By AlohaTraveler
I work at a children’s shelter. One day last summer, we were playing dodge ball with the children and it made me think about the Bad Man. When we play dodge ball, we divide the teams children against counselors. To play the game, we divide the basketball court in half with the mid line being the divide between territories and we use six balls. When the referee blows the whistle to start the game, balls begin flying in every direction, someone is “OUT!” and the heated arguments ensue (from the children of course, we adults keep our heads) about the rules and who threw what? Was their foot over the line? Was it before or after “TIME OUT” was called? Which player was “out” first? In other words, it is complete and total chaos. I hate when they defer to me and ask what I saw. Ummm … I saw people running all over the place and balls bouncing and then someone shouted “TIME OUT!” Whom that was, I don’t know. Which team was it that was tagged first? What color was the ball that made the first impact? Sheesh! This is hard. I am a terrible referee! I can’t process all this information at once. EXACTLY.
Mental Gymnastics otherwise known as “Being Kept Off Balance” or “Crazy Making”
This is how it was with the Bad Man. Complete and total chaos. “Balls” coming at me from every direction and constantly being told I crossed the line somewhere. Just like with children, the rules and the lines were changing all the time. Breaking the “rules” was totally unavoidable. I couldn’t keep anything straight. He claimed I yelled at him. Did I? I don’t remember that. He claimed I was “out of line” and “out of control.” Was I? I wasn’t sure. I admit I was upset. I admit I was hurt. I became confused in the midst of the chaos. There was so much coming at me!
At first, I reacted to everything. However, it didn’t take long before I stopped reacting because I didn’t know what to react to. I often woke up to tirades over email and the sheer volume of accusations were just completely mind boggling. Sometimes, I tried to understand where he was coming from. Other times, I attempted to apologize but for what, I was not sure. Apologies never worked anyway. Bad Man would say, “You didn’t even apologize for the RIGHT thing.” Or “You missed something in your apology.” If I asked, “What did I miss?” he would tell me, “I am NOT going there with you.” Okay.
After one or two episodes in which I dared to be angered by his outrageous attacks and accusations, I changed my tactic because being angry and arguing my side made things worse. I began to be very careful. I had a sense that he was taking apart my reality but at the time, I didn’t really have words for that. Instinctively, I started stepping ever so carefully. It was not because I thought I could avoid the attacks coming out of him. I gave that idea up quickly. I became careful and measured with my words and my tone because I wanted to be sure of whom I was being in the moment. If I was mad or outraged, then I would be unsure of what I said and how I said it. So, I became a ZEN master of sorts. I stayed in the moment. I was careful not to lose my head in anger or frustration. That way, I could be sure, at least for myself, that I had not been out of control. Not that this made any difference.
A big part of emotional/psychological abuse is something called “keeping the victim off balance.” The abuser is always changing his demands, his rules, his desires. You will know you are being abused in this way when you are trying with all your might to make your partner happy, nothing you do is good enough and “everything is your fault.” You will know you are being abused when you are in constant defense of your character. You will know you are being abused when you ask yourself, “If he hates everything about me, then why does he stay?”
Reality Show
When I was with the Bad Man, I started to wish that everything that was happening between us was being recorded. That way, I could go back to the tapes when he started rewriting history to suit himself. I often asked myself, “How could he possibly say that is what happened?” If this sounds familiar, it’s a sure sign that you were deep in the throes of “Crazy Making.” As you start to doubt yourself, you begin to feel as if you are losing your mind. An Abuser’s version of what happened will be fixed like super glue with no room to budge an inch. Not one. This nearly drove me mad! The Bad Man was always imagining himself as the victim of me! And no amount of talking could convince him that he had any part in breakdown-of-the-day. ARGH!
I believe that anytime you notice these kinds of dynamics with anyone, a boss, your mother, a lover, it means something is wrong with them, not you. This is just my unscientific opinion. We all have room to grow but when suddenly, everything in the world is wrong with you, well, that doesn’t seem fair does it? Also, it’s fairly unlikely assuming you are a full grown adult with a life that was functioning before this person came into your life.
