Editor’s note: Here is another satirical piece by the Front Porch Talker. For background, see “My life with a sociopath.”
By The Front Porch Talker
“And, they endured.” Wm. F. Faulkner
I was committed.
I remember several poignant moments on the night I was committed, against my will, to an in-patient, lock-down mental facility: the Dalai Lama was in town, and was giving a speech on the television I watched in the Emergency Room, hours BEFORE I had been committed. His message: peace and forgiveness. I have not yet forgiven, but I do feel peaceful.
Also: My close friend and her sister had brought me to the Emergency Room of the hospital. They and all the medical professionals in the Emergency Room acted as though I had been invisible. Whenever I tried to explain: I am having a PTSD Acute Panic Attack (and need medication), not a paranoid, delusional manic episode—everybody ignored me as if I weren’t in the room. I was: I have never been more present, in a room, in my life.
And, to stop myself from hyperventilating and crying I had tried leaving the ER; but instead, I was wrestled to the ground by two or three security guards, and tied down to a gurney, and not allowed to even use the my friend’s cell phone to call a trusted person to help me out.
The problem was a matter of confusion rather than any conscious attempt to harm me personally. Or rather, a specious syllogism. They saw what they wanted to see and were used to seeing in mental health. That is, the mental illness of the day: Bipolar Disorder is often confused with PTSD and other disorders associated with real traumas.
So, I plead to the psychiatrist, nurse, doctor, and my friends for a rational response: I wasn’t paranoid. I then explained why I was having a panic attack, in the most simple of terms: that I was having a panic attack because a real trauma had happened to me, and incidentally, a real reason to panic! Anybody in that position might cry and hyperventilate.
How else should one respond when somebody you’ve supposedly known well for nearly ten years steals your identity, your bank account, your retirement account, your house, your car, all your possessions. You have been abused by your partner who is a drug addict. And, the police don’t take it seriously. In fact, nobody takes it seriously. Not the FTC, the FBI, the State Patrol, etc. In fact, this person still uses my identity to commit frauds and forgeries.
How should a person respond to such an event?
Seeing a hole of vulnerability, the domino effect takes place: my job as a tenured professor at an Arts college for nearly twenty years takes a political turn for the worst: it is this moment, while I am reacting to trauma and stress, that they force me to take disability. It is a college with a very bad reputation for how it treats teachers, especially those like myself, who demand a higher standard of competency from students, while the private college worries about its bottom line: private tuition.
How else should one respond to such events?
There is nothing worse than trying to convince somebody that you’re not paranoid or delusional than by saying you aren’t. Just the word ”˜paranoid’ harkens visions of paranoia. Even if you have a history of occasional panic attacks during such traumas; even if you are well-educated in psychology and have an advanced graduate degree. And that sometimes people mistake mania for panic attacks.
None of that matters. All they hear are two words: paranoid and manic. Or, version two: a danger to self or others: Committed!
Plus, your concerned friend and her sister have had plenty of experience with mental health commitments. For most of their childhoods, their family had had their father committed to mental hospitals for his delusional and paranoid episodes from a serious mental illness. They believe that you are manic and paranoid. They’ve discussed it at length, outside of the ER room (where you can’t hear) with all the “medical professionals.”
Finally, after another hour or so, the psychiatrist comes into the room, while you are listening to the Dali Lama speak. He, the psychiatrist says: “We are going to commit you to an in-patient, lock-down mental facility: Fairfax Hospital.”
Since your therapist and anybody who could ever vouch for your sanity is out of the state presently, you have no choice: you are tied down to a gurney and taken, by ambulance to Fairfax hospital. They take the shoe laces out of your shoes, and anything else you might use to “harm yourself or others.” (I wonder if bra straps could be used as a weapon against self?)
The staff checks on you every fifteen minutes while you are in your room. Personally, I took plenty of very long and very hot showers just to worry the staff.
I was committed for over two weeks in our particular wing. After that, I was heading to the state facility for seriously mentally ill people for an even longer and more restricted stay: at Western State Hospital.
The psychiatrist, who visited weekly, told me in no uncertain terms: “unless you finally admit that you have Bipolar Disorder, and are ”˜manic,’ we will not release you from this hospital.” But, I protested, “I have never been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I have a lifelong diagnosis of Complex PTSD and occasional panic attacks. Just call my therapist who is in Florida!”
