By Ox Drover
After reading Steve Becker’s article yesterday, I commented that most of the articles here on Lovefraud that could be entitled “1001 Things I Did Wrong in Dealing with a Psychopath” were the ones that applied most to my own dealings with them.
That was meant as a joke, but after I left that comment for Steve, I got to thinking about how right-on it was, joke or not, because I have done so much wrong in dealing with these people. I got my self deeper and deeper into trouble, doing the wrong things in interacting with them. Not that I was intentionally doing something mean or “wrong” per se, but I didn’t make choices that led to positive outcomes in dealing with the psychopaths in my life.
One of the reasons I did 1001 things wrong was that I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I thought I was dealing with people who had good intentions toward me, just as I had good intentions toward them. Boy, was that a wrong thing to assume. But because I assumed this error in fact about their intentions, I tried to “be reasonable” with them. That sure didn’t work. They broke their word to me time and time again. It took me a long time “to get it through my thick skull,” as MaryJo Buttafuoco said in her book, and then, when I did get it through my thick head that “Person A” couldn’t be trusted, I didn’t “generalize” that knowledge to other people who also broke their words to me over and over and over again.
Learning to generalize
Even animals can learn to generalize. A friend and I trained steer, getting them used to “something that rattled.” It didn’t matter what rattled; we would use plastic milk jugs with rocks in them, and tie those jugs to their tails so that every time they took a step, this “rattling monster” attached to them would make noise and follow them. For a little while they were scared and ran from it, but eventually they got the idea that the “rattling monster” wasn’t going to be outrun by them (it always kept up), and it wasn’t actually going to hurt them. Eventually they decided anything that rattled and made noise was harmless.
With one set of young steers my friend trained though, if you got them used to a white jug with rocks in it, and they weren’t afraid of it any more, if you used a yellow jug, they would go back to SQUARE ONE PANIC AGAIN, with each tiny change in the “monster.” They didn’t “generalize” very well and were always hyper-alert and on guard. He eventually got them so they were “dynamite proof,” so he could take them out in public without being afraid they would panic at the first sound they weren’t used to, or the first loud retort from a fire cracker, but he and I both thought for a long time they might not ever generalize enough to be safe from panicking and running away out in public.
Abusive behavior
I think in a way I also didn’t “generalize” the abusive behaviors of the various psychopaths I encountered. When a boss would be dishonest and verbally abusive to me, I was upset and “panicked” at the unexpected behavior, trying to figure out how to not get hurt, but when a relative would do this same kind of behavior I, again, panicked and didn’t realize that the “rattle” was just the same kind of “monster” that I had encountered with the other psychopath. Of course I didn’t realize then that the psychopathic “monsters” had a name or that their lack of empathy and their damage was definitely destructive, unlike a milk jug with a few rocks in it.
I not only tried to be “reasonable” with the psychopaths, but I also tried to placate them, to make them see, by being extra nice to them and not “bowing up and fighting back,” that I wasn’t trying to hurt them. I wanted to be “friends” and get along.
Of course, when a prey animal tries to get along with a predator animal we know what happens, don’t we? The prey animal gets the worst end of the deal. Yep, I did get the worst end of the deal trying to “make nice” with the psychopaths, but again, I didn’t learn that a psychopath is a psychopath is a psychopath is a predator! Rather than generalize this hurtful behavior to a class of people, I saw each one as an individual person with “reasons” and “excuses” and the “potential to change” and “see the light” when there was no chance that they were going to have any empathy, much less sympathy, for the pain they caused me or anyone else. They didn’t give a hoot how badly they hurt me as long as they got what they wanted.
Wanted to get along
I also didn’t really see what it was that they actually wanted. I didn’t want to cause anyone any pain, I wanted to love people and get along with them and share good things and help folks out. This is what I thought that everyone wanted. What they actually did want, however, was to control me, humiliate me, and to get me to provide them with their own twisted idea of a relationship—all take on their part and all give on mine.
