Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by a reader who we’ll call Mandy. Mandy is 15 years old and dated a sociopathic guy, who was two years older, for over a year. Notice how similar the sociopath’s behaviors are to what many of us adults experienced—an indication that this manipulative behavior is instinctual in sociopaths.
A person cannot be diagnosed a sociopath until the age of 18, but can start showing symptoms at a young age. He was 15 and I was only 13. We lived in two separate towns. We met on the computer off of an Internet website called Facebook and then started talking all the time on phone.
I was a perfect victim. I had no self-esteem when I was younger because of verbal abuse I had faced from classmates. I felt alone and just wanted to have a boyfriend by my side. We were constantly flirting on the phone, but I didn’t want this to be a cyber relationship. He seemed charming and sweet. Every time time I would ask him to hang out he would tell me that there was no one to drive him. His sister couldn’t and his mother would leave him home all day by himself and how alone he felt. So I had asked him, “What about your dad?” He said, “I never met my dad before.” It’s like he would make me feel guilty for asking him.
He started to say “I love you”
Weeks were going by, but the more time that passed, the more we were acting like a couple. He even started to say, “I love you.” I couldn’t handle this relationship because we never have even met! So when I finally decided to tell him we should end this, he told me he would kill himself and that he had written a suicide note. I couldn’t let go after he told me this. Promising me that he would he see me soon.
A few weeks later he started mentioning ex-girlfriend who he said he dated for three years. When I asked to speak to her, he gave me her screen name. I just wanted to speak to her to see if everything he told me added up. I ended up finding the ex-girlfriend on Facebook, which is when I found out from her that he was lying. He lied about never meeting his dad, and they didn’t date for three years, only two months, and that he made up a fake screen name. Also telling me he wanted her back. When the three of us were on the phone confronting him he said that he picked me over her and that he would never lie to me again.
$85 taxi ride
About a month later, with still not seeing each other, he told me to call his mother so we can see each other. When I had asked her she told me, “I don’t mean to be a bitch of a mother, but right now is not a good time. He needs to get his priorities straight.” From her finding out that we were talking, she quickly put a end to it by telling him to stop. But a couple of months later we started talking again. Sitting home sick on March 10th, he wanted me to come to his school to see him. I took a taxi, which cost me $85 for the whole trip with only my money. He was very nice, sweet, and funny and even introduced me to his friends. We finally met after four months, but I had to make the effort.
I started to notice that he was never going out with friends, and every time I would go out he would be mad because I wasn’t giving him attention. When I had asked him why he doesn’t really go out, he would tell me that because he used to be a bad kid his mom doesn’t allow him out very often because she cant trust him yet. Telling me that he changed and is trying to gain all of her trust back.
Yelling at me
So on a Friday night when I was going out, he had called me screaming to never call his number again. Telling me that I sent pictures to his friends. He kept yelling at me and screaming, how could I do such a thing? I kept telling him that I love him and that I didn’t do anything. As he heard me cry for hours to him; he wouldn’t stop yelling at me and told me to forget about him. I called back and said, “You know what? I know I didn’t do anything; just forget about it.” He said, “I love you I want to be with you,” like nothing even happened. I knew the story was all made up though. I didn’t want to let him go because I felt like he was the first real guy who actually liked me.
The next few weeks were fine, but now it was over five months, it started to come down to if this could actually work. The only way I can do this was if I received his mother’s approval of me. We started to argue about the whole thing because he wasn’t sure if he was going to go through with it. He said, “You would get a boyfriend and then leave me. You wouldn’t be able to say I love you anymore. Once you have a boyfriend, you would eventually stop calling me.”
Sexual acts
Basically from here to September, the new school year, all we were doing was deciding to be friends, to being friends with benefits to trying to be together. Just a repeating pattern from month to month. Until one night when I returned from babysitting he had asked me, how were the kids? Asking me if I ever thought about doing anything sexual with them. He tried to get me to share stories of sexual things I have done with the children. I thought he was joking, and tried to brush it off. Then he started to ask me to have sexual contact with family members and then my dog. I would ask him, “Why do you try to talk about these things?” His answer was, “I do this because I know you like it.” I found this disgusting and weird. This continued for months and he wouldn’t stop.
In January he came to my house; he actually made half of the effort this time with paying and getting in a taxi for me. We had to sneak to do this though. He wanted me to have sex with him, but I had told him no. He forced himself on top of me holding me down trying to get me to have it, but I kept screaming to stop and he finally let go. And you would think I wouldn’t want to be with him, but I was in denial because I didn’t want to be alone and believed that he loved me.
He had a new girlfriend
A month later I wrote a letter to his mother that I am a good person and telling her that I want to be with her son. She turned me down and basically two weeks later he had a new girlfriend and told me he just wants to be friends with me. We will never be together and all we were doing was fighting. Along the way, though, he made up lies after lies and manipulated me into believing that we could be together. He promised me for over a year that once he will be able to drive he could see me, but that never happened. He made promises to me that never happened.
It took me three long months to get myself out of depression about the question, did this really happen? I found myself crying every day and needed to go to a social worker in school. My dad knew some of the story, because along the way I told him bits and pieces. My dad warned me though. I got hurt.
Traits of a sociopath
He has all the traits of a sociopath, which my social worker thought too.
Glibness and Superficial Charm, Manipulative and Conning, Pathological Lying, Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt, Shallow Emotions. When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion, it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
Callousness/Lack of Empathy. Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them. Promiscuous Sexual Behavior, Infidelity, Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts
He showed all of that along the way. This went on for over a year. Now he has stopped talking me for good, but I still feel like he will come back. His new victim, or would you say girlfriend, is a new girl who was new to his town who just had moved on. Perfect target.
