By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
I’m a sucker for “one line philosophies,” and sometimes I hear a new one that makes me perk up my ears and start to ponder on the phrase. Thus the quotes around today’s title.
The person who told me this, and said that she had heard it from her mother, I later came to believe is a psychopath. At the very least, she was incredibly demanding toward me, but all in the name of being “helpless” and therefore entitled to my help or entitled to doing it her way, entitled to inconvenience everyone else for her immediate gratification.
Of course she never shouted at me to get her way, but was very soft spoken and politely demanded that her will be given in to by all in the house. It was all very “passive-aggressive” and “please and thank you,” but demanding none-the-less. We must remember that “passive” aggressive is still aggressive.
Pity ploy
One of the things I have noticed in my several acquaintances with various levels of psychopaths, from the common garden-variety “red-neck thugs” to the “snakes in suits,” is that they are all very good at presenting themselves as “victims” of someone else, or victims of circumstances, and therefore they are entitled to special privileges or consideration because of X, Y or Z. If you aren’t willing to take “pity” on them and give them their way, then you are the bad guy kicking the poor victims when they are down and unable to defend themselves.
My maternal DNA donor is quite adept at the “pity ploy,” and at the tactic of projecting her own bad thinking onto others in “mind reading” sessions such as, “Well, I had to lie to you because if I’d told you the truth you would have been mad and thrown a fit.” Actually I would have been disappointed in her gullibility in giving the psychopaths money, but not angry. It was, after all, her money that she earned, and she was entitled to give it to a home for stray cats if she had wanted to. Her “mind reading” wasn’t nearly as accurate as she would have me think, and the ploy is doubly nasty because how could I defend myself from her “mind reading”? If I said, “No that’s not true, she would only counter with “WELL, YOU ARE LYING, YOU WOULD TOO!” In retrospect, it is actually funny, but at the time, as part of the “summer of chaos,” as I have come to call this particular summer, it was a heartbreaking accusation that there was no way I could defend myself from. I cried for days because there was no defense, no way I could convince her I was not being “mean.”
Of course my egg donor is quite elderly and no longer physically robust or independent, and requires someone to drive for her, shop for her, etc., so now that I have gone no contact with her, and I’m her only child, she uses the “pity ploy” to complain, sweetly of course, that her “mentally ill daughter” is neglecting her. At least she is making an excuse now for why she told everyone that I “tried to gain control over her money,” when I have never taken a dollar from her, not even for the eighteen months I lived in her house and took care of her and my beloved stepfather 24 hours a day, five to seven days a week.
Pretend it never happened
When my daughter-in-law and the ex-cell mate of my son Patrick, that he had sent to kill me, were arrested for trying to kill my son C, my predictions to my egg donor that these people were evil were proven true in spades. So now, having no one to dance to her demands in exchange for “loans” and “gifts,” she came back to me with the suggestion (read: demand) that we “just forget about all this unpleasantness and pretend none of it happened and start over.”
The pretense that “none of this happened” is the most demeaning of all the demands that the “passive aggressive” psychopaths try to heap on our heads. They are pretending to be “weak” and “pitiful” and “powerless” in order to elicit our empathic hearts to give in to them, no matter how demeaning, or demanding, or hateful they are to us. They expect that we instantly forget the pain, the demanding and punishing behavior that they in their entitlement heap upon our heads continually, in the name of “keeping the peace” with them. They use the excuses of “it’s your mother after all,” or “we have been married for 20 years, we can’t let all this unpleasantness break up our family.” Blaming the real victim for not silently enduring the abuse is a perfect “pity ploy” for the real abuser.
I learned early in life that it was “important” to “keep the peace” in the family and “pretend none of this ever happened” in order that the neighbors didn’t know how dysfunctional our family really was. I learned to “forgive” (pretend it didn’t happen) if a family member did something that was horrible, or otherwise I was told I would personally be thrown into hell fire and burn forever because I didn’t “forgive” the bad behavior, in other words, “pretend none of this happened.”
Of course while the “weak” expect us to “forget and forgive” everything immediately, they are allowed to hold grudges forever, and believe me they do! If you remind them of something they did to you yesterday, according to them that is “bringing up the past,” and they will counter with something you did when you were 10 years old that shows you are still, 50 years later, not to be trusted, even though that behavior has not been repeated since you were 10!