Just like the hyper-alert steers, I didn’t feel comfortable, and was always jumpy, expecting something to hit me, but I wasn’t sure where it would come from, so each time a psychopath lied to me, stole from me, took advantage of me, I was totally surprised again and again.
Eventually that young pair of steers got to where they were not surprised by anything in the way of a loud noise and they calmed down and became a reliable pair of working steers (oxen). But it was only because they learned to move from the individual to the general concepts of what would or would not hurt them. They learned that a little yappy dog running at their feet was not a danger, but that a large aggressive dog was something that they should kick at or hook at with their horns. They learned that the sound of a fire cracker or a car back firing, or a cannon shooting at a historical reenactment, wasn’t going to hurt them and they didn’t need to pay it any attention. They learned to distinguish between harmless noises like people yelling or laughing and their drover saying “get up” and meaning it!
I’m not sure why these particular steers were so difficult to train. Perhaps it was because the breed was the wilder Spanish cattle from Mexico whose ancestors that had not jumped every time there was a noise in the brush had been taken out of the gene pool by the wolves, coyotes and mountain lions, so only the “jumpy” ones were left.
Changed my response
I’m also not sure why I didn’t generalize from the abusive behavior I endured over and over, or change the failed attempts to get it to stop by doing repeatedly something that had not worked. Someone once said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I sure did enough of that for two lifetimes. Now I have changed the way I respond to abusive behavior. I am learning to distinguish the difference between “harmless rattles” and “real threats” from predators.
I have made some general “rules” to guide me in my differentiation of what is “harmless” and what is “threatening.” First off, it depends on how close to me the threat is. A rattle snake at 10 yards from me is no threat at all. I know he could hurt me if he was closer, but I will not let him get close enough to strike me, so I don’t have to fear him. If that same rattle snake is 3 feet from me, I take a different view of the potential for harm from the same snake, and react in a different way than I do to the one who is 30 feet away.
If a person who is not “close to me” lies to me, it probably isn’t going to be much of a danger to me, unless it is a big business deal. I don’t fear that lie from someone I don’t really have any connection with, I just notice (like with the rattle snake at a distance) that the person is dishonest, I don’t want him to get closer to me.
If a person who is “close to me” lies, that has a much bigger potential for harm to me, both emotionally and otherwise. Therefore I will move away from that dishonest person, put some distance between me and them so that if they do strike, they won’t be close enough to hit me or do any significant damage.
Threat or benign
Once I have determined that a person, animal, or object is a potential threat rather than a benign creature, I will keep a wary eye on it. I won’t make excuses for the potential damage, and once it has tried to hurt me, it won’t have another chance. I no longer trust anything or anyone without assessing the potential damage that could be done.
Cynical? No, I don’t think so, just cautious. I don’t venture into the world like there are no dangers out there, no evil people. I do know now that there are some evil creatures in the world, some potential threats to my life, sanity and health. But I no longer walk in terror, because I have realized what the evil creatures are. I am no longer terrified of the “rattling milk jugs,” but I give a wide berth to the “poison snakes.”
I’ve finally personally learned from the “1001e things I did wrong in dealing with psychopaths.”
Dear Kathy,
As ALWAYS you bring up a point I had not thought about—-the liking it when people say good things about me! DUH! Yea, I DO like it when people say good things about me, but….I AM getting to the point that I DON’T give a big rat’s behind if they say BAD things about me…does that mean I am HALF WAY THERE? LOL
And I AM getting it that I am not dependent on my happiness for other people’s opinions, but at the same time I am NOT SO INDEPENDENT THAT I want to go live by myself on a desert island.
I want to be INTER-dependent with those I love, not dependent, and not in-dependent either, but in that MID-LEVEL-ZONE where I enjoy the approval of those who love me, but don’t 100% depend on that for my very survival. If that makes any sense.
