This past year, I began speaking publicly on domestic violence and psychopathy. As many of you know, I feel that I have a bit of a responsibility to educate others on the matter. As a result, from time to time, people contact me or put their friends in touch with me if they suspect I can somehow help them make sense of their experiences. Some are in the beginning phases of understanding abusive personalities and/or psychopathy, while others have no idea what has rocked their worlds.
Last week, someone who was struggling to find answers asked me a series of questions. Not only were they excellent, but they were ones that we have all probably asked.
“How did such an intelligent, strong woman get into this situation? Am I flawed?”
I know. This is the million dollar question. “Getting into this situation” has little to do with intelligence, strength, or flaws. In fact, sometimes, being aware, curious, and strong may make us more vulnerable. Why? Often, “thinking people” ask a lot of questions. Strong individuals tend to take little lying down and resist “group think.” When we introduce a combination of the two, we find people who are willing to work hard at relationships, take stands, and advocate for what is right.
On one hand, these attributes are not popular with abusive individuals. On the other, they are irresistible. Psychopaths do not like to be questioned or have their power and control threatened, but most cannot resist the challenge we present either, especially if we are useful in other ways, as well. Therefore, they target us. This does not mean that strong, intelligent women who find themselves in these relationships are “flawed” in any way. Simply, we unknowingly provide a very rich “supply” for their manipulative needs. They hit the jackpot when they find those of us who are willing to engage in their madness. However, we don’t understand that it is actually madness we are engaging in. Their mixed messages keep us confused and involved.
In the case of the individual asking this question, her only real “problem” was the fact that she was a decent, warm, caring, and trusting person, who had something her psychopath wanted to exploit.
“How do these sociopaths twist our heads around? I have to keep looking internally to see what flaw it is in me that keeps letting the same behavior into my life. Any words of wisdom?”
As a matter of fact, yes. We must stop looking inward for our “flaws.” This person mentioned her “flaws” on several occasions. Naturally, we all have them. When it comes to recovery, looking inward is critical. We must examine and come to know ourselves before we can truly change and heal. We must recognize the traits we possess (even if independently they are positive) that made us susceptible to this special form of evil and then work to keep the unhealthy at a distance.
However, that is where we should stop the introspection, or at least the loathing and self blame for what happened in the past. We did not do this. We were dealing with dysfunction and disorder.
Not everyone will understand this. Not everyone will understand the addictive, unhealthy bonds they created that kept us trapped for as long as they did. We should try to surround ourselves with those who do. Going forward, we should listen to our instincts, trust that they are correct, and pay attention to the red flags we encounter.
“I just don’t understand the mentality (in reference to the psychopath’s revenge.) I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like he had a breakdown of some kind. He just snapped or something. He lost EVERYTHING…and for what? What’s he doing?”
It is a tough pill to swallow, but he did not just “snap.” Conversely, he finally allowed himself to clearly show through. The cracking mask. As masters of disguise, they become what they think we are looking for. But who they appeared to be initially is as unreal as the thirsty man’s mirage in the middle of the desert. “He” did not actually ever exist. The mean, vengeful shell of a person is the only thing that ever really was.
As far as what they are willing to lose in pursuit of revenge, it’s fairly unbelievable. This is another aspect that becomes almost impossible for those with little experience to digest. If psychopaths’ main objectives include taking and destroying what they envy in another, their success at this means more to them than how they fare in the process.
They are often willing to lose or risk losing everything in order to harm their target(s). For them, the true payoffs lie in demolition. Additionally, they don’t view their “devastation” as their fault anyway. We “did it” to them. They do not feel that their demise reflects on them in the least.
As far as “what he is doing,” whether it be in regards to the revenge she is questioning or otherwise, we must eventually come to the place where we legitimately do not care. With the exception being as it relates to our safety, how they live or what they do must not matter under any circumstances.
