And so it begins...Spinning's 12 month ascent from hell

“That which is to give light
Must endure burning.”
---Viktor Frankel

One day you wake up and you’re a skeleton.
You want to paste back on the substance that was you but you can’t find it in the ashes.
You reach in and pull out dust.
This is when you begin to understand that this is somehow the truth you were meant to find as a little girl who just wanted to be loved. This experience, this dance with the devil that scaled you down to the bones happened because it needed to. All of the things that brought you to the dance floor in the first place must be examined, turned over, and illuminated. You so want to find the light. You’ve been lost in the dark for so long...

This is when the little voice whispers, wimpers, mumbles, rumbles.
This is when you rise...

He walks across your path and you’re not ready. Not expecting it. You know a little bit about relationships—you’ve had a few of some significance—and you sort of remember what it felt like to be paid attention to.
This person is paying attention. A lot of it. More attention than you’d ever been paid and it feels a little like waking up. Something inside you stirs. You do not kow you are waking into a nightmare.
You do not sign on to be a specimen in this person’s petri dish. You are oblivious to the great experiment that is being conducted on your entire life. You don’t know you are The Next Project. The complete dissection that’s taking place just feels like the attention you’ve longed for since you were a little girl. For once you feel really, really special to someone. You don’t know that someone is The Evil Master in the ultimate sci-fi movie and that he is attempting to craft the perfect Stepford woman. You don’t know any of this because his mouth curves around so many pretty words. He lays them at your feet while he’s messing with your head, but to you it just feels like love.
This person becomes all consuming. In the meantime, you are being consumed...

Skeletons don’t make very interesting partners. There’s nothing left for the masked man to chip away at. Somehow, he makes it your fault that rather than create a perfect Stepford woman he created a zombie. Numb. Half dead. All the hoops you jumped through, all the never-ending game changes, all the confusion and the silence and the sobbing and the confounding “you-are-my-soulmate-I-can’t-live-without-yous” have your head spinning. You don’t know what to believe, but you know you don’t believe that any more. He tries, but you find there is nothing left to shock, hurt, terrorize or confuse. There is a hole in your chest big enough to drive a truck through and you don’t care. You don’t care about anything any more and you can’t hope for a miracle because you stopped believing you deserved one anyway...

...That’s when a miracle happens. The miracle is you have survived. You are alive. The evil master couldn’t steal the most precious thing; the Spirit that wants to rise and fill the gaping black hole he dug out one spoonful at a time. The Spirit of all of those who came before you, who allowed you to be here, who gave you life, who fought and struggled and fell down and rose again starts to whisper. They were fighters who overcame many horrible things. They are wispering to you, ‘Remember who you are.’ You hear it and you know you must honor them. This history of your DNA cannot be stolen. It’s locked into your cells and is yours alone. For that you realize you must honor yourself, too, for it’s a honor to be alive. And so you rise and it begins.

It starts at the stove. Every day after work you force yourself to cook yourself a good meal. Chopping the onions reminds you how miraculous food is. The miracle of a seed that grows into a plant that makes a flower that turns into a fruit that is made up of the sun and the rain and the soil of the earth. Life is a miracle and you start to cherish yours. In your ratty gray robe you chop and stir and think of the miracle in front of you. You don’t realize you’ve started to smile...

You start trying to shift the focus off of chaos and self-doubt onto the known reality of the miracles in front of you. You have to force it, literally hundreds of times a day, to stop allowing disorder and chaos to rule your thoughts and to make room for the gifts to rise to the forefront. The gift of waking up to another day. The gift of hands that can feel the soft fur of your cat. The gift of sound, your cat’s got the sweetest purr in the world and she gives it to you freely even as tears cascade onto her back. The gift of sight—the twinkling lights around your kitchen window make the room look cozy and you remember how much you love that room. It is YOUR kitchen and you can do whatever you want there now...

You go to work day after day. You can’t focus very well, but at least you’re there. You finally work up the courage to join a community you came across more than a year ago...when you first knew you were in a relationship with a Destroyer; when you realized you weren’t the crazy one and that what he was had a name, a diagnosis, and it was REAL! You didn’t join before because you were too paranoid. The vanishing master manipulator became so omnipresent in your life you thought he could read your mind and that he somehow knew your every move. You still feel that way, like joining and posting things about him and the “relationship” would be a betrayal! You laugh at the absurdity of that thought, and realize that if it weren’t for Lisa E. Scott and The Path Forward, you wouldn’t even know you had PTSD and were detoxing from six years of insidious brainwashing...