No Coping Strategies Will Work
Fairly early on in the relationship, I began to try to modify my behavior in order to please the Bad Man. I became very measured in my words and watched my tone of voice. I focused all my attention on being a pleasing machine. I tried to meet his outrageous demands and… (if you are easily offended, please don’t read the next phrase) had sex like a circus monkey. Even that didn’t work. Nothing worked! Nothing stopped him from getting mad at me. Nothing stopped him from living in his warped reality where I was evil and he was the victim of me and my “horrid” ways. It was so tiring.
I left the Bad Man and his chaos in search of my own peace and an answer. I found the answers I needed here at LoveFraud. Really. I am not trying to get points here. I needed this explanation and thank God I found it. I still don’t know all of the Bad Man’s secrets but I know the biggest one. Bad Man definitely has a personality disorder, or two. Since I am not a clinician, I am unsure if he qualifies as a sociopath. I am SURE he qualifies as a borderline and a narcissist. Not too long ago, I believed that but still felt a little uncomfortable stating it because I wondered if saying he was an abuser made me the “drama queen” that he said I was. Now I know that calling me “drama queen” was a way to discredit me to others and to make me doubt myself and my own perceptions. That’s just one of the things I know today. I also know something else. “Drama” and chaos seem to follow the Bad Man wherever he goes. To this day, anytime I hear a man say he is looking for a woman with “no drama” it makes me wonder… about the man.
Sky- that is just like I felt the other day when I lost my job again. I knew that I would be spending the weekend with N father and having to tell him and others that I failed. I was planning my suicide letter-UNTIL I thought about my cat. You DO want to die around N’s and Spaths. I felt “crazy” with my ex too.
Yes, I think this should be in the survivor manual or something. If you want to die every time he comes around, probably there is something VERY wrong with HIM or THEM or whoever it is.
I have dealt with many spaths, I now know. The first was my P father, and I can pinpoint the moment this correlation began. The first time I ever thought of suicide, it was when I had run away from home….and he caught me (literally walked up to me on the streets and handcuffed me). Then I thought I’d rather die. And after that, I remember a few other times I felt this way….there was ALWAYS a spath in my life.
Skylar, don’t you ever wonder if she DIDN’T kill herself? What if the shit he was planning with YOU he actually PULLED OFF with her and made it look like a suicide? Maybe he actually murdered her and you were his second attempt! That might even explain how you were able to catch him. Murderers usually get cocky after they succeed, and thus they get a bit sloppy. How did she die? It’s very possible he killed her, I think. After everything you’ve told me, this could have been blatant murder, which would explain why he got so furious when you suggested that he had driven her to it. Remember how he responded whenever you accused him of lying? And he WAS lying….
Panther,
Yep, they keep us off balance. Sometimes I felt like those people who are lumber jacks and compete in those “log rolling” contests where they are standing on a log which is floated in water and they have to keep the log rolling under their feet.
If they lose coordination for one second they land in the water. That’s what the psychopaths do to us, keep us off balance so that we can’t keep up the “dance” without losing our balance.
Panther,
that’s an interesting thought, about her killing herself.
I’ll tell you the details that I know.
Her name was Teri and she was a meter maid. It’s possible that spath targeted her because he absolutely hated metermaids. I say that because he was always getting parking tickets and raging about it.
Anyway, he told me that one night they were sleeping at her apartment when someone broke in and started slashing at them and everything in the apartment with a pizza cutter that had been welded so the wheel didn’t turn. He chased them around the apartment slashing at them and then ran away. I never asked for more details because when spath was telling me this story, it was in such a way, that I could tell he was lying but I didn’t NOT believe him. I just didn’t know what part was a lie.
The red flag in the story is that spath is a welder and BTW, who notices that the mechanism on a sharp pizza cutter is welded when you are being chased around an apartment, running for your life? So anyway, I believe that he set it up and it was a spath friend of his who broke in.
That is not how she died though. Spath said that one day she just walked out onto a busy street and got hit by a car. He said it was suicide.
I’m now thinking she was being chased – again.
My spath also had his spath minions move into 5 of the homes around me. Two more homes are occupied by people who are spaths and also his minions, but I don’t think he had anything to do with them moving there.
I never met any of them, (or suspected that they were his minions) until I was elected as secretary for our neighborhood association. This was a surprise to spath. But 2 years later, several of them also ran for positions on the board. They proceeded to try and sabotage everything I did.
But when you think about the fact that I was not intended to meet them in the first place, then what is most probable is that he was thinking about creating a scenario where I was being chased around and would bang on the neighbors doors and nobody would answer.
