Editor’s note: The following article was submitted by the Lovefraud reader who posts as “Betsybugs.”
The term cognitive dissonance is used to describe the feeling of discomfort and confusion that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. When there is a discrepancy between beliefs or beliefs and behaviors, something must change in order to eliminate or reduce the mental conflict. Psychopaths use cognitive dissonance to entangle victims, to keep victims confused and docile and to create pain. My story is a story of cognitive dissonance.
My cognitive dissonance began in childhood when my father would go into rages, chase one of his daughters into a corner and beat the living daylights out of them while my mother stood and watched crying. When the beating was over, she consoled the victim (me or one of my sisters) and explained to all of us that Daddy really loved us but he just did not know how to show it. She was terribly emotionally abused too but drew the line at physical abuse for herself. I think that is why he beat us; he never laid a hand on our brother that I know of. It was a sick misogynistic thing.
First boyfriend
I had only one boyfriend before college and he broke my heart and was most likely a sociopath himself. He was a low class charming hooligan from the wrong side of the tracks, charming as in Westside Story or Rebel Without a Cause. He succeeded in getting me to fall head over heels in love with him and I thought it was “forever.” Stupid first love insanity but I was going to marry him and have his children”¦ in my deluded mind. All he wanted from me was my good reputation and virginity. After he got that he started lying, cheating, sleeping around and blaming me for not accepting what he was doing. His words kept telling me he loved me but his actions told a completely different story”¦at least in my book it did. Love was in diametric opposition to his behavior. More cognitive dissonance added to my book.
My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen. I remember getting into a fight with my friend who I stayed with when Mother went away to the hospital. She knew and told me but I was not allowed to know; more cognitive dissonance. I had more and more cognitive dissonance as I went through high school seeing Mother have shooting pains and being told that nothing was the matter. I must have been told but then it was denied finally using Christian Science when she had six months left to live. My parents forced me to go to college knowing that my mother had six months to live. I did not want to go; I even tried to get kicked out of school and sent home. She always said she would have nothing to live for after her children were gone and I was the youngest and the last to go. It became a prophecy. She died before Christmas break. I blamed myself. It was cognitive dissonance again.
I tried dating but hated it. I was afraid of boys and badly burned by my first and only “true love.” I was love-bombed by a psychopath I met at enrollment my freshman year in college. He was a senior and was so overly attentive that it gave me the Heebie Jeebies. Red flag number one. There was a look in his eyes that I found terribly disturbing too. Red flag number two. I fled but to no avail. He love-bombed me until I finally just went out with him to just to get out of the dorm. I never loved him but he convinced me he was stable, caring and a good catch. I did not even want to love anyone again. I thought a nice platonic relationship would do just fine. I was alone in the world without my mother and no one in the family noticed. By now, cognitive dissonance was normal to me.
The big wedding
I guess we had sex a few times. It was nothing to write home about but I did not want that bonding sexual intensity again ever. I was afraid of loving again and he did not care or notice. He raped his roommate’s girlfriend while she was sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed and got thrown out of his apartment. She woke up with him on top of her raping her sleeping body. He was so pathetic and played remorseful and alone and I came to his rescue; I got pregnant and “had to” get married even though I did not want to. I was on the cusp of not “having to” get married I suspected I might be pregnant and just wanted to run away but he found out I was pregnant before I even knew and got his parents to plan a big wedding. I was still in shock from my mother’s death. I did not want a big wedding. I did not want to get married at all. I just wanted to have my baby and never tell him. But the wedding was planned in Kansas City where his parents lived and owned a jewelry store. All of their friends, colleagues and business associates were invited. We were registered for china and crystal at their store giving them all the profits. I had my family and three friends in attendance and all of the bills were sent to my father, all the way down to the bill for alterations for the bridesmaid’s dress we bought for his sister. That cognitive dissonance took me years to comprehend.
He violently raped me on our wedding night in a run of the mill local motel. No honeymoon, no romance, no expense for him or his money gouging parents; just violence and vulgar displays of his ownership of me. The cognitive dissonance was so bad I just wanted to die. How could I have made such a huge mistake? How could this be the same person who worshiped me, doted on me and wanted nothing more than to be married to me? Sex was his domain throughout the marriage and he wanted me to play dead. Now I see that it was just more rape. He tried arguing and anger to control me but I was smarter than him and better at both. He tried physical abuse and I told him if he ever did it again I would leave him. Finally he figured out how to use cognitive dissonance. I never heard him apologize, it was blatant mind control. He was Jekyll and Hyde but he knew what he was doing. The world thought we were the ideal couple. But I was being slowly driven insane. The marriage was nothing but cognitive dissonance. I suppose it is with all psychopaths and cognitive dissonance is what prevents us from getting out. It causes us to believe we are the crazy one, the one even at fault while all the time they are doing it to us on purpose.
