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I really need to tell my story to someone. I think it’s safe here. I hope. I so fear being judged.
My best friend of 36 years – from childhood until 4 years ago – was a sociopath. I defended her to everyone. She told me that I was her conscience. I even lied for her.
She did horrible things to people. She tore families and friendships apart. She lost me friendships, jobs, and even the love of my life; but I stuck by her – forgiving her again and again and again.
I understand why they call the sociopath’s supporters “apaths.” There is a kind of apathy in how you plod along with a sociopath for a bestie. You are so well trained to put your loyalty to your friend first, that you seem to be in a moral trance. You can be a wonderful person every day, but when your best friend’s very sweet husband asks you if she’s cheating on him, you lie. You make up incredible stories to protect her. When a mutual friend was sleeping with her, she lied and told him she was pregnant. She got him to give her money for an abortion, so that she could go shopping. He was devastated. She laughed and made fun of him behind his back.
I remember that twinge of guilt and even anger at her, but I acted like my hands were tied to intervene, and I quietly told her it was wrong, but I didn’t do anything else.
When she had affair upon affair with married men, it didn’t occur to me that this pattern was evil. To me, she couldn’t be evil. She was my best friend. She was going through a hard time.
And when she lied about me and attacked me to other people, I would still defend her. “Oh, she doesn’t mean it. She’s just insecure. She loves me.”
I cannot say no one told me. SHE told me over and over, but I always reassured her that she wasn’t evil. She wasn’t unfeeling. Deep down, I assured her, she was a good person. But she knew better.
Once, she even tried to warn me that there was something evil in her and it wanted to hurt me. It made me predictably protective of her.
You might assume, from reading this, that I’m a quiet, mousey, little follower. I’m not. That’s what’s hard to understand about all this. I am a strong, very independent, out-spoken, very-opinionated, straight-forward leader type, and I’m honest to a fault. But I would lie for her. I would fail to take action. I would protect the evil person from her victim.
Ultimately, becoming a mother changed everything. My daughter is my life, and I adore her. Two things happened:
1) I saw the difference between how I treated my daughter and how my mother treated me. I finally understood that my mother was a malignant narcissist with borderline PD. I understood that I was raised to placate certain evils and to be manipulated.
2) My bestie and her daughter moved in with my daughter and I (when she was setting up her husband and another married man in one of her emotional long-cons), and I felt immediately protective of my daughter around them.
Being focused on my child broke the spell, somehow. I suddenly saw through everything, and her frustration at my clear sight and blunt honesty made her target me more than ever.
I never realized what a terrible liar she was. We have to choose to believe stupidity. We do it because we’ve been conditioned to make the choice through guilt or pity or fear. She wasn’t very intelligent. She wasn’t charming. She was just manipulative and good at love-bombing and needy histrionics. She was sadistic, dead in the eyes, and arrogant – delusionally arrogant.
I moved us out of the house we shared, and then I was given the gift of proof. Shortly after we moved, people in our town told my family lies she was telling about me. They didn’t really believe her, but they were “concerned.” At the same time, friends out of state who don’t know the people in town were coming to me with the same lies.
If I had gone to her and confronted her, she would have spun an incredible web of more lies to try to convince everyone that she was innocent. Again.
Instead, I did what I advise anyone else with a sociopath feeding off of you to do: I killed the connection.
I’m using the word “killed” on purpose because the connection between you and a sociopath is an evil, living parasite. It’s not enough to go silent or break up.
I wrote a blunt letter to end the friendship. I listed her crimes against others in her life, and I refused to tell her what she had done to me or who told me. I explained that we were now enemies and that I had no interest in being “the bigger person” or the good guy. I promised that if we passed each other on the street, it would be bad. I did not wish her well.
I then ended my connections with all of her family and most of our mutual friends. I even blocked acquaintances of mine on social media because they were her coworkers.
In the four years since then, any time someone reaches out for her, “she’s really changing,” or “she’s thinking about going to church,” I simply say, “She is a sociopath. I don’t want to talk about her. Be careful.” And then I change the subject.
I’m still coming to terms with my part in helping her get away with some of her schemes, and there’s a lot of guilt and self-loathing there. I also feel really stupid for not seeing through her in all those years. She even was told in the hospital IN FRONT OF ME that there was significant damage to the frontal lobe of her brain! Denial was strong with me.
I’m now trying to come to terms with my mother’s illness too. I’m careful not to be anything like her to my daughter. We’re both thriving (and in therapy).
And when I encounter my old bestie in the supermarket or at the doctor’s office, she quietly avoids me. Now, I’m the bad guy to her and protective of everyone else…
…as it should be.
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Good you broke the unhealthy connection.
