Editor’s Note: Lovefraud received this story from the member who writes as “Duped.” She describes her hyper vigilance — and how it worked against her.
In hindsight, I remember questioning the little green things on the dinosaur nuggets he prepared for dinner. I was surprised he’d made the effort, in response to much nagging about not pitching in. It was late and I’d just returned from teaching an evening class. An overload to pay the bills since he quit his job. We had been arguing a lot, or rather me complaining; him not working, cleaning, taking care of the kids or pets and not making so much of an effort as to prepare a meal or help me. I had been working my full-time job teaching, overloaded for extra pay, consulting work for a publisher to generate more income, plus trying to finish my graduate degree in time to make tenure. All this and two children, one his and only a year old. And he never lifted a finger.
Until those dinosaur nuggets with the odd parsley flakes.
Less than two weeks later, he filed a false Protection From Abuse (PFA) order and attempted to have me and my eldest son thrown out of our house (the one I had built from the ground up before I met him) take me for full custody of our one year old son who’d never spent a night without me, and soak me for child support, alimony and half the marital assets (we had been married 11 months) to which he had contributed nothing!
Fortunately, he was unsuccessful. Mostly because of who I am and the life I’ve created for me and my children. In part due to some due diligence. In part, despite my hyper vigilance.
It is hyper vigilance I’d like to address. It’s a nasty side effect of PTSD. I was able to get his PFA turned around and file one against him. I was believable, he was not. I was credible, he was not. I HAD cared for my children, he HAD not. I had NOT been abusive, he HAD. This was relatively easy to demonstrate, although it didn’t feel so at the time. So, while I had him right where I needed him, I still felt panic and fear. I still believed he would be believed. Why not? I had believed him and I’m no sucker!
So, I made an urgent appointment with my doctor to have a drug test. He WAS using drugs. I was NOT. He had accused me of being a drug dealer, when in fact it was his mother who was his supplier, and I felt this burning NEED to prove myself. I got that drug test and believe it or not, they lost the sample. Right then I should have taken a breath and allowed the Universe to work its divine intervention. But NO, I couldn’t do that. I was in the throes of battle. I NEEDED every little piece that would set things right. I HAD to have that drug result to PROVE HIM WRONG. I was DRIVEN and consumed.
I had a second test run right before court and asked the doctor to fax the results to the attorney. I didn’t need to hear the results first. I knew what I had and had not done. It would be negative. And my attorney believed that too, which is why she handed over the results to his attorney without reading them herself. And that’s how I lost the battle.
The results were positive for THC, the intoxicating chemical found in Marijuana. Not possible, until I remembered those parsley flakes in the damn dinosaur chicken nuggets he had served up with a pleased little grin.
And that was when I had to face being my own worst enemy. Hyper vigilance, while once my comrade in a childhood filled with craziness, had become the enemy. No one asked for the drug test and it certainly wasn’t court ordered. I had gone full blown into trying to work every little piece and angle to save me and my children, that I’d opened a cans of worms HE HAD ANTICIPATED! He played my vigilance to his advantage and had won the battle.
I won the war. Because I am who I am and he is who he is and I didn’t have to make that case. He made it himself, once I tuned down from hyper vigilance to due diligence. I shifted from histrionic to matriarch. My change in posture elicited a change in his. He wasn’t pulling my strings any more. He wasn’t in control any more. I was in control of myself, which gave me far more of a positive influence over the situation. And his facade was shaken, revealing his true colors.
My point is, if you have been the victim of a sociopath, it is most likely you will be and maybe still are suffering from PTSD. With that comes the nasty black cloud of hyper vigilance. It’s exhausting, unproductive and ultimately leaves one angry and disappointed with themselves and actions. If you’re in the throws of situating your life in the wake of a sick or evil person, stop and take a deep breath. Ask yourself if what you’re doing is for the right reasons, makes sense and will take you in a direction that will raise you up, not bring you down.
Are you reacting because the situation REQUIRES it? Or are you reacting because you’re DRIVEN to? I ask myself these questions with regularity and find I’m a happier, more relaxed and better focused person, mother and professional.
Namaste
Duped
Learn more: Self-care for Complex PTSD
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 24, 2009.
Hyper vigilance is exhausting, unproductive and may make your situation worse.
