By Ox Drover
Someone recently forwarded to me one of those funny e-mails that we almost all get on a daily basis. This particular one was from a site called “failblog.org” and showed a photograph of a pretentious front entrance to a house from the front, and then showed the same house from the side, revealing what lay behind that pretentious entrance façade.
I laughed of course, but then I had an “ah ha” moment, when I realized that that is just exactly how the psychopaths present themselves to victims. The façade they present with “love bombing” to impress the victim with what a wonderful person they are—how could they not be “wonderful,” because they recognize just how special you are!?!
It is reassuring to most of us when someone recognizes just how special we really are! We enjoy those accolades and praise, even if they do somewhat embarrass us. Of course we like the person who tells us how wonderful we are, and we quickly start to trust that person. Isn’t it obvious that they have such good judgment? They think we are wonderful, after all.
The false façade that the psychopath presents to us, of being discerning and intelligent, loving and caring, is just like the house in the photographs. It is all fake façade and only when we are inside can we see the depth of the deception.
Once inside, however, even seeing the reality of the devastation of the internal environment, we still hope that the rest of the “house” can be “remodeled” or repaired to meet the image we first saw. We pour all our resources into accomplishing that dream, yet nothing ever improves. We stay there in the forlorn hope, the unrealistic hope, that we can accomplish a miracle.
Even when we give up and leave, as we look in our rearview mirror, all we can see is the false façade, and not the reality of internal decay.
In order to escape we must accept that the façade is not the reality, can never be the reality, and that only destruction and decay lies within.
Hi jeannie812 – Yeah, it was great!!!
Jeannie812 did you ever figure out how to read all your posts? I too wonder if I have progressed. I think I have. However, i think I dump too much, rely too much on one friend in partcular.
I met my spath 3 years ago and it rocked my world. When i talk to my friend about it, it’s amazing, he says, it’s been 4 years….the other night he said it’s been 5 or 6 years….. wow, that’s quite a change! Jeepers. I guess what he’s trying to say is that he can’t take my spath recovery talk any more!
SK
Great post Ox Drover…and oh so true.
Sk, I had forgotten about this article, but I laughed again at the FAILED facade! LOL
Yea, our friends DO get tired of hearing about our “recovery” and there is a saying “there is no fanatic like a convert” so I guess we may at times anyway fall into that genre where we want EVERYONE to know what WE know (now) about psychopaths! We want EVERYONE to “come to Jesus” and be “saved” but not everyone is interested or wants to believe, so sometimes we just have to shut up and let them walk their own path, or we have to find another subject to talk about. LOL At least HERE ON LF, you can post till your fingers fall off and there will be someone here who will say TOWANDA!!!!!
Thanks Free2Bme!
I loved this site. Yes I fell for facad too. After that working so hard to figure out why this person is so unhappy, just got tired, because there was no end to it. If thoight I figured one thing out, he would brought something else. so never ending race.
It okk me a while this is the real person, who is very unhappy inside and looking for others do something magically to make him happy, which is end up being unhappy.
Will you believe me I used to say we live party to party, because just before party he would become nice to me, becasue he wanted US to be presentable to others as very loving couple. He would even touch me a lot during party and would pay attention to me for the sake of others. As soon as last person leaves or as soon as we left from a party, he was 180 degree a different person. Like my act is over, I am now same bad mooded person.
This house represents out life. I was so suffocated, since I lived very normal life with normal challanges and happiness and sadness, and things were more predictable, but with him, no formula every worked.
Good post.
I love this analogy between the facade of the houseand the mask of the abusive personality. We can’t fix them up. No point trying or continuing to try.
Tea Light,
I agree,this analogy is probably the simplest way of explaining why one must “give up on” a sociopath” and learn the difference between true love and addiction.To build further on that analogy,one can think the old victorian style home they found will someday be their dream home….all they have to do is save money and remodel as they can afford to.So they put all their savings into this home.Some things they enjoy.But they finally realize that the sacrifices they’ve made as well as the mounting costs aren’t worth their dreams!They know the best decision would be to abandon the project and sell the home.And so it it goes with the sociopath;no matter how physically attractive or “dreamy” he is,or how many good memories one had in the beginning of the relationship….living with a sociopath will take so much from you physically,mentally,emotionally and the list goes on like “the song that never ends”!
How true, the facade we were attracted to, turns out to be devoid of any qualities that make a healthy and loving relationship possible. The sociopath is a facade that has nothing of value within. I had a very hard time seeing him for what he really was…I was so caught up in what I believed he was. All the special moments we had early on, and on/off throughout our relationship, began to feel like an out of body experience. Where did the person who I fell in love with go?
The mind games he played and torment of my heart confused me so much…I just was unable to process it all. The experience certainly took alot out of me, damaged my well-being, ravaged my heart and mind. I am looking back now, grateful it is over, regardless of how much I missed him and still do sometimes. I miss Peter Pan.
I had to make the choice, just recently, to put a complete end to allowing any further games. I do believe he would play with me for as long as I tolerate it.
This has taught me that being openly loving and trusting is a dangerous way to live. It has taught me to always remain in the now…see what people do, is it in alignment with what they say? If someone keeps morphing, who are they really? If I do not know what resides within a man, he is not safe to love. Thank God I did not meet him young, I was so much less wise back then, he may have cost me more than he did. Grateful today, for another chance.
Blue-
Glad you feel thankful that it could have been worse and that you have a positive outlook for the future. I think we all come away from an ordeal with a psychopath recognizing that we need to get clarity on a person’s nature before giving our hearts away. Now that we’re enlightened about how predator’s operate, we can steer ourselves on a more positive course!
Be well!
Joyce
I just want the house I have paid off so no more men are in it! My second husband (whom I am realizing has more spath tendencies than I waned to admit because if I don’t have him, I have no family or friends)had a literal shack when I first met him. It was one of the most horrific homes I had ever seen. He told me he was disabled (which is true as far as I have witnessed) and that it would take 5,000.00 to fix it. I told him that it would take a thousand and a lot of elbow grease and I was just the perfect person to do it! We fixed his house up, put siding on it, and then I began to notice that every time I would get it cleaned up and come back, he was a HOARDER. It doesn’t matter how much help he gets, he goes and dumpster dives and goes to goodwill and stuffs his house full of junk. Spaths hoard our hearts, our souls, our energy and our love. And just like hoarders refuse to even throw away a plastic honey bottle (yes, this has happened twice), they won’t release even a tiny bit of plastic love unless they want to hoard more out of us.