Fortunately my Spirit was strong and my maternal instincts were stronger. I was only wounded, not destroyed and I finished college, got a job and got out. It only took ten years, almost to the day. I did not know that such a thing as a psychopath existed. I finally realized he was incapable of loving and when we moved and he started shunning my son and love-bombing all of his potential friends, the new neighborhood children. He had just graduated from law school and wanted all the children to call him the judge, invited them in to sing while he played the guitar and would not include our son. I finally saw the cognitive dissonance. I tried to talk to him to explain how much he was hurting out son and he denied there was anything wrong with it. That was his big mistake and my wake up call. I did not know what it was called but I knew it was very bad and then I knew that he was doing it on purpose. I also realized that he had been doing it to me on purpose. Before that wake up call, I believed that all people were good, if not on the surface, at least underneath. My parents were very dysfunctional, but they were very good people underneath. They were defective people, hurting people, hurtful people; but they were also loving, caring, and real. A psychopath is inhuman.
Learning about cognitive dissonance
I only learned the term cognitive dissonance a few months ago and the definition is very mild compared to what a psychopath can do with it. A psychopath can use it to destroy his victims, get what he wants and seem benign all the time he is deliberately sucking the soul out of his prey. Before the psychopath I did not believe that evil existed. He took that away from me. I believed all people were good. He took that away from me. Now he has taken my daughter and I am seeing her cognitive dissonance. She is convinced that I am the evil one. Very few people believe me. They continue to treat him with respect and call me crazy. It is easier than believing in psychopathy. Even I know that. Cognitive dissonance is their shield and sword. But this time I can see the cognitive dissonance as I struggle to disengage myself from it with my daughter. I am again an invisible victim.
Knowledge is a tool. The knowledge that I am experiencing cognitive dissonance helps me from believing that it is my fault; that he is not a psychopath. It lets me know what I know regardless of what others believe. It helped me get out once. At this time I am not yet willing to give up on my daughter but I am getting there. I am not willing and will never be willing to give up my grandchildren. I know the insanity of the cognitive dissonance and this time I am using that knowledge to survive until I decide which way the situation will resolve. This time I may make a different decision and play the game my daughter wants me to play so I can have a relationship with my grandchildren. It will not be easy, but at the moment it seems to be the only solution. I am still in cognitive dissonance about it but knowing that it is cognitive dissonance gives me the power of sanity to protect myself and wait until I am able to make the right choice.
Skylar, Gray rock my own children? I am almost to the point where I can do it! My son was the final straw on both of them.
20 years and Oxy,
Great conversation on Indifference = Nirvana. It should be easy to give them back the same indifference they give me. When I divorced their psychopath father, I was already there at indifference and it was Nirvana.
My children were my life. It is just hard to think I wasted 45 years of my life for nothing. Well, the grandchildren love us and even say they will come see us as soon as they can drive. That will be 7 years 4 months and 14 days.
Oxy,
I tried to find information on your son on the internet and was surprised that there is nothing. It was pre-internet but just goes to show how psychopaths and murderers used to get off Scott free because finding records on them was impossible. The newer ones are not so lucky, they are all over the internet.
you can google “william Patrick alexander texas inmate” and his current charge, sentence and location of incarceration will come up, and past convictions are listed too. Yea there is not much I could find either.
I found ONE article on Dallas Morning News about her being missing but that was ALL and I had to pay to get the archived information at that.
I am sure there are other records but I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SEARCH FOR THEM…some court house records are now on line but again, I am not very computer or search savy.
Betsy,
Gray Rock is the next best thing when you can’t go NC. It’s meant to train the drama eater that you won’t be feeding them.
I’ve NC’d most of the spaths in my family. But I still see my parents occasionally. It’s extremely painful though. It’s been the hardest thing to “SEE” them for who they really are.
The biggest shock was to find out that they never “SAW” who I was before, either. When I first found out about spaths, I began to explain to my mother how my brother and sister are driven by envy. At one point she began to say, “Do you mean to say that you are the only one who…” then she trailed off and walked out. She had thought I was just like them.
Now they know. They know that I was duped because I couldn’t even imagine being that way. They know I’m different from them and their monster kids.
I know that they cannot be trusted with my emotions. I give them selective gray rock. They only get to see what I want them to see, nothing more. I don’t share my pain with them or my pearls. They would just trample them. They don’t understand me.
Your daughter, is not like you. You can’t make her understand you. Maybe a therapist, or an act of God could change her, but you can’t. Hopefully, by going gray rock on her, you will be a good role model for your grandchildren to follow. With a mother like that, they’re going to need to learn to protect themselves too.
Betsy,
My egg donor is not a psychopath, but she is just like your daughter I think, and punishes you for not “keeping the peace” with the family bad boy….no matter what horrible thing they do, WE are the ones that are the trouble makers if we stand up for ourselves.
