By Ox Drover
As an advanced practice nurse, one of the things I did here in the rural area where parasites are common was warn people about the many diseases, several of them potentially fatal, caused by a common parasite, the tick.
Here on LoveFraud we often refer to psychopaths as “parasites” because, like a common blood-sucking tick, they feed off of a host, without giving any benefit to the host, or giving any more thought to the damage they do to the host than a common tick does as he burrows into your flesh.
In the warmer months of the year, the tick searches for anything that is warm and moves and can actually leap small distances to latch on to the host. They like to burrow into the skin in a “tight spot,” like under your waistband or some other hidden area. Frequently, too, they will actually group up in one spot on the host, and when you detach the biggest tick on top, you will find several other smaller ones hidden beneath who are also sucking blood from the same spot.
Parasites, just like the psychopath, take without giving. Sometimes the parasites actually do give you something, but it is usually in the form of some noxious, toxic and potentially fatal or debilitating disease. In the case of ticks, one of the more common diseases they pass on is Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which is a disease caused not by their bite, but by an infectious agent in their feces which can actually pass through intact skin. A few days after the tick has either dropped off voluntarily, sated with the host’s blood, or been pulled off, frequently leaving behind both feces and mouth parts imbedded in the skin, the host will start to feel ill and run a fever. People with RMSF usually break out in a rash that resembles measles. Frequently the host doesn’t even realize what has happened, and may not actually remember being bitten by a tick. With prompt treatment, 93 percent of the victims will live, but without treatment, as many as 20 percent of the victims will die of either the disease itself or complications induced by the illness.
My bout with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
A couple of summers ago, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling well. It was during the worst of the fear and chaos of my experience with a multitude of psychopaths all at once, so I wasn’t thinking really clearly in any case. I attributed my “feeling bad” to the stress I was under for a couple of months until I became so weak I could not even climb a flight of stairs or stand up long enough to wash a small sink full of dishes by hand. I had noticed a tick bite, one that had been on me for at least 24, and probably 36 hours, before I noticed it and removed it.
When I became so ill that I literally was as “weak as a kitten” I finally decided to put a thermometer in my mouth and found I had a fever of 101 degrees, so I called my physician. He drew blood after I had reported to him the tick bite a couple of months before, and sure enough, I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, though I had not broken out in the usual rash. I was so ill however, that my physician scheduled a battery of other tests and an appointment is a blood specialist and an infectious disease specialist. It took me almost a year to regain my strength and to start to feel better, but fortunately I ended up not having any lasting effects from the disease.
Remove the parasite promptly
Like ticks, psychopaths usually take a little time to not only suck your blood, but to transmit disease. If ticks are removed promptly, even if they have bitten you, there is little likelihood that they will infect you with something fatal. If they have time to deeply burrow into your skin, the longer they are there, the greater the likelihood that they will leave something behind that will cause problems for you. It may only be a painful, red, itching lesion that seems to drive you crazy with wanting to scratch to the bone, or it may be a disease that will land you in the ICU or the morgue, or cripple you with arthritis later on, like Lymes.
Not all diseases passed on to humans or other mammals by ticks and other parasites are as easily identifiable as RMSF. Some diseases that are potentially fatal have no reliable blood test to indicate that they are present. The person feels bad, but there is no objective symptom that can be identified either by the victim or the medical practitioner until great damage has occurred. These occult (unidentified) diseases may go undetected for months or years, doing their damage to the victim that is irreversible.
The psychopath and the tick
There is so much similarity between the psychopath and the tick, as well as other parasites. They burrow into our flesh and almost, in some cases, become part of us, while they suck our blood, and infect us with their toxic waste. They may not even appear to be so evil. “It’s just a bug bite, get over it,” our friends and family may say. Though we may become very ill from our even short association with these creatures, the illness may not be apparent to the naked eye like, say, a broken leg would be. We may struggle with the itch, the fever, the weakness, and the general debility left behind and not even realize that we have been infected with pathogens that can ruin or end our lives.
In addition to ticks attaching to us as we walk through grass or brush, ticks may also latch on to our pets or other family members, and thus gain entrance into our homes and lives by hitching a ride on our friends and pets. The tick may not even attack the pet or family member, but instead jump off on to our skin for his blood meal, using the intermediary only for transportation to get to us.
Look out for parasites
As I told the patients in my clinic, you need to be on the look out for ticks. If you or any member of your family, or pets, go anywhere in the summer time where there is grass, you should do a complete daily check for ticks, and carefully remove any that you find. Immediately wash the area and mark the date on the calendar, so that you can be on the look out for any sign of disease from even a short association with these creatures. If the symptoms of any kind of disease show up, seek medical attention immediately.
I think that same advice is useful for people who don’t live on a desert island alone, but live in the real world in which they may encounter psychopaths. I suggest that we all do a daily check of our lives to see if anyone we are dealing with even looks or acts at all like a parasite. If we see a parasite, quickly remove that parasite from our life. Wash all traces of them off of us. Then keep our eyes open for any covert damage that they have done to our life so that we can seek proper treatment as soon as possible.