This all takes time to absorb and that is ok. However, grasping and then accepting the reality of the situation is the key to recovery, even if it is incredibly difficult to wrap one’s head around.
I have been a victim many times to the same woman over and over again and always looked “inward” at what was wrong with myself. I have been told I am intelligent, but I suffer with anxiety disorders and usually second guess myself. In a nutshell I feel that I was an easy target for her. I have no friends or support group, so I come here and read the blogs and articles everyday, they are what keep me reminded that I am not to blame.
I have hard days sometimes and waver and think if she only could have been more like this and not like that, but I know in my heart that she is poison for me. The LOVEBOMBING was something I was never aware of and when I read it I knew right away what I had been hit with.
Maybe one day as horrible as my three year hellish experiencehas been, it will serve a purpose to help me find the one I am supposed to be with….. an equal, not a sequel.Thanks to all of you for your understanding and kind words!
Dear Torn: my heart and sympathies go out to you.
I am so sorry you have had this horrid experience.
It isn’t you: it’s them.
They are narcissistic and selfish and devour people.
I would rather be alone than sleep with a snake…hm?
I am so sorry for your ‘hard days’; I know what those
are like. I have had ‘hard years’. It has been a battle
and journey like no other.
Perhaps you should consider counseling, Torn.
This situation is very difficult for anyone to understand
so we have a tendency to keep it to ourselves and that
really isn’t anyway to deal with what is going on inside you.
Be careful and fussy about whom you choose for a counselor.
Search for one who ‘gets it’.
All things, in life, I do believe, happen for a reason.
Sometimes we don’t know what those reasons are
but in the meantime, we must extricate ourselves
from dominating and abusive relationships. That is
no way for ANYONE to live.
I will think of you often and send you prayers.
Find yourself, Torn, and you will find the answers.
Blessings to you…
Dupey
Truthspeak
OMG…I needed a good laugh today, thanks! ((tree fibers/fart in the wind)) But the truth of what you speak of in relation to how the courts “really are” scares me.
Anyhoo-I’m in the middle of a custody evaluation. I’ve kept a journal or documentation of what the kids would say concerning interactions with dad and step mom. My son even recorded a video of himself while I was gone expressing his anger and frustration about his dad. I showed this to two of my sons counselors, no one did anything.
I do have an attorney. He doesn’t seem worried at all and thinks this will be egg on my ex’s face. He’s not the one going through this crap.
Torn, we start out learning about THEM but then we must learn about OURSELVES….WHY we allowed them to abuse us over and over.
Most of the time we find that we didn’t know how to set APPROPRIATE BOUNDARIES in the way we allowed people to treat us.
A boundary may be as simple as “If you call me an ugly name you are out of my life” or it may be “if I come home and find you in bed with my best friend you are out of my life” or anything in between.
However, we must learn whhat we will NOT TOLERATE and then stick to it.
One boundary I had was “if I am in a sexual relationship with you, if you are ALSO in a sexual relationship with someone else, WE ARE DONE!” Period, no go backs, no forgetting it…DONE and OVER!
That was about the ONLY real boundary I had.
I had people steal from me, REPEATEDLY. I knew they stole and I pretended like it never happened. DUH? NOW however, if I know you are a thief, from me or anyone else. GET GONE, we are DONE.
I’ve had people even TRY to cheat me out of a minor amount of money in a semi-business deal….OUT OF MY LIFE, DONE! Don’t want them around.
I have people who I know who are IRRESPONSIBLE…they don’t pay their bills because they spend their money on toys and then want me to help them out???? WTF. NO WAY!
I dated a guy a few times and at the time I still owned a small airplane here at our farm/airport, it wasn’t “legal to fly” because A) it hadn’t hhad it’s annual exam required by the FAA B) it had no insurance…this guy was a pilot and wanted to fly it for a joy ride…I kept saying “NO!” Well I didn’t date him any more because WHO that is RESPONSIBLE would even askk you to drive your car without iinsurance much less fly a plane? What if he had wrecked it, plowed it into someone’s house, or killed himself or someone else. WHO pray tell would have been responsible for the damages—well me of course for allowing him to fly it in the first place.