“Beware the tyranny of the weak” is an excellent piece of advice, and I am no contact with the person who gave me that phrase, because it fits them to a ‘tee.’ The strong admit their own failings, and make an effort to be kind and compassionate to others, but they do not give in to the pity ploy or let the “weak” exercise tyranny over them.
Ox Drover
Blue and KatyD,
When I was very young (21-ish) I dated a guy who had some major issues, and I was so ga-ga over him. It was probably my FIRST BIG CRUSH (“true love!”) and he had been introduced to me indirectly through a friend. A year and a half or so and my heart BROKEN in two I ran to my male friend (sort of a “big brother”) and poured my heart and tale of woe out, and he said “Yea, I knew” and I screamed WHY DIDN’T YOU TELLLLLLL ME????? And then he said “Would you have believed me?” and I knew I would NOT have believed him….even someone I trusted and looked up to his judgment. Sure it would have been great to have said “Oh, if someone had warned me I would have been saved all this heart ache” but I KNOW IN MY CASE that was not true. I wish I could know that I would have been wiser…but I realize that my own ROSY COLORED GLASSES were blinding me to the truth in every case. Not only just not being warned.
But, that doesn’t mean I an “stoooopid” or anything else negative, it simply means I AM HUMAN….and I am able to be fooled by lies, that I was too trusting, and I wanted to believe the BEST about people, and I wanted to love and be loved.
Sure, I was angry at myself and angry at them…but I’m done beating myself up or playing “let’s pretend everything is lovely” or “let’s pretend none of this happened” because I did ESCAPE from those relation-shits!@ Sadder….but WISER….and STRONGER…
KatyDid
Oxy
Would you agree that you might also still be taken in by an spath but with your experience, you learned to cut your losses sooner and like you said, no more blaming yourself for the scam that another perpetrates on GOOD people!
Think I may have missed out on learning about jerks b/c I was SO NOT ROSIE looking that I dumped them at the first sign of jerkdom. I was SO convinced no one would love me that I was suspicious when they said they did. IRONIC that’s what happened with my spath, he didn’t love me even though he said he did; I convinced myself I was WRONG when I was RIGHT!! Duh. duh. Someday I will laugh about this too. But not yet.
Ox Drover
Katy,
Yea, I got slightly ripped by a psychopathic person not long ago, but I pretty much immediately went and stayed NC and because I was not really emotionally connected to this person I was not emotionally wounded.
Sure, I can be duped again, but I will not be duped like I was duped. I will not allow myself to be WOUNDED deeply because I won’t let them get close enough to wound me like that. TRUST is no longer given freely, but is EARNED….and even people who are inside my “circle of trust” must MAINTAIN HONESTY in order to stay in that circle.
I an into a guy this weekend, he is in my living history group, and I’ve known him since college. We used to pal around back then, not date, and he is divorced now, and lives close and he had joined my living history group and we started palling around again…and did so for a year or so. Had lots of mutual interests etc. so it was FUN to have someone to go places with. But then he did something that was sort of “shady” over a small thing…broke a “deal” we had, he says he didn’t renig on the deal, he just “changed it.” LOL Then got really HUFFY with me when I called BS on it. Called me ugly names sitting at MY DINING ROOM TABLE…and I instructed him to leave my house IMMEDIATELY.
I haven’t seen him but a time or two just by accident at an auction or whatever, and I just make like lhe is INVISIBLE…the POTTED PLANT TREATMENT. Don’t pay him any more attention than I would a cheap plastic potted plant. He had a tent set up at our event this Thanksgiving….but I totally ignored him like he was invisible. HE seemed uncomfortable though, so he was not around for any of our social events, or the campfire story time last night, and if my presence made him uncomfortable, it was NOT mutual.
Having thinned out my Rolodex, I am becoming quite comfortable and not allowing even people that I was close to but have since deleted them from my “inner circle” bother me any more. Some of these people were people I truly loved as “close friends” that I would have “done anything” for. But now, I realize that they are TOXIC. Maybe they are NOT full fledged “psychopaths” but for one reason or another they come up short on Oxy’s HONESTY METER and I sure as heck don’t need them in my life.
bluejay
KatyDid,
I don’t think any of us are stupid. What bothers me is that so much of our life was taken up figuring the truth out on our own, without the help of the spath’s family members (I don’t think his friends knew him well enough to have figured him out, so they couldn’t have clued me in). I could have had a nervous breakdown, ended up in a psych ward, and they still wouldn’t have “spilled the beans” about brother dearest. It’s only while we were separated, then I learned some facts about the spath – could they not have told me this stuff sooner? As far as I’m concerned, they will never be off the hook. I can go on with life, but I will always remember what happened.
