At a Christmas party on Saturday night, the conversation turned to hot water radiators. My husband, who is mechanically inclined, explained to a woman, who was trying to save money by conserving heat, how to bleed the air out of an old-style hot water heating system.
Eventually, the conversation revealed why the woman was trying to save money. She’d purchased an old farmhouse for her business. She secured a $150,000 construction loan to renovate the house and retained a contractor. The contractor insisted on installing the thermostat for the hot water heating system on a wall directly across from a wood burning stove. (For those of you who are not mechanically inclined, this is a really dumb idea.) The contractor also told the woman that she couldn’t insulate the farmhouse because moisture would create a mold problem. (This is true, but it is a problem that is readily solved, and insulating the house is a really good idea.)
Further conversation revealed that the contractor, who was president of some kind of historical building society, had not completed $70,000 worth of work for which he had been paid. The bank repeatedly came to inspect the job, bought the guy’s stories about why the work wasn’t done, and released the next installment of money. The farmhouse owner, of course, signed off on all the payments.
At one point a bank representative asked the farmhouse owner, “Are you sure about this guy?”
“Oh, he’s fine,” she replied. “He’s the president of the historical building society.”
The contractor hasn’t paid the subcontractors, and they’re demanding their money from the farmhouse owner. She hired a lawyer, who went along with a plan suggested by the contractor’s lawyer, which was useless. So now the woman is trying to save her home and her business. Plus, she’s cold.
“Sounds like you’re dealing with a sociopath,” I said.
I don’t know if this woman has any good options. We suggested that she sue the bank, because the bank released the money. But she approved payments, so that may not work. She can’t afford another lawyer. As has happened to many of us who have dealt with sociopaths, she may be stuck holding the bag.
Fort Dix Five
This woman may suffer terrible financial losses. But others involved with sociopaths lose much more.
A few weeks ago, in The con man, the thug and the jihadists, I wrote about the five young Muslim men who were on trial for plotting a terrorist attack against U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Most of the prosecution’s case was based on conversations secretly recorded by an informant, an illegal immigrant from Egypt, who was paid $240,000 by the FBI.
I predicted that the jury would see that the informant was a con man who manipulated the young men. I predicted that the defendants would walk. I was wrong.
The five young Muslims were convicted of conspiring to kill military personnel. They were acquitted of the more serious charge of attempted murder because they didn’t actually do anything. Still, they all face life in prison.
Yes, they did go to a shooting range in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, shot at targets and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.” They videotaped themselves doing this and brought the tape to a Circuit City store to be converted to DVD. One of them also downloaded violent jihadist videos from the Internet.
But would they have actually have gone any further? Would they have even discussed plans, which were nothing more than vague, wild ideas, if they hadn’t been goaded on by the sociopath, who was being paid to keep them talking?
I know how convincing sociopaths can be, so I don’t think they would have done anything without his encouragement. But I wasn’t on the jury, and the people who were apparently don’t understand sociopaths. So the young Muslims were left holding the bag. They may spend the rest of their lives in prison.
For his efforts, the con man informant, who was twice convicted of bank fraud, was promised legal residency in the United States, courtesy of our Justice Department.
Education is key
The consequences of entanglements with sociopaths are always negative, ranging in scale from unpleasant to deadly.
That’s why Lovefraud’s mission is to educate people about sociopaths. Right now, most people find Lovefraud because they’re already entangled with a sociopath and facing the consequences. We’ll soon announce a new initiative to help people cope with what has happened to them.
But eventually we hope to have programs to educate people about this personality disorder and the red flags of sociopathic behavior. Our goal is to help people escape the terrible consequences by avoiding the predators in the first place.
I am here also from time to time when there is a lull here.
DAMN!
just woke up from a dream about the m/er-f/er!
i couldn’t stand the silence anymore, so i went to see him.
his mom was alive; she told me he was in his room (weird thing, he’s been living in his own house for 10 yrs now). i went upstairs and he greeted me cheerily, ”what’s up, homegirl!” he made no effort to come over to me, or hug me.
he said, ”oh, it was a mistake. she wasn’t pregnant.”
i asked him, ”why didn’t you just tell me you were with someone else.”
he answered, ”i was obsessed with her. i’m still so in love with her.”
he didn’t apologize, but handed me a flyer for their joint birthday parties (i have no idea of her birthday). i took it, was in disbelief that he had given it to me, and proceeded to rip it in little pieces as i walked back down the stairs and left.
enter awakeness.
i’m so upset. i don’t WANT him in my brain anymore!!!!! i left him in 2008! now i’m sitting here wondering — she’s NOT pregnant??? (just yesterday i figured she was close to having his baby by now) he’s obsessed with her????? geez, can a s/p/n be obsessed with anyone???
oh, someone make it STOP!!!!!
p.s. OX … that’s really funny about the procastinators club. i’d be the president if i wasn’t such a procrastinator.
