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.
Breckgirl,
If you click the preview button when you are finished writing, you can see what you wrote and make any corrections before you click “post.”
Donna
I havnt read any books on this kind of stuff, i usually look on the internet more to find out info i mean i was just so confused at the time i didnt know what to think and wanted to know who i was dealing with, i am just glad i learned my lesson now then later. his answering machine is you reach narasary, i find that very interesting.
In order to not be fooled again, because they do come in different forms, you should read some books.
Also it might help you to get a better understanding of how you came to be in this situation and who else in your life might be a narcissist/controller/envious/etc…
“Why is it always about you?” and “The Sociopath next door” are great books.
Thank you Donna!
Yes reading books really help – also my ex-N called me sometimes 60 to 80 times a day – I kid you not – for days on end.
Also these men ofte committ domestic violence – an excellent book about that is Angry Controlling Men Why Does He Do That? By Lundy Bancroft-
and the answer is – Because they can get away with it so in their minds – why the heck not? And you and I would say why not is that it is cruel, unkind, lacks compassion – well guess what Mandy – men like that (and there are women like that too) they don’t have compassion for others – they just don’t care –
people who care have a really hard time fathoming this – how someone could not care but this is true – people are born without parts sometimes – you know – an arm ot a leg or some part of their brain – well psychopaths and narcissists are born without the ability to care about the harm they cause others. That’s it – that is how they are – and the only way they know how to live (because they generally do NOT like isolation) is to seek out normal healthy people and abuse them for their own amusement –
think cat playing with terrified mouse not yet dead – just a bit mangled – …
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/my-glamorous-life-as-a-scumbag-drummer/Content?oid=2119769
Mandy, for a different version of your story, read this link. This guy was going to kill himself because of someone like your sociopath.
Dear Mandy,
Might I suggest that you go back through the articles here on Love Fraud (you can find them on the left in the archived listed by month) Read every article there, there are ones on how the psychopaths act and on how to heal as well, every article there is GREAT. There are books about how they behave, and books about why we put up with their behavior.
As you mentioned, you were lonely, and loneliness is something that is universal I think, we as humans crave to be connected to others. Learning how to pick GOOD companions and TRUSTWORTHY companions is something we have to be taught though, it doesn’t just come naturally.
You don’t mention anything about your family or who (besides your social worker) your “support group” is. Building a good solid support group for ourselves starts with learning who to trust. People who do “sneaky” or “bad things” or “lie” to others are not people we should trust to only do good things when they are interacting with us. In other words, if someone will lie to someone else, or steal from them, or do illegal things, they will also do those things to YOU or ME.
You talked about him wanting to keep tabs on every breath you took. That is very normal. Even if you had the greatest support group an dfamily in the world, they will ISOLATE YOU so that you do not have these people to clue you in to what they are. They dont’ want voices to say different things than they are telling you. Divide and conqueor is their motto.
CONTROL, as Donna said is what they want to have. Him trying to get you to participate in his TWISTED sexual fantasies is one example, they try to control us to do things we DO NOT WANT TO DO. sometimes we give in, but then they come up with more things that are “worse” and so on.
I remember when i was your age and the boys saying “If you love me, you will have sex with me”—but the RISK of having sex with them was too great for me, and I didn’t want to get pregnant and so on. NOW there is also the risk of getting diseases that will KILL you or make you sick for life, or hurt your baby when you have one. So the RISKS are not worth the chance. I am so glad that you were strong enough not to fall for that control tactic of his. What Skylar said is true, you got off “light” on this time in that you didn’t have PERMANENT CONSEQUENCES like an STD or a baby or other things she mentioned.
The consequences of a broken heart will eventually be offset by the KNOWLEDGE you gained, though it is still painful, it isn’t “as bad as it can be”—-so I am happy for you on that front!
You sound and write like you are a very bright girl, and that you are OPEN to new learning. Being OPEN to learning opportunities is probably one of the strongest things any one can have going for them. Then putting that learning into practice in your life, and making wise choices about those people that we get close to—picking people who are honest, kind, caring and that can be trusted. Not people who do things that they know are wrong but choose to anyway. Whether it is shoplifting or robbing a bank, it doesn’t matter, it is still dishonest.