KatyDid
Hosanna
Sorry, i should haved edited my post b/c I seem to have mislead you. I was extremely successful when I met my husband. I am now unemployed and frankly would have been a street person had he not been required to share our community assets with me. Even then, he defrauded me out of much of my due and these attorneys demand to be paid first. Well, my husband had control of all our money, he had moved our accounts to another bank and the accounts were in his name only. So I was at his mercy. He gave me enough for rent/food but not medical and definitely not enough for an attorney. I am trying to get divorced by doing a self divorce. And my health is bad, and I am older with no recent work history b/c I worked on our business, I was not employed. Employers treat self employed women as if they did not work at all. Jobs hard to get and harder at my age and with my bad health. I have enough for two more months living and hope to have a job by then or I will be homeless. Another irony b/c when I left him, I told him I’d rather be homeless than live with him. HE, on the other hand, has all our assets and is able to invest them in the investments that I recommended. He is financially sound BECAUSE OF ME, my ability to live below our means, to save, to invest, and to have our home paid off, which he now has rent free. B/c I can’t afford an attorney, and it wouldn’t do any good in the town where his family reigns king, I am Farked. When I say he hits ALL the definitions of spath, I am not exaggerating. It was a LONG con, as well as abuse and nearly the death of me.
BlueJay:
Yes, like you, I Don’t understand why did they help him hide who he is? I mean, he went around the whole time telling people he didn’t want me and pity party how I wouldn’t let him go. To MY FACE, he said anyone who said such a thing was a jealous liar. When I asked them why they said such a thing, they LIED to me and said they didn’t know what I was talking about and that I was a paranoid crazy wife. If they wanted me to leave him so badly, why withhold what I needed to know in order to leave?
But if ya don’t want the wife, why not let her go when she says she will leave, and leave everything to you? I know the answer now. It’s about control, not about the norm logic. Control to DOMINATE and WIN. And if I went before he was done damaging me, then he didn’t get the feeling of WINNING, did he?
Yes, you final sentence is the one I live by too. I can and WILL go on with life, but I will always remember what was done to me.
KatyDid
Oxy
Just as a guide, when did you start thinning your rolodex? How/when did you determine who was toxic and who was a keeper?
If someone you’ve written off gets their act together and steps up to accountibility and expressed true remorse, maybe they won’t get into your inner circle, but would you still potted plant treat them?
Hosanna
@KatyDid
I am so sorry! Truly devastating! I hope the court makes him pay you alimony and child support! I am having a very hard time finding a job also. I will pray for you, I am glad you survived the creep! I hope things are better for you soon!
KatyDid
Hosanna,
Things got better for me the day I moved out. Until then, there were NO possibilities in my life. Now there are ENDLESS possibilities. I state the reality, that I am unemployed and have been defrauded. BUT I also state that I have worked to get a self divorce and with that freedom, he can’t take from me any more. LIfe goes only up from that.
So I will pray for you to find more than a job but work that fulfills your soul. It’s the same that I ask from God for myself. And ya know what? God wants us to have work that fulfills our soul too. So I pretty much have confidence in finding just that.
My main reason for posting to you, and I know it got out of hand with my ramblings, is to tell you that you touch me, I identify with you, and I don’t have to meet your spath to understand the no account jerk. Their deeds announce their depravity and by their works I KNOW THEM.
Ox Drover
Katy, the thinning the Rolodex started slowly….when I realized people were using me, and I started seeing that I was trying to appease them, or I was afraid to “hurt their feelings” and when I started setting boundaries they kept ib crossing them.
The people I have cut out have not made any attempts to “straighten up” their acts….my son C is an example. I gave him another and another chance, and finally when he lied to me again, I was DONE. I’m at the point now, Katy that it is ONE AND DONE….it doesn’t matter….when people are DIS-HONEST they don’t get another chance.
callmeathena
Hosanna
Ridiciulous Lyrics.
Athena