Recently a man wrote me saying that his best friend has been more hurtful than helpful when it comes to helping him recover from his relationship with a sociopathic woman. He had the following comment and question. I am sure many of you will relate to this one, especially you guys out there.
I have a best friend who I talked to (of course I desperately needed to get my self-identity back). He instantly tried to help me by seeing my own flaws in the relationship and what I could do better, and stated that I overreacted. Of course, his “help” only contributed to her brainwashing and manipulation because it further fueled my questioning about myself, and further made me believe that I was at fault. This reinforced my guilt and shame in which I can now see that I had no reason to experience.
In this regard, my best friend became my worst enemy because he had no clue. I still believe he meant well, though. Of course, my friend has a good impression of her and have never felt the damaging effect of being in a relationship with a sociopath.
So now I question whether he really is my best friend, since he made matters much, much worse (probably without realizing). How can we get a friend to understand what we have been dealing with, and the damaging effect on our emotional life and our self-esteem / self-respect?
Many of the behaviors and manipulations of sociopaths are entirely beyond the comprehension of the average person”¦or mental health professional for that matter. This past week, someone else told me the story of how he came to realize that his significant other was a sociopath. It turns out that the sociopath faked having cancer. This man told a family member and ask the question, “Who fakes having cancer?” Coincidentally a short time later that family member saw an MSNBC special on con artists where faking cancer was discussed. The person called my friend to say, “Hey I think I found out what’s wrong with ______ she’s a sociopath.” Well the man had never heard of “sociopath” before and had to research it. To his shock his lover met every one of the criteria!
Don’t despair if your friend doesn’t get it. Who would ever guess that there are people who appear normal and even affectionate and yet who are only motivated by power, greed and sex? Although we understand some people have problems with conscience and empathy, we believe that at heart all people want and need the same things we do. Very few understand that sociopaths have different needs and drives.
That gets me to my proposal. I think eventually we will want to go beyond this blog and web site and have a conference or start regional support groups. I think we should consider a conference for victims. I have had the very good fortune to correspond and speak on the phone with some other victims. We can finish each other’s sentences because we know what comes next. The sociopath’s methods are all strikingly similar. Perhaps that is the best evidence there is as to the existence of the syndrome.
I recognize there are many people who do not understand what I went through and who may blame me for my own suffering and the suffering of others at the hands of my former husband. It has been very important to my recovery that I have been able to talk with other victims who know firsthand the mind games and distortions of reality sociopaths are capable of.
OxDover,
I don’t exactly agree that people don’t get it because they just can’t believe that there isn’t at least some good in everyone.
Have you ever heard the expression: You don’t know what you don’t know? I think this is a more accurate way of framing it. Because what we have experienced is outside the realm of what people know. In fact, now when I see a movie that is portraying an abuser or a psychopath, I feel like there is a subtext or another layer that is visible to me and not visible to someone else that has not experienced this.
Consider my essay where I talked about the movie, The Color Purple. I have seen that movie many times prior to my encounter with Bad Man. I saw it… and I thought the character “Mr.” was a mean guy. Clearly he was abusing Celie… but I didn’t get what I get now about it. I get it psychologically.
Sociopathic behavior is, to most people, outside their realm of possibility. They don’t know that they don’t know.
My question is.. if we have a conference some day, and we try to create a plan of action to create support groups and education on this matter, how will we get people to understand and recognize Disordered people without having the experience in their bones? I wonder.
For me, I KNOW in my body what this is now and I will never forget it.. And I don’t think I will ever be sucked in again by it but in a way, it’s like knowing what it’s like to be on the moon. I have been there. I can tell people about it all that I want but much of what I am saying will not sink in. They may smile and nod and say they get it but they don’t.
Perhaps a check list for victims other than the DSM-IV would be something to create. Here’s a few potential items.
Signs you are in a dangerous relationship.
1. The person makes you WRONG when you try to set boundaries for your own well being.
2. You find that you are always defending your character or that your character is under constant attack.
3. You feel smoothered.
4. You notice that the person seems to have inappropriate responses to things; their responses take you off guard. Example: You need to change plans because you Grandma died and they barely acknowledge your loss and are STILL bent out of shape about a change in plans due to circumstances beyond your control.
5. You simply can’t meet all the demands they put on you… (and BTW, since when does a relationship include DEMANDS) no matter how hard you try, it’s never enough.
And so on. Since victims seem to have similiar feelings, it may be easier to give people a check list of how THEY FEEL rather than having them try to diagnose the other persons driving motives.
