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.
I love the books by Sue Grafton – she has a series with a female detective named Kinsey Millhone-
haven’t done any reading for pleasure lately and picked up
“T is for Trespass” (the series starts with A is for Alibi and so)
The entire book is about a sociopath and it is chilling and I think (as an amateur at this) pretty accurate.
Maybe the knowledge is slowly seeping into public consciousness more than we realize-
our Rain Man break through for sociopathy may not have occurred yet but it may be coming – I certainly
hope so…
I have to tell you I still struggle enormously trying to mentally get my mind to understand the utter self absorption-
the callousness, the lack of empathy – really really struggle to grasp it and yet this horror has helped me to clean
out my personal closet of a lot of stinky stuff/relationships that were not as obvious to me – including the ones with
my family of origin.
Anyway thought I should bring this fictional work to your attention…even though you may know of it as it was published in 07…
Oxy:
One thing we know for sure, if Biddy doesn’t end up dead, SHE WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK HERE! lol!
I’m not sure who posted this, but I think it was on LF (CRS) but she had been to a shelter and noticed photographs framed on the walls of various women with names and dates. She asked if those were successful women who had been at the shelter, the woman at the shelter answered and said “No, those are women who went back and their partners murdered them.”
Of course we know that not every psychopath kills their partners physically, though many if not most, kill the soul and spirit of the people that they attck. those closest to them.
Not every blogger or victim who comes here “gets it” or stays out of ALL psychopathic relationships, some I would venture go on to another psychopathic relationship because they do not HEAL, they simply “get over” one but have the same vulnerabilities that allowed them to be hooked by the first one.
While I have not had a series of “love or romantic” relationships (only one) I have had a series of relationships with psychopaths and have not handled them in a way that was healthy, now I am learning new ways, and like breckgirl says, I am learning and getting the people in my life who are NOT healthy out of my “circle of trust” and trying to live a saner and more healthy life—P-free as much as is humanly possible as long as we are on Planet Earth!
Hey Matt, Wonderful to hear you happy and doing your thang! Have a great trip!.
Going back to the earlier point about believing there is good in everyone, perhaps the other dangerous notion we are raised with ( or acquire somehow) is the idea that people do “change”.
Can anyone here, with our combined years of experience, site a case where a person who is exploitive, manipulative, and shameless changes???
Of course some mental conditions do pass and are treatable, but when we see the above? No way.
What makes it so hard to give up on the P, is perhaps that they did “change” They “changed” from the wonderful attentive, love of our life into a monster. Deep down, I am sure we keep trying to have the original version back for a long time, before realizing that person never was.
And then there are all the other pressures to stay together, children, family, freinds, finances. We end up feeling , or at least I did, selfish for pursuing my own sanity by ending the relationship.
Despite being ruined financially (unless I find his stash of $$) there is still not a day goes by I am not grateful for having the guts to jump ship.
Good for Mary Jo for sharing her story and educating on this important issue. Wonder if we can get her to plug LoveFraud as a place to learn and heal.
Peace to all.
hi guys, I’m new to this forum.
I lived with a sociopath gf for 2 yrs. I kicked her out in January after she threw things at me. Then I found she had stolen a number of my things including my passport. When I confronted her she summoned the Police to my house within minutes and tried to have me arrested on suspicion of stealing from her! I also suspect she started sleeping with her new landlord within a matter of weeks. She led and taped private conversations and manipulated all contact heavily to make me look the “baddie”. Whenever I challenged her on anything (eg a neighbour saying she’d asked him for sex) she raged and caused damage at my property.
I’ve endured chronic gaslighting, physical threats and for the past few months I’ve been the subject of a sustained smear campaign she has instigated with my neighbours.
I have maintained no contact however now and then she initiates a vaguely friendly correspondence. This is to get me to do something for her or give her money. When I decline the gates of hell open. She recently launched a fierce verbal attack on my new gf and lectured me on NC (the irony!). That was the last straw and I refuse to have anything to do with her now.
In contrast to many posters’ experiences, at no stage since she left has she asked to come back, grovelled or otherwise made anything other than the feeblest of efforts to redeem herself. He comms are always rude, threatening, offensive and domineering.
My questions are:
1) Can you ever establish a non-manipulative rapport with these people even years later? Or will they keep the devalue/discard cycle going? She is 43 and thankfully not amazingly criminal (not recently but she did some drug smuggling years ago) and i was lucky to escape with giving her only a few expensive gifts, although there were several dodgy “business propositions” I avoided.
