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Survivor's Rose: Blooming After Recovery

Just as the rose was thrown out like a piece of trash, that is how we feel after we are discarded by the psychopaths. They have used us up, thrown us away.

  1. LuckyLaura
    A man was walking down the street one day when he happened upon a tattered and half dead rosebush laying by the trash. He could tell the rose was not completely dead and had only recently been uprooted and thrown out. He was a gardener, and he loved roses. He thought to himself, "How could someone throw away one of the most beautiful of all garden plants?" So he scooped it up and proceeded to carry it home.
    As he walked home, he kept wondering why someone would throw away a perfectly good plant. It had obviously been through some trauma, as he noticed many broken limbs, many scars on the stalk, all the thorns had been removed, and he could tell that at one point it had been cut down to its base. Still, who could be so callous? He wondered what had this poor thing been through? He knew roses will last a lifetime if properly cared for. He quietly whispered to the rose, “It's okay now. I will give you a home, feed you and care for you, and I will help you grow big and strong."

    Doing just as he promised, he planted the rose in a pot so he could care for her and nurture her. He wanted to keep her indoors where she would be warm and heal. He tenderly placed her in a pot, making sure her roots had ample room. He tenderly placed the soil over her. He gave her a drink of water and some food. He placed her in his biggest window where she could look out and see her future home. He looked at her and said, "Don't worry, Rose, when you are ready, that will be your home. You will always be loved here. You will always be safe here. I will never dig you up or chop you down. In time you will see that you are among many, and I love each and every one of my roses."

    In the care of the man the rose began to recover. At first she healed slowly, but soon, thanks to the man making sure she was regularly fed and watered, the rose grew big and strong. That's not to say in the beginning there were not hard times. One day out of the blue, all her leaves began to fall off, but the man knew she was ailing and gave her medicine to help her heal. Several times over the coming months the rose would ail and the man would know exactly what she needed. Each day he would talk to the rose. He would tell the rose that she was not defined by her past, but was destined to be beautiful, as all roses are the most beautiful of all flowers. One morning he walked in and, as she was basking in the morning sun, her leaves green and full, he noticed her thorns had returned, and he smiled. He said to the rose "It's time. You are ready for your new home."

    He took the rose outside and gently set her down. As he looked about, there were hundreds of roses around, each one unique in its own right. Each a different shape, color, size, but they were all thriving. He knew exactly where to place the rose. He would place her so that she would receive the morning sun, but be cooled in the evening by the trees. He once again dug a hole, made sure there would be plenty of room for her roots, and as he gently lifted her from the pot, he spoke. "You were once broken and injured and left for dead. I found you and gave you the tools you needed to revive. But I did not revive you; you chose to live. You accepted the food and water, you allowed the medicine to work when you were sick. You have everything you need to survive in this world. I have no doubt that you will thrive in this garden. I will always be here keeping a watchful eye, but you, my sweetest of roses, are strong. You have been broken and almost destroyed, but you are not only a survivor, you are now a thriver."


    The Discard
    Just as the rose was thrown out like a piece of trash, that is how we feel after we are discarded by the psychopaths. They have used us up, put us out with garbage. We are no longer useful as supply, and there is no need for us anymore. We are left feeling broken and half dead, in desperate need of food and water, and we are hanging on by a thread, praying for that one single lifeline back to the land of the living. We struggle just to do the most basic of daily tasks; we walk in a stupor and fog. Often we are just going through the motions. We are in full on survivor mode. Each day brings a mountain of decisions, and yet all it seems that we can muster is the ability to open our eyes.

    Then it happens…we come across someone or something that brings our vision back into sharp focus. Gone are the blurry lines of yesterday. Everything suddenly becomes crystal clear!


    The Healing
    For the rose, the gardener came along in just the nick of time. He saw she still possessed the potential for great beauty and was heartbroken that someone could be so callous toward another living creature. Sensing her pain, he gently reassured her that she is worthy of life and deserves to have one that is rich and fulfilling. We all will receive the gift of a gardener in our healing. It is that still small voice that speaks to us in our darkest hours, it is the therapist we connect with, it is the members at Psychopath Free that we connect with. The gardener is the collective we tap into to get through for many of the most painful experience of our lives. Our gardener tends to us to help us heal. Gradually we learn to accept the help being extended to us, and we relearn the meaning of unconditional love. When we stumble, our gardeners are there to help nurse us back to where we left off. For all survivors, the recovery path is not linear. It is full of many twists and turns and sometimes it feels as though we regress, just as the rose became sick one day, but then we accept our medicine and we begin to heal again. Growth comes in spurts. Just as the rose regrew her thorns, we reestablish our boundaries and apply our newly acquired knowledge as protection for us, and through that we begin to flourish and bloom.


    The New Life
    The rose fought her way back to life to heal and become strong until her gardener felt she was ready to reemerge into the world. She was given the tools necessary to survive on her own. You are gaining the tools you need in order to survive in this new world. A world where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that pure evil exists, but in this new life we are now armed and have our defenses in place, and we know that there is a rich and good life that awaits us. It is one where we do not just exist but thrive. Our roots grow strong, and we resolve to bloom and growth continues. We build healthy relationships. We learn to discern between good and bad, and we continually grow strong with each day. We see the world with different eyes. We see there are survivors all around us, and we see clearly the details we missed before. We see that where we were once broken, we now thrive.



Article Author: LuckyLaura