Finally—the word “sociopath” is being applied to a high-profile case that doesn’t involve a serial killer.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco, wife of Joey Buttafuoco, shot in the head back in 1992 by Amy Fisher, the “Long Island Lolita,” is telling her story. And the first words of the introduction are, “Joey Buttafuoco is a sociopath.”
Getting It Through My Thick Skull—Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved with Sociopaths Need to Know, has just been released. Why did it take Mary Jo 17 years to write the book? Because it was only in 2007 that she realized the truth about Joey Buttafuoco.
Perhaps you remember the case. Mary Jo got shot. The police said her husband was having an affair with her assailant, who was 16 at the time. Joey Buttafuoco denied the affair, and Mary Jo believed him, defended him, and rallied friends and family around him. But the cops were right and she was wrong—her husband was sleeping with the teenager. Then Joey Buttafuoco said it was all Amy Fisher’s fault—and Mary Jo believed him again.
Mary Jo describes the craziness of life with her husband: how he continued to reel her back in, how she coped with the ordeal (she became addicted to painkillers) and how she finally recovered—from the addiction and from Joey. The book is co-written by Julie McCarron, a well-known celebrity collaborator, so it’s an easy read.
Mary Jo Buttafuoco has launched her media tour with an appearance today on Good Morning America. See the coverage:
Mary Jo Buttafuoco speaks out about her ex-husband Joey, the “Sociopath”
Excerpt: Getting It Through My Thick Skull/p>
In her book, this is the message Mary Jo conveys:
I wouldn’t wish marriage or an intimate relationship of any kind to a sociopath on anyone; my hope is that this book will inspire others to “get it” and get out far sooner than I did. I promise there is a great new life on the other side!
Mary Jo actually contacted me when she was starting her book, and we spoke on the phone. Now the book is done, and I hope she gets a lot of publicity. I hope a lot of people buy it—especially people who really don’t understand how many sociopaths are in the world, and what they look like. Maybe, just maybe, this book will be a big step in raising public awareness about sociopaths.
Getting It Through My Thick Skull is available now on Amazon.com.
Matt
A friend just called me to tell me she saw MaryJo on “The View” yesterday. She said it was fascinating and “Just like listening to you.” MaryJo, be our leader.
Tilly
ErinB:
“UNTIL IS SHIT”S ON THIER FRONT PORCH!” That is exactly what i mean by “rockbottom”.
truebeliever
Oxy, I couldn’t agree with you more only I would not use a beautiful rose in the description but, maybe say, “a snake is a snake”. 🙂
I am with you Matt! GO MARY JO!
PInow, sounds like you understand what you are dealing with, even if others understand or not. It doesn’t matter- You get it. You got it! “…even if they do, it’s shallow, with an end goal in mind and totally superficial (like their charm)” I just used this same explanation today. Hmmmm, “a snake is a snake is a snake”….:)
We are fortunate to have LF for education and support. Keep heading in the direction that is right for YOU! Take Care.
peterd
Hi, I remember myself from before going through an abusive relationship, and I believe I have an answer why normal people are not willing to learn about sociopaths.
I used to be a person who deeply believed that all people are good, and everyone is right in their own ways, ect. I believe the reason I did that is because this kind of attitude makes you feel safe – you do not need to worry there are crazy human vampires all around you waiting for an opportunity to finish you off… 🙂 And by having such positive attitude you can spend time developing your intellect to higher levels. On the other hand it is a full time job of looking for excuses to other peoples behaviour.
Funny thing is I realized that there were this “fakes” among humans, and I developed an early warning system as early as 6 yo to spot them. I called this detection system – “logic”, and by talking to a person for a while I could figure weather a person was faking on me or not. But at certain age I stopped following my own rules, because they were in conflict with the widely accepted beliefs that “all people are good” and “it does not matter who started the fight first” .
And belief about inherent goodness took precedence over any other. Now I know this belief was wrong.
I also believe that if you demonstrate in front of a sociopathic decision maker that you are properly “brainwashed” by your culture and show that you believe in goodness of any human being and are willing to justify perpetrator when you see injustice than he or she will like you (you are just where they want you to be, so they like it) and make a decision in your favor. I think people subconsciously recognize this fact, and modify their behavior accordingly.
Combine it with the strong need to believe in goodness of humans and the result is as you see it – a mixture of untruths.
Since my painful experience I do not show my true self to anyone, I started to listen to people carefully, and the mistaken belief that all people want good is not there anymore. Some crazies want to control others.
I also had sucesseses with my new approach.
I had a woman telling me on our first conversation what a skillful pretender she is and how cleverly she lied to psychologists when she talked to them … :))) . Than she bragger how dumb those psychologists were not to be able to figure her lies.
I do not have to tell you how glad I was to read the books I read and to have the knowledge I did not have before.
If you just let people talk they will present themselves. The only difficulty is in our perception, if we are willing to believe our own eyes and ears.
Take Care,
P.
banana
I bought it.
Hope it helps me. Hope it helps her… get the word out.
Hope it helps humanity.
banana
PInow
I always read “pinow” : )
I was considering you comment about encouraging the bi-polar PD etc… to get help.
I recall telling exFB that he was bi-polar and he stabbed me with his finger…nice bruise. Maybe he WAS a P. His mom’s a typical Co-Dep. She gives him everything. She didn’t stand up to him when he was abusing me. (She did have a PINS against him as a child). He lives with her/off her now. Doesn’t even have a car. He’s 28.
Now my P will do anything I say NOW. But even when he was in the A, I could call him all the names I wanted and tell him he was sick, crazy, etc… he’d never rage or become violent.
I love that I can insult him now.
P mentioned he bought a book for son and it was religious I asked if his hands burnt when he held it : ) He just pulled the pity ploy.
super chic
peterd… excellent post, I’m going to copy and paste it into my journal to remind myself of your advice!! I always believed in the goodness of people, not anymore!
PInow
Banana, If your P is a P, you are playing with fire. They do not forget and sadly are not capable of forgiving. The NC advise came too late for me, but the fact remains that the S/P IT is incapable of forgiveness and / or remorse.
Peterd,
I am sorry for you. Pretending is such a horrific job to take on. I sure hope that my trust in humanity and my ability to think of humans as good and with God within will rebuild itself and grow. Yes, I met a true bad egg. yes, I made a horrible choice that devastated my family. There are times I hate what I’ve done. There are times, I am thankful for not losing my ability to be frank, open, trusting, and also gullible. I am still working on the ‘gullible” part, because it is my hope to be able to always protect my kids and myself, in case another bad egg rolls my way. I don’t think many of us would be able to function if not for the ability to trust. Otherwise, what makes us so different from the mistrusting Ps, who believe that they can con because this is the way of life? My 2cents worth.
Escaped
PInow,
I agree. If we allow the experience with the bad people to disable our ability to love, trust or have faith in anyone, we lose a critical part of ourselves that makes us good and caring people and provides joy in normal life. In essence, we give the bad people more power over us…even after we have escaped the relationship.
I think knowlege is the key…and using our new knowlege to protect ourselves by recognizing warning signs and being very selective in who we trust and get close to.
Personally, I refuse to enable ANYONE anymore. I figure if the users get nothing, they go away on their own. Only true humans stay around just for the company! LOL
super chic
Yes I agree, that’s why peterd’s post made so much sense.