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.
Mandy~
I am 52 years old. It took a 5 month
failed marriage & several broken
relationships to realize what you have
realized. Being alone is far better than
being with the wrong person.
I am now finally quite content
being alone. Finding the right person
would be wonderful, but I won’t let
my happiness ever be affected again
by not having the right person in
my life.
I am in hopes you will find the
right person someday & sooner
than my story, all best to you, Susan
susan
Exactually! The peace of being alone , heavily out weighs the chaos of being with the wrong person!
Mandy~
Here is one more thought that might
be helpful for you~
When we in any way let our
happiness be defined by another
person, we risk being victimized
by SP’s. Our happiness or lack thereof
should never be defined by our
‘needing’ a relationship with someone.
It took me 50 years to figure this
out, again I wish you the best
& finding the right person for your
life, Susan
RE: the widely recognised age sociopathic tendences appear –
Growing up with my S sister (one year my senior) as early as ten the distinct feeling was ‘she always gets away with it’. And I end up being told off as she simply gets away with it. As early as 2 I recall exhibiting a certain lack of trust and unique fear towards her. Just her but none of my 4 older siblings.
Of course well into adulthood (I’m 38, she 39), her trick has become so perfected, my slanderous reputation is sealed in solid gold as she is the eternal golden figure and perceived victim.
She sexually abused me at 7/8. She psychologically abused me all my life, that and continues today. She was a bully and master of disguising victimhood well before 10.
This is Mandy on a different user name, can you tell me more about the abuse psychologically or sexually if you dont mind to see if there are similarities. Did she involve animals, cause my s/p was into kids too and at the age you were only 7.
my dad met this girl. . . named sam a total sociopath when we informed people of her crazy personality traits and even without explaining, when people close to us met her they didnt like her and warned us. . . i was only partially brainwashed but my dad was under the spell finally after she almost became completely in control we stood up, realized and stepped in to the situation take control and wane the power she had over us. It’s completely and utterbly astonishing that we actually dealt with a sociopath someone crazy someone who matched all these traits its amazing. I’m glad were out of this situation i mean i feel bad for her kids who she uses to get power or pushes them off to people to take care of them, , , like me and my dad who fellt extreme empathy for both of them, and her. Now that its over looking back i feel like we’ve been in a scary movie, we were almost the the dad and daughter who got poisoned after she made a dinner and we were almost the story that ended up on dateline nbc, no exaggeration truthfully and honesty shes crazy and i have no doubt in my mind within a short times period this wouldve happened its comical in a way, but also unbeleivable its funny how a relationship can end in the statement ‘it’s not you it’s me,’ but also can begin with the same.
Hi briannaco,
That is exactly what it feels like to be with a sociopath, like a steven king thriller. all confusing and terrifying. So sorry you had to experience it. But I’m glad that you were able to identify the situation and save your dad!! That is really amazing. I’ve noticed that younger people seem to be much more intuitive than older people and zero in on strange behavior. I wish I knew why. Please keep reading and learning, posting and asking questions. This is a very valuable lesson that you’ve learned.