Yea, I love the “crisis clinic” and the “Far Side” and YES, everything WAS urgent and immediate and I was responsible for it, they make sure it was that way, that there were SO MANY ALLIGATORS biting my arse that I had no time to drain the swamp! In fact, my P son wrote a letter to the Trojan Horse P telling him ways to accomplish just that, to keep me off balance, to have this person or that person do this or that, and to try to bankrupt me—I WAS **IN*** THAT ‘CRISIS CLINIC’ GOING OVER THE FALLS, KATHY! LOL (thanks for reminding me of that great laugh!)
I think we could all add a long list of the “1001 things” we did wrong in dealing with the psychopath, but the thing is that 999 of them would all be the SAME things…I think that is what LF is all about, we have so much in common.
The moving from the particular to the general, and the general to the particular is important now to me to keep me safe. Sometimes I noticed in training animals that SOME animals that we trained will “honor” ANY human as alpha, and others will only honor CERTAIN people as “alpha” to them.
Dogs are generally like that and are BETA to their owner’s ALPHA, but most dogs will also “sit” if ANY person tells them to, in other words, “honoring” ANY human above themselves.
I noticed with some breeds of cattle that we would train to work as “oxen” (that is a job title, not a special kind of animal, just cattle trained to work) some breeds who appeared to be smarter than others, would only “honor” their owner or master, but not other people. So would only “obey” or “work for” one particular person. Other cattle would obey anyone that was a human and knew the right words —i.e. get up, whoa, gee and haw—my border collie would not work for my son D unless I commanded him to, and my dog’s mother “belonged” to D and would not work for me unless he told her to, and she would refuse to work for ANY one who raised their voice to her–she would quit and go to the house. My dog didn’t care what you yelled at him, or how loud you were. But, she had been abused as a pup before we got her and my dog, her son, had never been abused, so wasn’t afraid of the loud commands.
She had apparently been yelled at before she was hit, so she generalized that ANYONE who yelled was going to hit her so she RAN AWAY before she got hit.
I know for a fact it was a man that had abused her, yet she CHOSE my son D as her “owner/master” over me (Border Collies pick their owners from among the family members, not the other way around) She probably picked him because even though he was a man (and a man had abused her) she didn’t GENERALIZE that abusers were male, but that abusers were LOUD and I have –guess what!!!—a LOUD voice! so she picked him over me. Even then it took us 3 months before she would take a piece of bacon out of our hands she was so skittish, and even then we had to have a CHILD give it to her. She loved children and was totally unafraid of kids, only LOUD adults.
Because of her GENERALIZED FEAR of “loud” voices when I did used (worked) her, I had to be very conscious and careful that I didn’t forget and raise my voice and frighten her.
Somewhere here on LF either earlier today or yesterday someone was talking (CRS forgive me can’t remember who) about their DISTRUST of men—that is a generalized fear rather than a particular fear of “people who lie” or “males who lie” or “men who raise their voices” etc. So the person I think with the “distrust of men in general” should maybe look at the SPECIFIC thing that the person/man did that was hurtful, rather than just being “distrustful” or afraid of “men in general.”
I’m not really afraid of “snakes in general” because I know that not all snakes 1) are likely to bite 2) poison and 3) are more afraid of me than I am of them, but having SEEN a poison snake bite, I do NOT want to even take a chance of getting a poison snake bite myself, so I AM AFRAID of, and RESPECT the ability of, poison snakes to SEVERELY injure me if I get close enough to them for them to strike/bite me.
That, I think, is a reasonable FEAR, and I will continue to have that, but I am NOT going to have an UN-reasonable generalized fear of ALL Snakes. So I can move from the particular to the general and back again in a way that makes sense to me, and I think keeps me SAFE without excess or unrealistic fears or hyper alertness. If that makes any sense.
Thanks for your input Kathy! You always expand on my ideas and make them better! (((hugs)))
That makes so much sense, Oxy. I think your female dog and I have a lot in common. I get scared of loud voices too.