Read two articles of LoveFraud, and call me in the morning!
Thank you Learnthelesson for the above post.
Thank you LTL. I know I have to take the bad with the good days. I’d rather it be one bad day than a lifetime of days spent with him guessing which personality I’d be dealing with on that day…the nice logical version or the narcissistic pessimist that could make me question and blame myself about everything.
Your post reminded me of two conversations I had w my S. One, where he was telling me how much he’d seen me grow over the past few years, graduate from college, get a career, etc. But how he wanted me to be “Awesome,” by which he meant: be myself, be strong, don’t try to too hard to please anyone, etc. He said I was too good for him..blah blah blah…and told me to call him when I was ‘awesome’ and I told him, “If I was ‘awesome’, I wouldn’t be talking to your sorry a$$” He told me “I know, and that’s the rub” –to make me feel sorry for him probably…like i would leave him for someone else or something (all of this at the time seemed like just some joking and sarcasm).
The point of that story was that you said once i become all that i can be, they leave. That was his def. of awesome: me becoming all that i can be, and he saw it happening and scurried off to a new victim.
The second conversation I recalled was when he was telling me how he was going to break up with this woman he was seeing (before i moved back to his city) but he didn’t want to tell her I was coming back yet bc he was afraid she’d harm herself because she was “fragile” and “has a long history of being screwed over by men” (soon to be a longer history). Anyway I moved back and we were together and of course once he saw that I wasn’t going to support him financially anymore, he bailed. But not before making all kinds of promises, i think he made them just to break them. Just to dig the knife in a little deeper. He left me for this “fragile, victim.” In hindsight, he hardly even lied to me. He told me flat out that she was a better host/victim for him. I should have known right then that he knew he had almost sucked me dry and was preparing to hop onto her. He also fed me some line about not wanting her to know he was moving in because she would just get jealous and want him back, and it would be more difficult. Now it’s clear that he planned it that way, he was completely aware of what he was doing. The day he announced he wasn’t moving in with me (earlier the same day he told me he was packing) he told me that he was “in love with her still.” At the time I was thinking, how cruel and unnecessary for him to tell me that. But now, I can see that he doesn’t love her, or me, and that he probably tells her the same thing. He just wanted me to be hurt and jealous and beg for him to choose me, so he could continue to bleed me. I’m sure he told her he was in love with me, then she got needy and probably let him move in with her. ugh.
Now I just need to learn to hang onto that clarity, and I won’t miss him at all. But sometimes it seems to disappear and I start wondering if I’m the crazy one, or thinking maybe he isn’t an S, maybe that’s just a defense mechanism I’m using, but if he isn’t then that means he just doesn’t love me, and it just snowballs out of control from there.
I can take some comfort knowing that he must be completely shocked that I have not called or sent a single text since that night. I just told him I didn’t have any tears left for him and that was it. (one of the few times I’ve saved my dignity when it comes to him.) If I hadn’t found this site I’d probably have called him a million times trying to figure out how he could suddenly stop loving me.
Thanks so much for the support! I know when I come here I can at least cut those painful times short.
LTL
Also- Thanks for the link, I just checked it out and look forward to reading the whole thing. And, I’m going to print out your post and put it in my wallet for times I’m away from the computer and need some uplifting.
Thanks!
BTW I’ll be 29 in July.
Here I am breaking my promise not to post/reply, etc. until my grades are done, the school year is over, and I post my story… LOL. I’ll get back on the wagon in 5 minutes… 🙂
DONE, your post could’ve/would’ve been written by me many times over the last months when I tried desperately to figure out what was wrong with me vs. what was wrong with the S. LTL’s reply was so inspiring and true… I wish those words had been posted on my mirror last spring for a daily reminder!
Henry, your love of sunsets is very refreshing and I hope you will find that special (non-cluster B!) someone to share them with! In the mean time, your sunset reference reminded me of how Pony Boy in the book The Outsiders had a love of sunsets, which the author connected to Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay
So many interpretations and meanings but always a good reminder of the power of rebirth and renewal… yes, we want to hold on to a beautiful flower but in accepting it’s loss, we are open to the possibility and joy of another blossom blooming forth in it’s own time. 🙂
Ok … putting my English teacher persona away so I can go grade more History tests…
Have a good night, all! And, thank you so much for the warm welcome to my first post last week…
Tilly (Matilda)-thanks for clearing up my “fair dinkum” question. And I loved the kangaroo story…ye ‘ave me bloody oath on that.
OH…do you “waltz”?
and….Thank You!
Jim
Henry/Done,
I feel like we all have been on such painful journies filled with insight and lessons.
The most important thing is to acknowledge you were a caring loving giving partner to your ex. In fact I think many of us were probably some of the best friends these people will ever have…
That being said I also had to acknowledge I had some flaws/weaknesses in the relationship (nothing compared to his – but still some that clearly added to the cycle of events)…I allowed my self-respect, self-trust and self-worth and self-love be manipulated and eventually tossed it out the window in order to do whatever it took to save the relationship…problem is it was an unhealthy relationship NOT WORTH SAVING AND NEVER ABLE TO FIX OR CHANGE.