Broken heart
I had to sum the story up, but it was really more to that. There were a lot of tears and me crying over him for a year and a lot of fighting. I took a lot of verbal abuse from him. My life revolved around him, with me blowing off homework and studying to talk to him. Me trying to make the effort to be with him. I loved him and I put my everything into him because I convinced myself that he loved me.
It’s been seven months since he stopped talking to me, but I still think about him everyday. I am traumatized by him, and still have a broken heart. I did spend a lot of my money on him, but did it cause I believed the lies he told me, but he just used me to get to what he wanted. He wanted me to go along with his sick fantasies. He never cared about me, and never will.
Do not waste your time in thinking of hi and all of that – tell your mind STOP and refocus on something positive for you.
The tie you spend there is wasted and will only make you feel bad about yourself like somehow the opinion and treatment of us by some really sick person established our value –
when I have so many wonderful people in ,y life telling me how much they love and care for or respect me and then I allow my feelings about myself to be determined by a psychopath or narcissist – my goodness.
Stop that line of thinking and start telling yourself you are enough. Say to yourself –
“I love myself and I make healthy choices for my highest good”.
“I love myself and I protect my time and energy so that I may have peace and joy”.
(PS – I hate my typos – I wish there was an edit feature that would let me correct them – I am a “good speller” – terrible typist!)
That deffinatly made me feel better and make things clear for me again which i needed, thanks.
Dear Mandy,
It is natural for you to think of him, but it is NOT good for you to think of him.
If you find yourself thinking of him, wanting him (even though you know you will never let him back) THINK of something else—it is impossible to think of two things at once—so when you find yourself thinking of him, sing a song (even inside your head) or say your multiplication tables, or anything that requires you to think something else. It will GET EASIER to put him out of your mind.
Say something POSITIVE TO YOURSELF, like Breck girl advised. “I am strong” or “I will take care of myself” whatever makes you feel better about yourself.
You will have doubts about yoruself, and all these are signs that you are GROWING because we may take two steps forward and one back, or two forward and three back, but keep on in the direction of healing and you will make more progress than you can even now dream of! It is a growth process and no one grows completely over night….we are ALL growing here, just like you are. Discovering new and wonderful things about ourselves to make our lives better and happier. it is a journey of life—as each part is learned you move on to the next learning.
Remember when you were in first grade and they told you you had to learn all these ABCs and you felt that it was too much, or all those numbers and you felt you could never learn them all, but guess what! YOU DID and then they became words and reading and math, each thing we learn makes the next step easier. Keep on growing and learning for the rest of your life—it makes life fun, exciting and fulfilling, it IS LIFE. (((hugs)))))
Mandy,
I don’t want you to think of your experience as a waste of time. You learned SUCH a valuable lesson, at such a young age, in such a short time, and with very little expense to you.
Here is what COULD have happened if you hadn’t been the GENIOUS that you are:
You could have gotten pregnant.
You could have been raped.
You could have been killed – yes, some of them kill.
You could have committed suicide – that’s the way some of them prefer to kill.
You could have stayed with him for years, wasting time.
You could have gotten diseases from him.
You could have been snared into doing illegal activities and then gone to jail.
These are some of the many fates which WE older people have endured because we were not the GENIOUSES that you are. You went right to the head of the class, did your homework, paid your tuition, passed with flying colors and got your diploma.
Yes, there is more to learn. You are still struggling with UNDERSTANDING his motivations and even your own. That is where we are now. We are working on that together.
I’m not sure if you have read about the root of narcissism being ENVY. Mine was always trying to make me envy other people or him. I just never did, because it isn’t in me and he hated me more for it.
But I envy you! I admit it. I wish I could be you because you will not likely suffer what I did. You get to go on with your life and do better things than pine over an idiot sociopath. That’s why I keep calling you a genious. That’s my way of putting you on a pedestle so that I don’t have to envy you. It gives me an excuse to say, “Well, yes, she did much better than I did, but that’s only because she’s a genious. I can’t be expected to do that well.” LOL.
Forgive my envy. It’s left over from my trauma. It isn’t really envy when I’m also glad for you – right?
My therapist told me to block the P on facebook (done), put him on my blocked list on my email (done), don’t answer if I see his number on my phone as an incoming call and delete any messages without listening. And if he accidentally gets through on my phone she said just to say “I haven’t got time for the pain.” and hang up. I think I will just hang up if he ever calls and not say a word actually.
So have a plan in your head. It is OVER. Keep it over. If he’s got a new girlfriend GOOD, now he is HER PROBLEM, not yours! Woo Hoo!
How about this? “You have SO got the wrong number”. Click.
Just have a plan and turn the focus back to YOU, what makes YOU happy in life, where your passion is. When I was just a little older than you I went and volunteered in a school for retarded children and I loved it! I also loved horseback riding. I loved arts and crafts. Find the things that give you joy and go for it!
Did anyones sociopath was controlling like mine? Like had to know what you were doing like every second of the day mine took over my facebook was extremly jealous, crave attention, didnt want you going out with friends
yes.
mine had me living in a cabin in the woods on an island for 18 years. He made all the neighbors hate me or vice versa with his lies and slander, so I had no friends.
Isolation, control, and envy are part of the pattern.
They want all your attention because they are like infants.
controlling you makes them feel powerful.
Have you read any books on narcissism yet?
Mandy,
All sociopaths are, or try to be, controlling. That was one reason why I wanted to publish your letter. The behavior you describe is exactly what we all saw in the adult sociopaths we were involved with. It proves that, in many cases, they start young and never change.