OxD
I had this Image of You ! The Matriarc of our Family ! No one would ever sit In HER CHAIR ! Rocking on a Huge Porch cleaning String Beans as You Taught the younguns !:)~ Never would I have dared to Say That P-word. Let alone spell it!:)
Human Nature is very interesting! Is Procastination Good Or Bad?
Never put off till Tomarrow what you can do today!
or
Tomarrow will have enough time to It’self or are they the same?LOVE JJ
LIG,
Must be something in the air, I had nightmares of the s. last night ,too. I had fallen asleep on the couch watching a movie, & woke up at 1:47 AM in the middle of a full force, is it real, where am I kind of dream. I got up & wandered around the house trying to shake it off for about 1/2 hour, & finally got back down to earth. Gosh, I hatr those kind of dreams. I don’t think I’d dreamed of that POS for a good month. I’m NC for 2 years this month, so I am so mad he still lurks in my subconscience. (Get out of my head u b*stard!!!!) When I went back to bed, the dreams went into their “to be continued” stage.. Not a very restful night for me, woke up with the worst headache I’ve had in a long time. I know when I go to church this morning, I will be praying for this to just stop.
sstiles: i also went back to sleep and had the ‘to be continued’ thingy. AND i have a headache too.
AND when i go to church this morning we are having a ”burning bowl” day where we write down what we want to dissipate into the universe and then the written intentions are burned — he’s the FIRST thing on the list!
geesh. maybe it is something in the air. or that they are gasping for recognition in our subconscious since we are giving them NOTHING in real life!
Procrastination. I have had a really bad case of this lately. Bumping into the EX has made this really acute. I must not let this monster have so much power. I feel like I am fighting the Devil. The good thing is that I am no longer feeling any longing or love for this person but see it as an addiction. Addicts don’t love heroin, they just have to have it despite the devastating damage.
I just learned something about myself. While in the relatiionship with the ex, I had a cyber/phone connection to another man at long distance. No sex just a flirtation. When the ex dumped me I went running to the long distance guy perhaps in a strange way to get back at the EX. After six months of this flirtation I now realize that this was a total rebound thing and not healthy. Geez,,,,the games we play with ourselves. I was starting to get upset that the rebound guy was not working out….DUH!!!!! How could this be healthy when it was based on running away from pain.
I have a name for what I have been going through. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You should have seen my reaction when the EX surprised me at the Hair dresser. I really jumped and ran out. This is a strange response for someone as controlled as me. However, I was in the presence of real evil masquerating as this very pious Episcopalian.
I am thoroughly convinced that NO CONTACT is required in both of the men I have mentioned. They are very much alike. Very self absorbed and very oblivious to the pain and confusion they cause in so many people’s lives. I choose to seek a challenge in a much healthier way.
Thank God for this Blog! I have done a lot of communicating here this Holiday seasonn and am so much stronger for it. What impressess me so much is how generous the other survivors are here. I hope to return the favor.
My late father told me once when I was in a lot of emotional pain,” Sometimes God allows us to suffer so that we can help others in a similar situation.”
The best way to affirm that you have learned your lesson is to teach it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Peaceatlast
Peace be with You!
Sometimes the old saying is that “them that can do, do, and them that can’t do, teach” seems to be my MANTRA….I am a better teacher than I am a DOER. Thanks, Indi…I loved being a mother and I had always envisioned that by now I would be doing just what you said, sitting on the porch snapping beans and having my grandchildren around them, or taking them out and teaching them to ride or garden or sew or knit. Even my little P-son learned to knit when he was about 10 or 12, and was quite good at it.
THE DREAMS: Yes, the dreams and the “to be continued” part even, I think are a way of helping us work things out. I know for a long time I had what I called “theme dreams” where I was “rescuing” some helpless creature, usually a baby animal or animals of some kind that would die if I didn’t take care of them, and while I was doing that I was neglecting something about myself and my life would crash because I was distracted helping the helpless baby animals. This went on almost nightly for quite some time last year (2007) until I kind of “got it” about what they meant.
You can always “justify” in your own mind that if you don’t “take care of X, they will ‘die'” so it is your responsibility to RESCUE them, when in fact, you are distracted from saving yourself which is TRULY your responsibility. Once I got that message the dreams stopped.
So maybe while the “interpretation” of the dreams is not like Joseph interpreting Pharoah’s dream in the Bible, a meaning directly from God, it is never-the-less, I think, something that we need to “interpret” for ourselves and see what our subconscious is trying to tell us, maybe in symbols.
The procrastination is part of the PTSD I think. I have noticed various forms of it since the airplane crash. I got to where I could not answer the phone or listen to the messages on the recorder. I would just procrastinate and never get to it.
I hate doing the taxes, HATE it. So I have always procrastinated a bit on that, but have gotten to the point lately (last few years since the crash) that I will go months witout balancing the check book—like this time it was since MAY 2008! I knew in my head ABOUT how much money was in there and there was no chance of bouncing a check, but still, I didn’t even open the statements. If there had been an error in there at this late date it would just have been too bad for me. I KNOW THAT’S WRONG to do that, procrastinate on business…but I didn’t push myself and I should have. Now, I am going to “forgive myself” for doing this procrastination and work on QUITTING putting things off. In other words, take more responsibility to do things that should be done, rather than letting them “slide.”
