On May 21, 2003 I was given the miracle of my life. The sociopath who had terrorized my existence for almost five years was arrested and I was set free from the web of his deceit.
Almost imperceptibly, healing began. Without his sinister presence, the FOG of his lies began to lift. Even though I was scared, and beaten down, I began to think and feel and take action for myself, not based on what he had told me was best or good for me, but based on what was best and healing and supportive of me. Without his insidious words stealing my peace of mind with every breath, I began to unravel the web of his deceit and find myself again. I began to make choices that loved me. Choices based on my thinking clearly about what I needed, not on the design of his constant weaving of lies and deceit.
One of the choices I made very early on in my recovery was to eliminate the possessive when thinking, writing or speaking of him. He was not, ”˜my’ P or S or N or even jerk. He was, ”˜the’ P or S or N or whatever I chose to call him, my favourite being, The Lie. That simple step of disconnecting from ”˜owning’ him in my language had a powerful impact. I no longer thought of him as ”˜mine’. He was depersonalized.
The choices we make in how we speak, think, write, or simply refer to the abuser have a powerful impact on how we stay connected in our minds to his abuse. In making him a noun, ”˜the P’ for example, I let go of my attachment to him. What ”˜the P’ did was not about me. It had everything to do with him. I could have called him, ”˜the sink’, ”˜the drain’, ”˜the toilet’ — it didn’t matter. As long as I didn’t call him, ‘my sink’ I wasn’t connected to what I called him. My connection was with me. I took ownership for what I did, thought, felt, said and let go of attaching myself to his name whenever I refered to him.
In erasing the possessive term from my language I was giving my psyche, and the world, a very clear message: I do not own him. He does not own me.
And that’s where the power of depersonalizing and dispossessing them of their connection to us plays out. For so long, when in that relationship, I believed he owned me. I believed he was omnipotent. I believed he knew everything I did, thought, felt, said. He knew whom I spoke to. He knew where I went. Even when he wasn’t beside me, he knew what I was thinking, doing, being. And he went to great lengths to convince me that was true.
It wasn’t.
But, as we all know, ‘truth’ doesn’t matter when we are in those relationships — it’s what he/she can get us to believe that makes the difference. What he told me was true is what counted. And, he told me he knew everything about me. He told me he had me followed. Pictures taken of me while I was unaware. He told me my phones were tapped. My house bugged. He told. I believed. In my belief he ”˜knew’, I relinquished my personal power and attached myself to the lie, he was all-powerful. He was omnipotent.
The tactics he used to convince me of his power and control are, sadly, all too common. We’ve all experienced them. We’ve all experienced the fear and confusion, the sense of utter helplessness, the overwhelming ennui that descends upon us as they manipulate and weave their web into our minds, our bodies, our spirits.
Unraveling their web, being committed to No Contact wherever possible and feasible, are two very important components of the healing path. Cutting the ties that bind in our language is also very important.
To cut the ties means to let go of the need to use the possessive. It means to claim our right to be the centre of our attention, without fear that they will overshadow our truth. It means letting go of our need to stay attached, by speaking of them as if they are ours, and embracing our freedom to make choices that with each day disconnect us from them, more and more.
We were possessed. It doesn’t mean we have to possess the evil one that possessed us.
It means, claiming our place under the sun. Bright. Shiny. Brilliant.
LIG! Wow. I hate that guy. He even had the nerve to put his arm around your shoulder as if you were old “buddies.” Ugh…I remember last year the shit you went through and I am so proud you.
thanks everyone. feel a little depressed today. just hearing his voice was a form of contamination. what i’m most furious about is his voicemail making the really effed up assumption that i was afraid.
lord, hold me back!
: )
Wow thanks so much for your kind and caring comments in response to my contribution … I thank you so much for welcoming me in this way – I guess I don’t need to remind anyone of how crappy you feel at the end of one of these trips to Hell (great term for them!).
sstiles = I agree having someone recognise it as it was happening would have helped so much, but I distanced myself out of shame from other people – I was afraid of banging into people in case they asked how things were … and I might not know how to respond. I wouldn’t know what he had said and rumours travel quite fast in small towns!
