Editor’s note: Lovefraud has received another question from Andrea, who wrote in a month ago. If you have any suggestions for her, please share them.
I am looking for some strong advice on how to help my children deal with their father ”¦ my ex ”¦ who is a sociopath. We have been divorced for 4 years and I have been terrified of this man. Not so much physically, but more just afraid of his bullying and threats. Even though people have told me that his threats are just words and he cannot follow through on them, it is still hard when he is so confident that he is so right and I am so wrong. I have tried very hard to take the high road through all of this and he falls in this gray area between legal and illegal, but suffers no consequences. I have been told that once I stop letting him get to me, he will get bored and move on to someone else.
Recently, I have broken free of his hold and I don’t care anymore. I’ve started living my life and doing what I want. I’ve met a new man who was in the Marines and is an avid hunter. My son has expressed interest in hunting and went with him one day. My ex found out about it the night before and went insane. He told my son that he forbade him to go, but I told my son that he was with me and I was allowing it. My ex started calling the house at 1:15 in the morning and called for about an hour. I tried to talk with him one time, but it was ridiculous. He told me he would stop paying child support and would fight for sole custody if I let him go. (Wish I had that all on tape). Anyway, I let him go because there was no danger, he had an apprentice hunting license, and he was with me that weekend. Now my ex has decided to bully my son. It has been horrible. He is now threatening him and scaring him with things that he can’t possible do. Even though I try to explain to my son what he’s doing, it’s too hard for a 12 year old to comprehend. My son is withdrawn, angry and scared. He won’t talk to me very much, so I don’t exactly know what he’s thinking or how to help him.
How can I help my son (and daughter eventually) not suffer? Has anyone had any similar experiences? My biggest fear is that my son will just give in to my ex and do what he says to keep the peace ”¦ to get positive attention from his dad. The worst case scenario would be my son moving in with him when he’s 14 (something that my ex is working on because he knows it will hurt me). How much should I tell my children? How can I help them? We already have a pact that anything that happens at our house stays between us ”¦ terrible, I know ”¦ but it’s the only way to keep them safe (emotionally).
Thanks for any advice I can get.
http://www.aftermath-surviving-psychopathy.org/
Not that all this information is not Here at LF.
LF could publish it’s own Handbook! Thank YOU
EVERYONE!
Elizabeth Conley,
“It’s been my observation that my children understand cluster B personality disorders better than I do. For them, What is – IS. They pick up on it faster and cope better than I do.”
Very interesting insomuch that I too have see this in my own children as well. They seen to be able to see them quicker then myself. I wonder if having lived with one would allow them to have this ability? Maybe because they pick up of how different their own parents are and then maybe see it in others quicker and even their own peers? Also they have cope with it much better then I did. I just put it down to the resiliency of children but wonder if there isn’t more to it?
Before she even left (months) I asked my oldest son once why she couldn’t allow him to do something (walking to blockbuster to get a video game) and he told me “Dad, don’t you get it, she is crazy”. Well, at the time I too been having a lot of issues with her myself about a lot of her decisions and actions, but I just didn’t connect the dots at the time. Anyway, I did of course allow him to get his game but asked him not to tell her fearing her wrath as well. I myself often wondered how I survived all those years of eggshell walking manipulation and “crazy-making” and can only think if it wasn’t for my children I would have been gone years ago!!!!
They want to move the relationship along faster and also want to start a family just as quick (my ex s/p did anyway) because I believe they know children is also a form of control they can have over us. I also believe it might have something to do with supply as well.
eyeswideshut
“Hi all, Sort of on topic, Has anyone ever “won” with one of these people? Are there success stories from some survivors out there?”
Not sure what you mean by “winning”?
For me, I now see it like a war. In a war I heard once that there are “no real winner” during and after wartime. After a war there is only damage victims and then survivors. After a war we start to “rebuild” and cope with the memory and all those that died during this war. We bury the dead and live for the future. For me, this is the same for having this experience with a s/p. They are no winners just victims and survivors and a LOT of damage. Also even some people who did survive the war and didn’t die feel “guilty” asking themselves why did I survive when so many other people better then myself didn’t. I believe some of us might even experience this type of remorse as well. I believe having a history with any s/p is very much like a type of emotional “war” and in the end there are no real winners just survivors left to pick up the pieces and build for the future, our children’s future as well as for ourselves.
Saddam Hussein is now dead but the horror of what he did to his own people lives on….
“but in the mental game, you can win. You just have to be a sociopath in dealing with him.”
I have to agree that Matt Kathleen Hawk and ErinBrockovich have very good points of direction when dealing with a sociopath. That one has to at times think/feel like a sociopath to be able to deal with one appropriately.
I watched a show on how a investigator who studied “serial killers” talk about how he had to think like a serial killer to profile one and try to catch them before they killed again. He did warn viewers watching his show that it was dangerous insomuch that one might be “struck” in this dark abyss themselves and should be careful. But yes one needs to think and start to feel like a sociopath by numbing or “temporary” turning off some of our emotions and the way we feel about our ex s/p. But like the investigator I too would suggest being very careful. Not sure if this is winning but it is surviving which is all that is asked of anyone who have been duped into having a relationship with them. These people are deal breakers and deserve no better then what they themselves have done to other people. In the bible it tells us of sin, “if your eye causes you to sin then puck it out”. Maybe in a way this is what we must do with them insomuch that we must separate them from us even if that mean starting to think like a sociopath?
