Listen to Your Body Talk...

You know how your throat tightens up when you are feeling you will cry? When my son was in the throes of self-destructing and taking his younger brother down with him, making the entire family feel like we were being held hostage, the tension showed up in my throat. I often found myself at times unable to swallow even the smallest amount of liquid or food.


They sent me to a specialist and they performed an endoscopy and "stretched" my throat. Unfortunately, it was so tight that they tore it and I landed in the hospital in tremendous pain. But don't worry. My son wasn't concerned. He snuck out of the house and partied that night despite being on probation.


It wasn't till years later when my son was no longer in the home and an immediate problem to us that I realized that it was just the tension and stress. Now if I pay attention, I can see that the problem returns slightly when I am feeling overwhelmed.


My shoulder was talking to me too.  After years of bearing the burden of trying to help these boys help themselves, my shoulder just froze up on me and I couldn't use my arm without tremendous pain.  It too tries to recur whenever I am overwhelmed and over-stressed or feeling like I carry too great a burden on my shoulders.


Did you know that 90 percent or more of all physical problems have psychological roots?  A growing body of evidence  indicates that virtually every ill that can befall the body- from acne to arthritis, headaches to heart disease, cold sores to cancer- is influenced, for better or worse, by our emotions.


When negative feelings are stuffed down or ignored and left unresolved, they are still there, affecting you each and every day.  Or as I learned from a great book, "Feelings Buried Alive, Never Die".


When you are forced to deal with a sociopath in your life, you are living with turmoil.  It's what they do, create turmoil wherever they go.  If you are in a situation where you can't distance yourself completely from that person, you must protect your health so that the turmoil doesn't surface as physical ailments.


For me, exercise is essential to keeping my stress levels under control.  So is taking care of my spiritual self.  Prayer, scripture study, meditation and applying what I learn to my life is very helpful.  If you feel the need for more help in maintain peace and tranquility in your life, then you may want to check out this book also.  It is one of those that I re-read every couple of years.  It even has a guide of illnesses and the probable feelings causing them.


Listen to your mind and body talk.  Take care of yourself.  You can find peace and tranquility.  You can not only survive, but thrive despite a sociopath!

Ignorance is NOT bliss

Some cannot handle facing the fact that their loved one is a sociopath.  Others simply don't care, because for the time being anyway, the sociopath is feeding their ego with delicious proclamations of how they are their whole world, they couldn't possibly live without them, and they are the most beautiful creatures on the planet.

Outsiders can see these for what they are, simply ways to control and manipulate the victim, but for whatever reason, the victims shut their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and sing loudly whenever anyone tries to point out the truth to them.  And thus, they remain victims.

Ignorane is NOT bliss.  Ignorance is setting oneself up for heartbreak and disaster and allowing oneself to be used and abused. 

On the other hand, understanding is recognition, the first step in protecting oneself.  Understanding and acknowledging is initially painful, but ultimately freeing.  It empowers one to leave the victimhood behind and move on, a stronger person.

"There is no explanation for evil.  It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe.  To ignore it is childish, to bewail it is senseless. " -W. Somereset Maugham

I know that I will not in this life time understand my son's evil ways.  I have learned that to ignore it or chalk it up to 'boys will be boys' is foolhardy.  I have also learned that to dwell on it or fret about "where we went wrong", allows him to retain power over me.   

All those that over the years have chosen to support him are not just his victims, but his accomplices.  Someday they may have to answer for their part in the damages he has inflicted upon others.  Ignorance is not bliss!

You wouldn't know that by the people that have turned so viciously on us when we have tried to warn them.  I will forever be persecuted by him and his kind for calling them on their crap, but even if I should die at his hands, I would not regret taking the brave stand and "outing" him in my efforts to minimize the young lives he tries to destroy.  Now if only his harem were brave enough to take their fingers out of their ears...