Last week, I was invited to participate in a “Women’s History Breakfast” at a local high school. The school asked six local women to speak about obstacles they’ve overcome in their lives and careers to a group of approximately 50 girls.
I used the opportunity to talk about sociopaths.
First, I briefly summarized my story: I married James Montgomery, an Australian, who told me he was a Hollywood movie producer and screenwriter, a war hero who served in Vietnam with Special Forces, and who came to Atlantic City to open an electronic theme park for adults on the Boardwalk. The only thing that was true was that he was Australian.
Montgomery took $227,000 from me, cheated with at least six different women during out two-and-a-half year marriage, had a child with one of them, and then, 10 days after I left him, married the mother of the child, committing bigamy for the second time.
I had the girls’ attention.
Then I told them that my husband began his career as a liar and a cheater in high school. One of the women that I interviewed for my upcoming book relayed to me a story that James Montgomery told her: While he was in high school, Montgomery picked up a girl for a date. As they were on their way to wherever they were going, she said she forgot something and had to go back home. The girl and James walk into the house, and sitting there were six other girls—he’d told each one that she was his girlfriend. He was busted.
Now I really had the girls’ attention.
What was this guy’s problem? James Montgomery was a sociopath. I explained what a sociopath usually wasn’t—a delusional serial killer. I explained what it was—someone with no heart, no conscience and no remorse.
Then I read a shortened version of the letter that Lovefraud posted last year from a 15-year-old girl, I didn’t want to be alone and believed that he loved me. The girl described her involvement with a guy who was two years older than her. It was mostly a phone relationship—he couldn’t be bothered to actually see her. But if she went out, he got mad because she wasn’t paying attention to him. Then I read the part of the letter where he tries to get the girl to go along with his sick sexual fantasies.
By now, the girls in my high school audience were shocked.
I concluded my presentation with points on how they could protect themselves from sociopaths: First, know they exist. Second, know the warning signs. Third, trust your intuition.
The girls asked a lot of questions: How did I recover from my marriage to my ex-husband? (Good therapy.) The guy in the letter was verbally abusive—are sociopaths violent? (Sometimes.) Is there any treatment for sociopaths? (Once they are adults, no.)
I hope that I’ve warned 50 girls to be on the lookout for sociopaths.
The toxic mother texted to ask if I wanted to drive over and celebrate Easter with them this weekend. I said NO.
Boundaries! You don’t need to be around toxic people. I am staying clear of them. It builds self esteem to have the strength to say “no thank you”. I’m so done with being uncomfortable around people who are messed up. I’d rather be alone with ME. Because I like ME.
We’ve all worked so hard to recapture our true selves. We don’t need setbacks. When I saw my socio sister in the store the other day, and she yelled out my name in excitement, she thought she could suck me back into her sick world.
I looked and walked in the other direction and IT FELT GOOD.
I finally let her know that I’m done with her games of using me and devaluing me and discarding me over and over and then crawling back to suck me in.
NO MORE. I spent two hours in that store with her a few aisles down and didn’t even think of her. She tried to approach me again and my girls and we just walked away.
It was EMPOWERING. I finally set my BOUNDARIES.
And it felt great!
So, just get on your bike, read a good book, watch a good movie…and have PEACE within.
Thats all that life is supposed to be. PEACEFUL and joy.
Dear EB,
That is called “dis-information” and I practice a bit of that myself. I still write to one of P son’s inmate friends as a pen-pal (he calls me “Mom”–isn’t that CUTE) I’m not sure this guy isn’t actually innocent of the crime he is incarcerated for, the HOUSTON INNOCENCE PROJECT has his case and is actively working it (I did check with them!) but he was no choir boy when he got arrested, and 10+ years inside haven’t I am sure made him too much better, but He at least pretends to believe my side of the story about my P-son and the trying to kill me etc. They are in different prisons now, but quite possibly he could be communicating with me for information to give to my son, sooooo, I give DIS-information just in case.
I tell him about my new BLUE CAR (small white pick up) and about the fact I have rented rooms (2) in the house to some male oil field workers and also the RV which son P knows I have is rented to oil field workers. (so that puts 4 extra men here on the place, 2 at a time always here since they work rotating 12-hour shifts.)
I also “complained” about how much my new state-of-the-art Security system cost! Man, an arm and a leg, can you believe it? But oh, it can see in the dark, record and radio to a remote recorder ya da ya da It Detects a gnat flying over the gate from the road and alerts me no matter where I am! LOL
hee hee hee
EB and Oxy, Brilliant!
Bows with hands clasped in front. Much respect.
Dear Kim,
Yea, it is kind of like a fun game, too, as my NEW “BLUE CAR” is never here and the real new white PU keeps moving around. (I think EVERY oil field worker is issued a white pick up just like the one I bought there are hundreds of them out here now) I am fortunate that I have a “red neck used car lot” of vehicles that all run, but I don’t put all on the highway, (license and insurance but can use them here on the farm) and so I can move them around and make it look like there is an ARMY lives here! LOL LOL
If you are going to “hide” in a herd of cows, you put on a hat with a pair of horns and throw a brown rug over your back and get down on all-4’s. So I am trying to “hide” in plain sight as much as possible.
BTW speaking of dis-information vs information, I had thought seriously about retaining an attorney PRE-NEED for trying to keep son P from inheriting from the egg donor when she passes to that great beyond, but given the smallness of our town and the way attorneys know each other, I am afraid word might get back to her attorney what my plans were so that she and her current attorney (a full fledged Narcissistic Psychopath) might be able with warning to scotch my plans.
That’s another thing—TAKE NO CHANCES ABOUT REAL INFORMATION GETTING BACK TO YOUR ENEMY, IF YOU DO, IT WILL—you can COUNT ON IT!
I wish there was an article describing non-violent sociopaths and the red flags in Seventeen Magazine when I was a yound girl. The Podiatric Physician swept me off my feet, shortly after my parents died and I graduated from graduate school. I didn’t work, didn’t need to, had three children and was treated like a princess in the material world. Why did the fairy tale seem so wrong? He was a cheater, drug user and gambler behind clsoed doors. He knew noone would believe me, he had a successful career, never missed a day of work. But disconnected, yes. Lacked remorse, absolutely! Only sorry for getting CAUGHT not sorry for the crime. Watch the ones with a high IQ. They can lie like champs. If only they taught personality disorder and signs of addictions to us in Sex Education classes or in the teen magazines. I didn’t do drugs and didnt’ know that the things wrong with my husband was drugs. I didnt’ cheat nad didnt’ know that late nights doing “paper work” was have sex with his employee. He gaved me all i needed and more -I didn’t check to see that home equity loans finances his sex, drug and gambling addictions! Repeating the same mistakes, never learning from his mistakes and never being sincerely sorry (acting entitled to do such things). Everything was an adventure including my mother’s funeral. It was all about his SP Narcissitic self. Get the family together and it was a time to party not mourn. The fun guy to distract us from our emotions. Of course, a sociopath is a genius at AVOIDING pain. No conscience. No remorese, No self Control no abilty to bond (just atttach enough reel you in so he can expoit you). Young girls need to know about these traits as much as preventing STDS and “safer sex.” Yes, an STD can change your life but an sociopath- destroys it.
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