Some deep thought tonite James. I keep telling my self I won, that I didnt lose anything real. But I have never felt like a winner or victorious..The enemy has gone to win another battle and I am here feelng less than.. All the wars of my past I have surrendered too. The war I fight now has more at stake, and surrendering is not an option this time.
James:
WhenI came to this site I was terrified I had become a psychopath. I had been abused all my life by them (and other cluster B’s) and the last one tipped me over the edge. I never had the capacity to kill or hurt before. I knew that I would not be able to do ever kill or hurt anyone physically. After 54 years of abuse and the last p, I totally changed. I knew that I not only had the capacity to kill, but I wanted to kill (him). I had never felt such an all consuming rage and constant homicidal urge in my life. Up until that point, (and there had been other P’s who had abused me a hundred times more than him), I found it hard to even kill a cockroach.
I resigned myself to spending the rest of my life in prison as I felt I had no choice but to eventually kill him to get relief. I knew would be caught as I could not “plan” it, but rather just wanted it over with. I went on the internet and looked up serial killers, to see the consequences of their actions.
I saw there, that Ailleen Waurnos also had never been loved in her entire life and had been raped and abused in the extreme since she was a young child. She had become a totally paranoid serial killer who had lost the plot. She chose lethal execution because she said “hate runs through my veins, kill me, I want to leave this planet.” A psycopath would never choose to be killed. She had become a psycopath, but was not born one.
I was not a hooker but I totally identified with her. Thats why I thought I was a psychopath. I wanted to go kill every psychopath- intimate partner that i had ever had .And I knew the jails were full of Psychopaths so I had no choice but to then kill myself. ( Ask Donna!) I was past caring.
God intervened and shortly after I came across ‘lovefraud” with one of Oxy’s comments describing my exact situation.. I confessed how I felt and started to heal.
That wasn’t that long ago and all my rage to past P’s has gone Now I only have a big grudge against the last one. ..Which is a huge difference to homicidal rage!. All this in about a month!
I don’t know about “switching” feelings off and on. I can pretend to, but I can’t ACTUALLY do it. Which is the difference between us and them. But once you have been tortured for 54 years, without healing, I know you can easily become one…like Aileen.Although it is a different sort of Psychopath. It is not one who doesn’t feel. It is one who has felt too much and gone insane.
P.S. I have won because i am not on death row for ten years begging to be executed because of all the psychopaths in the world. I do not apologise for feeling sorry for Aileen Wournos.
Tilly – Wow – I am 54 – sexually abused – incest victim – neglect – sexually dysfunctional – a family full of toxins – a life time I have been at war to survive them – but kept puttin myself at their mercy. your post was inspiring – thank you
I don’t think people understand how strong the defense mechanisms of psychopaths really are.
“What they think and do is produced from a ‘rock solid personality structure that is extremely resistant to outside influences'”. -The Mask of Sanity
It is psychological warfare if you are dealing with a true psychopath. The only way to survive against one on an ongoing basis is to go into psychopath-mode. It can be done, if you know what you are dealing with.
P.S. I still believe the statistics (1-4%) are way too low. Psychopaths see nothing wrong with what they do. Therefore, no need to change. And no need to go to a psychiatrist and be diagnosed.
Tilly
Wish I myself could say I never “felt” that “rage”. That wish to “kill”. But that would be a lie. I have!!
But even in the service I never wanted to kill anyone. But that all changed with my ex s/p. I know I won’t kill because I love myself too much and therefore can love others. I might have these feeling from time to time but know I can’t do it. If I ever cross this line I know that I have indeed become the sociopath. Something I just don’t want to be…
Here is a poem about my feeling on this:
Narcissistic for a Day
By James
I woke one day, in a terrible way
Short with my children and not caring for their needs in anyway
Not talking with my wife, oh what a pig she is
She is always that way
Not seeing how special I am in every way
Getting ready for work, thinking how they don’t see me, oh the
wonderful me! Why, should I care about them in any oh way!
Going to work, I saw people who are fools
Just like tools that I can use and use
Not seeing how special and great I am and will always be
These objects are just for my fun and wants for whatever I need.
At work, I talked with Andy, oh what a fool he can be
taken my position that was promise to me
Why can’t Andy see, that it was meant for me
I’m so special, not like Andy can ever be
I came home oh, what a horrible day for me
Why can’t they see the wonderful me
I cussed at my children, so selfish they can be
My wife I told her I don’t need you and don’t
want you with me
You are just a pig, not special like me
The room got dark and numbest surrounded me
No feeling of love or caring for me
No one would talk or look at me
Oh, dear God what is happening to me
Awoke in a sweat wanting someone to hold me
Oh, what a horrible dream that happen to me
A Nightmare no no not a dream at all
A Nightmare it had to be!
How horrible it must be
To be a narcissistic being in every way and everyday
Oh no that’s not for me in any oh way
No, I love my children who are so
Special to me in their own special way
My wife so sweet and so kind to my children and me
Loving and special to us in all and each one in their own way
Oh no dear Lord, that’s not for me in any oh way
A narcissistic person I can never be not even for a day
Tilly,
Guess that’s why I see it as a emotional war and understand that surviving is the most I could ever want or need. I too read about Aileen Wournos and felt sorry for her too. She indeed never had a chance in my book and we all deserve at least that…
Hey Henry and yes sometimes I do get those deep thoughts. Hope all is okay and U are doing okay! I heard this song after my ex left and thought it was written for us.. Yes, I thought we were both in our own way “Crazy”. Not sure if you ever heard but I thought of it fitting for both myself and my ex. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-sb6mfR9lQ