The following letter, written by a young woman who we’ll call Chloe, is one of the most complete stories of psychological manipulation that I’ve ever seen yet. Chloe wrote this letter secretly while the sociopath she is living with was at the gym.
I met my boyfriend two years ago. I was 18; he was 33. He’s a photographer; we live on an island that is very small. He has lived here forever (10 years) and I had only been here a few months when I met him. Everybody, especially women on the island, adore him, he is THE BIGGEST charmer.
He told me that he had moved here with his fiancée, that she had said she was going home for a week, and then never came back. He said she’d gone to therapy back home and been “mindf*cked” and never returned, breaking their engagement. I felt for him. He was so normal and sweet. He was living with his parents (because they were taking over his place) and he was moving out. He/we lived with them for a year, he’s still in it to this day, though his parents left a long time ago.
Always telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I’m 5’7” and 115 pounds, and I’m size DD and he’s always showing me plastic surgeons that do the best boob jobs so I can make them bigger. He was normal for four months, then told me he didn’t want me hanging out with or speaking to other guys. He even would get annoyed when I’d talk to my mom or dad.
Long story short, when I started moving out, which has happened a million times, he became violent. Touching me, I’d ask him to stop, gently pushing him off me but he wouldn’t and that’s when he started strangling me. I’ve told people about him and they take his side, because he’s such an upstanding member of the community.
He says guilt is a useless emotion and therefore feels none. He’s broken six cell phones, and in turn I’ve broken things of his. He uses this as a way to twist it and say it’s all my fault. He has every symptom on the sociopath checklist; I could go on and on. He got me a dog for my birthday and has started to use her as a tool to keep me home.
I’ve lost all my friends, rarely see family, but I’m so scared of life without him. I hate him, but every time I think about not having HIM in my life my chest hurts and it’s hard to breathe. I’ve gone to the hospital because he choked me too long, and spit in my face and held me down and rubbed it in, and I can’t or won’t leave. Isn’t that sick?
Initially I stayed because of the sex. Now I stay because I’m scared to be without him but also, I don’t want him to be with someone else, although I think he might have cheated on me once. When I tell him all these things, he calls me insane and “such a victim” and that I’m “sandbagging him and that’s all in the past.”
I’ve called Women Helping Women, but your site was the most helpful so far and I don’t know what to do. Everyone loves him; even the cops are his “braddahs.” He’s an SMU graduate; I only have high school (although I’ve gone to private schools my whole life) so he says no one would believe me, and they don’t!
His ex told me he stalked her until she moved back to the mainland, and no one believed her either… I used to be really strong and confident, but now I can’t leave the house without his approval of my outfit. I don’t want him to be with someone else, I don’t want to be with him, but I don’t want to be without him. He’s becoming more and more negative and aggressive towards me, but I’m scared to leave and scared to stay.
I feel dumb, ugly, depressed, anxious, and trapped. He’s drilled into my head for almost the whole two years that no other guys will date me or love me, and that they would only cheat on me. I know that’s not true because I get asked out all the time, but now I’m terrified of being cheated on! What should I do? Oh also he has naked pics and video of me that he’s threatened to release, even make money on.
Classic sociopath
This guy is a classic sociopath, employing every trick in the sociopath toolbox. He used the pity play to snag Chloe, with the story about his previous fiancé being “mindf*cked” in therapy to leave him. Yeah, right—she probably fled because it was the only way to get rid of him.
Then the guy used sex to get his hooks into Chloe. As Dr. Liane Leedom explains, in normal people, intimate relations creates bonds between them, and it worked with Chloe. These bonds, which are both psychological and hormonal, are Nature’s way of holding the human race together for our own survival.
But it’s possible for the bonds to become pathological. That can happen when someone—such as a sociopath—deliberately tries to bring another person under his or her control. Here’s how this guy did it to Chloe:
- Telling Chloe what she should eat and wear
- Telling Chloe to get breast implants, even though it sounds like she has a fabulous figure
- Isolating Chloe from her family and friends
- Refusing to comply when she asks him not to touch her, then strangling her
- Breaking cell phones—her way of contacting other people
- Telling Chloe she is insane
- Telling Chloe that no other man will have her
- Twisting everything around so that all problems are Chloe’s fault
Cycle of fear, anxiety, intimacy
Make no mistake—this is abuse. So what happens as a result? The guy creates fear and anxiety in Chloe. Fear and anxiety strengthen those attachment bonds, which started out being normal. What usually happens in these situations is that the victim turns to the abuser for relief from the fear and anxiety. The abuser then “forgives” the victim for “making him” act abusively. Then they have sex.
