Last Sunday, the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper, published a front-page article about the career of Edward J. Devine. On August 1, 2008, Devine was sentenced to five years in prison for bouncing checks and deceiving nonprofit and educational institutions.
The bulk of the story was not about those crimes, but what Devine did to the women in his life. Claiming to be the heir to a Sonoma wine company and a trucking mogul, he left one wife, Donna Devine, and her mother $400,000 in debt. He wiped out the inheritance of another wife, Deborah Weiss. He forced his first wife, Carol Ceralli, into bankruptcy.
It’s a story that many of us know, and some of us have experienced.
But what is significant to me about this story is that it was brought to my attention by my brother. He saw the story in the Asbury Park Press and sent me the link.
That same day, my husband suggested that I look into Mike Wooten, the trooper at the root of Sarah Palin’s Troopergate. My husband was the one who read the newspaper articles about Wooten. “The cop looks like one of your guys,” he said.
I investigated further, and my husband was right. In my opinion, Wooten is a sociopath.
So last Sunday, two members of my family alerted me to stories about sociopaths. They’ve learned what these predators look like.
I consider this a sign of success. I’ve been talking about sociopaths, and they’ve been listening.
Criticized by my family
It wasn’t always this way. When I was in the midst of the trauma, trying to pick up the pieces of my shattered life after learning that James Montgomery, my ex-husband, was a con artist, I could not talk to my family about it.
They criticized me for not listening to them when they expressed doubts. (This was after I was married to Montgomery—no one said anything before I married him.) Then they criticized my recovery methods. I quickly learned that it was best not to tell them what I was doing.
Eventually, however, I worked my way out of the hole. I also began to develop Lovefraud. But it took time. Lovefraud launched more than five years after my divorce.
Now, when I tell my family that more than 1,000 people who have written to Lovefraud with stories of being targeted by sociopaths, they seem to realize that I wasn’t as stupid as they thought I was. Anyone can be a victim.
Talking about the sociopath
So how do you talk to people about your experience with sociopaths? I think two preliminary steps are necessary:
First, you need to educate yourself about sociopaths. (The fact that there is so much confusion about what to call them—sociopaths, psychopaths, antisocials—doesn’t help.) Learn that millions of people have the disorder. Although there are symptoms and warning signs, these people are experts at hiding them. Treatment options are few to none. Everyone will run across a sociopath at some point, and if they don’t recognize the predator, they will become a target.
Second, you need to be able to discuss sociopaths as an educator, not as a victim. This means you probably are not going to be able to do it while the experience is raw. If you’re still coping with the pain, horror, self-doubt and grief, your friends and family will interpret your words as self-pity, and will come back with the refrain, “Get over it, already.” During the early phases of your recovery, it’s probably best to express yourself with the understanding community here at Lovefraud, rather than with your personal acquaintances who, however well-meaning, simply don’t understand.
But eventually, if you give yourself time and permission to heal, you will. And then, with your understanding of this destructive personality disorder, and your personal experience, you’ll be able to talk knowledgably about sociopaths to your friends and family. They’ll begin to understand, and start to recognize sociopaths on their own.
When you’re ready, you’ll be able to shine a light on these predators, and perhaps deny them a few victims. And that will lend some meaning of your awful experience.
Dear Oxy, I was never trying for perfection, just doing unto others as I would like done unto me.
101 Church … as a toddler … still turning around and looking around at all the people as your mothers pearls broke off her neck while sternly placing your face forward and talking through her teeth for you to behave. Didn’t take an Einstein to learn the very first lesson walking through the church doors. Don’t tell me whoever raised you never walked you through the doors … it’s 2008 … even if the sermon came across your MTV … you still heard a sermon somewhere?
Peace.
Henry: Let’s simplify this … next time your emotions take you on that COO-COO for Coco Puff’s ride …
If every time you came to my house I automatically punched you in the nose? No provocations regarding this, I just hauled off and punched you in the nose. Would you keep coming to my house?
That’s about the jest of what they are all about.
Peace sweety, peace.
Oxy, My P was very clean cut looking, came from a fairly well off family, and on the surface looked pretty good. Until I learned his past history that is, and of course, until I became deeply involved with him. But on the subject of serial killing, I doubt he is that simply because they are so rare, but frankly it would not surprise me in the least (sad to say) if it someday came to light that he has killed someone. Although he had never met my ex-husband, he commented on no less than three different occasions that he felt like my ex had murdered someone and I just didn’t know about it.
I thought at the time that it was an off the wall nutty comment driven perhaps by jealousy of my ex, with whom I am still on good terms with. Now I wonder if it was some sort of projection of something that he himself had actually done, but who knows. He would disappear for days sometimes and I had no idea where he was. Coulda been doing anything.