Okay, so now you’re probably thinking: this sounds like one of those Sunday Movies of the Week on the ”˜Lifetime Channel for Women: all true, all the time!’ True.
It’s so surreal really: like the ”˜Sunday Night Movie of the Week’ on the ”˜Lifetime Channel for Women.’ Of course it all turns out okay in the end. Or, better than ”˜okay.’ Maybe they start a new foundation to prevent this from happening again; or, a poignant reunion with loved ones is in order. No matter.
So, I try to see the best of any situation, Fairfax lock-down, in-patient mental hospital notwithstanding. I try to see it all as a joke, or a fodder for my writing (which I am making full use of now). Surely I thought they would see the mistake and release me.
Not that I didn’t have a great time during my “stay” of over two weeks. There is plenty of entertainment, and the usual “busy activities” and multiple “check-ins” with group therapy and all. I don’t think kindergarten has more structured activities, which go from the moment you wake to the moment you pass out at night from all the “medications.”
This was not, as you might suppose, for drug addicts or alcoholics; they had “free passes” for themselves and a “guest” to eat in the cafeteria, while we ate in our own “unit;” together of course. I didn’t earn my way to the cafeteria until the last few days of my “stay” at the spa for the mentally exhausted.
Anyway, it’s like a vacation, in a way. The place is a little bit like the Holiday Inn, maybe. If the Holiday Inn management locked you in to the unit and insisted that you eat all your meals with the others on your unit. However, there isn’t a pool, for obvious reasons.
And, it’s a “small world,” as they say. A woman whom I went to college with, in Illinois back in the 70’s, was now a psychiatric nurse in Washington in the other unit. Just by looking at me she could tell: I was definitely manic. I had a certain bright look in my eye, she thought, which I thought was abject FEAR and PANIC! She and her partner have a musical act that parodies Operas, which still offends me to the bone.
You meet many very interesting and intelligent folks in the lock-down facility that is your “unit.” I mean, where else can you go besides to your room with your roommate; to the community room for group therapy, or outside in a fenced and locked area about the size of a maximum-security yard. It does have a ping-pong table too, I might add.
And, I even had several suitors while I was there. How good can it get? A gentleman who had been “released” to the less-secure wing sent me some wildflowers. My roommates were gentle and sweet. My first roommate had the Norton Anthology of Poetry sent from home to our room and read poetry to me nightly. My second roommate explained to me how a cat could use a toilet. I had many phone calls from friends around the country. My family was unaware of my circumstances.
“Group Time,” as I’ve explained, met four or five times a day. It began with us all sitting around a table, with one of the Psychiatric workers as our leader. Most surely, they each had soothing voices, as smooth as Cool Whip on Green jello.
We would be instructed, calmly and smoothly, to look at the “emotions” page in front of us, which consisted of smiley faces with words beneath each face that identified certain emotions: confused; angry; confused; happy, etc. We then went around the room and explained our emotions in smiley faces. I believe I was a trouble-maker in that regard.
The next order of business was to go around the room and discuss “where we were at.” I told them: “I am at Fairfax Mental Hospital being held against my will.” Wrong answer. “We want feeling words!” “I FEEL FRUSTRATED BECAUSE I AM BEING HELD AGAINST MY WILL”¦.” I then sat there with a sheepish look on my face while the leader explained in clearly enunciated and simple language: “What I mean is HOW are you doing today?”
We were then instructed to “move on.” I tried. But, “move on” signified HOW one should move on with their lives SHOULD they one day be released back to the REAL world. “For example,” our instructor said, “How will you go back to your job at the gas station or maybe you are a nanny.”
A young man with Schizophrenia spent all of “group time” coloring in complex fuzzy cartoons with pens that his mother had brought him. A woman who had been living in a van spent her time hoarding the yellow cake served the night before for dessert. She generously offered herself and her boyfriend to me, should we ever get out of the hospital.
My favorite activity, besides “group,” was the time we painted each other’s toe nails. I read all the New Yorker’s I could get my hands on. And all of the NYT crossword puzzles considered contraband by some. It wasn’t a “calming” activity.
However, there is a story to this: one of the women in our unit (I’ll call her Cindy) was being held in the “secured” area of our “secure” wing. She was considered actively psychotic and dangerous. We “heard” from her every so often rattling the double-doors, like saber-rattling, every time we had nearly forgotten her.