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Carrie’s dtr, I find this SO relatable. You explained your role well, and we all fall into some level of complicity. It’s just that for some of us this complicity goes on for a longer period of time, and is more complex.
When I was younger and had disordered friends I was complicit, but unconscious of it. Then, when I had my last disordered relationship I went through the same awakening that you did, and I could see the lies I told myself to cover for all of their lies. I could see that I was loyal to a fault, and always the helper and fixer. I felt a lot of shame that I had behaved so terribly. It took time to forgive myself.
Boy, when you have been conditioned by your mother or father, or other close family member, to be in the sociopathic supporting role, it is HARD to break the pattern!
Good for you that you have also had your moment of personal awakening.
Slim
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Carrie’s daughter, glad that you had the courage to post here! This is part of the healing process. Please know that she manipulated you to stand by her & to cover for her. ALL sociopaths do this. She conditioned you to protect her. The more people called her out the more you were trained to protect her (cover for her). YES, YOU WERE A VICTIM OF A SOCIOPATH’S CUNNINGNESS & MANIPULATION!!
The first time I caught my ex h lying (then just dating a few weeks) was at a dinner party with his friends who I had just met that night. He sat at the table and lied and then said something like “ya, she was there too” (meaning me). Yes, I was there but that is NOT what happened.
I was so flabergasted first by his lying and second by him sucking me into his lie. I did not know what to do. I remember fuming at table by his lying and mad at myself for not speaking up right then & there. But I did not want to cause a bad night for the host. So I sat there & said nothing. That is EXACTLY what he wanted!! That night, looking back was a pivotal moment for him to manipulate me over & over again.
This person you are speaking of has been sucking people into her con game since she was a child. YOU are not the only person she used to cover for her!! Know this.
Regret is one of the hardest steps in healing. I think for all of us. Regret that you invited them into your life, regret that you did not cut them out quickly when we saw their behavior from day one & each time afterwards, regret that it took us so long to finally see that they were evil, regret in your part of them hurting others by covering for them & not speaking up.
One of the things that all of us did when allowing the sociopaths to stay in our lives was use “projection”….we were projecting OUR beliefs & morals on to them:
“they didn’t mean it”…”they feel bad or their behavior towards others”…NO THEY DONT FEEL BAD & YES THEY DID MEAN IT…but we are the types that would immediately feel bad if we harmed someone or hurt their feelings. we believe all people feel this way. But we now know that sociopaths are not this way!!
Our belief systems are different then theirs.
Glad you followed the no contact rule. That is the only way to heal & thrive again. I think you have made incredible strives to see the truth…and the truth will set you free. You cant go back in time, but going forward you can speak up & you can take people at face value the second you meet them or the instant they do something to harm others including you. Sociopath using manipulations, cunning, covert behavior etc. This sociopath used all of these tactics on you.
You were not educated, no of us were. We are all the type of follow society rules, to believe everyone have goodness in them. know we know this is not true.
I like this quote: “WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU DO BETTER!!”
Be proud of yourself for setting you & your daughter free from this evil sociopath!! You surviving a evil sociopath!! ?
You are free to soar now!! ???
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Carrie’s dtr,
I read what you wrote and could see clarity, not coldness. I understand that even though we get clarity it doesn’t mean we don’t have any feelings about the person and situation. I also was devastated by the losses I endured. It is heartbreaking and awful, even when we are (finally) aware of the truth of it all.
It changes our world, our beliefs, and our view about what it means to be human. It is a kind of loss of innocence that is never regained. We can no longer look at things the way we used to.
But it is also a gain. We gain insight, ability, and strength. We gain the ability to make and keep new, healthy, enriching relationships. We gain the ability to help other people going through a similar hell. We gain a kind of peace and security with ourselves, knowing we can keep ourselves safe(r), because we understand the dangers. Awareness is a two edged sword, that is both uplifting and scary. For me, with time, it has become increasingly uplifting; the fear and sadness have waned.
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Carrie’s Daughter – thank you so much for sharing your experience. Seeing the truth of the situation — that your friend was an evil sociopath — was almost impossible due to your mother’s disorder, and the fact that you knew her since childhood. It required a complete paradigm shift to actually see her for what she was — and that’s what eventually happened.
I am so glad you are no longer in her web.
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I don’t know what to do. I’m in the middle of a smear campaign and I’m being blamed for everything. That I pursued a married man and I didn’t pursue him. He love bombed me. The friend of his is putting up pictures of me on Facebook and saying that I’m a sl** she’s calling me terrible names. Saying I targeted a weak man. I asked police for help and he said online media is not illegal since she’s not directly connected me. I can try a peace order but I don’t have a address for her. Everyday she posts something new and lots of it and has started inviting my friends to the page. I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. He chased after me and I told on him to this mutual friend after I found out what he was doing to other women too
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