Everybody is recovering from something. In what seems like another lifetime, I was addicted to impossible men, getting high on the idea that I could change them by loving them more than they had ever been loved before! I imagined the most wonderful fairytales and committed 100% to the losing proposition of turning a bad boy into a good man over and over again.
Of course, the whole notion is poppycock! The whole plan was flawed from the beginning. Real love doesn't have to change anyone. Real love accepts people the way they are. Period.
The last "bad boy conversion project" ended with him threatening my life with a loaded shotgun. I believed him! I got away. I never went back. There was no escaping the fact that my life had careened totally out of control and I needed to do some work to get my life and my heart back on track. I chose emotional, physical and spiritual health.
Recovery started out for me like a ride on a SCRAMBLER, you know, one of those rides ... they might still have at the fair ... where you are going as fast as you can in one direction, only to be hurled just as fast in another direction? In the beginning, I felt like I was suspended precariously between hope and hopelessness ...
Recovery is messy ... Healing doesn't come in a neat little package. It has ups and downs. I pushed through some scary, painful times. I wasn't protective of myself. I wasn't true to myself. I had let him distract me. He was good at it! I had ignored so many warning signs. I got confused when he accused me of things I never even thought of. I see now that all the things he said about me were true about him! It's all so clear to me now, but at the time, my emotions were so jumbled up, I couldn't even think straight.
Disengaging and Breaking Away from an abusive relationship is like untangling from barbed wire and broken glass. Every move away hurt and cut away at parts of me that I guess I didn't need anyway. I had to let go of major portions of pride. I had to admit that I had made some very bad choices. I had to take responsibility for those choices. That DOES NOT mean that I, in any way, took responsibility for HIS ABUSE. I had to ask other people for help. I was trapped in a snare I couldn't break free of by myself. I had to let myself feel everything ... Shame, Grief, Confusion, Anger, Sadness, Acceptance, Hope, Forgiveness, Faith and Gratitude ... I guess I'll have to work on some of those things every day for the rest of my life, but the REST of my life is going to be so much better than it was!
I didn't ever have to do everything on my own! It's never was me against the world. People like taking care of me as much as I like taking care of them! AND I like letting someone else run the train, carry the load, worry about the details, run the show and drive the car! It's good to see how other people solve problems.
During the first year, I wrote lots of things. They're not classic poetry. They weren't meant to be. Someone suggested that I write my feelings in short phrases ... That worked for me because there were days I couldn't have put all my feelings in complete sentences. It wasn't about making pretty poetry. It was about getting the feelings OUT. Here are a few that did that for me:
Does he make you tense? Do you walk on eggshells all the time?
NOT WORTH IT!
You haven't found a partner. You've found an ulcer!
I'm missed a man that never existed
a man that he never was
a man I imagined him to be
just like a child's imaginary friend
but I am not a child and I had no need for imaginary friends
It was time for him to GO AWAY
An essential part of RECOVERY includes allowing myself to feel
ANGER!
I resisted.
I didn't want to be like the one who hurt me.
Silly me!
I'm not like him. I can feel anger and control it.
NO matter what he ever said or did,
He was still the man who held a gun on me.
IT WAS TOO LATE.
I could never trust him again. I could never feel safe.
VERY FEW PEOPLE ACT VIOLENTLY ONLY ONCE.
Most of us have a powerful need to believe that
we could never love someone capable of hurting us so.
There are times I'd like to pretend I never even knew that bad guy, but how can I encourage other women to "take the journey" toward healing if I don't warn you of the hurdles? Of course, you will feel longing and sadness! He wouldn't have chosen a woman that didn't have a BIG HEART! But don't let him use your own heart against you!
IF YOU HAVE A HEART BIG ENOUGH TO LOVE SOMEONE SO UNLOVABLE, YOU HAVE A HEART BIG ENOUGH FOR A REAL LIFE ... ONE WHERE YOU GET TO BE HAPPY!
Are you thinking that only you understand him, that if you just give a little bit more, he'll realize how much he's loved and suddenly change? Are you thinking that if you do everything perfect, he'll notice? You do know you are only fooling yourself, right?
It's okay if you find yourself wishing that things could be different. I did the same thing! I wasted months. I began to realize that I had two relationships ... one with "Sweet Pretend Guy" and one with "Scary Real Guy" ... In the beginning, he was one of the sweetest guys a girl could meet ... He said and did the sweetest things. He was so thoughtful. He was too good to be true. As he got more comfortable, "Scary Real Guy" started making demands. They were simple enough at first, but they kept getting more and more unreasonable. No matter what I did, it was NEVER good enough! "Scary Real Guy" was a foul mouthed, woman hating thug! He had worn a lot of masks, trying to gain approval, but he couldn't pretend to be someone he wasn't for long! How could he be a good man and still keep all his "bad boy" traits?
Abusers confuse love with control. They may never really know love for anyone or anything. It doesn't matter how sick they might be. What matters is that ABUSE is NOT LOVE ... in fact, they are opposites.
Charles Swindoll said "To love and be loved is the bedrock of our existence. But love must also flex and adapt. Rigid love is not true love. It is VEILED MANIPULATION, a conditional time bomb THAT EXPLODES when frustrated. Genuine love willingly waits.
Love isn't pushy or demanding. While it has it's limits, it's boundaries are far reaching. Real love is NOT shortsighted, selfish or insensitive. Love is Patient. Love is kind. (I Corinthians 13:4)"
Scott Peck, in his book, PEOPLE OF THE LIE, talks about what happens when people choose NOT to grow: We either get better or we get worse ... and some people (like our abusers) do get worse. They don't acknowledge their own wrong doing. They justify the cruel things they do. They "armor themselves up" for the battle they fight against themselves. They ruin their own lives to save their precious PRIDE ... They are like dead men walking ... living only the part of their lives they are willing to admit to ... That's what makes them "people of the lie". It's not the lies other people tell them that hurt them. It's the lies they tell themselves! Each time they lie to themselves, they sell a tiny piece of their soul, and some of them didn't have much "soul real estate" to begin with!
Well, that's not my story to tell. I hurt so bad back then that I was willing to do whatever it took to break the cycle. It wasn't easy but eventually I gained the tools I needed to make better choices; set better boundaries for myself; listen to my intuition andquestioning things that didn't "feel right" as soon as they didn't "feel right". I will do my best with what I'm given today, and I'll do my best with what ever happens tomorrow and the day after that, I'll do the same, one day at a time, until doing my best is a habit!
From the start he and I may have tried to
help - change - fix
each other
In the end I had to
help - change - fix
myself
into
THE SURVIVOR THAT IS ME
I have more strength than I ever knew
I SURVIVED
every single thing that ever happened to me
You can survive too
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