ALL Good points, Aloha, but I do know people (in fact a friend of mine who just married a guy that I KNOW IN FACT IS A P) who “just can’t believe there isn’t some good in EVERYONE”–QUOTE…she is a GOOD person, without any malice or guile in her heart, but she is a chronic victim. Her first husband was an emotional and physical abuser, beat her down into a pile of jelly, convinced her she was stupid, incompetent, etc etc. you know the drill, then left her with the kids an dno money and little job skills, for her best friend.
SHE STILL DOESN’T GET IT. She still “looks at the good in HIM” (sHEESH! FOR GOODNESS SAKES!) Sorry for the rant, but I get so frustrated with her because she just WILL NOT SEE, will not admit that there are some people who are just EVIL, that ENJOY HURTING OTHERS—including this jerk she just married (she is wife #4) he has NO job (age 50) and only income is a small pension not enough to live on) he was living on a creek bank in a TENT when all of us met him, and I gave him a manual labor job on my farm for gas money and food. He had been living with his brother and SIL but was so upsetting that his brother threw him out literally on to the street.
After he started to work for me, he started trying to “court” me, but I put a STOP to that quickly enough, so he turned to her. Within only a few months he had her nailed down and I fired him for wanting pay for no work. After I fired him (he still had no place to go except his car (he had been sleeping in my aircraft hangar on a cot) he went to another mutual acquaintence and told them all kinds of stories of my “abuse” of him (and of course they took him in to shelter him since I was so cruel to toss him out) They have since figured out that his “tales” were fabrication.
Her best friend (who DOES GET IT) also warned her about this guy, but she married him anyway. BTW whe was warned BEFORE she got involved with him by both me and her best friend. Long before I fired him.
She was also “close friends” for 30+ yrs with my P-xBF, and she kept making “excuses” for his abusive behavior and cheating on his x-wife, and on me, etc. etc. Same “excuse” there is “good in EVERYONE”
There have also been people here on this blog (can’t remember who) who said that if they thought that there was not SOME “good in everyone” they just couldn’t face that knowledge and cope. (or words to that effect)
I read a book written by the minister who was called by Jeffrey Dahlmer to baptize and “minister” to him, and the man did. Very sincerely, and convinced of Jeff’s sincerity. After Jeff died, they found that he had been writing to 14 women and pledging “undying love” and wanting to “marry” each of them (all at the same time) and the minister just couldn’t understand why Jeff wrote to these women (WE do don’t we folks?) because the minister was just so SURE tht Jeff was such a sincere Christian–after all ANYONE CAN REPENT and TURN TO GOD. Yea, EXCEPT A Psychopath. It was ALL A GAME, his conversion, his prostestations of sincereity etc. Just a GAME to fill time that he would have had to otherwise spend in a solitary cell alone. Just a game in how he could fool all those nice folks. Yuk Yuk, “boy I pulled one over on that stupid SOB”
The minister talked about how confused he was about why Jeff would have pretended his sincerity, what motive could he have had? Of course the minister couldn’t see a “motive” that made sense to him, neither could the women I am sure (0ne had to be sedated she was so upset) but WE KNOW—there is NO REASON that makes sense to a normal human with a soul, just to the Ps. We know that it is a game and gives them pleasure, but we can’t really imagine WHY—just know that it does. If anything, it is more twisted than killing and eating his victims.
My friend, the “constant victim” refuses to let go of her “ideal” that everyone has some good in them and that no one could enjoy hurting others, using them, etc. including her ex husband or my X-BF, or her current husband—and as long as she stays in that mind set she will always be a victim of one P or another. I can’t rescue her against her will, I can’t educate her against her will, and I can’t compete against the DREAM she has, the FANTASY of that DREAM….until she is again flat on her back crying “why me?” In the meantime, I pray for her, I love her, but I can’t rescue her…but I will be here if she needs me in the future, to support her to educate her IF SHE WANTS TO LEARN.
Of course not everyone is so naive to believe that EVERYONE has good in them but so many in my experience seem to have that belief tightly clutched to their chests like armor plate.
AloaT. At first people look at me strangely, then when I give them a potted version of my story and his behaviour, they end up saying that they know possibly more than one person who is just like that!!
What I do is to explain how the relationship kicks off, how they intensify things, put you on a pedestal. My ex maybe different in his behaviour, but I will say that he told me he loved me way too early (red flag) and I kept telling him that I could hear the words but was not getting the feeling (sign of no emotional connection). He was very reliable to start with presumably because I was his new toy (prey). Then he faked a heart attack and I went to the hospital and they found nothing wrong (manipulation). Then he went off sex totally within the first 3 months, telling me sex wasnt important to him (classic Narcissistic ploy) and that he had a hernia caused by vigorous sex with his last gf (insult to me). Then he used to turn his back on me and set up crude jokes which seemed so childish (adolescent behaviour akin to Narcissism). He flirted covertly with married women at work and then told me they were ‘mates’ (setting up more Narcissistic supply). He frequently cancelled arrangements, turned off his phone and snubbed me in public. Saying he was tired was his favourite reason to cancel or cut short arrangements. Started dropping hints that he was cheating/flirting. Started borrowing small amounts of money from me and used other people in his life to exploit them. If I spoke up about anything, without a word he would walk out and dump me and I would find some things on my doorstep. Basically he went from someone who was so besotted about me and so in love with me, that he couldnt even be bothered to answer his phone to me. He used text messages to tease me and wind me up. He had in excess of a dozen phones, and in the end took great delight in using one of my phones to text one of his conquests and then gave me the phone back with the sexual text messages left on it for him to engineer me to finish things.