This cycle of fear-anxiety-intimacy keeps strengthening the psychological and hormonal attachment bond, actually rewiring the victim’s brain. So now, even though Chloe knows the guy is bad news, it is almost impossible for her to get out of the relationship. This is apparent in the physical symptoms Chloe is showing just by thinking about leaving—her chest hurts and it’s difficult to breathe.
Off the island
Yet Chloe must leave. She must find the strength to get away from the guy, even if it means voting herself off the island.
Leaving this sociopath will be much like breaking an addiction. This, too, is normal. As Dr. Leedom explains, the bonds created in these relationships use the same pathways in the brain as drug addictions. That’s why Chloe has to go cold turkey with this guy, and why it will feel like withdrawal. The secret, as they say in recovery programs, it to take it one day at a time.
Chloe, do whatever you have to do to get out. Be prepared for the guy to pursue you, perhaps to the point of stalking, as he did with the previous woman. He may plead, beg, and even threaten. It’s not because he loves you. It’s because he doesn’t want to lose his property. Because that’s all you are to him—property.
Yeah, my X slept like a baby most the time. He didn’t get night sweats much, but he’d hit the bed and usually be out within minutes. He got along on very little sleep, getting up early so he could play internet sex after staying up late playing computer games. He drank Pepsi for his breakfast every morning. EEEYUUUCK! He lived on the stuff, and what he probably put in it. His handful of “vitamins” turned out not to be street legal.
Strange sleep habits and manic moods (going with little sleep) may also be related to either Bi-polar (manic depressive) or to ADHD or some variation there of. Many Ps are ALSO Bi-polar and/or ADHD so they CAN have the triple whammy of diagnoses. The trojan Horse Psychopath that targeted me had all 3 with professional dx, so I know I wasn’t just attributing these qualities to him.
Looking back, (20:20 hindsight!!!) I saw a good deal of the symptoms, one leg always moving, the mood swings, and most of all he was “sneaky” to the point of slimy! He was on a large dose of medication for the bi-polar and did take it. I can’t even imagine what he would have been like without it!
Mine ate a lot of junk food and could drink litres of soft drink. Everything we ate had to be to please him. It wasn’t worth the tantrums to try to introduce new foods so I quickly learned the acceptable menu and stuck to it. I put on a lot of weight – but this was also intended by him so I wouldn’t be attractive to anyone else and so he could make fun of my figure. He would bring home loads of candy and sweets even when I asked him not to and anytime I tried to get into healthy eating he would sabotage it.
I see in hindsight that he also had alcohol issues, though these were under control while he was in a structured home routine. As soon as he left he went out drinking every night (trying to manipulate me to feel guilty) and eventually got a DUI. He even managed to talk his way out of that with his peer group – not with the law – he was fined and his licence was revoked. But his peers didn’t take it seriously due to his charm and incredible ability to make excuses. I take it very seriously if a man almost middle aged gets a DUI – it’s quite different in my book to an eighteen yr old making a bad judgement call and getting behind the wheel. A man of his age should know better. But apparently that doesn’t matter. He could charm his way out of a murder charge I believe.
I found this on the transsociopathica website and it may explain the sudden falling asleep and waking up though I like your theory Frank Lee about them having no inner world to process and analyse – that makes sense.
Brain (Power) Drain
One of the main problems Demonic Sociopath Entities have with operating a human body is extreme difficultly with the body’s electrical system. This is most apparent in their brain operations. The brain of a sociopath stores learning information in a random, chaotic way instead of in the usual designated places in the cerebral cortex. Part of this involves lack of crucial neurotransmitters. Information is scattered all over both brain hemispheres, it takes too long for the brain to retrieve and process information. (See the book “Without Conscience” by Robert Hare, PhD.)
Since the entire cerebral cortex of a sociopath is almost never at a normal level of alertness (their waking brain waves resemble the waves of a normal person in a light sleep, alpha waves). As the Demonic Sociopath Entity grows, some of the basic mental and emotional skills the rest of the world takes so for granted never develop, and crucial among these is the thing called conscience. That one never develops at all. They do not need it.