Back when I was really “a basket case” I can see that as long as I was not bouncing checks, that was not an “important” thing to worry about, and doing things I “hated” doing was stressing me more, so I let them slide—but that’s not the case now, I am no longer a “basket case” but much better, so there are some unpleasant things in life that I NEED TO DO that are the adult, responsible things to do, and I need to kick myself in the butt and DO them in a timely manner.
Dear Peace at last, you are so right! NO CONTACT is the only way that we can get through this mess. I realize that some people who have to have contact via shared children can’t have that, but they CAN have as little contact as possible, communicate through e mail, let someone else hand the children off or pick them up. There are ways even then to MINIMIZE THE CONTACT, but the ideal is NO contact physically, and then that will lead eventually to EMOTIONAL NO CONTACT. I thought I had “emotional no contact” with my mother (which is where I could interact face to face with her and not be injured) WRONG!!! I was deluding myself and I got reinjured every time I had even a bit of face to face contact.
I think it is the “looks” she uses, the “pitiful old lady” look, the “abused old lady look” the “I love you, don’t be so mean to me look” or maybe the “you are a piece of chit look” or the “i’ll get you look”–whatever it is, it is injurious to me and I must avoid it. There are still some buttons in there that she can push that pi$$ me off, hurt me, send me into a rage. I’m better, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the point I can SEE her and not react. So, I have physical no contact (and no communication directly) and am working on emotional no contact.
I occasionally have to talk to my x DIL (like I called her to tell her that the Trojan HOrse psychopath was out on parole) but I really don’t have enough “emotion” other than disgust for her for it to upset me no matter what she does or says. I NEVER LOVED HER…that makes a big difference in the buttons she can push. So each individual P and the relationship may be different in how much if any contact you can ever have with them. I think the more you loved them, the longer (forever?) no contact must be for the person.
NO contact allows you to heal the past injuries and not have NEW ones, which “set you back to square one.”
Every time I think I will get off LF and not come here again, I realize I am like a sober drunk, and I can’t quit AA just because I am SOBER TODAY. I NEED the support to STAY SOBER, to remind myself. I have had a life long pattern of dysfunctional thinking, emotions, etc. and I am not going to “perfect” it in a single year, or two, or ten (if I live so long) I am always going to need support and interaction with people who will understand where I am “coming from.”
There are days when I can “give advice” and days when I need to “take advice.”
Besides the fact, that if I give YOU ADVICE, and then go out and do the very thing I told you I thought was unhelpful, my little inner “guilty feeling” would tell me, “Hey, Oxy, you are being a hypocrit!” So, believe me, I get more from this blog than I give, by 1000% at least!
“Two one-legged-men can walk,, as long as they hold on to each other and don’t let go.”
You guys are my other leg, and holding on to you keeps me upright and moving along. Maybe that is an “addiction” of its own, or a “crutch,” but I would rather have an addiction to LF than an addiction to pain and drama. Maybe LF is like methadone for a heroin addict, but at least we are not “robbing liquor stores” for our “supply of dope” any more and our lives can level out in a more healthy place.
LIG & SST: Our emotions tend to happen along lower/slower brainwaves, the ones that we are more able to access in our dreams. Those “actively repressed” emotions like to crawl out when we’ve let our guard down, like when we’re sleeping.
EMDR (the eye movement therapy that O-D has used) and cognitive behavioral therapy work as they allow us to acknowledge and then let go of those repressed emotional memories. (This is a simplistic overview, but it comes from a lot of research.)
Some new techniques center around “releasing.” The idea is that when an emotion comes up, you practice “releasing” that emotion rather than attaching meaning to it. You can read up on “The Sedona Method.” Another clinical psychologist has a meditation-based technique that is similar. I’ll find the info later today.
I think being in the presence of wonded healers is so theraputic. There can be no judgement only true support for where we are weak and will become strong. Where could I go to find someone to understand the crap I have subjected myself to? Too many professional therapists go too slow to get to the core of the problem. I don’t want to talk about my toilet training or my Ophelia complex….I want to get going with my life. At 60 I don’t have time for reflective pity parties. BTW… I maybe 60 but I have the drive and energy that I did not have at 30. In the looks department I am not bad either…I exersise and wear a size 4-6. When I am undressing at the Gym…..I see women in their 30-40s who look much worse. My 16 year old daughter and her friemds think I am cool and hot looking….So there..so much for mid life crisis. 60 can be the new 40. I took the REAL AGE Test (on line check it out) and I am biologically 48. I am not bragging….I am being grateful that I may have had my heart broken but my spirit soars. Thanks to all of you I will continue to soar. I am a threat to sociopathic heterosexual men because they hate the woman they wish to screw. I am certain that has something to do with their Moms….but then I don’t care. They don’t count because I have no time for such dysfunction.