So now what? Well unlike him who sees only one way or the highway… I see the possbility of change on the horizon..change for the better…change from within…to regain my sense of self-everything and be not only the person I was before I met him..but a whole heck of a lot wiser and prepared to deal with toxic people or just people who dont truly respect care love (themselves or others).
Once you recognize what the red flags are — you see it has very little to do with “love” …and that they never really stopped loving us – cuz they never really started to love us (other than thru a mask mimicking the emotions and motions until they just couldnt be who they arent capable of being long term — honest, faithful, empathetic, REAL. They are disordered and dysfunctional and unable to have HEALTHY long lasting relations. They can have relationships lasting for years (unhealthy ones tho, controlling ones, dysfunctional ones if they get paired with an insecure weak unprepared partner)…
We are breaking that cycle of ever happening in our lives again…simply by staying NO CONTACT and saying BECAUSE IM WORTHY OF GOODNESS AND BEING TREATED GOOD AND RECEIVING LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP THE WAY I SHARE MINE…IF ONLY FROM MYSELF TO MYSELF RIGHT NOW ITS A HECK OF ALOT BETTER THAN WHAT HE OFFERED ME!!
DONE, Im so amazed and proud of you that ever since you decided you were Done with him this time that you have not texted or contacted him. You are right, he is like WOW – She really read my number this time – and she can read me like a book now — I better stay away and find someone who is weak and insecure who I can suck the life out of them .
Make this part of the journey be about you…who you were before him…who you want to be…and who you know you truly are in there! Build yourself up….know that he brings you down…we have the choice that they forfeit….we can move on and learn and grow and become healthy and happy again…
they stay stagnant making bad choices and never truly connecting with others…just masking and pretending and making everyone think they are happy and good and are gods gift…. when really they know they are nothing on the inside but lost and lonely..ultimately because of their life choices . Ones we cant inspire or change in them…they chose to be who they are.
Done, hang in there. Think of your wonderful spirit and soul coming to life again simply because of you and being all that you are!! And HENRY you are as close as I am to the next phase of this journey!! xoxo
Hecates…. we def need to see more posts of yours! Im sorry I missed your first post…I will try to find it. Welcome, sorry you are a member of our team…but its a great healing place to be! And that poem, WOW…what a beautiful, timely poem… rebirth and renewal for the most precious gift in our lives…ourselves to share with ourselves and others…
Learn: You said, “Just remember this is not why werent you good enough”the thinking with these people in the aftermath is why are they so hollow? so self-centered? so clueless in life and with me and with others? Why do they lie and feel entitled?? Why do they use? Why are they so dysfunctional? At least now we know the red flags and signs and really know how we should be treated”
The answer is that their thinking is twisted in ways we can’t imagine. What we see on the outside — entitlement, self-centeredness, emotional vacuum, fabrications, manipulation — are all reflections of their distorted thinking on the inside.
If the professionals don’t have a solution for the severely disordered, why should we be so bold as to think that we can “fix them with love”?
We don’t need to waste our time in asking “why do they do this?” They do it because they have rigidified their thinking, or they were born and developed with altered brain physiology or chemistry, and they just don’t think like the rest of us.
Bribery, love, sex, kindness — nothing will shift their thought patterns if they are truly disordered.
So, back to us. We can figure out how we can insulate ourselves from giving their words and actions the credibility that will let them hurt us. And we can figure out how we can move on, as best we can, being in integrity with our caring selves.
Hey Rune….Boy, I have the worst way with expressing myself sometimes…what you are pointing out is what I was trying to express in the most round about way… lol
My way was meaning VS… the thinking that Done is doing…why isnt My blood and tears enough for him…why wasnt I desireable…why didnt he love me… What helped me was to change that to generalized thoughts (not really needing answers but it helped me to build up my strength by saying hey its now WHY ME, WHAT WRONG WITH ME…. Its
Why is he so self-centered. why is he such a cheater? Why does he lie? Why did he manipulate …etec….etc.. .OH YAH THATS RIGHT — HE IS DISORDERED …HE IS THE REASON THIS STORY ENDED… HE IS A LOSER AND ABUSER AND USER>>>
I didnt mean literally try to answer each question, I just meant thats the thoughts that helped me transition from the devasation and misconception that this was something I did or my fault or that I wasnt good enough or loved.
But yes Rune, Im right on board with you in my round about way!! Thanks 🙂
oops typo…build up my strength by saying hey its NOT Why me, whats wrong with with me…Its….
Done & Everyone: Hi, just throwing this idea out there… Done, you wrote: “How could a normal person every understand why I would have wasted all of this time with someone so lame and emotionally abusive?”… I don’t think I would really try to explain the whole thing to someone else… they wouldn’t “get it” anyway and why do we have to spill our guts to another love interest? Anyone have any thoughts about this?….. Thanks!