In the world of healing from an encounter of the P(sychopath) kind, it is easy to forget that there is a world without fear, without lies, without terror, without uncertainty, out there, just around the corner from the insanity of his abuse. It’s easy to forget that people don’t always manipulate, deceive, devalue and destroy you. And, it’s easy to forget — you never deserved their lies and manipulation in the first place.
It’s one of the things that makes healing from these encounters so difficult. We forget who we are as we fall into believing we are who they say… Whatever it is they tell us we are — from beautiful to ugly, impossible to live without, impossible to live with. The most incredibly intelligent woman they’ve ever met to the stupidest woman who ever walked the planet.
In their eyes we become less than we ever imagined possible because, in their eyes we do not exist. At least, not the ”˜we’ we’ve known ourselves to be. Because their eyes can’t see ”˜us’. All they can see is the ”˜target’ of who they needed us to be while they stalked and plotted their way into our lives.
When I was first released from that relationship, I couldn’t believe what had happened to me. And then I had to remind myself — believe it. It happened. “But how could he have done it?” my mind raced. “He said he loved me. Would never hurt me.”
Hah! Face it. He lied.
Facing reality of his lies is imperative to healing from these cretins evil passages through our lives. Believing they did what they did, said what they said, lied and deceived and cheated and coerced us into giving up on ourselves, is vital to our recovery.
And facing the truth about the sickness of their love, and our sickness while believing we were in love with them is critical to soothing our aching hearts and sorrow filled psyches.
So many times someone will say after they’ve told me all the things he’s done to abuse them, “But I still love him.”
And I always ask, “What’s in it for you to keep believing you love someone who treated you like that? Who betrayed you? Cheated on you? Lied to you with every breath? What’s in it for you to keep believing he is worthy of your love?”
Because after they’ve gone and devalued and discarded us one more time, we are the one’s who keep ourselves attached to their machinations with our picking at the scabs of the wounds they’ve inflicted at us, worrying the sore of their abuse with our repetition of their words running through our minds. We are the one’s who keep thinking about them, worrying about what they’re doing or saying after they’ve walked out the door one last time leaving us standing with the pieces of our hearts falling through our fingers into the puddle of our tears pooling on the floor.
It is not easy healing from a relationship with a sociopath. But, it’s a heck of a lot better than being in relationship with one.
When I was with the sociopath, I did not know up from down, left from right, in from out. Every day was fraught with some new terror, some weird and wacky story about why he couldn’t turn up, didn’t have the money to pay, didn’t have the guts to call, or simply didn’t do what he’d say he’d do in the first place. Every day was a roller coaster ride through his crazy-making words and antics, with me constantly searching for truth and order, fairness and kindness amidst the insanity that was his ”˜love forevermore’. In staying with him, I became more and more sick. More and more incapable of seeing that it wasn’t that I ”˜couldn’t leave’, it was that I kept telling myself, “I couldn’t leave.” because…. he loved me. Needed me. Wanted me. I loved him. Needed him. Wanted him. I kept telling myself I couldn’t walk away and trapped myself into believing I couldn’t because I loved him and he loved me.
He never knew what it meant to love. He never had it in him to love me. And, while I walked into that relationship with my arms and heart wide open to love, I stayed because my mind closed down and my heart broke up into a thousand tiny pieces with every moment I remained within his unholy arms.
When I was first released I wanted to believe he loved me, at least at some point in that tortorous ride — it couldn’t all be for nothing, could it? I wanted to believe it wasn’t all a lie or some sick game played out on the battlefield that became my life. In healing, I accept, He never loved me. He never could. It was always a sick game and I was the pawn who could never gain entry into his castle — because his castle never existed. And he was never the prince of my imaginings.
Poison doesn’t kill you because it loves you. Poison kills you because it’s toxic.
And he was toxic to my life. A poison I consumed with every breath I took whether I was in proximity to him or his voice was simply coming down the umbilical cord of the telephone through which he fed me my daily dose of lies.
In those first minutes and hours and days away from him, within the protective veil of No Contact, I came face to face with reality and accepted my truth. I never loved him. I wanted to think I did. I truly wanted to believe I did. But, in reality, I loved a mirage. A shimmering creation of his duplicituous creation. He was the chimera. Facilely capable of shifting shape to suit the weather, the time zone, the geographic formations around him.
I never loved him. I loved the thought of him. The idea. The dream.
In accepting the reality of my love of the idea of him versus the truth of who he was, I freed myself to awaken from the nightmare of his embrace. In my awakening, I opened myself up to all that is possible when I let go of living on cloud nine, squeezing my feet into too small high heeled shoes that inevitably trip me up. Feet firmly planted on the ground in my size nine hiking boots, and armed with my shield of No Contact, I strode fearlessly away from my need to hear his voice, to know what he was doing and saying and thinking. To make sense of his nonsense. To understand his machinations.
He did what he did because he could. It’s what he does. It’s who he is.
There’s no rhyme nor reason that can ever justify what he did to me or continues to do to others. Away from him, there’s no sense in spending my precious breath trying to make sense of his nonsense or trying to figure out if there is some way I can make him hear me, see me, look at me. There’s no closure worth being in contact with him. No point in having the last word. There’s never a last word with a sociopath. They’ll always think that one word is the opening to more.
He is the lie and I am free.
He will always be the lie and I will always be free — as long as I stay true to who I am, my values, beliefs, principles and ideals. As long as I stand up for what is right and loving in my life and turn up for me in all my beauty, warts and all and love myself for all I’m worth.
Today, these boots are made for walking. Away from abuse. Away from deceit. Away from anything or anyone who believes they have the right to tell me who I am, what I can do and where I can go.