Kathleen – thanks so much for taking the time to write this – I really needed to read this tonight to remember recovery will happen but will take time. I, like you am struggling to find the script that fits best when I need to tell people about this period of my life. I hope that one day it will be quite insignificant but for the moment, I do need to be able to explain why I am very cautious and on edge. I am testing various stories at the moment and find that there isn’t high public recognition of the terms ‘sociopath, psychopath and anti-social personality disorder’ – lots of people have erroneous beliefs about them – that they must be mass murderers or clinically insane.
As I mentioned in another post, I have gotten an attitude from people that I am over dramatising if I use the term psychopath – that really irritates me. It wouldn’t be automatically assumed that I was making it up if I said ‘He has hemophilia’ – yet both are inherited conditions. The only difference with hemophilia is that tests can easily detect it and there is little debate about what constitutes a positive diagnosis.
I found such irony in your career … public relations … putting a good spin on bad situations – this would have definitely affected your assessments of the relationship as did my career. I found my own career ironic too – I was well versed in child development and found myself married to one! I was focussed on positive psychology and the possibility of change and learning for everyone in every situation. The orientation of learning theory in recent years has moved away from a developmental psychological one that recognised deficits and abnormalities to positive psychology – ‘The feel good curriculum where everyone is a winner – even if it’s only in basket weaving!’ This definitely affected my attitude and responses within the relationship. It made me think there was hope where there really was none and it made me cut him lots of undeserved slack in encouraging his learning and development.
I like you felt the guilt of first considering him a bad person. I felt guilty even thinking the thought initially. But the overall result was that he hurt me terribly … over and over and over again. Despite the fact he might pick me up a pack of pads and some chocolate once in a while. He spent all the money so I was constantly stuck at home … so it wasn’t anything special that he brought home a couple of DVDs at the weekend. After all even prisoners doing time for murder get to watch a few movies here and there. I had to recognise these ‘small kindnesses’ were in no way what I had asked him for. I had asked him to meet me halfway in a shared life with both of us having two feet in the relationship. He hadn’t even had one toe in. He operated more like a flatmate than a husband.
I like how you explain about what ‘the bad man’ signified for you. And that you note for SOME people giving up the possessive is helpful, while for others it helps them own their own experience. That is similar to the depth of my own thinking on many elements of this relationship and the fact I can understand the minutae of your thinking gives me hope that things might be alright. I sometimes worry my thinking has become too insular as a result of being with him so long. Thanks thanks thanks – many things to think about. Yes language is hugely important – in how we understand, recognise, articulate, reflect and relate our experience and the impact it had on our lives to ourselves and others. I am mindful of my language now and don’t allow Miss Negative to start running me down as she used to – I tell her to … well you can guess! I had more than a lifetime of unspoken putdowns from the person who I need to think of a good name for!
Skylar … yes yes yes! All deliberate I think although it is feigned as accidental or someone else’s fault. I just can’t believe that someone could continue to lie for so long. I asked him many times ‘I think from your behaviour you don’t want to work towards having a family and you are wasting my time. Can you please tell me what you really want? I really want to have children but I am losing time here with you and I don’t have forever.’ He always always said ‘Of course I want to have kids’ – I would then get blamed for having a lack of faith.
The truth I think is that he wanted me to have kids under his conditions – present conditions – poverty, him controlling and refusing to discuss any problems or challenges, no support for me at all. This would have put me under even more control and would have been an unbearable situation to live through. I wasn’t willing to bring children into an environment like that and told him he needed to step up. That comes from my own upbringing with a divorced mother and no support or contact from my father. I wouldn’t want that for my children .
