Trigger Warning: Mention of Domestic Violence (no details), mention of Serial Killers (no details)

Driving back from a weekend in Scottsdale this morning with the music off and the air conditioner blasting on high, I remembered the triumph of finally getting away from the now ex husband whose behavior was unthinkable. It wasn’t a marriage as much as it was a hostage situation, and I had spent many years praying with everything I had, fighting with anything I could find, to get away from him. When he finally decided of his own volition to write divorce papers and disappear, the peace was more delicious than anything I had ever felt before and I thought I’d be doing cartwheels.

But then something happened. Inexplicably I found myself curled up in bed as crippling wave after wave of unmitigated agony washed over me. Often people at this point go running back to their abuser – a perverse psychological tendency that keeps most victims of domestic abuse in a continual downward spiral. I had no such desire to speak to him, and yet somehow the anguish was real. I had no way to explain it, but now I understand.

Trauma bonds are the worst.

When we finally break away from a destructive situation in which we have lived long term, our mind and body have become accustomed to high cortisol, general constant panic, and intense mistreatment. We have become used to hell being the reality and our bodies to the molecular level have changed to absorb the negativity and find a way to survive. So when we finally find peace, everything shifts and the body and mind go into shock.

It may seem impossible for someone who has never actually lived it to understand why a victim of DV would feel anything other than bliss when they finally find freedom. Isn’t this what they’ve been searching for? Absolutely. But as anyone with anxiety or PTSD will tell you, you can become extremely aware of the nuances of tiny details in stress hormones, in reactions to barely perceptible triggers, and the intensity of details most people would miss. Take that kind of hyperawareness and throw the nervous system into an unfamiliar blender and the effect speaks for itself. I honestly felt that the pain was so bad it could end my life. I had known anguish, but this was a kind of pain I’d never experienced before and in a way I couldn’t understand.

To anyone experiencing a similar situation, there is hope. It does pass. It will most assuredly pass like a kidney stone but it does pass. The answer is not to return to the circumstances that hurt you – I used to make the argument that you couldn’t expect a Holocaust victim to heal living inside of Auschwitz, even with no particular bad behavior from the SS guards. It isn’t a place for healing. We cannot heal in the same place that broke us.

What may happen is that while the nervous system tries to readjust to a life it doesn’t recognize the mind may also try to find a balance and to those in that situation they may obsessively try to find an answer to why this happened or how a person could do such terrible things. Was it nature or nurture? Was there something you could have done to stop it? Was any of this your fault? Do you deserve what happened to you? Surely no one could actually be as bad as this person has been so maybe the fault is ours?

That is understandable. The mind wants closure of some kind, and going no contact as much as possible will not give us the closure that we seek. Let me save you some time. During this time, the only thing that numbed the pain was obsessively reading soul mangling books by legendary FBI profiler John Douglas, who sat across the table with countless criminals, including but not limited to Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. His purpose was to get inside their mind and see how they think. And he has some answers.

Why do people do evil things? Because they choose to. Because on some level, they enjoy it. And he tends to lump them together with the conclusion that when people feel badly about themselves they find it gratifying to harm others. Someone may feel powerless in the world but when they see others cower before them, suddenly they feel they have the power now. Let that be your closure. You won’t get it from a change in their behavior. You won’t get it from an apology. You won’t get it from mental gymnastics of trying to somehow make their behavior moral and sensible. It isn’t. Let the understanding that they had a choice and they made it. It doesn’t matter how their mother raised them, it matters what they chose to do. And that explanation, I know, is sublimely unsatisfactory.

The good news is that the anguish does pass. It doesn’t mean you miss the person. It means your mind, your nervous system, and your body in general are adjusting to peace and to the possibility of a better life. The one you prayed for. The one you ached for. The one for which you reached out every day and cried into your pillow every night. It’s happening. The pain is a rebirth, catapulting you into a future of light. And when you get to the end of it, your tolerance for disrespect will be non existent. You’ve learned what you can never tolerate, and you have gained your soul back. I know it hurts but smile through the tears, darling. You’ve won.