The therapist felt like he would score so high on the PCL-R that he would be in serial killer range, but of course, the therapist did not have him there to evaluate in person, although I did have alot of info about his childhood, his 3 marriages, 4 cohabitations of more than a year, several cohabs lasting just a few months, lengthy criminal history spanning about 25 years (all misdemeanors in a variety of things, except one felony theft, and his disregard for terms of probation), his gazillion jobs, and a ton of examples of his conning and pathological lying, not just with regards to me, but with others (very specific examples), alcohol abuse/drug abuse etc. He didn’t have a pot to piss in, too impulsive to hang onto any money and SAVE (or bother to pay his bills–would just throw ’em in the trash unless it was something that had to be paid like court fines etc.) , not to mention all that job hopping and periods of unemployment, but was the biggest bragger alive, thinking himself superior to everyone in both looks and intellect and felt everyone was jealous of him, and if he screwed them over then they DESERVED IT. They deserved it was a term he used alot.
He was also sometimes paranoid about other peoples motives. Also did not keep in contact with his kids, other than once in a blue moon he would suddenly phone them, make all sorts of promises to them about seeing them or something he is gonna buy them, then as soon as he hung up the phone that iwas the end of that, until a few months later when he’d do it all over again. Never followed thru on anything he ever told them. Yet if he was around someone he wanted to make an impression on he’d talk about his kids, the importance of family and how they were “his life”.
But let him hear about anything his ex wife did that could even be remotely questionned, he was suddenly in full gear threatening to call Family SErvices etc. because she was neglecting HIS children. (which was utter hogwash) I’m sure some of the ladies with children here can identify with that. Ok, I went on a bit of a rant here, but l have to admit it wouldn’t really surprise me to see his face splashed across the evening news someday.
I have 2 young children–under 11. I have been telling them things about people–Ignore what people say and watch what they do; half truths are considered lies. I have told my oldest that I trust their S dad as far as I can throw him. Maybe it is too much info for my oldest to hear right now?
I am not sure how much to tell them. My oldest seems to really look up to him and wants his approval. He reminds me of my ex S so much that it is very frustrating. From what I understand being a S is heretitary (sp) and environmental. I am trying to change the latter to make sure he knows about truths, honesty, and I try to show my example to live by. He has been talking about living with his dad in the next 3 years. This is the most frightening thing I can imagine. I raise these kids and then he takes them away. Over my dead body–I will fight like hell in court.
His mother actually told me that he was a N. I told her that he was worse than that, but I held out on the word S. I am not sure why. Perhaps, I didn’t think she could understand it. She still thinks she can change him, which I told her that he won’t change. She had said that if he is a good father to his kids with his new wife, she will be so angry with him because he wasn’t their for our kids. I told her that he won’t change and he will be the same father, just older. He doesn’t want to be bothered with more kids, I believe he just wants to look normal with a family. This is what he is trying to create. To me he is just trying to create his paycheck to give more child support for more kids.
Any thoughts with dealing with young children and their S father? You know what, their S father doesn’t deserve these great kids. Also, are there any signs that a child may be a S? My oldest one is the one I fear may turn into his father…
-Ginger
My ex called Social Services so many times I felt like I was under siege. Every time I explained it was retaliation and that he was using their service to abuse me, but of course they still had to do their reports, which were all “unfounded”. I tried to get them to prosecute him for false reporting, but they wouldn’t do it.
Ginger.. my ex wooed away one of our children, my oldest son, to live with him. I religiously took him for weekends even though he was abusive to the younger kids. The younger kids would always ride with me to pick him up, three hours round trip, because that thirty seconds when he was putting his stuff in my trunk was the only time they got to see their father.
I thought he was at least trying to be a good dad to the one kid. I found out later he was alone all the time, not going to school, smoking pot and sleeping all day. Luckily he pulled himself together and joined the army. He is just home from Iraq now.
Still them going to live with the other parent after you do all the work of raising them is classic, it could happen.. if it does, make sure you don’t take it personally.. after all.. he fooled you and you’re an adult.. but try as much as you can to inoculate them against his behavior. My oldest says I did this for her, she calls it her built-in-BS-o-meter.
Dear Ginger,
Dr. Leedom has a blog on “raising the at risk child”–there is a link here to take you there. I would strongly suggest that you go to that blog and read and read. Good stuff.
The other thing is, Ginger, and I have a P-son, is that if the genetics are strong enough, I think, there isn’t a lot you can do, but you have to try. I wish now in retrospect, I had walked away from my kid when he was 17 and I went to the police station to pick him up and take him home. He came down stairs and said “What the F___ took you so long?” I looked at the policeman and said “There’s obviously been a mistake, that isn’t my son, MY SON would not talk to me like that” Then my husband and I turned and walked out, leaving my P-son there. I did let him come home a week later, WITH A RADIO COLLAR ATTACHED TO HIS LEG, but even that didn’t stop him, he cut it off and ran to another state on a stolen motorcycle.
Of course he was caught 3 months later and brought back. When I went to see him in jail, he gave me the finger. He never lived in my home from then on, but went from crime to crime and from jail to prison, where he is now for murder in 1991.