Skylar – delighted to hear about your kiss! I haven’t had a kiss from someone new in over ten years. I have a friend who has been asking for a kiss for nearly a year too lol The kiss is quite significant for me though … any kind of physical contact has the possibility of bonding and vulnerability for me. So the kiss is kind of a leap into the unknown and I want to ensure I know the person well enough before considering it 🙂
I like that Coldplay song – the U2 songs also sound quite apt! I remember he went through a big period of Coldplay admiration and used to play their songs over and over. One in particular resonated with me:
Fix You lyrics
When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
And the tears come streaming down on your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
And high up above or down below
When you’re too in love to let it go
If you never try you’ll never know
Just what you’re worth
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Tears stream down on your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down on your face
And I…
Tears stream down on your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I…
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Kim – I often said that statement during the years of madness – ‘can;t live with or without you’. Now I understand the pain I felt when he left wasn’t lovesickness that proved love existed … it was grief and the beginnings of processing all the pain I had to stuff away to continue living with him.
LIG – amazing assertion when confronted with this person! I recognised the ‘otherworldliness’ you describe and I think it comes from floods of stress hormones cascading into the system as well as all the memory triggers. You did an awesome job of keeping your boundaries and of recognising the manipulation disguised as ‘concern’ at your ‘fear’. That shows how far evolved you are … I struggle to recognise the manipulation in my own situation – I just often get a sicky feeling when it is going on.
I find it amazing they honestly think we can be friends after all the pain they put us through. I told him ‘Perhaps way way way down the track, but right now I cannot be friends with you. I am just too damaged by what you have done to me.’ And he had the audacity to be surprised at this as though it should be his right to occupy a friendship position for the rest of his life.
Hugs to everyone who is healing – this is a hard and long journey,
polyanna:
the key is to understand that EVERYTHING they do and say is a manipulation. took me a year to get to the point where i will never believe another word out of his mouth. if their lips are moving; they’re lying.
yesterday, i had to ‘process’ for an hour or so after the event, but then it all boiled down to … the usual: lies and manipulation.
i feel hurt today. ‘scraped’ is the best way to describe it. they’re just so damn toxic. re: the whole ‘friends’ thing. the spath used to tell me, ‘no matter what, i know you’ll always be in my life.’ NOT!
I think the “friends” thing to them means that you will ALWAYS and FOREVER be available to them for their needs, in other words, you will be there for sex, money, and distraction when they are bored, but you will NOT EXPECT anything in return. That is their idea of friendship. LOL ROTFLMAO
Polly, so much of what you write parallels my story. I know that all of our stories are similar, but you express and emphasize those things that were most significant to me in my story.
You were asking Kathleen about how to express your story when you tell people about your life and why you don’t have kids etc…
I let go of my pride in this matter. It is an illusion anyway. It is what the P’s hoped to wound: your ego. So let go of it. Get something better than an ego, get a true sense of self, get a perspective that is reality based and then tell that story.
I tell people exactly what happened. i tell strangers and friends. I explain that I met someone who was a conman and only wanted me for my money. I explain the personality disorder that he has and how it is all around us in examples like Bernie Maddoff, wife abusers, serial killers, or who ever might be in the new today. I explain that when I finally told him that there was no more money, no more veneer, no more me to take from, he let his mask slip and I saw that he had wanted me to take my own life out of sheer agony.
I try not to be melodramatic when I talk. I tell this matter of factly – depending on whom I’m speaking with and whether I have my laptop with me and the recordings of our conversations. I try to explain things to people in ways that THEY can relate to. My friend is a screen writer, so I try to explain this to him in terms of character development because he can relate to that. But my accountant, was an N-suppy for years, so we discussed it very differently.
We are all human (except Ps). People respond with empathy when you tell them, that you don’t have children because you fell in love with a man who didn’t want children and expected you to sacrifice your needs for his. From there you’ve opened the conversation to describing the incredible pathalogical envy and shame that a P suffers which makes him want to impoverish everyone he meets.
Oh, BTW, about the kiss.
We went to his house, drank wine, watched Blade Runner and kissed some more.
He is very nice, but I’m use to being with a P – I can’t tell you how confusing the emotions feel. All I think about is the P even when I’m with someone else. My friend lets me talk about the P all I want and he listens. He is very understanding, and we laugh about it because, well, P’s are funny if you think about it. It really is about how you express it.