A few days later, coinciding with the time I began working the NYT Crossword puzzles, Cindy had a “visitor;” her estranged husband, Henry. They’d dress Cindy in her street clothes and parade her out to the day room for her requisite daily visit with Henry. Henry left the newspaper on the table before he left. Thus, my crossword habit.
And who could forget the “Aerobics Class” one of our instructors led in the group room. A friend of mine knew her as they both took dance lessons on the “outside.” When he visited me, this instructor chatted with him a bit. I should not have “acted the part” of a crazy person, even though it humored me. I was written up for dancing to George Benson singing “This Masquerade.”
And who could forget the graduate student from the school of Social Work (Social Work was my undergraduate degree, ironically)? She (I’ll call her Amy) spoke to us a little too loudly, as though maybe we were deaf too. During “check-in” and “group” she stared down the table at us in secret terror of what we might do, the way Bette Davis’ sister (name?) looked at her in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Or the crazed way Billy Bob Thornton looked in “Sling Blade.” Or maybe the Borderline personality that Angelina Jolie played in that movie. (name?) We were, in effect, all Baby Janes , Billy Bob’s, and Angelina’s to her. (Come to think of it: wasn’t Angelina married briefly to Billy Bob?)
Amy then told us in her condescending and patronizing tone that we would cut out pictures and words from the magazines stacked in the middle of the table. We were to paste these, in collage form (of course she defined “collage” for us) on pieces of construction paper.
I protested. Cutting-up my precious unread New Yorker magazines was tantamount to making me crazy. I immediately grabbed those for my “project.” During “share” time, Amy nodded her head in approval. Mine was a depiction of Alice in Wonderland, of Alice going down the rabbit hole. Amy found this interesting and duly noted it in her notebook. Mental illness at its height!
Amy then asked me to “share” my reasons with the other twelve or so participants at the table. “Well,” I said, “there are theories to support the thesis that Alice, of Alice and Wonderland was groomed by the author, Lewis Carroll, a.k.a. Dobson. He was a pedophile in real life. Some have even proposed that he was Jack the Ripper and that “Jabberwoky” was proof of that. So, I think this picture depicts Lewis Carroll’s state-of-mind regarding Alice.”
“This is not a calm thought!” Amy said. “Let’s move on.” She ended “group” abruptly.
Having “family time” together in our little wing was the only touching moment of my stay, besides my nightly poetry readings by my roommate, I mean. Our favorite psych worker, Betty, gave us motherly looks and listened to us with real empathy. Then she’d head to the store and return with “fun” items for dinner: and, we had ice cream sundaes on movie night.
My fun was short-lived. Unfortunately for me, one movie night, as I was doing my daily NYT crossword puzzle that Cindy’s husband had left, everything came to a halt. We heard her back in the most “secure” area of our secured unit, rattling the doors and calling out obscenities at us. Her shouting was so loud that it blurred “movie night” into a horror show.
Intuitively, I knew what was next: Cindy broke through the doors when a nurse checked in on her. She bee-lined straight for me, and for my crossword puzzle. Considering I struggle with PTSD and fears of raging women, this was not easy for me. Cindy shouted obscenities I’ve never heard before, and they were aimed at me. I moved just in time to avoid having her hands around my throat. I offered her the Sunday NYT crossword puzzle as a symbol of peace. I couldn’t finish Sunday’s anyway.
It was soon after that night that I was given cafeteria privileges in the less secure unit. This meant the world to me. I could now sit with a “visitor” in the captain’s chairs with my tray of the evening’s entre without fears about Cindy taking revenge against me.
But by the grace of God, I was lucky: I had a few dear friends, a great therapist and a great attorney who made my release possible. On my own, I would not have fared so well. Now, I am thankful for small graces: a few dear friends who called me daily and visited me. Some brought their dogs to the window of the “day room.” Some ate with me when I had advanced to the “less secure” wing where you could pick your own food choices and sit in Captain’s chairs, instead of folding chairs.
And, thanks to a diligent attorney. On my fourteenth day of commitment, my “concerned” friend who, along with her sister, had had me committed in the first place, then testified against me in court. She thought I was a danger to myself and should stay even longer.
How should I respond to that event? To a friend I had trusted for twenty-five years?
Thank God for my attorney and for the judge who quickly dismissed the case. I walked across the courtroom after the hearing ended and addressed the judge: “Your Honor, I know I am wearing a white linen lined jacket, and that it is after Labor Day, but: if I had known that I would be committed against my will for two weeks, I would have dressed more appropriately.”
The judge replied: “I am sure you would have. I would have made the same faux pas.”
