By Ox Drover
I got to thinking today about being stronger now than I was prior to the last experience with the psychopaths in my life ”¦ but when I really got to thinking about it, I realized I have actually always been as strong as I am now, I just didn’t know it or take advantage of it.
One of the reasons that humans are able to work horses, mules and oxen to pull heavy loads is because the beasts we use for our labor do not realize their strength. They don’t realize the absolute brute force power they have over us. We “control” them because they allow it.
Why do they allow it? The answer is because they are not aware of the strength and power that they have, so they allow us to take it from them and use it for our own benefit. We may “give back” something to them, like food and care for what they give us in the form of their obedience and labors, but the bottom line is that any time they realize that they have the power and strength to break away they could do it. Even if we were to abuse them, not feed them, they would still allow us to use their labor until they dropped over dead of starvation, because they don’t know any better. They don’t recognize that they don’t really “need” us to furnish feed, they could run away and find grass to fill their bellies and not labor for us. They just don’t know it. Even the fences I have around my farm are not strong enough to hold them if they really want through them, but merely “suggestions” for them to stay on this side of it. If they wanted through, the wire and posts would topple.
When we start training oxen, which are really nothing but baby calves (no special breed of animal just cattle), we are stronger than they are, and if necessary, we could wrestle them to the ground, and we also teach them that we are the “food gods” and that ALL GOOD things come from us, as well as some pretty painful ones if they do not conform to our alpha position in the “herd.” When you get right down to it, in many ways we (humans) control animals the way that psychopaths control their victims. The only difference is that I actually care about my animal’s welfare and am emotionally attached to them, whereas a psychopath really doesn’t care much about their victim’s welfare or health.
Intermittent reinforcement
In training animals, trainers use “intermittent reinforcement.” The psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that this brings on a stronger “bond” with a given behavior than if you rewarded them every time they did the behavior. That’s why a “slot machine” will keep someone stuffing money into it, because gamblers are just sure that “NEXT time” it will give them the jackpot. Psychopaths also use the intermittent reward system with us, and we keep hoping that by doing what they want, the NEXT TIME we will get the “jackpot” reward from them.
We could rebel and tell them to take their intermittent rewards and shove them, that we are not going to knuckle down and be their victims, to “pull their plows” by going to work and giving them our money, but we don’t rebel against them. We are unaware that we have the strength and power to rebel, to stand up on our own. If we are earning the living and giving them the money, why do we need them? If s/he is earning the living and we are staying home taking care of the kids all the time, still, what do we need them for?
Power and strength
We have the power and strength to take care of ourselves if we will just recognize it, acknowledge it and then use it. One working parent, taking care of the children and still making a living and a home, is still a “better deal” for children than one good, nurturing parent who is stressed and depressed most or all of the time because of the drama and abuse from a psychopathic partner.
I really am no stronger today than I was back in the midst of the psychopathic chaos, when I was literally huddled on the floor in the fetal position, emotionally “sucking my thumb,” fearing I would be killed by my psychopathic stalkers any minute.
My psychopathic son doesn’t hate me any less, most of my other relatives are no more supportive than they were back then, but I feel stronger. I feel safer. I feel better, because I recognize that I am strong enough to protect myself as much as anyone can. I can live a good life, a happy life, a healthy life, and take control of my own life. I don’t have to give that control and strength and power to anyone.
I can reward and reinforce my own good behavior, I can exercise my power, my strength and my autonomy to be what I want to be, to be the best that I can make myself.
I REALIZE I GOT CONNED! I had an unusual dream last night and when I woke up this morning, I realized I had been conned yesterday by the egg donor! I wrote yesterday about her having e mailed me that she had found a hand drawn portrait of my step father and one of my husband that P-son had mailed to her a while back (she thought P-son had drawn these but I am sure he had not done the actual drawings) and she wanted to know if I wanted the one of my late husband. The post mark on the large envelope was December of 2007, which is right after the Trojan Horse P and my DIL had been arrested in August, and during the time that NONE of us, even the egg donor were corresponding with P-son at all.
OF COURSE I WANTED IT. I had several of the fairly well done drawings that some of P-sons friends had done in the past and I LUNGED for the keyboard to tell her (smugly) that I would be “sending someone to pick it up.” I wasn’t going to go myself of course or ask son D to go, but since D’s friend G was here, I asked him to go get the picture. I warned him before he went to just say “I’m here to pick up the picture and take it to Oxy’s house.” I also went on to tell him NOT to answer ANY questions about me, if I was here, if I was living or dead, or anything…..NADA…well egg donor didn’t ask anything about me, she asked about son C still living here and the young man was surprised and said “well, I’m not sure” but in such a way that egg donor really DID get her answer, which was the POINT OF THE WHOLE THING—-I WAS OUTFOXED FOLKS! I BIT the well baited HOOK she held out to me and I shouldn’t have even answered the e mail, much less set someone to pick up the drawing.
