Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who comments as “Pearl.”
By Pearl
Someone on this blog once mentioned a book by Alice Miller and Andrew Jenkins, and it caught my attention. So now I’m reading The Truth Will Set You Free—Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self.
Even though I’m only about halfway through the book, I wanted to share parts of it because it is so important to what a lot of us are working on—forgiving ourselves and trying to understand why this (fraud) happened to us. I know this won’t apply or appeal to everyone, but it might help some of you as it has me. Miller’s ideas help me understand why I was susceptible and forgive myself for my blindness—my inability to spot a “bad guy.”
Miller focuses on childhood—on how corporal punishment (spanking/whipping) and humiliation—cause a type of blindness in adulthood that can lead to being manipulated and UNABLE TO SEE THROUGH LIES. She emphasizes that the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation and emotional blackmail leaves long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another as adults.
Here is the cycle as she sees it:
- Traditional methods of upbringing, which have included corporal punishment, lead a child to DENY suffering and humiliation. (Can anyone related to having a high pain threshold? Where did I get that bruise or cut—I don’t remember getting it? Ever feel humiliated at being spanked, paddled or whipped as a child? Ever experience a parent being insensitive to suffering?)
- This denial, although essential if the child is to SURVIVE, will later cause emotional blindness.
- Emotional blindness produces “barriers in the mind” erected to guard against dangers. This means that early denied traumas become encoded in the brain, and even though they no longer pose a threat, they continue to have a subtle, destructive impact. (The memory of how to respond to such crappy behavior from our parents and authority figures is still there.)
- Barriers in the mind keep us from learning new information, putting it to good use, and shedding old, outdated behaviors.
- Our bodies retain a complete memory of the humiliations we suffered, driving us to inflict unconsciously on the next generation what we endured in childhood, unless we become aware of the cause of our behavior, which is embedded in the history of our own childhoods.
As children, some of us learned to suppress and deny natural feelings. Some of us lived in a world where our feelings were ignored and denied.
All the beaten child remembers is FEAR and the face of the ANGRY parent, not why the beating was taking place. The child may even assume he had been naughty and deserved the punishment. Miller writes that in the absence of a witness who can empathize with us in childhood and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the pain but to close our minds to it.
In a bid to blot the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, we can fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, and FAIL TO SEE THROUGH ALL KINDS OF LIES.
Having this information helps me understand why I was “ripe for the picking.” It also goes a long way toward helping me forgive myself and move on in the healing process.
Kathleen:
“Addicts lie.” So true. Now throw a good dose of sociopathy into the mix. A new dimension to lying.
I remember the first time S “needed my help” after his cashed paycheck had been lifted from his back pocket in a bar we met at. Of course it was MY FAULT. Supposedly MY FRIEND (stranger I was chatting with at time S entered bar) lifted it.
That night I didn’t question why he would walk around with their entire cashed paycheck in hsi pocket. That night I didn’t question why he went off his with ex-dealer for 1/2 an hour.
NO, stupid me took the blame and the responsibility for paying HIS RENT for that month. Later I found out the money was for the PREVIOUS MONTH’S RENT. And so it went.
I went to Al-Anon. I prayed. I read and researched until my eyes were crossed. And know what?
Nothing changed. He lied and he lied and he lied. Until even STUPID ME couldn’t ignore the fact that when the bow of the Titanic was underwater and the propeller was out of the water that this meant the ship was sinking!
That last night when I confronted him with the fact that I knew he was using, even STUPID ME had to admit that I not only had a sociopath in my life, but I had tied my happiness to him not drinking and taking drugs.
When you recounted your employee emoting all over the place I so remember S doing the same thing. I was the one who was supposed to be personally responsible.
I remember that last night when he took one last run at me. Only this time he saw the look in my eyes and knew that I knew what he was all about. The look on his face that he knew the gig was up is indelibly etched in my brain.
You’re right. We’re resources they use to staying addicted. Actually, in my case I was his whore. No, that’s insulting to whores. At least they’re honest about what they’re doing. I wasn’t. I paid for everything on the basis of a false premise.
Addicts backslide. S has already been to prison once because of his addiction. I think he’ll be back in the system shortly because of his addiction. And when he is, no doubt it will be my fault and everybody else’s fault for failing him once again.
You know, Matt, it actually IS your fault. If you had given him the money, he wouldn’t have had to STEAL IT and then get caught and go to prison. Darn you Matt, it is your fault! NOT ***NOT***NOT*** LOL
When the little hired hand came by this morning (he is in the middle of a “dramatic” divorce from a personality disordered woman) He said she told that she “just couldn’t live with all those rumors of her cheating” an tht she was “worried he would commit suicide” (he is NOT a “sucide type guy”) so she just cheated, so the rumors would be true, and that way she protected him from killing himself. LOL ROTFLMAO Wash’t that NOBLE of her? Oh, gosh, it all sounds like it is out of the Psychopaths “Play book”
You know I bet we could get rich if we wrote a comedy book on the excuses we have been given for THEIR BAD behavior being our fault! The above one is my FIRST CONTRIBUTION to the “BOOK OF CREATIVE LIES”–don’t ya think that would be a good name for it? LOL
Oh,, Matt, you just went to a whore and paid for sex, you just didn’t know he was a whore, you thought he loved you. He just was a DISHONEST WHORE. I don’t agree with the lifestyle, but I can respect an honest whore, it is those dishonest ones that get ya every time.