Making a decision to be honest and caring and to choose honest and caring people as your friends is a good adult decision, and I know at your age when many of your peers may be rebelling and doing “little” dishonest things, from cutting class to cheating on a test, you may get some flack from your peers if you fail to look the other way, or fail to participate in this kind of behavior.
At the same time, though, you won’t be letting yoruself in for consequences that can be life altering.
I see great opportunities for you to grow so much out of this painful experience and to be a young woman wiser than her years! A role model for others to follow! A peer counselor for those less wise than you. In short, a young woman with GOOD SENSE and a kind and caring heart! A young woman who treats herself with respect and expects others to treat her that way as well. You are on the right road, Mandy!!! don’t ever forget that! (((hugs))))
Thank you, that was very sweet. For the comment my parents werent mentioned, they know bits and pieces of the situation so they werent really there for support cause they didnt know the whole story but my friends helped me, the reason i kind of felt alone cause at the time most of my friends had boyfriends and I didnt. I realize i have the rest of my life, did any of your sociopath talk about cruelty to animals or anything or with children like my did?
Dear mandy,
Some of them do cruel things to animals and some don’t. Some of them seem to like animals, but it is because they can control the animals and the animals, like dogs, like them no matter how mean they are to them, or how neglectful.
Many psychopaths are sexual with both men and women, and are neither “gay” nor “straight” they just will seem to have sex with whatever they can do. I believe that all pedophiles are psychopaths, though some others do not think that is true.
The main thing is that they havve no remorse, no empathy, and no guilt about anything they do, no matter how badly it hurts others.
Anyone can get a “boyfriend” if you will set your sights low enough. My husband is dead and I could get married tomorrow to someone–if I would just pick myself out some druggie or old wino, but of course I do not want that kind of relationship, so I will wait until there is someone worthy of me. Being alone isn’t necessarily “lonely”—though we as humans want a contact and a love relationship (well most of us do anyway) but a bad one is not a substitute for a good one.
Hold your head up sweetie, and wait until there is a young man that is DESERVING of someone as special as you. Not some scum bag like your X. You deserve ONLY THE BEST! We all do, and that is what we are all learning!
Sometimes I will see a couple that are obviously very loving and I will think to myself, “oh, that would be so nice” but at the same time, I KNOW first hand what it is to have a BAD relationship and I would rather have no relationship than a bad one. No one needs that kind of pain. So I will wait until someone special comes along.
Mandy and everyone,
I’m going to shoot a wedding video tomorrow so I was looking for a dress to wear. They were all bought about 10 years ago.
That day, 10 years ago was another sign that I missed even though I noticed my confusion.
We never shop for clothes but we had been invited to a wedding We bought the P a suit. Then went to look for a dress for myself. I tried on 5 and they all looked perfect. so the P says, ‘Get all of them.” I was shocked because we never go out anywhere. No dates, no vacations, NOTHING. other than this wedding where would I wear them?
I felt confused as to his reasons, but I went ahead and bought them because, how often do you go shopping and find 5 perfect dresses? Never.
Now I know exactly what he was thinking. He liked the idea that I would spend a couple hundred dollars on beautiful dresses that would only sit in my closet, reminding me that I never get to go dancing, on cruises, romantic weekends, nice restaurants for dinner. Those dresses were supposed to make me feel bad. They didn’t. Just the fact that I looked great in them was great for me. The fact that at 43 I’m a size 3 and they still fit. And now that he is gone. I’M GONNA WEAR THOSE DRESSESS, GUARANTEED. And I don’t have to go shopping – I hate shopping.
But I got off my point. Here is another clue to recognizing a P. You will feel confused by their very strange decisions about buying you things.
The P never bought me a ring. Then one winter when we were so broke, we weren’t sure where our next meal was coming from, he went to the Fred Meyer Jeweler and spent $100 on a gold plated blue topaz ring. Why ? Why then?
He wanted to rub in the stress of being broke with he engengement ring which he never gave me.
Clarification:
I meant I was looking in my closet for a dress to wear….
Clarification:
He specifically told me that the blue topaz ring was not an engagement ring. Good thing because the gold rubbed off.