I seem to remember that my xP was obsessed with the movie Blade Runner. I had never watched the whole thing, but last night I saw, MOST of it. At the beginning, Harrison Ford is discussing the replicants and how they can only feel certain emotions: anger, fear and envy. WOW! No wonder my xP was so into the movie. He must’ve related to it.
Sky Kent,
You are sounding very strong this evening, girlfriend! Part of me is cheering you on for moving on in the romantic department. I remember how good it felt when I was suddenly fantasizing about someone new besides the P. The other part of me is saying “of course he’s listening to you and letting you talk about the P. He wants to have sex with you.” That is my protective “sisterly” part talking of course. I really couldn’t pick a side, so I presented both. 🙂
Keep us posted. He may be just what you need right now.
I also speak about sociopaths in a very matter of fact way with people. I tell them that there are people out there that are not who they present themselves to be.
Ick that comment about your’s wanting to drive you to take your own life made my skin crawl – ultimately I think that is what the liar wanted too. I was so very close and he claimed I was the one with mental health issues and insisted he would never hurt me on purpose or lie to me. Oh it just is unbelievable. Why don’t we see more of them on the big screen?
I recall when I tried to draw his essential character in the play, it didn’t make sense – something wasn’t quite right. I didn’t even know I was sketching a sociopath – it was just an ‘immature’ guy as far as I knew back then – someone who lied repeatedly and about anything, someone who ‘forgot’ all promises and committments, someone who walked away from any discussion he didn’t like throwing up that I was trying to provoke an argument. Someone who brought chaos into the house regularly with unfunded film projects with casts and crews to be fed and looked after. Funnily enough the films never went anywhere – there was always something wrong … usually with the actors ‘They just weren’t giving me what I needed.’ So rather than reshoot a section he would give up and make it a raeson to be depressed and moody for several months.
Yes everything is manipulation and lies. He guilts me all the time. It’s how he got back in the house – lived like a bum to invoke my pity and force me to action. Next time he goes I will just ignore it lol Sometimes I manage to laugh about it but most of the time it is too hurtful to laugh about. And tonight it is too sad.
Hope everyone had a healing weekend. I talked with my grandmother for the first time in nine yrs (bit of a rift – basically her and my mum often fell out and I was pushed to take sides so I just backed off for nine yrs). Was awesome to talk with her and tell her some of my experience and my view that it was a recreation of my father issues and a familiar experience – she talked about her own first failed marriage with a man w ho had ‘issues’. I can see these patterns have come through three generations so I didn’t really have much hope of avoiding them!
hey guys, haven’t been posting lately. Went to an aa meeting yest and it was alright, i’ve gotten so far away it’s hard to get back again. Still reeling from loss of my job actually had a dream or more like a nightmare about it all revolving around me coming back and then them giving me the boot again. Im seeing my GP and my shrink tomorrow to hopefully stock up on my meds. an d then im going to have to figure out what to do with myself next. I wake up every morn as well pissed about my Grandma estaate(i think i told you guys a bit) alkie brother living for 250 and whining on property and stepmother. Truth is im my grandmothers sole exec and i should be handling all the funds and lease money as land is rented and no t this bully who my dad left in charge of his 1/3. I’d have to pay a lawyer for all this crap but i prob should be doing it the right way. If i don’t go along this bully has threatened to not give me my share of my dad’s 1/3. its a horrible mess but they are tellign me they are giving me money in dec. I know if it was being handled legally all the funds would be in a n account in my grandmothers estate name and im the one who would be in charge, but they are trying to accomodate my dads wishes and my loser brother. Now im feeling like a loser without a job. I know i have alot of assests but not alot of skills other than banking and i really think it’s high time i try something else. I was thinking after spending so much time alone lately and watching movies (detective still calleing researching and realizing his wife is a narcissist and poss a borderline) and the s still trying to keep me on a string. Why am i picking all these unavailable men who are with other women and im sitting here waiting for some type of attention from them. Screw that eh. My gf said im going to have to handle the detective differently instead of pandering to his complaints, she said not to give him any sympathy next time, be as unsympthetic as i can. I can’t beleive all the crap that i’ve gone through since becoming sober, i guess it’s probably just that im so much more aware of it all. love kindheart.