Other issues sociopaths may have, include:
* Migraine or cluster-headaches with visual ’auras’
* Speech impediments caused by a chaotic way of storing information in the brain
* Low blood-pressure (hypotension)
* Bradycardia (low heart rate)
* Pseudoneurolepsy (falling asleep suddenly)
* Sleepwalking (somnambulism)
* Falling asleep instantly
* Lethargy OR wild excitement
* Unexpected sexual arousal
* Profuse sweating during sleep
Polly:
Hey girl!!!!! 🙂
The spath would get a 20lb block of Milk chocolate for me for christmas each year.
THEN….yell at me that i was as big as a house/or cow, and tell me I needed to lose weight.
He could keep a bag of M&M’s in his ashtray of his car and eat one at a time.
I would not eat that huge bar of chocolate and he found one year, three of them in the pantry and had a fit. what a waste of money he said…..
Coulnd’t please him……stopped trying!
As far as sleep……he didn’t have the sleep issues above….he had a hard time sleeping…..and I attrirbuted that to all his secrets and alternative lifestyle he was afraid of being caught in.
Also….hyperthyroid causes night sweats…
I remember the times when my EX was asleep. I’d look at his face while he slept, it was as though I was looking at a small child around the age of 4 or 5. When I told him what I saw on his face, he’d just laugh. Never questioning it. Never making a comment about my observation. Mmmmmmmmhhh, I wonder if he knew he was spiritually stunted back to that age and that’s the age he is mentally. Chronologically, he was in his 50s at the time. He’s 61 this year, continuing on that 4 or 5 year old mentality. Come to think of it, he looked different when he was with me. I saw pictures of him with his supposed room mate (which I found out years later was just another he was engaged to) and he looked different with her … rather evil looking if you ask me. Then there are pictures of him in H.S. that were on his parents wall, same angelic look to him. College photos were more on the evil side. I wonder if they look different with all the different people they surround themselves with? If that’s the case, we can stand him next to some of those in power in this country and gage the look on his face (LOL). Hey, I’m just trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
Frank Lee- my S/P had his car repossessed, and after he got it back I was empathizing with him about how difficult it must have been to be without transportation. He flippantly said he could always get another one… with his “credit”, I thought…
Another time he was getting ready to make a purchase of something that is medically legal in some states, and I told him to be very careful. He shrugged and said he’d been in jail before… Like it didn’t MATTER…
Wini- Looking back in retrospect, mine was a completely different person in different settings: the perfect gentleman at his place of work (where he pursued me for 3 years), at my house, still so nice and polite- especially around other people, but at his house, he not only acted different, he LOOKED different. I even felt differently towards him, and that should have been the flaming red flag to me…
I suppose I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and was trying to see the “good” side of him- in the hopes that if I stayed long enough and showed him enough “true, unconditional love” that he would change and show me the same in return.
Sociopaths tell victims wha they want to hear to get them under their spell. They love bomb, make promises, create a picture of the life that is wonderful, when they have no ability to create this..
then when they turn on the victim .. the victim is confused, angry and the wise ones get away…. but the weak stay for more lies and abuse..
That is what is happening coming directly from our Gov. we have been screwed. We have sociopaths in the White house that are trying to con the people offering things that they have no possiblity to do and if they are done will ultimately inslave the people.
Those that can see do .. those that can’t get led down a path to destruction..
It’s going on in privates and it is happening in mass in the world.
http://www.womenexplode.com
this is interesting; wonder what HIS story is?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g3ng0HuCqAC4S1vDdZDuEso6S73QD9GQ6OOO2
Just in case I was doubting whether my X is indeed a Spath, recently he filed a claim against my bank because I cashed a check in both our names (half of which would have normally gone to him, had he not owed me far more).
My bank awarded him HIS half without notifying me.
NOW I receive a court summons for the same claim, which is also scheduled for the week I requested to go on vacation with our son.
Ooohhhhhh, they have a way!!!
If the bank account is a joint account, it doesn’t matter who/what/when/where money was taken or deposited. EITHER of you could have withdrawn the money.
Without a court order the bank is in the wrong…..I would demand to see the court order from the bank and go in with cannons loaded.
A bank can’t decide which half is ‘whos’.
Change your vacation days and deal with this head on.
Stand up for what’s right.
They have impecible timing indeed!!!