Thank you so much for your kind words. They make me feel valued and welcome. I should moderate what I said before about compliments. Being appreciated and acknowledged by someone who knows me is completely different than being slathered with compliments by a relative stranger. I trust that you care about me, and that makes a lot of difference. It’s one of the wonderful things about LoveFraud, the great network of understanding and support that just lights this place up.
I’ve been at this computer for 14 hours and I’m going away now. Have a great weekend! And stay warm. It’s below freezing here!
Kathy
Yea, Kathy, the “slathered with compliments by a relative stranger” is definitely a RED FLAG for someone trying to put the con on you!
I’m reading a book now that I had hoped to do a review of, but because this book is so FILLED with wisdom and knowledge I am going to do a Series of articles about it. I have the first one written and will work on the others. It is not a book you read quickly, but 1-2 pages at a time and then”ponder” them…then re-read them and ponder some more.
The thing I am learning from it though, is that just like the 1001 things I “did wrong” with the psychopaths, if I had had this information I wouldn’t have done 999 of those Things—-I would have been fore-warned and fore-armed, but just like we talked about in “warning” others about a particular psychopath, until we are READY TO HEAR, and READY TO BELIEVE, no one can convince us that the person we are dealing with is EVIL. Not even ourselves, not even our gut, not even our intuition.
I’m just getting to a point now that I am SO Ready to listen to wisdom, to knowledge, to learning, and to PRACTICE IT…KEEP WARM! (((hugs))))
Oxy, I have to agree, this is one of your best articles.
That is what I’ve been trying to do as well, learn to see the pattern. Which behaviors look like which other behaviors, and how do they connect? When I finally read, “why is it always about you?”, and learned what narcissism really meant, that it was infantile behavior coming from an emotional retarded person, and fueled by envy (memetic desires that infants have), then I could see what I had been dealing with. But everyday I have new revelations and understanding about how the details all fit together and the puzzle is starting to flesh out the picture.
Edit: I also agree, that until we’re ready, the information may not sink in. At age 17 I noticed how much he lied and I kept looking for information on liars. I read “People of the Lie” but I didn’t get it. Could not wrap my head around a concept of evil that appeared so NICE.
Oxy,
I think I keep making some of those mistakes, I had hoped that I was on maybe number 900 or 998 but it seems I’m around number 600.
One of the things you mentioned was thinking that a person who has bad behavior might change so you keep going with the distorted notion of change in that person. Well, it’s not happening, not in this life or the next, thank you very much.
I pray that I don’t lose my faith in some of humanity and one day I will stop feeling so sad for the dream I lost.
“evil that appeared so NICE” Ah, yes, Sky, they put on the mask and pretend to be so nice—but it wouldn’t be tempting to believe them if it looked UGLY LIKE IT IS, so they mask it to appear pretty! A turd wrapped up in beautiful paper is still a turd! LOL
Dear Hope4, we posted over each other I think, but as soon as you are essentially AWAY from him, NC, you will start to improve more and quicker…I know it has been a long hard road but you are making progress…I’ve been so anxious for you to move FASTER, but you move at the pace YOU move at, and at the time YOU are ready to make that move! It is coming! My frustration at YOU not moving fast enough to suit ME is MY problem! LOL I admit that there were times I wanted to shake you and say “get a grip woman, toss that a-hole OUT!” But that is NOT my time table it is YOURS and you are doing it at the pace that is RIGHT FOR YOU!
I know it is difficult and sheesh, I took 40 years+ to come to grips with the various psychopaths in my life and realize what was going on, I made all “1001 mistakes” and made them 1001 TIMES EACH! So who the heck am I to tell you to “speed it up” kiddo? You are making progress at the rate YOU need to do so.