...You screw up your courage and click on join. You toss off two frantic sentences about why you want to join and pick the only name that seems fitting... “spinning.” You don’t even capitalize the first letter because you feel so small and weak. When you’re accepted, you start to Get it Out. You post and another miracle happens. People hug you with their words and keystroke symbols. People tell you things that make you feel better. People tell you things that make you feel worse. You listen to it all because you know you need to hear all of it. You pay attention. You learn. Before you know it, you’re shouting ALL IN CAPS that the SICK MF’ER TRIED REALLY HARD BUT HE COULDN’T TAKE YOU DOWN and you realize that you are, indeed, rising...
********
My dear, brave and committed sisters and brothers in healing and strength, if you have made it this far I thank you. This is my first “blog” attempt, something I began writing 12 months ago when I realized the choices I had were to either survive or evaporate into nothing. With the help of my sister (who had been in abusive relationship 20 years ago), my few but faithful and trusted friends, Lisa E. Scott and The Path Forward and Goldie and the Moderator Team, I haven’t just “survived,” I’ve begun to thrive. In the coming weeks I’d like to share my experiences with healing, the things I forced myself to do to get where I’m at today...this most significant day...12 months plus one day No Contact.

The “man,” as it turns out, did me a favor. The D & D was the best thing he ever did for me in the entire six years of hell I endured with him.

It is my hope that everyone here will one day look at the experience as necessary, healing, and a catalyst to true freedom, clarity, self-love and self-knowledge.

Most sincerely,
(determined to never again be) spinning

Nov 5 - 5AM
ambrandon7
ambrandon7's picture

Thank you so much for your

May 18 - 11PM
liveoutloud
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That was exactly what I

May 16 - 4PM
lifeisbutadream
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Fantastic !!!!!!!!!!! Thanks

Apr 2 - 7AM
jekyll-hyde nomore
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<3

Mar 26 - 1PM
cjensen
cjensen's picture

This article resonates with me.

Mar 26 - 4AM
aurora
aurora's picture

Amazing Lady

Mar 26 - 10AM (Reply to #56)
TDbfree
TDbfree's picture

So true..

Feb 20 - 12PM
Libi
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Thanks for directing me to

Feb 4 - 12PM
Lulu_2014
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Amazing

Nov 23 - 10AM
HappyToForget
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Re-reading this at 9 mo NC

Oct 14 - 4PM
DixxieBelle
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Thank you for sharing this.

Sep 24 - 12PM
Narcphobia
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(NOT) Spinning

Sep 5 - 12PM
Goodbyesnake
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I am new to this forum. Thank

Jun 28 - 2PM
Learningthehardway
Learningthehardway's picture

This post brought tears to my eyes.

Apr 24 - 11AM
hope29
hope29's picture

This has really helped me

Mar 21 - 4PM
don'tlookback
don&#039;tlookback's picture

Thank you so much spinning

Jan 30 - 3PM
Tamalane36
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Thank you for pointing me to

Dec 6 - 4PM
Butterflystar
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The Spirit

Nov 18 - 8AM
Not-this-time
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Very inspiring

Nov 17 - 8AM
kevsmart
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Wow

Nov 17 - 8AM
Dragonlady
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Tears....

Oct 6 - 12PM
Samira
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Wow

Oct 6 - 11AM
IncognitoBurrito
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Perfect

Oct 6 - 10AM
STLLady
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Love this

May 31 - 2PM
pretzel
pretzel's picture

everything you just said

May 11 - 1PM
findingfreedom
findingfreedom's picture

wow! this blessed me today as

Apr 9 - 10PM
BrokenBlonde
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Thanks for sharing..

Apr 9 - 10PM
Breakingfree24
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Inspired

Apr 9 - 10PM
Breakingfree24
Breakingfree24's picture

Inspired

Apr 9 - 6PM
nicolecollin
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you are quite a write