In walking away from the belief that I loved him, I walk into the truth that I deserve love and joy and all that is good in this world. In walking away from him I leap fearlessly into creating my best life yet, of living this moment without fear that I will fall into the arms of someone who believes they have the right to take my life and make it theirs.
Nobody has that right. And I’m not giving up my right to live my life in joy and love and wonder, creating my best life yet for all I’m worth.
And I’m worth a lot.
So are you.
I survived an encounter of the sociopathic kind. I am no longer a victim of his abuse. I am a victor on the path of success, creating beauty and love in my life today because, I deserve it!
So do you!
Witsend, they have so many different masks, who knows which face is real? I submit to you that you are not seeing the “real” mask either.
That is so sad about your son. My sister is a teacher in Denver and she has a kid that is doing the exact same thing in her class. He won’t turn in anything but a blank sheet. and this kid was in honors geometry class. He was a good student until sometime last year. Same thing happened to me. I was in honor algebra class as a freshman but felt like the teacher sucked so I didn’t do any work and I still got a C. Then the next year I hated my geometry teacher so I didn’t do any work there either and flunked. I switched schools and just did self-study geometry the next two years. I liked just reading the book and doing the problems. I did fine then. Interfacing with people pissed me off back then because the adults seemed like such phonies.
I feel like I can relate to some of these thought patterns but the problem with my xP is that I’m in a mother-relationship with him and his knee jerk reaction is to protect himself by manipulating. Finally, I know that his behavior has been so horribly outrageous, immoral, illegal and disgusting that he can never commit to revealing any of it unless I can convince him that I will still love him. So I don’t talk to him about his behavior so much as his thought processes. I addressed some behavior only to show how it revealed his thought processes, I told him that it’s textbook. and then I immediately reinforce that I still love him.
In your case, you may need to distance yourself and find someone that he CAN bond with. But I don’t know who that would be.
skylar:
“I’m still trying to be clear so that when I approach him I can control the situation. There will be no overnight revelation. it will be tiny chinks in the armor until it’s gone and it will take years.”
It will take years.
Skylar, think about those words. It will take years.
You have already wasted years of your life on the S in your life. You are facing off his stepped-up activity trying to get his hands on your house and other asets. Why in the name of God do you want to waste any more time on him?
You are never going to make him see the error in his thinking. Any of us on this site who have some mileage under our belts with these subhumans realize that an N/S/P is perfectly happy with his “interior landscape” and doesn’t see any need to change a thing. More to the point, if the psychiatric community admits that not only is treatment usless for Ss and in fact gives them the tools to be even better at the S game, what makes you think that you can possibly make a difference in where he is comiing from?
At this point he has made it crystal clear to you what he wants — MONEY. His manipulative emails haven’t worked — yet. I can predict exactly what will happen when you telegraph to him what you’re looking for i.e. an admission that his thinking is disordered and he has made bad choices –he will admit it, yessirree. Because then he’ll have you right where he wants you. He’ll have given you what you want and now it will be your turn to give him what he wants — money.
I know of what I speak. Everytime S knew I was at the end of my rope he’d start singing the “you’re right. I need to see a therapist. I’m running from my problems…” blues. One of my biggest regrets was the week we were going to Greece last year and he was facing eviction, that I didn’t tell him “you’ve got issues to deal with here, so I’m going alone.” Instead I let him sing his song, yet again, got my hopes up that this time he really was going to see the light, and got myself manipulated into getting his eviction stayed and taking him on the trip. It was the worst mistake of my life.
So, my friend. you can waste more energy, time, money, resources and what have you on trying to make him see the light, or you can put that energy, time, money, resources and what have you into trying to get your life back on track. Your call.
Good call, Matt, thank you.
You’re right that’s what he will do, Because he never mentioned the house, not once. But he did ask me what I was doing for money but I evaded his question. He didn’t volunteer what he was doing for money. But that’s ok, my end goal is to get him to admit to the lies he told. Just one admission will create a cascade of crisis. Now that you’ve told me what his endgame is, I will be prepared to dance around it to get what I want. If he wants the house he will need to prove his sincerety. Only admission to the lies and games he played with the neighborhood will be enough. Of course that will never happen…
You’re awesome.
skylar,
I am just really sad right now. TODAY just SUCKS! Plain and simple
There is yet another one on another thread.
You talked to your X P today for 3 hours.
Everyone still seems to be kind of pissy about what happened yesterday.
Witsend,
it does suck, but like I told the xP today: growth involves pain. Thats why they call it growing pains.
I hope that I’m done running from this pain.
As far as that thing, for some reason it really doesn’t bother me. It’s got no life, so it hangs around where its not wanted. It’s either that or Radio Shack. 🙂
ON THIS DAY
On Oct. 14, 1964, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
SKYLAR!!!!!!
BOINK!!! Why are you talking to him????? If he “admitted” he was the Hillside STRANGLER what difference would it make??????
He might SAY THE WORDS, but so what if he did? HE IS A LIAR—and without remorse (he has none) he CANNOT FEEL it!!!!
Say, do you think he might be TAPING your conversatuion with him?
You say the conversation went round and round—so what?
Skylar, sweetie! GO NO CONTACT WITH HIM!!!!! As long as you play with fire you are going to get burned, as long as you PET THE RATTLE SNAKE, YOU WILL GET BITTEN.
(((((hugs)))))
If you sleep with dogs you will have fleas! Except for Henry!
Oxy,
there has to be more to life than this.
BTW, Donna deleted all MY POSTS but left all the posts by the Buffalo character. You don’t think she was in on it do you?
That’s just too bizarre.
No, she erased my posts, Kim’s, and a lot of the Buffalo posts, and a few others.