If not for them, I would have surely been sent to Western State Hospital in a “more secure” lockdown, where I would still be today.
On the last day of my stay at Fairfax Mental Hospital, the whole psych staff gathered in my room to wish me well, I suppose. Instead, they said: “We just wanted to tell you what a great pleasure it has been to have worked with you these past weeks.
“You’re one of the most brilliant ”˜clients’ we’ve ever had here at Fairfax!”
Of course, they tell me I’m “brilliant,” I am thinking to myself as I make my way through the front doors with my friend. They think I am “Bipolar brilliant” as it fits the definition in the profile of the DSM IV.
As my friend arrived to “escort” me from the facility (a condition of my release, according to the Fairfax psychiatrist), I asked him: “So; am I or am I not brilliant?”
Just then, the cake-hoarding woman who’d offered herself and her boyfriend to me earlier, was also being released at the same time.
“Yoo-hoo!” she called after me. “Yoo-hoo!” Her boyfriend was sitting in the van.
I heaved myself and my bag of stolen New Yorker magazines into my friend’s Jeep and locked the doors and windows to blur-out the sound of voices. Real voices; not imagined.
As William Faulkner wrote on his acceptance of a Nobel Prize: “And they endured.”
So, I too endure, while others I’ve known sadly have not.
Dear Talker,
I’m straight as a striing, but I am “engaged” to a gay guy here on LF–Henry—if he ever decides to go straight. JOKE. But jokes aside, you need ANY RELATIONSHIP right now like I need another JACK ASS (I already have two named Fat Ass and Hairy Ass) Until we get our own shit alll in one sock we need another relationship like another hole in our heads, or another psychopath….and that is what we are likely to end up with too.
After my late husband was killed I was devestated and lonely LONELY—and guess what, hooked up with the first passing P who was looking for another respectable wife to cheat on.
Another thing about Ps too, is many of them are not straight or gay, t6hey will just FARK anything that walks, regardless of race, color, creed, age, species, country of national origin etc. Talk about being LIBERAL LOL RFOTFLMAO Anything that will stand still is grist for their sexual mill. It is all about THEM anyway! They have no bond or care for what they are farking so what difference does it make what sex or species it is?
R5UNNNNNNN DO NOT WALK away from this woman and for right now til you get your head on straight, assume celibacy for a while. It will give you room to think, to grow and heal without worrying about sex. Right now your focus needs to be on healin!
The worst part about being discarded was trying to detach myself from the sexual component of the “relationship”. I thought I was NOTHING without the sex. (I thought of it as Lovemaking, but he obviously didn’t.)
I thought I would DIE without the “intimacy”. I’m 51, and I felt like a tree or flower just before it dies- where it blooms profusely before withering away. I wanted to make love ALL THE TIME. Then I thought my life was OVER.
But it’s NOT!!!!!!!!!! I feel better than when I was “with” the S/P. I have ME back again. I don’t spend my nights and weekends and days crying and wondering why he hasn’t called, come over, or texted me.
Tony Robbins, the Inspirational Speaker, says that we all need “Certainty” to exist, and I finally understand that concept. I am certain that I am FINE without the S/P, and I am getting more certain by the day.
Thanks to all of you who have given me so much information about this “disorder”. I thought I was nuts when I couldn’t figure out his actions. Now I have answers and the emotional ammunition to fight for my stability and well-being- and FORGET HIM!!!!!!
And, I am NOT looking for another relationship. That’s what got me here in the first place- like Oxy said- I was L O N E L Y.
And lonely people do desperate things.
Hi everyone, I’ve read some of the comments on this site and it seems like a lot of your exes were into drugs. I was wondering, is there a correlation between drug use and sociopaths? My S started with coke, and he’s onto shooting heroin now. Drugs played a huge role in his life. I’ve gotten clean and I never want to be dragged down to that dark place ever again. A few people who have known my S. longer than I have say it’s the drugs making him this way, and he used to be a caring person before he started using. I really doubt that. These people have only had superficial relationships with him and so they don’t know him well enough to make that kind of judgment.