Lovefraud’s 3 Rules of Dating
Velveeta – My X made threats. But nothing like you describe. I don’t have the words to express my sorrow for what you are dealing with. Please be careful. I think I was dealing with the devil, you are dealing with satan incarnate endeed..
Dear Velveeta,
I think o ne of the things we lose that is the most important thing is we lose the ability to TRUST OURSELVES to keep us safe. We think we can distinguish bad guys from good guys, but obviously we made a mistake and let a bad guy get close enough to hurt us.
So, we made a mistake. Yep, we did. But we have to quit beating ourselves up and feeling stupid and afraid of shadows, and start to EDUCATE OURSELVES to what the bad guys really “look like” and they don’t have horns or forked tails and they look just like everyone else—BUT they do have “symptoms” (we call them RED FLAGS) and when we see a RED FLAG we RUN away from that person.
What is a RED FLAG? A red flag is ANY sign of dishonesty.
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. So though there are a FEW people who stop being criminals and really “find Jesus” the majority don’t. So if someone has a history of bad behavior, drugs, alcohol, wife beating, cheating, theft, etc. GET AWAY FROM THEM.
Also if they are trying to get you to PITY THEM, feel sorry for them, for the hard life they have had, FORGET THEM. If someone is trying for the PITY PLOY, YOU ARE DEALING WITH A PSYCHOPATH.
Okay, I was a “victim” I was abused, I need to NOT use that as an excuse to abuse others. Okay, Henry was abused as a child, Poor Henry—that does NOT excuse him abusing someone else. It does not excuse either of us for being a mooch and living off someone else’s sweat, or throwing pity me parties, and asking all my friends/victims to contribute to my rent, car payment or anything else.
Sure, I have empathy for every former victim on this board, but at the same time, that does not give ANYONE a pass to be an ASS themselves. It doesn’t excuse me calling someone names, flaming them, or anyting else.
So a HUGE RED FLAG is someone who wants your pity because they have been victimized.
THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER RED FLAGS—read here, learn, and remember that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, and we have to take back our power to distinguuish the good guys from the bad. We have to learn to trust ourselves again to keep us safe in an unsafe world.
I have PTSD, I watched my husband burn to death—but it didn’t mean I had a pass to go do mean things to others. Sure, it made me cranky, it did a lot of not nice things to me, but it NEVER EVER GAVE ME A PASS TO ABUSE OTHERS. One of my sons was in the plane crash and he was also burned badly, he didn’t become a psychopath—but my other son who had NO traumatic abuse when he was a kid or any kind of major trauma, he is a psychopathic murderer.
Anyone who is abusive to anyone and “blames” it on their drug problem, or their PTSD or any other excuse is a FAKER. Pure and simple. As long as someone is not “out of touch with reality” (legally insane and cannot tell right from wrong) they are RESPONSIBLE for what they do. PTSD does not make you immune to responsibility.
Velveeta, you have been abused and conned, and tricked and hoodwinked just like most of us here by someone who led us to believe they loved us or cared for us, but it wasn’t because they had an “exucse” or because they were abused as a child, it was because they DECIDED TO ABUSE US and DID NOT CARE if it hurt us, or in some cases, ENJOYED hurting us.
But you have made th eFIRST big step to recovery, you are HERE and you are learning about them, and also about yourself, Why you were vulnerable to them. It starts out about learning about them (so we can keep ourselves safe in the future) but ends up about being about, as Henry said, about US, healing ourselves.
I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t trust myself, and in order to trust others, I have to trust myself to decide who is trustworthy. All people who are mean and abusive are not trustworthy. Liars are not trustworthy. So start off by stickign with people who are responsible, kind, caring, do what they say they will do and are not users or abusers, and you have made a real good start in seeing who you can trust. Trust your instincts too, if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right. YOU CAN DO IT!!!! We all can! We all ARE! One step at a time.
Dear Ms. Duped:
I never knew I stil had to detect evil — bottom line. After everthing and everyone I knew and experienced in life, I didn’t realize I had to detect evil and not become prey. Not at this juncture in my life. I do not feel condemned or judged. I just feel frightened by the profound and alarming nature of all of this. I thought I had this “licked” back in my twenties.
Your quote:
“The question is, how do you get off?
