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 will hold it out, but I’ll wear gloves just in case. 😉
When I was a stripper I practiced “psychic self-defense.” I knew I would be around some toxic people, so I prepared myself mentally ahead of time. When I was with them, I mentally counted the money I was making and thought about all the good things I would do with the money. It really helped me deal. I just kind mentally rose above the negativity of it. So it became more like acting to me.
Dear Star, As retired medical personnel I can RELATE to being around a LOT of things that are not pleasant or nice and that we have to at least PRETEND WE DON’T “NOTICE” how GROSS it is. Because if a patient’s wounds or body fluids gross you out you can’t stand there and go “choke, choke, my gawd how this stinks!” while you clean them up. I used to work wiht a doc that was the BEST at going “hummmmmm” when things were AWFUL that I ever saw and only one time did he SCREAM “Gawd DAMN!” when he saw something he didn’t expect! LOL ROTFLMAO I will forever CHERISH that moment he screamed in surprise! LOL especially because he taught me to go “hummmmm” when I was GROSSED OUT or surprised etc.
Interestingly we have a great ability to “con ourselves” when we have to do something we don’t really want to do in order to survive….we also con ourselves to keep ourselves in DENIAL when we don’t want to admit we are BEING conned by the psychopaths.
I had a friend come today to talk to me about a proposed business she is going into that I think she will LOSE HER ASS ON, and she didn’t want to hear what I had to tell her—-she actually had an anxiety attack because she WANTED SO BADLY for me to tell her that she was going to be a BIG SUCCESS at what she wanted to do in business….and I told her the truth. I felt bad about telling her the truth as I saw it, but she asked and I wasn’t going to tell her a false hood. She wants SO BADLY to believe she will make a big success—because she is 50 years old and still waiting tables and getting older etc….and the economy sucks and she hasn’t been able to find a job anywhere around where she lives that pays any better than the one she has which isn’t going to last forever either. She isn’t in financial trouble yet—she owns her home outright so she is managing okay…but I couldn’t talk her out of her “dream”—-or get her to consider OTHER OPTIONS. She is SCARED of the future she sees now and has a “passion” for this business (which at best is a chancy one and one I know something about—and lost some money at myself) I think I felt the same way when my husband died and I was so vulnerable to feeling alone, old and fat—and opened up to the “boy friend” from hell—-because I was afraid of a future alone. She’s afraid of the financial future and she is opting for the “business deal from hell” which will leave her in the same shape I think that the boy friend left me—crying the dust! I can see where I have talked myself into so many “bad deals” because I WANTED to see only the positive things in them. My friend asked for my advice, but she didn’t want to hear the REAL advice, just have me validate her decision. Couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Eva,
so what if you puke in front of your professor? It can’t be any more gross than looking at his face.
So anyway, what has been going on with your class? Is he still targetting you every day or just on some days? When will you be finished with the spath forever?
I dunno Oxy, there are some people in life who are meant to be “scanners”. That is, they do not want to just settle with one career and go full force with it, but enjoy following their various passions – paid or not. Often these people are very bright and creative and have one stable menial job to support their hobbies and passions. I am one such person. I judged myself for it for a long time, until I found out that someone wrote a book about people like me, and that there is nothing wrong with being like that. There is something to be said for thinking outside the box and following your passions. I am a HUGE out-of-the-box thinker and have gone against a lot of advice that has been given to me in all areas of my life. I remember when I got my first condo, I remodeled it in very bright colors. I put in lilac carpet, black and white kitchen floor tiles, a bright purple countertop, and red vinyl furniture. I had a floor-to-ceiling cat tree custom made with the lilac carpet RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY LIVING ROOM! Sound ghastly? EVERYONE I talked to about it beforehand said, “dont do it”. They said my place would NEVER sell with those colors. But when I sold my condo, there was actually a bidding war over it! It was the highest selling condo that had ever sold there. It was a one-bedroom and sold higher than the 3-bedrooms. It was really stunning and looked like it should have been in Aspen rather than in the ghettos of East Denver. But I was never able to “sell” my vision to anyone before I did it.
For dreamers like me, it’s really hard to discern when someone is giving them good sound advice and when someone is shooting down their dreams. I’m not saying you are one of the latter because I don’t think you are. I’m just saying your friend might interpret it that way, and this will make it hard for her to trust your advice.
I never conned myself at all in the dancing job. I knew what it was and what I was getting into. There were times I had a toxic reaction to some of the clients. At those times I had to take a break and clear the toxicity out of my system. It did make it hard to go back, but I was on a mission. And there were some truly enlightened experiences there, where I was able to connect with some of the clients on a sensitive and human level. Of course none of them (to my knowledge) were sociopaths. And if they were, the contact was so brief that I never knew.
I have no argument with anything you say about dealing with sociopaths, but I just wanted to present a different viewpoint about my (then) job. I have written a story about that job that I hope will one day be published in a friend’s book. It’s a pretty interesting and humorous read!
Sometimes I even think about going back to it, but nowadays they’d pay me to put my clothes back ON! LOL
OMG…..talk about a son of a Spath. My life was absolute misery around the both of them. The son was 11 years old at the time.
They would come to MY house which is a new build and his son would go outside and throw his damn baseball at my garage door denting it and at my siding which cracked. When I approached the Spath on this he said “it was an accident”. BS! His son was doing it because he wasnt getting his way.