I can relate to you about the sexual component. I’m 23 and I lost my virginity to my S. I can’t imagine myself having sex with anyone else for a while. I’m not ready to take that risk again. My S. was the first guy i have ever truly connected with (or so i thought), and then he tore my heart out. I really don’t know what to do or where to go from here.
dear massie – when i came here in december my screen name was lostandfearful. i logged in a few times using that name and then i couldn’t stand the sight of it – it was something i needed to say, but not to ‘claim’.
by saying you don’t know what to do or where to go from here you have started to know and started to go – framing questions is always important.
you know you need some time to heal. and to be with yourself. you know you don’t want to be dragged anywhere, especially into a dark place with drugs. you know that others have no idea of what he is like. seems to me you know some very important things.
so, where DO you want to go?
When my S. and I met he was too good to be true. he gave me one hell of a life story- he takes care of his sick mother and his sister because his stepdad walked out on them. He told me that he was madly in love with me and wants to have a family with me. I never wanted to have children before I met him, but he changed my mind. I wanted to have something that would connect us together forever and bring us closer. Thank god I didn’t!
He proposed to me. But it was all a huge lie. We looked for places together and he told me we could live wherever we wanted but I would have to put the house in my name. Red flag. He tried to get us to elope one night and I backed down. I can’t explain it, I loved him more than anything in the world, but something told me not to. That’s when everything started to change.
He became snappy, overly critical, condescending and downright mean. He would get me high and film us having sex, he would get us to have sex for his friends via webcam. He would get mad when I didn’t comply and do what he wanted. Im ashamed of myself and the things I’ve done. Then he decided he was going to get me pregnant. He hid my birth control pills and went ballistic when he found the morning after pill in my purse. His tantrums were the scariest things I have ever seen. It was like looking at pure evil. I accepted the blame for everything and walked on eggshells every single day. I was brainwashed. I couldnt picture life without him.
Then there was the cheating. I found out he was cheating on me with another girl and he denied it, telling me not to believe rumors and that I am so naïve and immature for doing so. He cheated on me with a stripper and she facebooked him, I finally called him out on it and he accused her of being crazy and making things up. This same thing happened with several other girls. I was so delusional and in denial. “I’m not sleeping with her,baby, I just get drugs from her. You know how strippers are, they flirt with everyone.” Looking back, i cant believe i let him get away with it. I willfully stayed blind because i was so scared to lose him.
I found out he has proposed to SEVERAL girls within the past couple years”that’s right, OVERLAPPING engagements!! Multiple fiancees! He gave us all the same ring (which I’m sure he bought in bulk at Claire’s”..!!!) He fed us the same lines, and he was trying to get all of us pregnant!! I’ve also found out that he is broke, in a huge amount of debt, and he needs girls to pay for his addiction. That isn’t even the worst part. I found out that the reason why he wants to have children and get us all pregnant is because he wants to use them for his own sick purposes. He’s a monster.
I tried warning these girls one by one but there are so many. There are hundreds I don’t know about. It makes me feel awful. On top of that, he has already begun spinning his web of lies, telling them I’m crazy, bitter, and a liar. I want to get past this but I also feel like I have an obligation to all the little girls out there.
Oh Massie. Three years ago you posted what is now public knowledge. You have shown great courage and integrity reporting this truly evil individual. Are you being supported? Have you received specialist counseling? Be proud of yourself for helping the authorities take him out of society. Take care of yourself today.
Dear Massie,
YOU DO HAVE AN OBLIGATION……TO YOURSELF. That is the ONLY obligation you have. TAKE CARE OF YOU!
I’m glad you landed here at lovefraud because the information you need is here—read the archived articles ….learn about them, what they are and how they behave, then learn to talk care of yourself by avoiding that type of lying person. Learn to spot them before they hook into you like a leech. Learn how to get rid of them without feeling guilty.
It is a learning process and until you learn what you need to know about protecting and taking care of your obligation to YOURSELF, there will be another one come along.
Don’t worry about what he says in his SMEAR CAMPAIGN, you know it isn’t true! And that’s all that matters! ALL that matters! ((((hugs))))) and God bless.
Massie, welcome to the club. Sorry you have to be a member.
Just remember, no matter how bad it got and what you were able to witness, it’s worse than any of us can ever imagine. My EX never did drugs and was only a social drinker. That’s because I don’t do drugs and I hardly ever drink, but will socially … on rare occasions.
Anyway, they are the LIE from Hello to Goodbye. They do their same MO on everyone. There is no rhyme or reason to their existence. They have no light in them whatsoever. Everything about them is superficial. They surround themselves with others, any and all others. That too has no rhyme nor reason. They are like human sponges, sucking what they can get off of others. When they had their fill, they move on. Whatever that fill is at any given moment of any given day. Year in, year out. They are but a shadow of life. An illusion of a human being. Blink, and you didn’t see what you thought you saw. Poof, and they are tumbling down the road like the tumbleweeds they are.
