It's a good question...and a tough one to answer.
I would guess healing might look different to each of us. I recognized my healing one day in particular when I was walking my dogs and noticed how pretty the snow looked sparkling in the bright sun. Prior to that moment, the world had looked utterly bleak – almost apocalyptic. I saw nothing but a ruined world and I, honestly, wished my children had never been born into such a world. (Clearly, I was in a pretty bad place. I also considered suicide, quite seriously. Which is when I finally acquiesced to anti-depressants.)
I was lucky enough to have a wise and compassionate friend who worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse and she recognized what I'd been going through as post-trauma. She encouraged me to hold on to that moment of dog-walking in the sun and play it back in my head as a reminder that life was also capable of delivering beauty and peace, however fleeting right now.
She also encouraged me to look for more of those moments. Lying in bed reading to my children. Feeling their tiny hands in mine. Disappearing into a good book (that didn't have anything to do with adultery, sex addiction, forgiveness or any of the zillion other affair-related topics I had on my bedside table). Anything that I could hold on to. She even suggested I take photos of things that made me happy (she's an artist...and very visual. I never actually did this but it's still a great idea) and put them around the house to offer up visual reminders of joy.
But essentially, it was by paying attention to the slivers of joy in my life that helped open my world up to more.
So healing, for me, came in slices. Slowly, over a lot of time (three to five years as you're no doubt getting sick of hearing me say), I was able to put what happened in the past and open myself to the possibility that I could still have a good marriage. And that, no matter what, I could create a life that gave me joy. Healing wasn't so much an event as a process. One that could easily be missed because it happened incrementally. But could be sped up by simply noticing.
How about others? My commenter and I would both love to hear your stories of healing...even if you've only just begun, even if you're not sure you ever completely will. What's working for you? What's not working? Share your story...
That was me! Thanks a lot for picking up on that question and a very good answer indeed.. you don't really ever know that you are starting to get past it, do you? And you can suffer set backs at any time that make you feel like you are back at square one again. Yesterday for me was one of those times. My H and I did the emotional needs questionnaire together and compared our answers, talked, laughed.. and I thought, wow, this is good.. we are communicating, thinking, constructing. Then I said the unthinkable.. "just because this has gone well does not mean that we are over the hurdle". After all it has only been one month since DDay. To which his answer was "Oh, where did you read that?" He was not being sarcastic but notably irritated that what he thought was the nail in the coffin of the blues and mourning and the start of the road forward, was for me just a side step before going back to the painful questions to which I still don't feel I have the full answers. So then of course it degenerated into a 'discussion' with tears and some mud slinging and then some more hysterical bonding.. and this morning we were right at the start of things - just like it was D-Day all over again with him grumpy and me crazy, reading those awful emails over and over again, looking for info on the OWs on the internet, composing and dumping the fantasy messages that I want to send them and yada da yada da yada da... Our therapy session tomorrow will be fun.
ReplyDelete- Janice
Healing can look or sound like a song... This is for everyone here because we all have the spark still! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteFirework
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from caving in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you
'Cause there's a spark in you?
You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down
You don't have to feel like a waste of space
You're original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will blow
And when it's time, you'll know
You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July
'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It's always been inside of you, you, you
And now it's time to let it through
'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on, show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, oh
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, oh
You're gonna leave 'em falling down
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
-- janice
Love that song!! Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteJust added a new "gadget" -- "Get Answers" where everyone can post their questions/answers and we can have a real conversation.
ReplyDeleteHope you'll all check it out. Would love to be sitting around a kitchen table with all of you...but this will have to do.
I love getting hugs from my children. That is a lovely moment for me.
ReplyDeleteI too have small things that bring me moments of peace away from the nightmare of my life.
Book and photographs are great- the right sort anyway. Nothing triggering.
It's been about a year and a half and it unfolded like peeling an onion. every layer revealed brought more tears. i feel i must handle this on my own and in private as questions and outbursts at this stage of the game bring rolling of the eyes and agitation to HIM. anger anger anger with a splattering of intense love which makes my head and heart heavy. so much internal dialogue. no where is safe. yet i cling to him at night alternating between spooning for warmth and rolling to as far away as i can muster in the king size bed. it would be easier for me if i felt the intimacy return--but it simply isn't there. no deep kisses. no eye gazing. no words of longing. he started the affair a few weeks after our engagement and i felt the void. if it's truly over--why hasn't he come back to me? i hate myself for staying often. mentally i go over scenario after scenario where i leave and dump him. and he gets to feel loss. and i'm free. alone and free. and all men scare me anymore. and there's so much else to say-
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
DeleteI can read your pain in every line. I'm so sorry.
I don't know the details of your story but it sounds as if he's done nothing other than, presumably, end the affair. So it's not the least surprising that you're still feeling lost and abandoned and fearful. He's done nothing to assure you that you're safe. And frankly, I don't think you are safe. Not emotionally.
Why are you staying? Perhaps it's time to get really clear about what he represents to you. Loving someone doesn't mean allowing them to disrespect us. We must always love ourselves first. And that's not about ego, it's about tending to ourselves, taking care to ensure we're safe, taking care of our own pain.
He needs to earn your love by being honest and loving himself. He needs to prove to you after what he did that your trust in him is deserved. That he truly acknowledges and understand the pain he's caused you. And that he realizes he needs to learn why he made that choice. And how to ensure he doesn't again.
Without his remorse and compassion, he's very likely to do it again. Not because you're unworthy or unlovable but because he believes he is.
Elle