Hot. Sunny. The slits of the blinds filter the light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Birds twitter. In the distance, traffic hums. The city awakens.

I helped my friend’s daughter move out of her house on Saturday. My friend’s daughter who discovered one morning that her fiance whom she was to marry in August was untrue. It was a tough time. A difficult day. Yet, amidst the sadness, a day of hope took shape. A day for new beginnings took seed. New ideas were planted.

JS, the young woman who’s heart is broken, did well. He was there too. The man who has lied and deceived her. The man who promised he loved her, and only her and yet, does not deny the two other women who believe the same lie. How can it be true?

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” said JS.

It was just a simple text message, “He’s a liar”. At the time of its arrival on her cellphone, Sarah* didn’t know its value. But, as the days unfolded and the story of his deceit was revealed, that little text message became a miracle. A gift from God. A sign from the angels that her life was about to change, radically, for the better.

When I first spoke with her, she couldn’t see the miracle of that text message. She could only feel its pain. She couldn’t see the gift of knowledge it presented or the freedom it represented. She didn’t want to see it was a gift for a better future. She wanted his love to be true. She wanted him to be true. She wanted time to rewind and take her back to time before the text message arrived, to time before everything went wrong.

It has been five years since the sociopath was arrested and I was set free. Five years of growth, of change, of healing.

Five years of pain and sorrow leading the way to laughter and joy, abundance and gratitude.

Five years after the ending of that debacle, I am grateful that I no longer have to think about him, or worry about him, or do things because of him, or even for him.

Five years of growing into doing for me. Living for me. Turning up for me without fear.

What a difference time makes.

As I look back to those days when my life was narrowly defined by what he wanted, he said, he needed, he dictated, I am in awe of how far I’ve come, by how much has changed.

I am in awe.

Of who I have become, who I am, how I’ve changed.

It has been almost five years since the sociopath was arrested and I was given the miracle of getting my life back free from his abuse. It is amazing to me to know that once upon a time, I was abused. I was downtrodden. I was completely broken. The walking, breathing dead. At the time of his arrest, I had given myself up for dead. I dreamt about dying, yearned for my life to end. And then, the police walked in and arrested him and in that moment, everything changed. Life began again.

It was not life as I knew it. Life as it was. It was new life, with a whole new perspective and outlook. A whole new appreciation for what it means to live within my human condition, what it means to be free.

I believe in miracles.

Not the rock your world, holy saints and rising apparitions kind of miracles. But rather, the light shifting, change your life, in this moment kind of miracle that takes you by the hand and guides you home. The kind of miracle that awakens you to the truth that this moment is all you’ve got. The kind of miracle that says, grab me and run with me or lose the miracle of your life forever.

I know about miracles like that. I got one on a sunny May morning five years ago when I had given myself up for dead. Well, not dead-dead, but rather, the walking breathing dead kind of living that leeches all energy from your body and leaves you without hope of ever finding a way back to the land of the living.

I have wrestled with this question for a long time. While with him, I sometimes wondered, ‘what on earth am I doing here’? Since gaining my freedom, I have looked back on those 4 years 9 months and wondered, ‘what on earth was wrong with me that I stayed so long’?

I know there are the physiological/psychological factors that compounded my convoluted thinking causing me to believe that I was incapable of leaving him. I know these factors attributed to my inertia and the resultant trauma bonding that held me pinioned in his unholy embrace. But none of these factors explain why an intelligent, well-educated, articulate woman did what I did – before the trauma bonding, the Stockholm Syndrome, the depression, the pain.

Why did I stay?

A couple of months ago I had emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. I’d been feeling discomfort for some time, but put it down to what I was eating, or simply the fact there was a lot of flu going around. And then, one Saturday morning I awoke to excruciating pain in my abdomen. I’d been having little mini-attacks off and on since Christmas, but they had only lasted a few minutes and once gone, could be ignored and even forgotten. But that last attack simply would not stop. My daughter called an ambulance and once in the hospital they told me I needed to have my gallbladder removed immediately.

After the surgery, I still wasn’t feeling up to par. I was constantly nauseous and tired. I told myself, it’s just the after-effect of the surgery. My body is ridding itself of the anesthesia and the gas they used to aid in the surgery. And then, one week after the surgery, I had another attack, this time, without a gallbladder to cause the pain.

Recently, I ended up in the hospital twice over a short period of time. (Which accounts for why I have not posted here in awhile.) The first stay was to have surgery to remove my gallbladder. The second was a week later when they had to perform an additional procedure to remove the stones that were left behind.

The man in my life was there. He supported me. Held my hand when I was in pain, rubbed my back. He drove me to hospital. He spoke with the doctors. Involved himself in my health care when I was too sick to care to ask the questions I needed to ask. He ensured I was well cared for, ensured I had what I needed to recover. He came to visit me in hospital. Sometimes I’d awaken and find him sitting by my bed, reading the newspaper, holding my hand. He brought me what I needed and when it was time to come home, he picked me up and tucked me into bed at home. He cared.

Lance Armstrong said, “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

When I was in an abusive relationship with a sociopath, the pain was overwhelming. I quit trying to get through it and gave into it. I quit and felt like it would last forever.

“Nothing lasts forever - not even your troubles” so said psychologist, Arnold H. Glasgow.

Trouble is, when I’m in trouble I ‘always’ think in absolutes, like never and forever. When I’m in never and forever land, I tell myself tomorrow is too far away to even bother caring about what happens today. I tell myself to quit moving through the turmoil because it is a forever deal. I’m never going to get through it. I’m never going to get away from it. I’m never going to get away.

My 100% responsibility.

I had a glass of wine last night with a girlfriend who is leaving for a three month holiday at the beginning of February. Where she’s going is not important — except when put in the context of who is at the place she’s going to. A man. A man she once loved who could not, would not commit. A man who hid behind silence. Who never told her where he was, what he was doing or who he was with.

She spent the first year after leaving him healing her broken heart. And then she started dating. A few months ago she decided to phone the man far away. “We were such good friends. Friends stay in touch and I just wanted to see how he was,” she told me.