is often all you need to conquer it and continue on your way.

That´s why this site is helping me so much at the moment: for the fist time in my life I am telling the truth. I am not keeping his secrets any more, or being bullied into silence any more. Every time I call this by its proper name I get stronger.
Thanks
C

I just want a clear answer. My Mother is a psychopath. Even though I know she must not care and is a bad person. You can't help but want to find a solution and work it out. She is my Mother. It doesn't help that I have no Father. One of my brother's is probably a psychopath and the other, his twin, is still too young to give any support to me. I don't think there is a logical answer to it all. That is what I struggle with. There is no excuse or good reason why people do bad things. The problem is I am young and I haven't seen my Mom for almost 2 years but I know I can't avoid her forever. Even though I am a lot happier now and have distanced myself from her I know I have to see her again. I just want to know how to not let her hurt me again and how to not be abused when I see her again. I don't know if it is possible so that is why I avoid her. I would like to live my life not having to avoid church and the place I used to work all because I don't want to see her because she sucks my life away. I wish I knew how to not care, not let it bother me, a better way to deal with her when I do have to interact with her. I am afraid being around her and not saying that she is wonderful and perfect. I am sure that she tells everyone that it is me with the problems even though I tell no one about her. So it is hard to go to a workplace or church and have her in the environment. I don't want to fake it with her anymore but she won't accept my terms and she won't change so I don't know how to deal with this.

I don't like to tell anyone about my life though because I don't want them to know my problems. I don't want them to think that I am weird or have pity on me. I wish I just had the normal problems people have. I am afraid to have a child because I am afraid I will turn into my Mother and I don't want to put them through what I went through. I have to hope that I am not like her and that won't change but I am scared. I told my husband that if I try to leave him and have changed then I want him to keep the child and just tell them I am dead or something. I am afraid it will too much if I have a kid. What if I give in and become like my Mother and all the other crazy people in my family. I just want a nice life.