You know, I should never have let him “con” me into being “supportive” and believing that he was changed, remorseful, etc. When he got out of jail in 1989, he went right back into some seriouis crime (home invasion) and was arrested. During that time I went to visit him in jail and in prison even though he was in another state, and of course, sent commissary money. He led us to belive he wanted to come home when he got out on parole, so we wrote these glowing letters to the parole board and got others to do so.
When he actually got out, he did NOT come home, but he did come visit, and on the visit which was NOT a pleasant visit, he told me, sort of like it was a punishment or a curse, “the reason I did NOT COME HOME (like I should be disappointed) is because I KNEW that if I got into trouble again, you would call the law again!” I looked him right in the eye and said “You got that chit right! The rules around here have NOT CHANGED and if you violate the law I will call the cops!”
I never again saw him in the free world, within a couple of months he had killed a girl for “ratting him out” for a crime they were both involved in. He was arrested the next day in January of 1991. He continued to deny the murder even though the EVIDENCE was so overwhelming he might as well have had a video clip of him doing it. NO DOUBT about it.
I have looked back over my “child rearing practices” and I have no doubt in my mind that there was NO WAY he could have been turned from his “life of crime.” He had every opportunity in the world and while no childhood is “ideal” by any means, he had his choices, and he chose the “dark side” of his own free will. He is VERY much like my P-bio father in personality and in anger, rage, control etc. he just isn’t as successful at it as my P-bio father was. In fact, he thinks my P-bio F was a “great man” (he never met him) because he got away with so much and got so rich.
I know from experience that NO one wants to “give up on” a child, (no matter how old the “child” is) but there comes a point that if you don’t, they will WRECK your life and the lives of your other children. I have felt the tug between doing for one child at the expense of the other. My P-son, looking back, only exhibited one instance of pre-adolsescence P-type behavior at age 11, but when he hit puberty good, he did a Jeckyl and Hyde flip flop. For the next 20+ years it was NOTHING BUT PAIN intersperced with MALIGNANT UNREALISTIC HOPE. I would never ride that roller coaster again, It was the tallest, scariest most fearful “ride” in the world. I wish now I had never gotten on that roller coaster, but I can’t undo the past, all I can do is learn from it, and if possible, warn others what a SCARY experience it is.
I’ve seen others on that roller coaster, and not many of them seem to have what it takes to “get off” the ride, they still hold on to the hope that “where there is life there is hope.” But, sometimes, that just isn’t true, there IS NO HOPE that they will “see the light” and change. Also, what I DO KNOW is that ENABLING them to continue in their behavior ISN’T GONNA CHANGE THEM, even if you get off the “ride” (which protects you) IF they are going to change they will on their own, if they don’t, it isn’t because you got off the ride.
I have so much empathy for those of you who have children by the P and know that gene MIGHT BE THERE, or for those of you who may have a P-child and know that your child is “just like daddy/mommy” and that there’ s naught you can do. (In my case, the child is “just like” his grandfather and his “uncle Monster”–but I can’t fix it, and he won’t, so to protect myself and have a life, I HAD TO GET OFF and just leave him in God’s hands.
Henry,
I think we all go through a stage of wondering whether we are an S/P ourselves. My theory is that, to escape a real sociopath with our lives and sanity sorta intact, we must force ourselves to become a little more like them. We must fight against our own natures–to be kind, forgiving, understanding, empathetic–and we must harden up somewhat just in order to get away from them.
Any action for our own self-interest feels like heartlessness to us, because we are so used to doing all the emotional work for OTHER people, not ourselves.
No, you’re probably nowhere near being an S/P!
And on another point, I didn’t even have to accuse mine of being a psychopath. All I said to him was “I know what you are!” and he did the rest. He said I had accused him of being “some sort of monster.”
He knows exactly what he is, and he terms it a monster. That’s one time he was spot-on with the truth.
Oh Henry, you acted the way you did because he (M) was mistreating you. SPs act the way they do, because that is how they are, you dont need to do much to incur their wrath. Your wrath however, was in a different context.
Beverly!!! I have been thinking about you. How are you doing?? I just got back from Colorado. Had a good time even though it was a working vacation. Yes I realize (M) brought out the worst in me at times. And they do mess with our mind’s and screw up our reality. It just creep’s me out that I can know all this and despise what he did and how he treated me and kinda miss him at the same time. But I am spending sometime with a new guy (D), he is a landscaper like me, and we get along so well. It is nice to have a normal conversation’s about polotic’s, religion, bermuda grass! (M) and I never had too much too talk about. It was all drama and chaos…. (D) asked me to go to the state fair so am looking forward to that. Good to see and Beverly..and thanks again to all the support from my bloggers. I will get (healed) someday – and oh how much better I am already…..
Tood thanks – there was one time (M) was spot on with the truth – he said (I have always been f–ked up and never been good with emotion’s) – which made me want to help him even more. It was futile.