I have been a full-time, single mom for almost two years now, and I cannot begin to explain the toll it’s taken.  When I look back, it amazes me that I am not tucked away in the fetal position in some corner of a stark white room, doped up on mind-numbing medication, with my thumb in my mouth and a slow trickling stream of drool eeking out of the sides of it.  That I am here and sane is an affimation of God’s love.  I owe my ability to cope and move forward to the love and support of a caring network of friends and family.  Their support, combined with my deeply buried, but innately driven desire to survive, have kept me going in times I found myself begging for God to stop my breath so I wouldn’t have to endure the despair, fear, and hopelessness any longer. 

What could trigger such feelings of morbidity and sheer desperation? Try being the prey of an emotional vampire. 

In her latest book, Emotional Freedom, Dr. Judith Orloff describes emotional vampires as those who suck the “…optimism and serenity right out of you.”    I lived with such a vampire for over six years and he nearly drained the life out of me.   My vampire was a true predator—cunning, insidious, and armed with a silver tongue.  He was a pathological narcissist, and perceived himself as the victim of everyone else’s malice and malevolence.  And because of my own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, fears, and insecurities, I fell for his charisma and the pretense of his expressed concern for my chidren and me. 

Though I could not have foreseen it, or recognized it as such at the time, ultimately, it was divine intervention that would save me.  I was not strong enough to break away from the relationship on my own and it took his being incarcerated for 34 months in a federal penitentiary to finally free me from the grips of that toxic relationship. 

As a family, we prayed hard that he would not be found guilty of the charges brought against him.  God didn’t answer those prayers. I now understand why.  For those of you who doubt the love and wisdom of God based on unanswered prayers, trust me, and cling to the faith and knowledge that He knows what is best for us.

Trust, with absolute faith, that despite the hurt, the final outcome WILL be a blessing.