How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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By Ox Drover

Going through my family photos I came across one of my two oldest sons. We had gone on vacation to Montana to visit a friend for the summer in 1981. They were about 10 and 11 years old. My friend took us around to all the local sights and showed us some old gold mines dug back into the solid rock.

In the photo made that summer, I saw my sons, both kneeling on a huge rock about five feet from the edge of a stream of rapidly flowing water, with a gold pan in their hands. My friend had put a handful of sand from the edge of the creek into the wok-shaped pan and showed them how to swirl the sand in the bottom and let the rushing water wash away the lighter sand, and told them that the heavier gold dust would stay in the bottom of the pan.

They were so excited to be panning for real gold and before long they started to see flakes of glitter in the bottom of their pan. It shone like the sun and made them very excited and they were talking about all the things they would buy with the fruit of their efforts. GOLD!!! REAL GOLD!!!

When they had a teaspoon or so of golden dust in the bottom of their pans, they could come to the bank of the river and put it into a plastic container. Then they would scoop up more sand and go back out on the big rock in the river’s edge. They worked for hours digging and panning for gold dust, excitedly washing the sand they dug, and keeping the glittering dust in the bottom.

As my friend and I sat on the bank of the creek watching the boys enjoying their experience, he leaned over to me and said, “I don’t have the heart to tell them it is fool’s gold they are panning.”

I sort of chuckled that day, and never really did tell the boys that their work was for naught, or that what they thought was a treasure trove of real gold was nothing but pyrite, or “fool’s gold.” Eventually, I think they figured it out for themselves, and my oldest son still has a small jar with the fool’s gold in the bottom.

I was thinking about “fool’s gold,” in terms of false things that glitter and mimic “the real thing” but are, in truth, worthless. A psychopath’s claims of loving us, their claims that they care for us, are “fool’s gold,” because in fact, they don’t have the capacity to love or care.

The miner who came back to “Deadwood” with a big poke (bag) of fool’s gold would be the laughing stock of the town for a while. Sometimes we may feel that we are laughing stocks or fools for having accepted the “fool’s gold” of the psychopath’s “love” for us as real.

Just as my sons were unable to distinguish the fool’s gold from the real gold, we are sometimes unable to distinguish what is real and what is not.

Experience, however, is a good teacher if we will listen to it. Having seen real gold dust, it is easy enough to compare the different sparkle of fool’s gold from the real thing. Having been fooled once (or twice or more) by the fake glitter of false love, we can use this knowledge to protect us. As the old saying goes, and it is so true, “not everything that glitters is gold.” As we learn that everyone who says, “I love you” doesn’t really, we learn to pick the real from the false.

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  1. ErinBrock

    I’ll just call him George…..he’ll ask why …….
    And i’ll tell him because he’s gonna remind me of curious george any minute…..cuz he’s NEVER gonna know why!

    Am I now having a conversation with myself????
    HENS>>>>>>>>>>HEEEEENNNNNNSSSSSS>>>>>>

  5. Renewedhope

    It’s been 32 days now NC with s woman who almost ruined my marriage and life. Upon reading your responses, I was reminded of some of the things S woman said to me..again the same things you all were told: That You are my soul mate and that no one Knows me as well as you do! Well evidently I didn’t know the main thing about you ol’girl or I would NOT have spent 27 years thinking you would change..or more importantly that you actually cared about me.
    Today I am more confident than I was a month ago. My wife and I are back to where we were before S woman lied and said she dying and I “had to tell her how much I still love her”That I didn’t want her to leave this Earth plane without her knowing that. S woman became”Smitten” with me all over again thus starting a long distance/2 month emotional affair via the email and phone.
    I look at my beloved wife now with a renewed infatuation that hasn’t been there for a long while and realize who really does love me with a whole heart and soul. That she hung in there durng that 2 months in fear that I would leave her forS woman. S woman- who had me so screwed up emotonally that I almost left the best thing that ever happened to me, and almost did it twice. The only thing that saved me this time was that it was in the dead of winter and S woman went through her cycle a little too fast: first “acting” totally smitten with me..whispering sweet nothings in my ear over the phone and within a month and a half later..insulting me and telling me that it was all my fault for the affair.”You should have known better,you are married!” and “It was wrong and you know it!” Ok she was right: I had this emotinal affair all alone for 2 months. She had nothing to do with it! (Yeah..Right!)Had she not went through her “Bored” stage I would still be in her grasp and still committing myself to about $2,500 of my fathers estate money when it clears probate. But she really screwed up this time because she had a sure thing until she insulted me January 27th on the phone. I would have still came through with the dough too just as her friend until I found out that she was playing me like a violin because she is a S!!! Some friend!
    My wife and I lay next to each other last night in bed holding hands and gazing into each others eyes thanking God for seeing us through this rough time. My wife telling me that our reationship was actually stronger for the experience. I agreed with her but sure wished foresight was 20/20 as well as hindsight. Everyday gets a little easier. My marriage alot stronger. Because I decided to keep the real gold over the fool’s gold!

  6. one/joy_step_at_a_time

    Renewedhope:

    Hang in there!

    I don’t know if you have read the Bretrayal Bond. I am going through it and doing the exercises. Very helpful. It is important to go deeply into ourselves to do the work we need to do to heal and not just take refuge in our relationships, as grateful as we are for them. we need to put the emphasis on ourselves and our healing, so as not to burden them with the weight of the work we need to do.

    best,
    one step

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