2) I have studiously avoided responding to goading texts making vile false allegations such as “pedo” etc and calling me and my friends “freaks” and “cripples” etc. How does it make them feel when you don’t respond? Do they rage or is there simply “nothingness”.
Sorry to post slightly off topic but as I say I’m new.
Cheers
Dude
Is that a good movie? The Big Lebowski? Do you relate to the character The Dude most?
Anyway
1. No
2. A. Depends on the mood they are in.
B. Depends on the day.
learnthelesson: I really related to your “Lately, been having to ask myself”do I want to live in the moment or live in the past?? And I TRY to make the choice of living in the moment WAY MORE TIMES than I choose to live in the past. Granted I had to “live in the past” for a while to get answers to my questions and get clarity and begin healing”but I still fight myself with the urge to go back (in my mind) to my past with him.”
Me too. I think it is because we DO want to make sure we have learned the lesson! But as one friend said to me, “don’t let your past define who you are today.” I think that is a powerful statement too.
I did get one more insight today, ironically, which helped me put his little ass in perspective. It was truly a unique situation that let me get so hooked, and I did learn lessons that will, I am very confident, keep me from getting hooked again. But I still catch myself in my “people pleasing” mode, instead of being self-directed. There are other traits of mine that contributed to him being able to manipulate me, but I never forget he was the bad guy, because it took me so long to see that.
It all has been a very painful and hard lesson to learn, but I did learn it.
eyeswide shut said :
“What makes it so hard to give up on the P, is perhaps that they did “change” They “changed” from the wonderful attentive, love of our life into a monster. Deep down, I am sure we keep trying to have the original version back for a long time, before realizing that person never was.”
So so true. In my case, he doesn’t want me back. This is a bad week for me, he dumped me a year ago tomorrow-said he “didn’t love me” despite acting like he did for 18 mos. Soon after, I discovered that he had moved on to his next victim, “scoring” on the very day he dumped me. Just like you said, eyeswideshut, on that awful day a year ago, he turned into a monster right before my eyes- the person that I thought I knew, my lover and best friend, suddenly disappeared and in his place was a stranger- some monster I did not know.
After a year of mostly NC (7 weeks this time, he called 7 weeks ago- basically just to hurt me some more)- I still have not fully accepted that the person I thought I knew never was–so so sad. I will keep reading LF and trying to gain strength from all the kind people on this site. But the emptyness and sadness remains. Its still so hard to accept I was so badly duped.
JAH,
I agree with you a very painful and hard lesson…and learning it will make you that much stronger and better able to not repeat it.
I sometimes wonder why HE had such a strong hold on me. Ive parted ways with others in my lifetime — but with him (the one who ultimately treated me the worst) I just had the most difficult time removing myself, staying away, moving on…
And with moving on, the nicest guys, mannerly, treating me well, respectful, patient, understanding…I still find myself drifting back to thoughts of him..it ANNOYS ME…but it wont get the best of me. I wont let it.
I want to understand why I cant completely put him in the “I feel nothing for him” zone… the ” I dont think about him and could care less about him” zone. What is it about my nature that allows me to let him in my mind sometimes STILL…
All the lessons Ive learned, I still struggle with the hold he had on me. And I fight so hard to make sure I put him in this place of complete non-existence in my mind — and then I find im still battling that one last piece.
As blindsided said Its still so hard to accept I was so badly duped…but what I really want to be accepting is that I wasnt badly duped, I was going through the motions of a relationship and I was trusting and believing and slowly accepting odd behaviors or meeting strange requests for loans,etc…beginning to notice differences in actions vs words, and all the drum rolls that go with each red flag… I was LEARNING what an unhealthy relationship was, i was LEARNING what a relationship with a Sociopath is like…I wasnt being duped in the sense I was clueless (I just never before experienced such a situation and didnt have the tools to deal with it…etc…) but I fell in love and right or wrong that has haunted me and although I got away and removed myself and took my love and friendship away — falling out of love with the original person he portrayed himself to be has been much harder than the realization of who he really is and the fact I got duped.
This is still about me and LEARNING TO LET GO COMPLETELY. Ugh Ive come so far only to see I still have more work to do. Its not that big of a deal – its just the fact that I feel so close to where i want to be and something is holding me back. Maybe the finality of it all is getting the best of me…. just venting…bad week…
LTL:
Its that he hurt you so much whilst you loved him, that is hard to get past.