Later, I found out for sure the guy was a DUD….but it only confirmed my BOUNDARY of RESPONSIBILITY.
My own son C lied to me and broke an agreement we had about him living here…OUT. I still love him, he is my son, and he isn’t an evil person, but he did not grow up to be the kind of man I want for a friend or one I can trust. His apology for previous lies may have been sincere, but he sure didn’t learn much me don’t think, because he KEPT ON DOING IT. That’s my BOUNDARY i f you are close to me DON’T LIE and then expect to continue to be close to me.
I’ve got other boundaries…but honesty, responsibility, kindness, and compassion are a few of the things I REQUIRE in those close to me. If a person doesn’t have those things, they need not apply to be my friend because the answer is NO!
Floating feather,
DOCUMENT DOCUMENT and MORE DOCUMENT…GOOD JOB!!! (((hugs))) and my prayers.
Floating Feather, okay…..what OxD is talking about is spot-on. Yes – document. Make COPIES of these documents, as well – keep the originals, and give the copies to your attorney.
Hope for the best, Floating Feather. Be who you are and keep your feet moving forward on your Healing Path. But, be cautious about expectations and attempts at predictions of how this custody battle is going to pan out.
It’s not my intent to shoot down honest hope. We SHOULD hope that Family Courts do the “right thing.” But, having had experience in this, personally, I have to say that it can contribute to extreme anxiety to hold expectations that the judges are going to “SEE” and “get it” about spath parents.
Brightest blessings!
Linda,
Thank you for writing this. It’s a powerful, insightful piece.
What is prevalent throughout society, and contributes to the difficulty of wrapping ourselves around what happened, is that we needn’t “have done” anything to get ourselves fooled or taken in by Ps.
The fact that even the best trained and best educated in knowing and recognizing a Ps’ behavior have been completely fooled should be emphasized not as a fault of those who “should have known better,” but emphasized as how deceiving, persuasive, likeable, and charming Ps can be. Most people like to believe that they are intelligent enough to recognize when they are being duped and nobody can put one over on them. Yeah, right.
There is a mind-set in the mental health and legal fields that the victims must have done something to have prompted the perpetrators to have initiated and accomplished what they did. “What was your part in this,” is not (in my estimation) a question to bring awareness, but a judgment that the victim failed (hence the woman asking you what she did.) There is a societal assumption that the victim should have known and could have done something to prevent what happened. There needs to be widespread, public education that assumption is a falsehood along with massive amounts of information on how to support the victims and effectively deal with the perpetrators.
Linda, you spoke about strong women. I feel I am one of those now with my strength coming because I have survived so much. I get pressured to change my ways, not be so hard on others, and the looks of “what’s wrong with you” etc.
I don’t see myself as being “hard.” I see myself as being “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Ironically, I am upholding “what was my part in this,” which was being naive, too quick to trust, too quick to forgive, and too quick to believe that others always have our best interests in mind. Now that I wait and see I am deemed “hard.”
“What is wrong with me” is that my son ended up hospitalized twice for suicidal ideation because of the Ps. I make no apologies for the efforts that I will now take to protect us from those monsters. They have not changed and never will. Such is the short straw I drew in life.
My caring and loving nature has not disappeared. I’ve had to protect it because I am extremely sensitive and wound easily. When you have Ps in your life who are still doing harm and spreading their destruction, I have only so much in reserves with what I can deal with.
On the positive side, when I do feel free to share my caring and loving side, I share it with people I do trust and feel will not abuse it. I still am disappointed at times, but it happens infrequently and if and when it does happen, it is minor in nature, especially compared with what the Ps did.