Well, I will send the drawing of my husband standing in front of an aircraft he rebuilt to his grandson who will appreciate the portrait of his grandfather and not be turned off by where it came from or through whom.
I’ve been bashing myself on the head this morning with the cast iron skillet. The egg donor is still pretty subtle and sly like a serpent, knowing the BEST BAIT to bait her informational hooks with.
The dream was very representative of and symbolic of how I felt—-attacked. In the dream I was in a building with a large opening and I was trying to block this opening with pieces of wood and old doors to keep a large bull which was on the outside trying to jump through this opening….son D was there and neither of us could find our cell phones to call the neighbor and tell him his bull was outside trying to break in to where we were. Previous to the bull dream I had been trying to keep a pack of wolves from coming into a building through open doorways where I was trying to protect myself and my small livestock. It’s odd that the symbolism of this type of dream seems to “warn” me when I am making myself vulnerable to attack from the psychopaths….and it was like the dream came again to clarify my mixed feelings about sending someone for the picture….and now I realize that “I’ve been HAD”—-BUT it won’t be so easy the next time she tries to lure me in. I may be still curious, but I’ll curb that curiosity better next time. LIVE and LEARN.
Ox,
I’m confused? I thought son C wasn’t living with you and wasn’t speaking to egg donor? Why would she ask about him? I’m sorry I see the baiting, but not the connection as to WHY?
I’m lost???
LL
Oxy, she is DIABOLICAL! What a manipulator! What do you think she is going to do with the information? Good lord, I so wish you could live a thousand miles away from her.
LL, I live over behind her house a half mile in theh woods, and she really doesn’t know if I am here or not and she can see from her back door if cars are going in or out, but not necessarily whose car it is unless she is using field glasses to peep (she does sometimes) but anyway, Unless one of the neighbors or someone she knows tells her “Oh, I saw oxy in town the other day” or something along that line she KNOWS NADA and she is CURIOUS. I kicked son C out over a year ago and he moved and when he did he had to resign from the local fire department volunteers, so I imagine she heard from someone that “I heard C resigned from the fire department and moved to town a while back.” Since she has NO other way to get information about C or about me she would want to confirm it if she could.
Actually, when I moved back to the farm with the RV I moved in this huge 33 ft 5th-wheel RV and parked it next to my aircraft hangar and it was there for 3 months before she heard about it being there. It is only visible from a county road that runs beside the farm, not the highway. Someone must have said to her “Oh, I saw Oxy got an RV and parked it over by the hangar.” So egg donor (curious too!) got her driver to drive her over on the PRETEXT that she had seen a “strange horse” in the pasture and needed to check on it. That was of course just a PRETEXT because I rent the farm to a woman who raises horses and she is continually CHANGING the number of and the kinds and individuals of horses she keeps here, almost on a daily basis. LOL so there was NO way egg donor could have noticed a “different” much less a “strange” horse here. LOL
Actually, my RV had been here for over 3 months before she knew it and I had moved back from the lake when I brought it back, but since she only had contact with me via e mail, she didn’t know WHERE I WAS LIVING. So it is important to me to keep P son from having ANY access to information about WHERE I AM, when I am here or not, etc. and keeping her from knowing is the best way to keep information from him. I also send him DIS-information, in fact, I had one of his buddies who spies for him thinking I was in Australia for the winter. LOL
But, she HOOKED me because I was curious about the drawing of my husband. DAMN! She isssssssss ssssssneaky like a sssssssnake.
Ox.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh okay, gotcha. Wow. These people will stop at nothing.
Absolutely unbelievable. Well kudos to you Ox for being so “stealth” in your whereabouts lol!! I bet it drives her NUTS!!!!
Obviously.
I see how the hook would work too.
LL
Oxy,
What a great article! So many things to ponder as a result. Seems to me that the more strength we have that we don’t realize, the more of a threat we are to spaths and the more they need to attack or undermine us. In a way, the stronger the attack the more it’s a testament (in a very twisted way almost a compliment) to our strength.
@dancingnannies: “i think the best and most accurate way to view your situation, or “the” situation if you will” is that you weren’t dumped at all. For you to be “dumped” on relationship terms, this would have had to be a REAL relationship- which it was not. It was a predatory involvement, in nature. A vampire seeks out his prey, sucks its lifeforce/blood out of it, takes what he needs, and disappears. An involvement with a psychopath is NEVER a true relationship, it always consists of a predator and a victim.”
Thank you for that comment. It’s helped me immensely. I’ve been NC with my entire family for 20 years now – long before it was “fashionable”, and long before there was even an expression for it. For years I asked myself, and my therapists: “Did I jump, or was I pushed?” No-one could give me the answer, and were usually uncomfortable with the question and tried hard to avoid it. One said to me “Does it really matter?” No-one would ever talk about psychopaths or sociopaths or human predators because, particularly in those days, women were viewed as victims (instead of as fully autonomous human beings responsible for their own behaviours) and I got a never-ending chorus of “She did the best she could”. I got nowhere at the time, so pushed any consideration about this way down where I ceased thinking about it. But it always troubled me nonetheless. And then your comment brought it all back in a new light, and the answer is apparent. Did I jump or was I pushed? The answer is, neither. I escaped a predatory situation.