Bernie Madoff, “such a nice man.” They can set their vibe so that they are so, so VERY believable. And as we want to believe the best of them and for them . . . they use our goodness against us.
Matt, you’re lucky he was that much of a jerk that early on. If he were more patient in his con, you could have spent years falling for his lies that looked so true, as he pretended that he cared, and destroyed every resource you had, including your own sense of yourself.
No, it’s not your fault. He knew what he was looking for and he found it — a target. You know that there are decent people in the world who would NEVER do what he did, and who would be grateful to know you and share love and respect. Now you’ve got a better shot at evaluating the good ones, and discarding these losers earlier in their game.
Lying, addictions and sociopathy. What a mix.
The thing about sociopath’s lying is that — how do I put this? — it’s not always pointed, in the sense of happening for a specific objective. It’s often diffuse.
They lie because they instinctively want to hide their tracks. Or they lie because they want to mess with our heads. Or they lie because they’re trying to inflate their importance relative to someone else’s inferiority. Or they lie because they want to see if it will fly.
All that in addition to the lies they tell in order to scope out, hook and reel in a sucker. Which at least makes some kind of sense in a twisted way.
A few years into our relationship, my sociopath let slip about how excruciatingly bored he was when I was telling him about my history, my values, how I’d gotten into my business, etc. I told him this, because after I hired him, he used to come into my office and pull a chair up on the other side of my desk, and ask me questions about myself. He would sit on the other side of my desk giving me moon eyes, and hanging on every word.
When I asked him later why he did it, if it was so boring, he said, “Well, it helped me get close to you.”
Now, I can hear those words for what they really mean, and it makes my hair stand on end. When I heard them for the first time, I was in that typical state of confusion we get into. Did that mean he liked me? Well, if he liked me why was it so boring? And why did he listen if he was bored? Why didn’t he say what he really felt? I would have understood. No one else wanted to know all that stuff about me.
But thinking about it now, it’s not just what the words mean, but what his whole behavior meant. It wasn’t just telling a lie, but acting a lie. Setting up a situation that looked like one thing, but was really another. I thought I was building a friendship. He was scoping me out to figure out where I was vulnerable, what I needed that he could offer to reel me in. (As he did.)
There was another time, actually the beginning of the last chapter. I was finished with him, suffering over it but slowly getting over it. When he started to call again “because he missed me,” and wanted me to visit him in another city where he lived. I resisted it, and then got sucked in by his ability to make me laugh.
I bought a ticket, and had second thoughts and didn’t take the flight. Got talked into it again, and made the flight. He spent the whole visit charming me, doing all kinds of things he knew I liked to do, then spent an evening introducing me to new music and being so funny I ached from laughing. But I refused to sleep with him.
And he talked me into coming out again. He talked about how much he missed me, and our possible future together. This time I wound up in bed with him. And THEN, I discovered that he was out of money and wanted to come back to live with me, and work part-time to rebuild his bank account.
I asked him why he went though all that song-and-dance rather than just asking me. (I missed him so badly I probably would have said yes, as I had in the past when he showed up after disappearing for a while.)
He looked at me in pure innocence and said, “Well, doesn’t it make sense to put someone in a good mood before you start negotiating?”
Can you call what he did lying? I don’t think that word begins to describe this sort of behavior.
Compared to the addicts I know, who come up with their transparent little stories about how someone stole their money or why they can’t show up for work, this is full-blown … what? Delusion creation?
Oh, I just remembered that old phrase “pulling the wool over someone’s eyes.” Perfect. Wool from the wolf in sheep’s clothing. All those old phrases.
There’s some comfort in knowing that there’s nothing new about sociopaths.
But if that’s true, then why did we have to learn about them the hard way? Why didn’t we grow up with all kinds of folksy little warnings about people who were dangerous?
Oh right, I remember. It’s because I, for one, grew up with a sociopath.
Ever notice how they don’t talk about each other?
Kathleen:
“But thinking about it now, it’s not just what the words mean, but what his whole behavior meant. It wasn’t just telling a lie, but acting a lie. Setting up a situation that looked like one thing, but was really another.”
When I worked as a TV writer (many lifetimes ago) I was always focused on subtext — the words mean one thing, but the underlying emotions and physical actions give the words an entirely different meaning.
As I gain distance and clarity for the S brain fog, I’m beginning to see multiple instances of what I’ll call “verbal dissonance” where he was saying one thing, but the subtext (his intent) was something entirely different.
When the end was drawing close, I remember S and I went to a bar the evening after his brother’s wedding. The public affection he showered on me that evening. The public declarations that we were a couple.