Through the school of hard knocks, I have learned to deal with only what I can today and it does take a lot of strength to walk away from the other opinions, naysayers, the “experts” who believe Ps are Hollywood stereotypes, or what have you.
I second-guess myself a lot and seek other opinions because I do not want to cause any harm to others while at the same time, I simply cannot endure any more harm to me or my son. I long passed my quota for pain. I also do not want to succumb to seeing Ps behind every tree. Most people are good and I never want to forget that.
In my final analysis, I do what I feel is best for us and not to please others; ergo, I am sometimes deemed a hard woman. I see that strength, not hardness, and as wisdom born from pain, but others do not.
It’s also far too complicated to try to convince somebody about the prevalence of Ps or that “that charming person” is a monster. I take a pass on that now, telling people if they are really interested, the Internet has a wealth of information.
I guess what I am saying is that after we survive what we go through with the Ps, I am vigilant. That is not a bad thing. It’s being self-caring and responsible for my life.
Thank you again for this sensitive and very supportive piece.
I feel so blessed to have found this site. Reading other people’s stories really helps me understand what I went through. As with most, my Spath is “textbook” – had I only known it at the beginning when he “lovebombed” me. But the controlling came soon after. I had to take pictures of who I was with. He wanted to put a GPS on my phone to track my whereabouts. There was a long list of people I was not supposed to see and places I was not allowed to go. I became a liar. Because lying was easier than the truth. Dinner at my moms was a no no. But I still had dinner with my mom I just lied about it because telling the truth would have involved so much arguing. He was all about texting. Rarely calling unless he wanted to see where I was. I felt like I was always groveling, apologizing and trying to talk him off the ledge. In essence I was a “hamster on a wheel” for two years. He was classic Spath in that he didn’t have a job, has three kids, three marriages and countless other women. He put a passcode on his phone because he was always receiving texts from women I had never heard of. He explained it away each time. It was always that I was crazy for having these thoughts that he might be cheating and that he couldn’t reason with me when I went to such a dark place. I found a woman’s tank top in his laundry which was also explained away. He would “lose his phone” or it would “be charging” when I couldn’t reach him. But if he couldn’t reach me for any reason? All hell would break loose. Every time he was angry he would take me off of Facebook. One time when he was angry he posted horrible stuff on my Facebook for all my friends and family to see. He tried to get me in trouble at work by saying I had a job interview with a competitor. Then he started sending my boss threatening emails and she had to have him blocked by the IT department. My friends and family detested him. When my nephew’s wedding came around, my family told me they did not want him there. He insisted that he go or I don’t go. My choice. But he would end the relationship if I went without him. So we both went. It was uncomfortable to say the least. We broke up several times but I always craved the “lovebomb”. So I always went back. I am an extremely successful, intelligent, fun girl who is extremely loyal, affectionate and loving. I was his perfect prey. I had been divorced for 9 years and had focused on being a mom to my only daughter. I didn’t date very much in those years. Then I lost 50 pounds and I was no longer “invisible” to men. I started getting attention and I liked it. So I went online and I met Russell aka “Satan”. He texted me all weekend and he said all the right things. Two days later, we agreed to meet. He showed up at my house to cook me dinner. He didn’t look like his picture – imagine that! He was fat and bald and not attractive and was wearing wrinkled shorts and a wrinkled shirt. I was appalled. But we talked and he cooked and we drank wine and he spent the night. The next morning he sat in the bathroom and watched me get ready for work. He said more of the right things. He lived 130 miles away. He went back home and lovebombed me some more. Within weeks he said “over the past few weeks there have been several times I have found the words I love you on my tongue”. Music to my ears!!! I didn’t love him yet but in time I did. In the worst way. I loved him like I had never loved another. The way he touched me was magical. He was affectionate and passionate and I fell hard. Then my dad died, I got a new job and he was offered a job in Tennessee. He didn’t even talk to me about it. Just up and left me and his three kids. I