on Lost Caged Friends

I've only heard snippets about them--the couple that I used to know--tiny snapshots of their lives now, percolated through overheard fireside conversations with the ex, filtered through the eyes and ears of my Littles. I've never seen them. Haven't heard anything from them since things went south with the Narc. Apparently, they've been sufficiently entombed inside his lies. The camping rendezvous where they met my Littles and the Narc atop a mountain triggered bits of the old pain seeping in again. 

Now, don't get me wrong. They are gone. The N divorce truth serum revealed the absence of integrity and character in them. But, as always, somehow, I don't want to believe these things about them. I thought they were different. Of all the old friends, I would not have pegged them as the ones that would never question the stories they've been told. They seemed to be different. But, the narc truth serum applied to friendships is just that--the best damn truth litmus test on the market. You may hate the results, even want to challenge them umpteen bazillion times but accuracy levels are off the charts and while sometimes Time has a way of deteriorating the results, the truth is ultimately there if one is willing to face it.

And so I am facing it. I grieve once again, the loss of friendship, made more acute by the accompanying pain of wanting to reach out to those that once were familiar--those that once seemed to see me--the real me. I grieve the pain of intensely wanting to share the truth of my experience in what happened while a marriage imploded in upon the collapsed soul-less shell of a man. The haunting images of the past of what might have been--of sitting round a campfire, atop Dallas Divide, sipping a glass of wine, sharing conversation and laughter, reminiscing about the old stories of yesteryear.   

 

Each time I have to let go in these kinds of ways, I get a little more of the sense that I am backing away from a prison that bars them in, as much as it bars me out. 

Healing Decisions

This week I quarantined a decision I had to make--separated off from it--put it in isolation far from any bit of residual, entangled, bitterness or anger--not because I needed to in order to survive as I have needed to in the past, but because I wanted to for the sake of the real authentic me that I am aiming to become more and more. I quarantined said decision in order to isolate the amazing healer part of me that does beautiful compassionate things in the world. That healer needed to be in isolation from the damaged, sad, sometimes spiteful parts of me that are still learning how to be in the world again, post narcopalypse. It was the right thing to do.

All the same it was a mighty struggle to do the right thing that healer part instinctively could do without even thinking or batting an eye.

I'm certain all the therapists and narc abuse recovery experts would likely tell me to draw a boundary line in the sand. They'd encourage me to hold my ground, to not give valuable information to the narc. I'm sure some might deem my actions a fawn response of cPTSD variety in some manner and therefore a trapped-in-trauma-and-thus-unhealed or "stuck" response.

But that was not the space from whence the decision originated. The decision was born of the rich ground near the heart of healing--the soul space. A sacred, powerful space, it flows as the source from whence any healing runs--something that gets tapped or touched upon when real healing shit happens. Compassion, unfettered kindness, empathy, and mercy linger there. It's not a space controlled by said healer, its more a space visited by healer types, entrusted to healers to protect or to act as guides to. It's not a space anyone ought fuck with, generally speaking, as I'm not sure the kharmic righting of such would be good for the fucker. Almost like if you curse that soul space the curse ricochets back upon you.

And so I made a decision to mercifully give helpful, information to my ex. The as of yet still wounded parts of me wanted to hold back said information, clenched in spite.

But this time I chose to authentically give--not out of some sort of fawn response, not out of obligation, not out of guilt, not out of fear--I chose to give because I am a healer and that is who I am. And that is the most powerful, authentic source of everything good in me and who I want to become more fully, and so I walk further towards my own becoming. And that choice is oddly enough, furthering my own healing.