The holidays can be tough on those who have psychopaths in their life. For a psychopath, drama is the norm and the control of others is a pleasure for them and the holidays provide both access to the vulnerable whom they prey on and enough time to abuse those they target. I recently spoke with a woman who told me her ex convinced the courts that she was unstable and persuaded the court to have her children sent to a therapeutic boarding school. She wrote to me, “I think the hardest part of this holiday without my children, is the sadness of all the lost traditions we had established and cherished. I have a lot of pieces of myself to pick up and put back together…find some way of making me feel whole again. Maybe once this occurs I will chart a new course for myself and find a new way to “be” without my children. Remembering closer times with my children is difficult, it is something I hold very close to my heart at all times. I can’t hold my children anymore, but I can hold onto all the memories I have of them.”
She is in the moment between now and OK. She is uncomfortable and sad. This is part of the process of healing from trauma and grief associated with psychopaths. What she is experiencing is necessary in order to move beyond OK and into something new. What this something “new” is, I can’t tell you, but I expect it to be there, waiting for her at the other end.