I really AM proud of you for finally seeing through this arsehole and taking action in a forward direction. So don’t beat on yourself for not doing things fast enough, you are doing things at the RIGHT PACE FOR YOU! I did things at the right pace for myself, each of us learns as we are ready to learn. (((hugs))))
Oxy,
THANKYOU! I waivered so much because of the exaggerated love bombing daily. I wanted to believe.
Yesterday was a hard day. I was going to take my mother-in-law shopping (she is a good person), and spath freaked out. Called me fake and why would I want to hurt his mom. I said we are going to Hallmark and the mall and I won’t mention the divorce until you do because it’s not my place. He was really acting bizzare and clearly did not want me to see his mom.
He called his sister, who he told ‘his’ story of the divorce and she freaked out that I would spend time with his mom. You know exactly what that means. Her husband even drove by our house to make sure everything was ok. WTF? Why would they not be ok? Oh yeah, he probably told them I’m nuts.
I have taken care of his mom after surgery, gone shopping, to lunch and take her to the doctor. No problems before. She has been a good friend and I’m sad and frankly teed off. You all could see this coming a mile away but somehow I thought that it would be different.
I think I should write her a letter with the truth and with the backup of the doctors diagnosis of narcissim. Not sure how to approach that one.
Also, I know you said to keep my son out of it. He is turning farther and farther away from me and he has been my buddy from day one. I feel tempted to say something, anything, even if it is little to plant a little seed of doubt. I don’t want him lost.
Spath looked so smug, the bastard. I e-mailed my attorney all the crap that spath has been pulling and he said to keep a journal and let him know everything.
Just another day in the life. Thanks for your concern, can’t believe I was ever trying to reconcile his actions. I thought we could get through it together. That was mistake number 200, number 1 was ever believing he was human.
Dear Hope4,
Sugar, your description of him is so “text book” and his fake “love bombing” and crap, but only YOU can get to a place where YOU can truly “see” what he is up to.
Of course he will lie to his mother and his sister and so on…expect the SMEAR CAMPAIGN.
I would PUT NOTHING IN WRITING to your MIL…Just call her up and tell her over the phone that you are sorry but you are going to have to let her know that you and Her son are getting a divorce, but that you love her and hope that you and she can still have a relationship but that you CANNOT discuss the reasons for the divorce except that there are “irreconcilable differences” (don’t bad mouth him to her because she will not want to hear that no matter how much she loves you) and ditto with the SIL and BIL–
As for the son, I would just tell him that “son, I love you and I know it is upsetting for your dad and I to be divorcing, and this has nothing to do with you—-and I will NOT DISCUSS my reasons for the divorce with you at this time, but I will talk to you when you are 21. I know that may seem odd to you right now and you may be curious about why we are getting a divorce, but that is the decision I have made about it and I do not think it iis appropriate to talk to you about the problems between my self and your father. If HE discusses those problems, just recall that I chose not to discuss them with you at this time.”
That may sound like you are letting Him “win” by bad mouthing you to your son, but believe me if you get to a “leg hiking contest” like two dogs each marking their territory, your son will be in a worse spot emotionally I THINK than he will just having you calmly tell him (nicely) “son this is not your business” and you are “not at fault.” It that makes any sense. I also might consider getting “family” counseling for you and the boy together or him separately I know your dtr is in counseling and that is great! Hang on sweetie, you are doing well, this is all very difficult! (((hugs))))
Dear Hope for Joy,
I too was so sad for the dream that I lost. Can I offer you a different perspective?
I had savored memories of dream places that I went with my husband, making memories that were supposed to comfort me in my old age (I call them rocking chair memories). Instead, they reminded me of being duped and how they didn’t mean anything to him.
Then someone gave me very good advice. “You can remake your memories”. So I looked at my dreams and how they could be remade, without the taint of him. Some of them, I traveled to the same places, and enjoyed them all over again, all by myself. I took lots of pictures this time for my memory moments. Now I have SPECIAL memories of my dreams.
I let go of the dream I had and MADE A BETTER ONE, one that he couldn’t take from me.