Fighter on Cyberpaths has very good descriptions of narcissistic behaviours. When I explain to people how all this behaviour was his manipulation to gain my affection and loyalty but ultimately to control me, weaken me and brainwash me – they get the meaning of it.
During my affair with a P I confided in only one friend. She was also a friend of the OW and once all was revealed that the two of them were in the con together, this friend became her best friend!! and she could not understand why I did not want anymore to do with her.
It was almost as bad the betrayal by the other two.
Swallow
I had such a revelation 2 weekends ago. I went to see a close friend who lost her ex-husband to cancer. She had left him AFTER he was diagnosed; they had a 4-year old girl together and he was diagnosed, at age 43, with lymphoma. He died about a month ago.
I traveled to her house for a memorial service, and we ended up confiding in each other. She sobbed over the fact that everyone thought her a nasty bitch for leaving a cancer-ridden man. But in fact she had been abused, physically threatened and emotionally abused, for many years, and the truth is she just couldn’t take it anymore. For those of you who have read my own posts under the “promises” blog, you know I certainly could relate to her. She felt SO misunderstood by all of her friends, myself included. None of us knew this was going on – we all saw her as a tough cookie who couldn’t give him a break. In addition, he had had an affair on her, and I remember thinking at one time that if only she could forgive him, they could carry on. How was it that I took his side! Knowing now how difficult that kind of forgiveneess is when there is no subsequent healing action on his part. I think he was a sociopath, no doubt. And none of us knew – he hid it so well, he had so much anger toward her. Toward the end of his life, he wrote inappropriate emails expressing his anger toward her, and that was when i first got some inkling that something was wrong.
I feel lucky to have bonded with her now – it has helped her feel not alone, and it is helping me too as I struggle still in my own relationship.
I just lost my post to the administrator, not sure why, so i’m going to try again. I just spent the weekend with a friend who lost her ex-husband to cancer. He was abusive to her and none of us really knew the extent of it until now. She is suffering from the loss of him, but at the same time, she suffers too because she feels like people never understood what she was going through, and why she HAD to leave, even though she knew he was dying. He died with his parents, on another continent; she stayed away with her 4-year-old daughter.
I once even passed judgement on her, saying that I wished she would forgive him his for his affair (!), so that they could move on, since they’d decided to stay together. Never understanding that he wasn’t making ammends. And never understanding how much damage had been done through physical threats and emotional abuse- name-calling, etc – all things we’ve been through. It has been a relief to me to confide in her, and a relief to her to know she’s not alone. Solace turns up in the most unexpected places.
Many times, I think, each of the “incidents” taken BY THEMSELVES don’t “amount to much” and there is “always a plausible explination” (I’m tired) Okay, so he canceled out at the last minute cause he was tired. That makes sense. People do that all the time, I do that sometimes (I do always give notice though)…I sometimes borrow small amounts of money from friends if we are out and I need some cash (always pay it back though) Sometimes I am lost in thought, or not feeling well and I may appear “distant” with someone, doesn’t “mean” anything—etc etc ETC ETC
BUT:
IF YOU PUT THEM ALL TOGETEHER so that there is a PATTERN, then it becomes more VISIBLE to the person involved, and you can start to see that there is “something going on” but unless the abuse is very blatant it is difficult to describe this to another person, an outsider, who has no dealings with this person or a P in general.
I still almost fall over laughing at my mother’s exclimantation after the P-DIL and the Trojan Horse-P were arrested–“but they were so RESPECTFUL to me!”
Yea, “respectful” and “sweet” while they convinced her to put their names on her checking account, put all legal documents into their care and $50,000 in an account with the DIL’s signature—which she took $24,000 out of as they were going to make the “get away”—yea, that is really RESPECT.