My enfeebled synapses were finally starting to fire again and told me I needed to pay close attention.
And I did. And the critics were unanimous. It was the performance of S’s career. He pulled out all the stops. He broke down in tears. He told me “he was trying so hard to go straight” (not be a con).
And then he delivered what I now realize he calculated was the real sympathy clincher “my father told me last night (at the wedding) that he’s going to disconnect my mother from life support. My father is going to kill my mother.”
Using a comatose woman on life support for his own selfish ends. That was the moment I knew I was being played. And I realized I was done playing.
My skin still crawls at the memory of that moment. I agree. Lying doesn’t even begin to describe that sort of behavior.
Rune and OxDrover:
Thanks.
BTW: IT’S ALSO YOUR FAULT that his life is a mess!
OxDrover, give you hired hand a helping hand — give him a copy of “Without Conscience.” That book helps everybody who is trying to understand what they hell they got involved with. I don’t say “who they got involved with” because that would imply these parasites are human.
I just gave a copy to a friend whose wife’s sister-in-law is a classic S and her brother has become just like the S. She called and told me she couldn’t put the book down and she finally understood after 10 years what was going on.
Your hired hand’s wife’s excuse for her affair is mind-boggling, but so true to form. A true candidate for sainthood, that one.
Rune:
My shrink tells me he’s afraid that after S I’m going to come down like a ton of bricks on someone I get involved with if they do something that doesn’t sit right with me.
Maybe, maybe not. I do still want to give people the benefit of the doubt. That said, after S I have drawn much harder lines on what I consider to be acceptable behavior.
After several singularly unpleasant encounters with a recent acquaintance that I gave him his walking papers. Personally, I felt it was a good judgment call. Life is too short to ever waste it again on a relationship that proves problematical right up front.
Dear Matt,
It is amazing how “sut in air ways” we get now that WE GET IT! Isn’t it? LOL Just no tolerance for BS.
I’m not even sure this kid can read, Matt. No joke, he is an honest to gosh red neck cowboy! Cute as a button, good as gold, do anything in the world for you if he likes you, but could give you a “good country ass kicking” if he thoght you needed it for abusing either your wife or your horse. He even volunteered to fix me up with an old geezer he knows that is a RETIRED cow boy so I can ride in the chuck wagon races next spring!
I can’t wait to see if the guy is “LEVEL HEADED” the way you tell is if he is level headed is, snuff or tobacco juice runs equally out of BOTH sides of his mouth. LOL ROTFLMAO
Also I can look and see if he is a red neck or a “good old boy” because a red neck throws his beer cans out the winder of the truck onta the road, but a “good old boy” throws his into the bed of the truck thru der slidin glass behind the seat! LOL
I don’t really have a great deal of hope this kid will learn to thinkk with the BIG head, but who knows, he is listening to me right now, and bless his heart, he’s in a lot of pain. She’s his FIRST X-WIFE.
Without Conscience is a great book though, wish I had “listened” to it 10+ years ago when I first read it. Would have made life more simple lately. Oh, well, back to “too soon old, too late smart” but I GOT IT NOW!!!
Watch what they do and how they do it.
Here’s a story: A workman/craftsman on my worksite offers to buy lunch for himself, the S and me. S takes the workman’s $50, walks across the street, comes back with sandwiches for everyone on the site. He beams and laps up the appreciation. I don’t have time to eat because I’m trying to coordinate work, and now all the crew has stopped, but are still charging their hourly rates. The workman had calculated that 3 sandwiches would be less than $20, and now his grocery money is gone. But everyone else just loves the S because he’s so generous.
Notice the reaping big admiration on someone else’s dime. I saw variations of that theme over and over. A dinner at a restaurant for several top people I was working with and a visitor from Europe. I arrive a little late — trying to wrap up a complication on a worksite — and find that the S has added three random strangers, young women, to the table. I, of course, can order them away (?) while making a scene, or act as if this is fine so that some business can happen over the dinner table and try to take it up with him later. Of course, trying to make him see the profound discourtesy of his actions would be pointless because . . . Oh, yeah, because being RUDE and GETTING AWAY WITH IT was THE POINT!!! Especially since he could look like Mr. Generous while doing it. Hmmm. Why did I continually feel like I was being boxed in a corner?
OxDrover:
I got to thinking about your hired hand and his situation. I realized that sometimes it’s helpful if what we’re going through has a peer frame of reference.
I remember a few months ago, about the time I discovered LoveFraud, there was a posting from a soldier in Iraq who prior to his deployment had been put through hell by a sociopathic girlfriend. Since it sounds like both guys are about the same age, maybe something in his story would resonate with your hired hand.
Just a thought.
That’s a good idea Matt. My son C (the one whose “wife tried to save him from suicide” by KILLING HIM to use the boy’s wife’s excuse) is spending some time with the kid and my other son D is also spending some time with him on various proects and he is talking non-stop to them, and to me when they come in to warm up and get some coffee.