Well, of course that question was important – vitally so – but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation so eventually stopped thinking about it. I now realize that, had I been allowed and assisted to think that question through to its logical conclusion which you so accurately described, my life path would have been very different.
So thanks to both of you, Oxy and DN. Honest logical thinking about hard truths, and then reaching out to help others the way you have, sets the world a little truer on its axis – for the betterment of everyone.
Well, it is some consolation that she will be CURIOUS as heck about WHO the young man I sent to pick up the picture is….LOL and there is no way she can find out who he is. LOL
Well, I can tell it is time for me to start another DIS-information campaign about my “travels.” LOL
Like Star says I wish I did live 1,000 miles away from her, but at this point in time I have limited options….and as long as it is an option to live over here in the woods safely I will continue to do so, but at the same time, if I need to pack up and go I can do that too.
Ox,
Other than her obvious little antics, are you aware of whether or not she still has contact with P son? It’s a good thing he sits in prison another three years, I did read about that, however, I wondered if you’ve ever thought of just selling and packin it up?
I hate thinking that you’d have to run eventually if P son gets out.
UGH! What a siteeeeation!
LL
Annie,
Wow, what a beautiful post! Your sharing helps me too. I”ve been given crap about NCing my ENTIRE bio fam before, but didn’t care what people thought, really. I knew it was better for me. Why try to be a member of a club that doesn’t want you around?
Escape is CORRECT! I love the way this blog takes my negative perceptions of what I’m thinking or believing and turns it on its ear with a positive newer, more enlightened perspective.
Great post!
LL
Ox Drover:
I am almost in tears over here listening to you. It feels as though you GET IT. It IS my house, and it WAS his responsibility to share with his son consideration and boundaries. It WAS fine for me to expect that I have some say so in what happens! Trying to explain this to my ex was SO frustrating because he didnt like for me to refer to the condo as “MINE”…although it is and as he was expected to pay the bills, he’d say “…because Im paying YOUR bills.”
Christmas Day when I received the dog, his first words to me were…’isnt this the BEST gift you’ve EVER gotten?” He had been telling me for weeks before that I was gonna have ‘the best’ Christmas ever. Yeah, he bought the dog because he knew he could have a dog at my condo and NOT at mommy and daddys house. The dog wasnt bought for ME…I just happen to like that breed of dog so it was convenient for HIM. It was almost like a ‘compromise’ in his mind…”I really want a Mastiff, but know thats TOTALLY unrealistic, but still want a dog so Ill buy HER one that SHE likes and ILL benifit from it.” He paid for NOTHING after buying the dog…not even one fucking bone!
So it sounds to you like hes unable to make a commitment, eh? I know he and his family have said that about him…he’s never been committed to ANYTHING. But I was ‘different’. His parents had never seen him so ‘smitten’, and I mean, we were TOGETHER (intermittently 🙂 for 4.5 years. Doesn’t THAT mean commitment?
And the dog…he asked ME if I ‘understood what having this dog actually means”. That was a commitment, right? FUCK HIM. I had the means for him to have things he really wants but will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVVVVVVVER have on his own. And he took advantage of that…knowing that MY intentions were to have a committed, REAL relationship. And then HE looks like the victim when its over…”I tried workign with you” “(marriage) is up to you” “all you have to do is be ‘nice’.” There was always a ‘catch’ for what I wanted…but NEVER for what he wanted.
Where HE was concerned, what he WANTED he was SUPPOSED to get…no matter if it placed a burdon or inconvenience on ME. I asked him OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER to ‘ask me’ if he needed to do something, go somewhere, whatever. JUST ASK ME! But he wouldn’t. He tried disguising his DEMANDS as ‘requests’ by changing a word or two to make it SEEM like he was “asking” versus TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!
For example:
He had one Friday off and was going to get a hair cut. He didnt ‘want’ to because it would cost him too much at the place he was gonna go. He didnt do it. We had plans the followign day to go to the city. He still needed a hair cut. On our way to the gym Saturday morning, he says to me “I still need to get a haircut.” I say “when are you gonna go?” He says “after the gym” I say “how are you gonna get there?” He says in THE MOST presumptious way…a way I will NEVER forget…”well, YOUUUUU”RE gonna take me.” UGH…it makes me cringe…
He went on to say “I told you I needed to get a haircut and now because its gonna inconvenience you (I wasnt planning on leaving the gym to take him to get a hair cut. I didnt know I was supposed to), you’re not gonna do it?”
Do you see what went on there?