flew there every 3-4 weeks. I was in such deep despair that I couldn’t eat or sleep. I was a mess and I clung to this man like he was my world. But we fought nearly every day about what I was doing or who I was doing it with. I never cheated on him once. I spend time with my friends and family – that’s it. But he wanted me home every night with my daughter. He started questioning who I talk to on the phone. How many times a day do you talk to your gay friend Troy? I would go out to dinner and had to send a picture of my dinner receipt. I would be at my daughter’s volleyball game and he would ask me to send a picture to prove I was there. I was always “frantic”. Near the end, I was even more frantic. He would “disappear” for days. The texting was few and far between. He stopped telling me he loved me. The texts were mostly nasty and abusive. But I was like a heroin addict and he was my heroin. Then came the “we need to talk” text. And I knew. I paced the floor and I was sick to my stomach. I waited all night for the phone call but instead I got a text that he had a headache and was going to bed. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to bed. The next night he said the same thing “we need to talk.” I waited all night for the fateful phone call and finally went to bed at 11. He called at midnight. I was asleep and didn’t answer so he sent me a breakup text. A few days later I went on a business trip, ironically to his city. He knew I was coming. While I was there he drove to my home, broke in and took his things and helped himself to some of mine. Then he sent me a text and told me my key was in the mailbox. When his phone and internet were shut f=down because he didn’t pay his bills, I paid them. Why? Because I had to have contact with him!!! So I am out some money and some material possessions but I am free of this monster. I grieve. Why? Because for me this was a real relationship and this is a real breakup. To him, I meant nothing. That is the hard part. Even harder is moving on and dating others. Why? Because they don’t “lovebomb” you. So you feel like you don’t matter when in reality this is normal behavior. A guy I am dating now says he thinks of me all day long. But he doesn’t text. He doesn’t call very often so you think they don’t care. It is hard to come to terms that you are not the center of someone’s universe. But I also know that what the Spath gave me wasn’t real. It was all a game to him. And when he was through with me, he literally tossed me out like yesterday’s garbage. But I wake up every day and tell myself he did me a favor. Because being released from his abuse was like being let out of prison. I am seeing a counsellor – the same one I went to with him. She diagnosed him sociopath but said she couldn’t tell me that until after we broke up and it was time to heal. She said she never tells her clients what to do but the best thing I could do for me was to be done with him. I showed her his text messages so she saw his behavior in print. He cannot explain that away. He is a predator. He preys on women. One of the hardest things for me is to know that he doesn’t love his children because he can’t. He doesn’t love his mother because he can’t. She enables him terribly. When he doesn’t pay his bills – she does. He lived with her for a year. His step father thinks he is a dirtbag. One time when he forgot her birthday she called him and she was crying. I remember thinking that he seemed so “emotionless” during that phone call. Well yeah – he has no emotions!!! When my father passed away and I was so devastated, he never consoled me. Why? Because it took away attention from him. It had to be all about him 24/7. I do think of the women he will prey on next. Rest assured he would not have discarded me, unless he had another one “on the hook”. One time we had a fight over girls texting him on his phone. He drove away and his phone was left behind. It was barely a few hours later that he was texting other girls saying stuff like “I think about the way your kiss would move me”……… That’s love? Hardly. But I have to accept what I cannot change. He won’t change. He will continue to manipulate and control unsuspecting women with his words and his fake love. Possibly some of them will wise up to him in a shorter amount of time. Or there will be women like me who will fall for it hook, line and sinker. Thank you for allowing me to vent. It really does help. And thank you for sharing your stories with others.
G1S:
Spot on!
DLD1965:
How does someone who is fat, bald and unattractive get all these women??? I just don’t get that. Personally, I would never let someone like that near me. It’s a total turnoff to me. Someone who looks like that could never lovebomb me. He must be REALLY good!!!!! Hahahaha, wow!!! I feel so sorry for you that you fell for that, really. You are in my thoughts and I hope you can heal from this. Hugs.