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Give Yourself a Break

So why can’t you get over it as fast as you’d like? Because you’re a good person with real feelings and real emotions. And you’re probably an empath.

  1. Peace
    A lot of us find ourselves waking up every morning, disappointed that we don’t seem fully healed yet. For some of us, it’s been months. Others, years. No matter how long it’s taking, give yourself a break. Understand that you might have a bad day now and then (or every day!). Understand that something or someone might trigger you. Understand the moments when you’re overwhelmed by anger and sadness. Take a step back and remember what you’ve been through. Unraveling that kind of emotional damage takes time. Not only were you in love, you were in euphoria. And you went from that kind of high to the ultimate low. Your heart was tortured.

    So why can’t you get over it as fast as you’d like? Because you’re a good person with real feelings and real emotions. And you’re probably an empath. Your greatest and most sensitive strengths were used against you. You were betrayed. It takes time to grasp that. It takes even more time to heal from it. So why do we feel the need to feel better faster? Why are we constantly disappointed in ourselves when we take a few steps backward?

    In my experience, the pressures for “recovering faster” come from the following areas:

    1. Ourselves. A lot of us are perfectionists. That’s why we fell for the psychopath. He offered the perfect, ideal relationship. It’s also why we stayed in the toxic relationship so long — a desperate attempt to maintain that dying idea of perfection. But there’s something to learn from this! Pretending to be happy when you’re not will never make you happy. You cannot simply decide that you have healed. You will have to go through all of the painful, horrible stages that every victim of a psychopath goes through. Emotions you never wanted to feel in your life: anger, depression, anxiety, paranoia, jealousy, and hatred. That is the psychopath’s poison, left in your heart. You need to rid yourself of that poison. And that will take time. I know we all want to go back to feeling the way we did before the psychopath. But that will never happen. No, instead, you will end up in a much better place. You’ll gain invaluable wisdom, self-respect, and compassion. View this process as an exciting path. Stop being so hard on yourself when you veer off that path. It’s all part of the learning experience! So you made contact with the psychopath. So you saw the OW and felt dead inside. So you screamed into a pillow. So you woke up crying. Good! Embrace these setbacks and be kind to yourself. You are doing the best that you can. Do not judge yourself anymore. There is no rush.

    2. Friends & Family. I’ve been lucky enough to have friends and family members who listen to my broken-record stories even a year later, because they know it’s how I heal. I talk things through, and I feel better. But some people do not offer the best advice. Even therapists! You’ll come across friends who give standard breakup advice: “Come out with us and get drunk! We’ll find you a hotter guy!” or “Yeah, heartbreak is always tough! Time will fix it.” or worst of all “It’s been [x amount of time], you need to get over it!”. None of that is helpful when recovering from a psychopath. If you don’t take the time to research and understand what happened to you, those emotional scars will stay and leave you damaged forever. Friends & family love you and they want to see you happy, but they won’t get it. They’re helping you in the only way they know how: from their own experiences. The only people who understand the miserable addiction and withdrawal from a psychopath are other victims. Find communities (like LS or LF or PA) and share you story. Keep going until you feel better — don’t worry about what others think. In the end, they just want to see you happy again.

    3. The Psychopath. This probably the worst one. No matter how hard you try to heal, the psychopath will come back. You can be sure of that. I went 2 months of no contact, got a new phone number, and removed him from Facebook. He found a way to message me anyways, and started calling me bitter and bipolar. The problem with the psychopathic bond is that we’re still very raw and susceptible to his suggestions. I began thinking I might actually be bitter and bipolar. Immediately after the D&D is when you’re the most raw. You’ll listen to anything anyone tells you, trying to grasp onto some sort of rhyme or reason about what happened. This is why the psychopath doesn’t wait long. Even if he has a new source of supply, he doesn’t want to lose you as a backup. He knows the condition he left you in, and he knows you’re trying to heal. His way of hindering that process is to mock or insult you. “You’re bitter and jealous and still upset! Get over it!” This makes you feel stupid and ashamed of still feeling so strongly, when he seems to feel nothing. Everyone says the ultimate revenge is happiness, but you’re still not happy. This all goes back to #1. He’s toying with you. He’s turning you against yourself. By invalidating your feelings, he’s essentially telling you that you have no right to be upset. Don’t let him get to you. Block him, and remember why No Contact exists. You are purging your soul of his poison. Who cares if you take 10 years to heal — at least you have the ability to heal. He’s disordered for life.

    Look at those three areas and make sure you aren’t letting them effect your healing process. The more expectations you have, the harder it becomes. Because then on top of sadness, you’re also feeling sad that you’re sad. See what I mean here? It’s really unhelpful. Deal with your emotions as they come. Did you have a bad day and write the psychopath a nasty letter, only to regret it an hour later? Forgive yourself! Did you become an unrecognizable monster when you were with the psychopath — drinking? Lying? Jealousy? Forgive yourself. He did that to you. He turned love into a war zone. You are no longer that person.

    Recognize every day that there will be ups and downs. If you wake up one morning in a great mood, remind yourself that you might be sad the next day. Just remember how good it feels to have those ups again, and know that some day you will always feel like that :) Ignore those who rush or pressure you. This is your journey. You’re going to be okay.

    Take a lot of time to love yourself. Not like a psychopath does! Just look deep inside yourself and find the qualities you value most. Whether it be kindness, compassion, love, empathy, humor, optimism, discipline, parenting, family, or anything! Love those things about yourself. You are unique and special, and now you’ve learned the ultimate lesson: no one can ever take those things from you. A psychopath latches onto you because of your strengths. He wanted you to project those onto him. And you did. But now is your chance to finally see that those things are your strengths, not his. They were never his, and they never will be. He is nothing.

    So, go take a bubble bath. Or snuggle under a bunch of covers :) You’ve been through a lot, and you deserve a break.

    I've written a new book about long-term healing. Whole Again is now published! If you would like to be notified about future books, you can enter your email address below. This is not a mailing list. Just a one-time notification:

Article Author: Peace