Another time, his son was over and I have an antique piano in my living room. His son is over on the piano banging so hard on the keys that they were breaking. I WAS SO PISSED! I looked at the Spath and said “are you going to say something?” The spath looks at me with disgust like I was the cause of his son’s outburst. He didn’t discipline him, just said “B be nice to the piano”. In which B starts to bang the keys harder. I finally went over and told him to get off the piano, unless he wants to play it nicely. I got the cold shoulder from both of them the rest of the day.
Then another time, we were heading to go somewhere and B runs out to the car and gets into the front seat. I told my Spath that I was not going to ride in the back, that I am the adult. My girls always got in the backseat for the adult to sit up front. Anyway, B locks the doors and says he is not moving all the while snickering at me like he was going to get his way. My Spath yells a him to get in the back seat and B opens the door and starts to take off running, pissing his Dad off. Spath catches up with B and they wrestle on the ground and Spaths phone falls out of pocket in the mud puddle. He drags his son back to the car, puts him in the backseat, gets in the drivers seat and dries off his phone. Then he looks at me and says “Are you happy now? If you would have just gotten into the backseat none of this would have happened.” I was floored. His son was being an absolute brat!!!!! So I got blamed for his son’s bad behavior. So his son sits in the back and gives me the most devilish look and snickers because I got bitched out by Spath.
I could go on and on about all the crap the Spath son did. He even went into my purse one time looking for money. I told him to get out of my personal belongings and the Spath said to me “Well maybe if you would give him money when he asks for it, he wouldn’t have to get into your purse!”
I am SOOOOOO glad that I am out of that effen mindgames, he and his son would play on me.
The more I type this up, the more the FOG lifts. Because this type of behavior was NOT normal. I was the only sane one and was slowly losing my sanity.
schnoodle64 – ‘I was the only sane one and was slowly losing my sanity. ‘ I think this is one of the reasons i have come through being spathed very sure of BS when I see, and much much more able to respond in a ways that are good for me.
One Joy ~ Yep. I have NEVER in my life encountered such behavior. Maybe I lived under a rock or something. Instead of being in a relationship, I was treated just like a child and reprimanded.
I think for me, when I post, it really opens my eyes up to what I have been through. As I type, I re-live the experience and makes me realize that I was living a nightmare. My skin would crawl when I was in the presence of this 11 year old.
He would call his dad a motherfucker when he didn’t get his way! This child is a Spath in the making!
wow, 2 for the price of one schnoodle! how horrible – an 11 year old. i think his age would cause much more cognitive dissonance – we don’t expect adults to act in this way, let alone children.
Oxy –
“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”
So why didn’t you visit me???????????????????????????
Dear Aussiegirl I would do so in a heart beat if I had the extra money to buy the ticket! I had wanted so badly to go back to South Africa and visit some of the people I met there in the 1960s when I did wild life photography there, they are in their 80s now and some of them are quite world famous now and at the time were simply game rangers in the parks we filmed in. Unfortunately, with the economy being what it is and the extra (unnecessary) expenses I’ve had as a result of the P-son and other P-attacks I have had to put that on the back burner as things I can “do without.”
Due to my short term memory problems (PTSD) after the accident that killed my husband 6 years ago as well, I had to retire so my income dropped drastically as well. Actually, having to retire probably saved my life, because if I had still been working I would never have actually left my home AND job to run when I needed to run in order to save my life. So, I look at the things that have happened as blessings in disguise sometimes. At the time it happens we think “this is awful,” but a few months or some time later, it turns out that if the “bad thing” had not happened when it did, the GOOD thing wouldn’t have happened later. Call it the “providence of God” or “karma” or whatever you like to call it, I KNOW IT IS REAL, and I BELIEVE. Sometimes though it is tough to actually TRUST this “providence of God” or “Karma” that it WILL turn out for the best in the END, but I am working on that….
Yesterday when my friend came down to talk to me about her ideas for a business to help her in her “old age” and give her some security and income—she wanted me to validate her idea. I couldn’t do it, because I think it is a very very poor idea and that she is putting WAY TOO MANY EGGS IN ONE BASKET and if her idea crashes she is MUCH WORSE OFF THAN SHE IS NOW.
The old “RISK versus BENEFIT ratio”—and we have to make choices like that ALL THE TIME. Emotionally and financially and in all manner of ways. Choices. If I do A then I cannot do B. Some things are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE and some things aren’t. Sometimes we can do BOTH A and B, but sometimes if we do one we can’t do the other. I can eat both cake and pie if I have enough money, but if I spend all my money on cake, I can’t have any pie. Or vice versa.
Since I don’t know what is going to happen with my P son or how long he is going to be in prison, and I pretty well can predict that he is DANGEROUS WHEN HE GETS OUT–whenever that is—I have to decide if I want to be able to move in comfort then, or if I would rather take a trip to Africa and other places around the world where I have friends I’d like to visit. We can’t predict the future, of course, I may croak tomorrow and not need the money, or I may live to be 130 and regret I never went and saw my friends before they left this earthly vale—but you just “pays your money and takes yer chances” to the best of your ability.
After last night’s 4.7 earthquake that did split some plaster in my house, I might be thinking about moving somewhere else anyway! LOL