“Let Go or Be
Dragged”—I don’t know who wrote that slogan, but I loved it so much I bought it
on a magnet. My first thought was, “Oh, I LOVE that saying for the women!” But in a flash, I realized it’s a slogan for
everyone. A friend of mine in recovery said she loved it for her AA recovery
slogan. Another person told me she loved
it as a spiritual theme—to hold with an open hand or face the consequences. But,
I do love it for all of you. Here’s why…
Pathological
attachments are ‘gorilla glue.’ The pathological partners have a vibe—a
come-hither, bonding vortex that sucks you in and holds you there in a
hypnotic-like trance. It’s a powerful, seductive, subconscious attachment that
mirrors the worst addictive feeling you could ever have. It vibrates throughout
your body with a message and sensation that you will literally die if you are
disconnected from the source. Letting go never feels like an option. It feels
like sure death -- death by disconnection, death by umbilical severing, death
by life-force loss.
Its trance-like hold
of your mind, body, and spirit leaves you stupefied
with an inability to enact your own will or your ability to choose sanely the
option of getting away from this catatonia. The same trance-like hold that held
you in rapture, reverie, and ecstasy, now holds you in a cataleptic coma. Alive,
with your eyes open, but your mind dead and unable to move. You look mildly functional
to the world but the world doesn’t see the transfixion that is keeping you
paralyzed beneath your eyes.
You hold on because
you are glued. You hold on because there was rapture, reverie, and ecstasy. You
hold on because to NOT hold on is to release your grip on the emotional life
support system you think he has been. You hold on because you believe if you
hold on long enough, the dazed and glazed existence you have been living will
revert to rapture. The nightmare will
then become the dream. The stupor will become the high of the intensity. You
hold on because you believe you can’t let go.
WAIT! HOLD UP! Let us
ask, “Where are you? How did your clothes get torn? Where is the life you used
to have? Where are the relationships with others that you once held dear? Why
are your knees skinned? Why do you have those dark circles under your eyes? Why
are you on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication? Where is the career you
built? Why are your nails digging into your hands? Why is your stomach in your
throat? Why are you now somewhere you never wanted to go? How did you get here?
Why are you bleeding from your soul?” It’s because your belief about letting go
has kept you being dragged.
Drag: verb. Related to: haul, lug, move, pull, schlep, tug, yank,
crawl, creep, shuffle. Your soul is
bleeding—it’s your courtesy warning system from your spirit that is telling you
to let go.
Even being dragged
can be a gift. It can be the first scraped knee that crosses you over to
recovery. You’ve held on for lots of reasons including your own version of
‘pathological hope’ that he will change and it will be different. History has
taught you otherwise. It’s time to accept the wisdom that ‘no change’ brings to
us. Your skinned knee is a metaphor for the beginning of your recovery because
the word dragged means “to haul
something to a new place.”
Let go or be dragged.
(**If
we can support you in your recovery process, please let us know. The
Institute is the largest provider of recovery-based services for
survivors of pathological love relationships. Information about pathological
love relationships is in our award-winning book, Women Who Love Psychopaths, and is also available in our retreats,
1:1s, or phone sessions. See the website for more information.)
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