Thankyou for your response, i never thought out of all the lessons i would learn growing up this would be one of them, i beleive the reason why i was more zeroed in on the strange behavior was bc of my dads. I had never seen him feel so guilty all the time, or ever be so confused about a situation, it was like he was a different person. Iv’e known alot of ‘crazy’ women he dated but none of them had an effect on his behavior like she did. I never knew a woman could be an abuser because i always thought of abuse as physical but the verbal abuse she used was just as painful, like calling my own dog dumb all the time, i knw tht might sound silly or miniscule but she knew how much tht dog meant to me, and i could never accuse her ofbeing mean or harsh towards her bc she did it in a ‘playful’ way. That dog is also very important to my dad he was always giving her attention. sam(sociopath) despised the attention he gave my dog or me bc she was gradually trying to isolate him from all that he loved and it worked within 6 months . . . soon his bestfriend dan was no longer in the pic, i barely had conversasions with him, when that is very unusual for me and him. My dog ended up in her kennel most of the time, and even family was shut down for a summer visit. She told him that she didnt like meeting new ppl tht was the reason. You knw that she was living in my dads house the whole time HIS HOUSE and mine its my entitlement. My dad worked very hard for this house after comming out of financial problems he finally owned his own home. But she came in with her two kids and moved in burning all of her old stuff from the place she oncee stayed at. That gave my dad the feeling of obligation to keep her in the house. She would say things like ‘You knw i burned all my stuff for u” My dad even warned her about doing tht he told her moving in with him was too fast and if it didnt work out she’d have nothing left to come back to but then she would say; ‘it doesnt matter we were meant to be together’ there were numerous times i heard her call my dad perfect then turn around and tell him what a piece of crap he is. She would always bring him down with smart comments that r stup bc she doesnt even have a highschool edu. her lack of responsibility for taking care of her kids was horrific she expected my father to take full responsibilty of them and when he declined or began to protest she would tell him he’s not being a good dad or husband or things like that. . . . when he isn’t even the father! she got mail sent to our house in her first name and my dads last name basically saying they were married when tht wasnt true. now this is all within five months and she has him under full control. one week they would be all lovey dovey then the nxt it was a fight. he always felt like the one responsible for the situation, additionally i forgot to add her x husband has full custody over the kids and from what ive seen is still frightened of her. She disrespects her parents teribly and has no respect for anybody unless shes getting something in return. I realize now why i was the num one peron she hated and tried to fram for her mistakes, and was jealous of, and tried to get rid of and take me out of the ‘fam’ pic i am the biggest influence in my fathers life and she knew it. She knew if i wanted to i could have her out of my fathers life. but i cant beleive i actually wanted them to be togethjr bc at times i never had seen my dad so happy but the greatness of her charm verses tht of her disrespect and turn off was a control weapon, my dad was dependent emotionally on her. Finally i stood up and realized i had to stop it, finally after a jeapordizing incedent happened to long to explain i stood up looked her straight in the eye and told her everything she was afraid my father would hear me speak the truth bc then the blindfold was taken off him and he saw the lies beneath the fake smile she gave. my influence was the remedy and i have never seen her more hurt. the incedents and problems she caused i have listed are nothing compared to the ones it would take too long to write. Then my dad packed all her stuff up and gave her a 3 day eviction notice. It was over we were freed and i felt great peace its been 24 hours since this happened and my dad and i are happy to b freed he’s still depressed bot it. . . but itll pass an dbetter than being under her control. ha when people found out about the braek up they were estatic i could instantly see light come back into everyones eyes like an expression of being reunited with a love one they were happy to see my father back from a coma. i’ll never forget her, and i plan on using these red flags as a reference for when i begin to date guys. I’m happy god’s grace was shown once again on us and i knw it will continue to shine. i also will never forget the moonlight shining on th gravel with cardboard boxes stacked in the driveway her wary father comming to help her pack her stuff away in the truck, him then shaking my fathers hand and saying: ‘ im sorry this happened she really is crazy’ i think that was the best thing to say to end the worst. when your own father calls you crazy you must really be fucked up. lol
continuing . . . . .she only gets her kids on occasions with the x husbands consent
briannaco,
have you ever thought of writing a short story? and getting it published. it could be fiction or non-fiction, doesn’t matter, just write about what happened.
The reason I say this is because, if you are any good at writing, I think a publisher would be interested in a story about a teenager’s experience with her dad’s sociopathic gf. Plus, it would be a teen novel, and you would influence other people your age. Even if you aren’t good at writing, you can always take writing classes.
SE Hinton was only 17 when she wrote her first book, “The outsiders”.
All of us here have amazing stories about sociopaths but I think that a teenager’s story would have a special kind of impact.