Purpose

Good morning dear hearts...

This morning as I sit in my big comfy chair, fuzzy soft blanket (essential for creative juices to flow) over me, and a steaming cup of coffee beside me, I look out my window at the morning still cloaked in darkness.

It mirrors how I feel at the worst of times... the best of times I see the sun shining and stretch with the sigh of a grateful heart, for being here on this earth to witness the sun rising once again.

The darkness suits my mood or perhaps it is that my mood better suits the darkness.

Purpose.... I wake with no clear goal in mind beyond healing...

And I struggle. I've always had something to guide me, some purpose whether it was raising children, running a business, working to be a better paramedic for my patients, watching over my crew while they crawl into spaces not meant for human occupancy.... Always some goal or job to work towards and plan for.

There are so many fallen soldiers littered behind me, so many wounded relationships (work and personal) due to my time with the abuser. Everything, and I mean every damn thing was shrunk down to nothing in order to isolate and cut me off from anything outside of our relationship. The jealousy, the insecurity, the absolute need to see me have nothing but him and his friends was the sociopathic agenda (and yes narcissistic as you can't be a sociopath/psychopath without being a narcissist).

I know dear ones, I know the lines they give you. The reasons they tell you.... the silences until you toe the line. The physical outbursts to be completely sure you are going to make the correct decision. The times you're on the phone and they stop doing what they were currently engaged in, turn the tv down and just sit and listen to your conversation/s, and you doing your best to make it clear that they have nothing to worry about. You're just talking to one of your children, just talking with your boss about the coming shift... and on and on it goes. Until before you know it you've drank the juice, drank the koolaid right down and are well on your way to the death of your self.

These events all happen slowly.. insidiously.... cunningly...with purpose.

Oh, yes... with purpose. You see they suffer from a lack of self but they never lack purpose.

New supply, extra supply... that woman on the side they talk to and know it bothers you... but she's just a friend... The validation and ego driven need to feel manly, and in charge. The obsessive need to search and find that perfect female... hence the porn, the dating sites and the 90% fb female friends... all to have that love and validation they did not receive from their mothers.

....To cover the black hole that is their current soul.....

These discussions are hard; they're difficult, they're gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.

Why? It means that we've been taken from...

It means we've been stolen from in so many ways beyond the items kept that they well know are yours and keep them like a serial killer keeps mementos from each victim.

Sociopath remember? psychopath remember? The line between the abuses you are living with on a moment to moment, day to day basis and a serial killer are only a violent outburst away. They are so very similar in their thinking processes are they not?

Their way or the hwy.

Elitist... they are due, they are owed the good things in life.

They thrive on other peoples pain, they thrive on creating chaos and then sitting back and enjoying the show.

Oh dear hearts, I know this is all so hard to hear and to read because it sounds so cold.

At their very core, the narcissist and abuser in your life, is cold. Like a black hole, it is dark and cold and so very very lonely and they must fill it ,in whatever way makes the painful darkness recede.

Like the tides of the ocean they are buoyed by what the waves bring in... They are the tempest, the creator of their own storms and while they may rage and scream in anger and frustration....

They are the creators of their own unhappiness.

And we are along for the ride.

It's time to step off that path dear hearts. There is a... no, scratch that... there are many signposts along the way signalling the danger inherent in continuing.

Like a serial killer they need the gratification of being seen... even in their darkness.

They need it. Desperately. So desperately that you will be added to pile of broken souls that came before you in their anguished drive to fill the hole.

Here is what I am trying so hard to say...

They cannot help but reveal the monster that lives within. A part of them is so proud of that monster. They place those signposts on the path at times without knowing they are, and at others knowingly placing them to divert you. But they are there for us to see in all their glorious flashing technicolor...

I ignored... I kept putting one foot in front of the other.. .taking the hits, the jabs, the bullets of mean-spirited words... all because I could not and would not believe that I had failed.

The failure is not ours to own dear dear people.

The failure to reach that small sad broken little boy inside the man is his and his alone.

You did not waste your time, you are not stupid for believing in someone so irrevocably.

It points to your beautiful heart...to your ability to believe even in the face of outstanding odds. This is an amazing trait. An incredible capacity for love lives within you but... you get to choose who you give it to and that abuser? He is not able to receive that love and once you recognize that, you will be able to move off the path of destruction to a path of life and love.

Do this dear hearts... imagine your life with this man(woman) a year down the road. Not five or ten, just a year down the road. What do you see? Not your dream for you both... the reality... see the reality. That year is filled with more....

More pain...

More heartache...

More abuses...

More .....

You are worth more than that. Perhaps one day, once you're away, he will see what he drove away... perhaps. But if not, that is not on you. What is on you is your mental health... your safety... your peace of mind.

I pray every day for the man I loved. Everyday I cry for him, for his being lost in the darkness, for his pain that he cannot and will not escape. I pray for mercy and grace and love and peace... in his heart and his mind. A resting until he can see God... until he can see the damages done and see them with a heart of grace and forgiveness.

I pray for this while I live away from him, away from the abuse and the crippling fear.

Do not despair. God is good and anything is possible with Him... even the bringing out of the darkness into the light.

Do not think for a moment that I do not miss the sweet boy inside the man, the boy he was before the trauma. We are born with love and as babes we give it out freely. It is only through pain, through trauma that the monster is shaped. This is who I cry for.. that little boy who felt so much pain that he made a choice to drive all away.

That child inside the person you love does not get a choice, even now. This is the conundrum, the complete dichotomy of pain and sorrow. That little boy continues to cry and feel pain as the man does exactly what his parents and siblings did.

He hated them so much he became them.

Oh, I know they say narcissists do not feel remorse. But I would disagree.

That small broken child has a voice, its small but I believe it speaks to them, at times.

Like the still small voice that we hear that tells us right from wrong, this inner Childs voice speaks to them. I've witnessed it... And I call it 'sober' moments. They have sober moments where they hear and listen and feel. And then it is gone... in a flash buried under the self protective shell they put up.

They continue to hurt themselves... do you not believe that every horrible thing they do, every horrible act impacts their psyche? I believe it... and it creates a bigger monster every day, every month, every year that it continues... the evil grows within until those sober moments come less and less.

This is who I pray for. That lost and lonely and hurting child, that he would gain dominance over the evil that grows within.

Stay strong dear survivors, and live. And believe... in yourself and your love for others.

I pray for you today that He will shine his face upon you and give you peace and keep you safe, always.