The “peace at any price” people (and YOU pay the price) are the ones who ENABLE the bad actors to get away with their shiat because they (the peace at any price folks) INSIST that we pretend nothing is bad, everything is lovely. If we don’t go along then they will PUNISH US SEVERELY, with what ever hurts us the most. In your case, withholding access to your grandkids.
It is all about controlling us. All about covering up for the bad guys and playing “let’s pretend we are a nice normal family”
ps Sky is right, all you can do is pretend she is not hurting you, pretend you don’t care about seeing the kids…whatever you do do NOT let her see how you are hurting. Cause if she finds a sore spot, she will poke it with a sharp object. Count on it, and yes, your grandkids will need some role modeling in the future with a mother like that. She may not be a psychopath, but she is a full blown enabler and that is almost as dangerous.
Thank you Oxy and Sky,
My sister died January 4th and I stayed with her through the cremation and I tired to continue to help with the estate but it was impossible. I am now NC with my daughter and my other sister who is also “keep the peace at any price”. She has tacitly condoned my daughter’s behavior and treated me like an outsider even though she has not visited my late sister and me for 18 years.
She slammed in with her “big bucks” to save the day and left me out from the beginning. Her suggestion to my daughter was to treat me like a family member of a patient. I am sorry, but it is not appropriate for a daughter to treat her mother as a family member of the patient (my late sister). I had to accept it for my until she died but no more. I am the designated crazy in the family for seeing reality and rocking their quagmired boat.
Sister is fighting for possessions and I was trying to be generous and offer things I thought she would want. Bu she just took and took and took. Then she wanted anything I asked for. I told my daughter I will see if there is anything left that I want before she has the estate sale. I am grieving the loss of my sister and I will not play that game with them.
My precious daughter-in-law is here and she understands. She has been a great help to my husband and me. My son is coming on Friday, I think he is going to try to repair the family damage but it is hopeless. I think I am reaching the indifference level anyway and do not even want to fix it.
My husband and I are leaving for Florida by Febuary 1st. We have been paying rent down there for four months and have only three months left on the lease. I had hoped that my sister would recover enough to go for a few weeks. She did not but my husband got her out as much as we could. I fought the daughter and sister, death watch vultures to take her out some, even to brunch at the Ritz with all of the Christmas decorations and music. She loved it.
I also kept the Florida lease as an escape hatch for us if we needed it. I feared I would need to get out of here sooner or later. It was good to know that I could leave at any minute if it got too bad. It really got bad but I will not go there now. I will leave it as I have accepted that I will not see my grandchildren again until they are of age to make their own decisions.
Betsy, Darling I think your last sentence is the key…ACCEPTING what is the fact. As far as “things” from an estate, I am assuming your sister had no children, so you can figure that ever last roll of toilet paper will have someone’s name on it except yours, don’t count on getting anything even a cup and saucer. That’s just the way these vultures are. And They are dog in the manger too, they may not want it or can use it but they sure don’t want YOU to enjoy it.
You can tell yourself you did right by your sister when she was alive, and that iis the most important thing–so YOU CAN BE AT PEACE over her death. Good luck and God bless. I think you are on the right road, don’t get sucked back into any “let’s pretend none of this happened.” LOL ROTFLMAO My egg donor actually said that!
Somebodysdream,
You say “When I was a single mother of 4 and had to run on survival. I was looking forward to the time after raising the kids to do what I was not able to for them then”Any thoughts?”
This sounds like me but I only had two children. Running on survival is hard but we did what we had to do in spite of their fathers. Now my daughter does not want me. She took away the grandchildren. She blames it all on me. But I know I was the best mother I could be. I know I put my all into my children while the psychopath father only caused trouble.
My warning is do not put all of your eggs into the grandchildren basket like we did. We only let the psychopath know he had ammunition again and he worked the daughter he abandoned and we raised into a state of near insanity. I think she is in cognitive dissonance, cult brainwashed by AA and caught between his reality and mine.
I guess the fact is that psychopaths do live in a different reality. The poor children of a psychopath and a normal parent are caught in limbo because it is completely impossible to please both parents at the same time…ever. What a horrible state of cognitive dissonance for them. Maybe having two psychopathic parents would be better.
I do not regret coming out of the closet and telling my children as adults that their father is a dangerous psychopath and the things he has done. But I am certainly suffering the consequences while he is going on with business as usual, happy to have created more misery in the lives of others.
She asked and I confirmed to my granddaughter that I thought he was mean. I alerted her to a real and potential danger. That was the best I could do and I feel good about it. Now I have to trust a 10 year old to protect herself and her little brother from the psychopath if her parents will not. I do believe her parents will protect her if she goes to them and now she is forwarned to do that even if they do not like it. I never dreamed that her parents would get it so twisted and feel the need to protect my grandchildren from me for warning them.
But I did get revictimized and my PTSD kicked in while he played his psychopath role as the sad sack victimized innocent. I did look like the crazy one and they believe I am crazy and I am out in the cold. So for now I am powerless to do anything about it except keep away and pray.