Stay with us. Read as much as you can. You are at the beginning of your healing journey. It’s all about you right now … for the next few years. Learning what you are all about now, purging yourself from the slime he brought into your space. Be aware, you will have good days and bad. Ups and down. That will go on as long as it takes to purge your life from running into this monster.
Peace to your heart and soul as you heal from this heel.
Any time you need to write … write. Who ever is on line at the time, will gladly write you back.
P.S. Consider yourself one of the lucky ones. That got away from his grip. Now it’s time for you to emotionally, spiritually and intelligently heal.
maasie – your own good spirit protected you.
i take a different approach than some here do about trying to let others know. i feel that if we can and do it safely then it might be something we need to do. i think the important thing is if doing so keeps us tied or not (that and our own safety). some people can do it and not get pulled into the craziness of the reality of the spath, and others just spin.
but you are right there are probably hundreds of them. bit overwhelming when you think of it. we probably don’t have enough time in our lives to warn everyone. spaths tend to smear people and can become violent when their game is called. is there a way that you can let people know anonymously? that’s the only way i would do it. the amount of shit they can wreak in ones life is considerable. they don’t tend to go away the way other exes do. they smear and stalk and come back like a recurring freaking nightmare.
many years ago i posed for some semi draped photos. nice, sweet stuff. years later the photographer was jailed on child porn charges. (jeez, i just remembered more of that story—how his ‘sister in law’ showed up cause he was going to do some photos of her for his brother who was in the army..and how he tried to get us to ‘pose’ together…yah. right.)
…i digress – years later after that i saw him in shopping mall. walking with a woman who had two kids. i was at work. i walked out of my store, stopped her, and asked her ‘do you KNOW who he is?’ she said she did. i didn’t even think twice in that situation. i almost got slugge din the face by a con who had been out for oh 2 days when i defended his gf (who told me NO ONE had ever stood up for her) against his ugly ass and his ugly ass mother in a line up in a federal building. he was trash from the swamp. she was young, so young….and pregnant.
if you have any evidence at all that he may harm children report him.
Thanks for the kind words, oxy, wini and one_step_at_atime.
Ox it’s true, my recovery should be my first priority. i havent been spending as much time as i should on healing. It has taken a toll on me, thank you for your advice and i will continue learning and reading about the disorder ((hugs))
Wini it’s true- EVERYTHING about them is a lie. we’re not the first and we won’t be the last. we’re lucky we finally see them for who they are, so they wont be able to guilt-trip us and play their mindgames. i’m starting therapy tomorrow to help me deal with some of these feelings i’ve kept bottled up for so long.
one_step_at_a_time I admire you for walking out of your store at the mall and doing that. It took guts. Child molesters are the lowest of the low. I have filed an anonymous police report 1 month ago, nothing has got done yet. I’m not the only one who has told the police about his little side hobbies. There was one woman who my ex-S. claims is his “stalker”. According to ex-S., she would call up his family and harass them. Well as it turns out, this “stalker” was actually an ex-girlfriend of his who told the police about his child porn collection (he had filmed himself)
Massie, focus on yourself. Don’t focus on him and what you think he’s about or what he could be about. It’s hopeless. Not only for him, for all the folks (men and women) who have this problem. He’s all ego. All fluff, no substance. To continue to focus on him … and I know it’s difficult right now because you are in Post Traumatic Stress …will only keep you in the dance with his web of deceit longer than what is healthy for you. However, if he is a pervert with children or women in general, report that to your local police and the FBI. File a legal complaint and insure the police know how to contact you in case they can get a legal search warrant that will lead to his arrest on his illegal activities. Then leave it to the police to handle.
It’s time for you to focus on you. Now is the time to find out who you are again. Solo. A brand new you … from being broken by a broken person to a stronger, wiser, more compassionate, loving … you … without interference from him in any form. That means NO CONTACT. No phone calls, no getting in your car to see what he’s up to. No e-mails, no letters. NO CONTACT with anyone who knows him (friends, family, new or old flames, co-workers etc). NO CONTACT is the only way you (or any of us) can survive the devastation they cause to our very soul.
Tonight is a new night to get to the new you. We’ll all be here. Write any time of the day or night, we’ll be here because WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!
Peace.