Furthermore, he had the police hating me. He pretended to hate cops because he’s a drug dealer, but the truth is that he spent lots of time hanging out at the local cop shop (his friends told me this later).
When I reported stolen packages from my mailbox, the cop didn’t want to take the report and said, “Oh you just want your pound of flesh, don’t you?” When I finally left him the cops kept calling me demanding that I drive to their office to prove I was me. WTF?
When you look at the way he was arranging his pawns on the chess board, you can pretty much surmise ONE of his strategies.
The other thing he was doing was stealing my sleeping pills and telling everyone that I was a suicidal, pill popping drunk. “Just like Marilyn Monroe”. So again, we can see the strategy that he was setting up. It’s not that complicated to perceive.
So, the details you know about how she died came from him? Hmmm. And have you checked any of the facts? Do you know if she even existed? (Man, after dealing with my ex, I will ask EVERYTHING post-spath-tale because I don’t believe a word that comes out of a spath-mouth anymore).
I wouldn’t be surprised
if he had chased her around the house with the pizza cutter and there never was a 2nd person.
if she had been pushed into the street.
if she never existed
if she had existed and is STILL ALIVE today.
if she died by a pill overdose and the story he told you was total bullshit.
You can tell what kind of a liar my ex was just by how vast in range my suspicions are here. My ex had made up tons and tons of women who had never existed, he had photos of them, he received emails from them and he talked on the phone with them right in front of me. They never existed. He had fabricated every person and story. He had written emails to himself. He had talked on the phone with no one, just dead air.
So, anything that comes out of the mouth of a spath is subject to being absolute, total, and complete bs on every level. Based on everything you’ve told me about your ex, I’d put some money on the idea that he killed her. She didn’t kill herself, if she existed.
Wanna hear something seriously creepy? When I first asked my ex how he and Spath #2 (his best friend) had met, he said they met at a court hearing about a girl at their high school who had committed suicide. They were both suspected of driving her to it. That is how they met, during the investigation of her death. I looked this girl up and she did exist, she did commit suicide, and she did go to his high school. All his high school friends confirm this story. Him and his best friend, spath #2, got off the hook, and they have been inseparable friends ever since. It sounds like something out of a damn movie it’s so creepy.
Panther,
I totally get what you mean.
There can be truths woven into their lies, so everything is doubtable. But after 25 years with him, I kind of have a feel for the way he lies. And the other thing about him, is that , like Superkids’s spath, he really likes to “live out” his lies. He likes to set up the props and put the wheels in motion.
Like for example, if he tells you he flys a helicopter for a living, you might think he is lying because that’s exactly the kind of lie that a spath would tell. But in fact it’s true. The part that is a lie, is that he doesn’t even have a pilot’s license. But who would believe that?
So based on the WAY that my spath lies, and also on the things that he was doing to me, I can surmise some approximation of the truth about Teri.
I hate dodge ball! They make my daughter play at PE, and she always comes home bruised or hurt somewhere from it. It seems like such a barbaric game for kids to play. It is like an old war scene with one side against the other, each dodging the bullets.
Panther your ex sounds so scary! Sky, I wouldn’t doubt it if he didn’t kill her, too!
My aunt and my 6 yo cousin were murdered by her husband. He made it look like a suicide and he got away with it. He even wrote a note, but it wasn’t her writing and sounded nothing like my aunt. He tried to make it look like she was crazy, and he did. Although, we didn’t buy it and I guess none of their neighbors did either. They got the case reopened, but nothing ever came out of it. He got a lot of insurance money, and then he moved to CA and remained a woman who looked a lot like my aunt.
I would like to write a book about it or even share more details with you guys. I just worry my life would be short lived if I did. He is a big scary man, and he did have the police paid off where he killed them.
Jen, some schools have banned dodge ball as a “game” because of the violence of it, and yes, kids do get hurt in that game. I agree it is not a game that should be played in schools. There are too many other games in which there is no violence directed at others.
I changed my screen name, and I think I will go ahead and share my aunts story. I have hidden myself from my ex spath so well that I think it would be crazy hard if not impossible to find me right now. People need to know how sick these Spaths can be!
So, still me, but better to be a little safe with such a small change. 🙂
Welcome TruthBTold! Goodbye whoever you were! You are a different person now since the experience and telling the truth does set us free!