I’m not sure what this means. How do I get off of the crazy making histrionics of a complete nut? I’m not sure. Someone will arrest him? I can move away?
I’m still here
Dear OxDrover: By the way what does that mean? Please excuse my ignorance.
I believe in myself. I believe in all that is good. I have a great capacity for truth.
I am an athlete, a runner, a cyclist, a dancer. I eat well and take care of myself. I take care of my parents and my son or any of his friends. I do everything that one believes they should do to live a stellar life.
I am just confused — why and how can these horrible things happen to good people. Can someone explain. You do the work, your create and facilitate and something like this comes into your life. Is it karma? Do you deserve this? But Why?
I meant, how do you get off of this site? How do you find a path that doesn’t include suffering and trying to figure all this out? I’m still here, because I don’t have all the answers and I’m not out of the woods entirely.
It does sound as if you’re in a dire situation that may require more assistance than you’ll find on this site. If this man is truly still a significant and eminent threat to you, I suggest documenting everything and going to the authorities.
In my letter, I did distinguish between hyper vigilance and due diligence. If you are in danger, you must protect yourself. Getting and gathering as much information as you can may be the best way to start. It’s to your credit if you are methodical about how you approach and deliver your facts.
Oh Henry!
Thanks, but don’t be sorry. Just talk to me. You had a narcisstic mother and your life reads like a Stephen King novel. Tell me why? I think my mother was/is the same. Is she dead now?
I used to read Stephen King like a fanatic when i was young (er). 🙂
Dear Duped:
Thank you. I have done all of that. The problem is that I live in a small community where he “knows” all of the military police and regular city police. He has told me that any of them could shoot me and discard my body — no body no crime. His exact words “you could be shot cycling in the park” It made me afraid to cycle. This is all so very sad. He said: My buddy “””””””” could shoot you from three miles away, he is a sniper. I have tried but failed to make people understand.
The reality of the danger is clear. It has been for about two years. If I could leave I would.
velveeta: Why?: Ahhhh, the million dollar question we all ask and all want an answer to. But, it’s also the one that each of us must answer on our own. For me the answer is spiritual….because there is a war going on here between good and evil. And these people are evil and take every advantage they can over us [and others].
Dear Velveeta,
“Hopw do you get off? that I think can mean different things to different people.
If we try to “figure them out” and “act nice” to them, we never get off it is like a “Merry go round” where you just go around and around without end.
When we start to heal, to trust ourselves again, we make choices to keep ourselves safe.
At one point, my own son and one of his “friends” was trying to kill me, and I had to make a decision to stay in my house or to run and hide, leave essentially everything behind and go into hiding to be safe. I am not a “fearful” or shy individual and my first reaction was to “stand and fight” but I realized eventually that living in my house with a gun, hiding behind the shades and waiting for the Ps to come to kill me was not a reasonable way to live.
They eventually got arrested, but not every time does that happen with every one.
Have you been to the police? have you told them he has threatened you?
Where do you live? In the US?
Bad things DO happen to good people, we get conned by evil people, and they threaten or hurt us. It does happen. It does NOT mean we deserve this though.
First order is to KEEP YOURSELF SAFE. If that means going to the police (does he have a criminal record? has he hurt others in the past?) I chose to run and it was difficult, I did not know at the time if I would ever be able to return home, and I am to some extent in danger now, if my son had the opportunity or resources he woujld continue to try to kill me. But I also chose to be CAUTIOUS and at the same time, to NOT live in TERROR. I don’t want to live in TERROR and I refuse to. It is simply a matter of how I think. I use caution, I lock my door, I actually carry a gun (but I am also trained and familiar with them and using them and I have made up my mind if I have to I will USE it to defend myself) It is legal for me to have a gun. I do not violate laws.
It might also be that you might also have to leave at least for a while. That might not be easily possible, but whatever it takes KEEP YOURSELF SAFE. You can’t heal if you are not safe. You are in my prayers! God bless you. (((hugs))))
Dear Twice Betrayed:
I believe you are right. A wage between good and evil. I have known the difference since I was very young.
It all sounds very Hollywood — even crazy — rantings from evangelical types, but I am now convinced that it is true. I know I am good, I just didn’t know I had to be hypervigilant against evil — at least not in my geographical location AND NOT AT THIS STAGE IN LIFE. Did I do something to deserve this? I don’t think so.