I can’t understand what she thought, did she think that they would be “nasty” to her or scream at her? They were trying to CON her, of course they were “nice.” I, on the other hand, was NOT “respectful” cause I raised my voice to her when I told her they were trying to kill me, and probably her! (and she wouldn’t believe me even though I had proof). That “proved to her” that I was the meanie out after her money and THEY, the respectful nice ones, were trying to save her from ME. (shaking head here)
Hell, I lived through all this and I STILL DON’T BELIEVE IT, IDON’T BELIEVE MYSELF! lol IT SOUNDS TOO FAKE TO POSSIBLY BE TRUE.
lil orph. thanks for your response it means a lot, i like it when people respond to my coments i get a lot out of it sometimes people dont which is ok but i prefer to get some feed back thats why i am here. so thank you so much. i think it is true the only ones who understand have been there so to speake. caue mine was so artful at his treatment of me i didnt even suspect anything the only tim i saw a change and thought something is really up was when i chalenged him on things like i had a suspicious feeling and checked the phone bill he caught me and things changed he was angry really angry and i thought if nothing to hide a guy would not get that angry about this. he even went and got his old ph bills out of storage and threw them out so i oculd not look back at his patterns calls and behviour before i was on the scene. big warning adn that when it all changed and began me being suspicious and him acting suspiciously. so if i hardly noticed how is someone who has no idea about these type of people evr going to get it they dont se it first hand, and it is also true you need to see the whole thing not just sections of what they do. i thin people get that they are a bit weird but thats about it.Beverley; your story and ex are so similar to mine its not funny.he gradually got worse and did the same things he also sid sex didnt matter to him early in th relationship! and he in the end also sent himself a text for me to find suposedly from another woman so i would leave him it was staged totally. but by this time i was onto him and called his bluff i didnt react to it and he had no where to go. he did this cause he didint have the balls to end things with me he wanted me to get angry and leave him. thank you ladies.
Beverly,
That was an excellent explanation of patterns and tactics. Yep… that would work. For me, I can recall some big events but I can’t recall the day to day manipulation, intimidation and subtle stuff. I still for some reason feel like I would not be able to tell a complete chronological story fo what happened. I was under a lot of stress so maybe that is why.
OxDover,
Your response continues to prove my point.
The people who insist that there is good in everyone don’t know what they don’t know. They can not fathom that there are circumstances where there isn’t. When we describe the abuse, their mind automatically goes to the place of asking us things about our actions because they are thinking in the model of cause and effect.
The thinking is… no one acts like that without a reason… and off they go.. trying to help us look at ourselves for bad behavior that CAUSED whatever the problems were… because this is all they know and in their mind there is no possibility of anything else.. but they don’t realize that. Do you follow me?
I suspect a person whom has never been in an abusive relationship themselves might even think they are advising us from a place of perhaps.. a little superiority because they think they would know immediately if they were being abusived.
But WE KNOW.. this can happen to anyone. And why can it happen to anyone? Because we don’t even know what it is as it happens to us.
This debate, if it is that, reminds me of something I experienced when I went to massage school. I was learning Shiatsu which is an Eastern form of massage. We were studying all the “meridians” (energetic pathways) of the body. I had all kinds of questions and wanted to see the studies to “prove” all the theories. I wanted to know how “they” know that if I press here on the foot, it’s good for the liver.. and things like that. I asked my teacher, “How do they know.” He answered, “Because they know.” I asked, “Do they have studies to prove it?” He said, “No.” “Why not?” “Because that is the western way of thinking.” My teacher had to get me to get that there is another way of thinking about the body.. a way other than the western way. Before that class, I didn’t really know there was any other way to think about the body… and I didn’t know that I didn’t know about “chi” and “life force energy”. The Eastern Model of thinking about the body is embraced as fact just like we accept the circulatory system as fact, not theory.
So, in a way, we, victims of sociopaths have been forced to think about human beings in a new way. We think about them in a way that was not available to us until it was… and now, we can never go back. We know what we didn’t know and we will never forget it now that we know it.
Am I talking crazy talk here? Does anyone follow what I am trying to say?
One more way to look at it is this: When victims refuse to acknowledge what is happening to them, it is called denial.
The other state, the one of friends and loved ones whom have not experienced a sociopathic encounter… and give us misguided advice do this because they… say it with me… don’t know what they don’t know.
I know what I am trying to say but I am still not sure if it’s clear. Oh well.
Aloha,
I wrote an exposure blog and I outlined one incident where I used the words, little did I know.
What happened was, immediately after “He” had sought me out to reconcile again after a fight and a separation, He told me he had previously planned a “solo” gambling excursion out of state. Sounded possible and my “logical” mind told me, why would he want to get back together again after all that just to go cheat? Then he emailed me (of course I was alseep) at 2 a.m. saying he was done gambling for the night.
Only much later did I find out he’d only gone as far as another woman’s home to spend the weekend with her. I didn’t know that I didn’t know or little did I know, either way I know exactly what you are saying. That behavior back then made no sense whatsoever to me.