Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a 24-year-old woman, a graduate student.
He told me he was all I needed; he told me that he was the only person who cared. He told me my friends hated me because they were so mad at me because I got sick. He told me they were just all bitches like all of the other girls in the world. Like his ex-girlfriends, like his mother, like (me).
I had no idea that sociopaths existed. I thought that “sociopath” was only a word thrown about on TV, late night news, America’s Most Wanted.
My therapist told me that my ex-boyfriend is one of the worst sociopaths that she has heard about in her 12 years of practice.
Abuse starts slow
The abuse started out subtle; the control started out slow. He told me that I’d look cute if I just started dressing a little more suggestively. He told me that a slight heel (high heels) would do wonders for any girl’s appearance. “Didn’t I want to be the girl all of the other girls were jealous of?” He would tell me how to dress in order to make guys stare.
He would walk me down the street, hand around my neck, but whispering, “Babe, you look great. God, baby you’re my good thing; look at all of them watching; they think you’re so HOT.”
I now think they were wondering what was up because I was dressed like a whore and my ex boyfriend would ask random guys if they would pay me to provide sexual favors for them.
Controlled everything
I dated this man for two and a half years. He would control what I did, what I wore, what I ate, when I slept, how I slept, what I was required to wear to bed, what I could do in bed, IF I could move in bed ”¦ He wouldn’t let me move; he would get angry if I woke him up. He needed his sleep so he could “go out and make money the next day. You know you’re just a needy woman. You need me, the big strong man…”
And he’d laugh at me. He would ridicule me. He would make fun of me. He would laugh if I thought I was smart. He would laugh if I thought I could do something. He would introduce me to people as “the retard.” He would tell me not to talk—why would I bother? It wasn’t like I knew what I was saying anyway.
He would tie me up tell me it was sexy and that everyone else was doing it. He would punch me in the stomach, but he would tell me that he was seeing how tight my abs were. He would show me horrible, horrible movies about what women do when they’re hurt.
He showed me the movie Secretary, where the woman gets sad and then cuts herself, gets found out by her boss and her boss says something like no, don’t do that. And they proceed to have sex while her boss beats her butt with a wooden paddle. My ex would force me to have sex while slapping my butt and digging his hands into me, saying it was love.
Getting out
The list of scary things goes on longer than I want to remember right now. It got to the point that my parents were afraid. My ex-boyfriend was losing control, and I was stuck in the middle.
I would do anything for him, but then I did the one thing he forbade me to do. I got out. I realized that my parents didn’t hate me. I realized that my friends didn’t hate me, and I realized that I am stronger than he is and that I didn’t have to be his “good thing” anymore.
Then he told me that he made a huge mistake. He told me that he was “so sorry,” that it was normal to fly into insane rages when one loses something that he loved. He tried to get me back. I broke up with him. He stayed around for a few months trying all of this.
He convinced me that we could still be together if we were just “F” buddies, because I was the best girl for sex or at sex that he’d ever had. I know that is complete b.s. now, but at the time, when he told me I was the “only one” and “oh so special,” it worked to keep me around.
But, yeah, I mean there’s no doubt in my mind that if I had stayed with him, he would have convinced me to kill myself, or killed me himself. He would tell me to take pills. He said it was a way for me to show the world how “hurt” I was (all said in a condescending and convincing tone).
Anyways, there’s more, but yeah he tried to get me back. He tried telling me how heartbroken and lonely he was without me, which didn’t make sense to me, because when he and I were dating he told me he didn’t get lonely, he just didn’t “feel” it. It’s weird because when I was with him and he was being manipulative and abusive, he almost always told me what he was doing, but he always said, “But baby, it’s okay because we’re different. No one else is like us; we’re better than everyone; just trust me.”
Apart for six months
I can say simply that when I was with him he was emotionally abusive, physically abusive, sexually abusive. He would always say, “You can’t rape the willing, and you know you’re always willing, don’t bother saying no, because I know that no means yes.” Mind games and everything. He would get me so confused and afraid that if I said no, he’d be angry, and if he was angry he would hit me. Or at least I was terrified that is what would happen, because he would always tell me that he was bigger and stronger…
I have a restraining order against him now. I am in therapy now. We have been apart for six months, but I am still so shocked from it all. It still hurts really bad. I was with a man who told me he loved me, but that was just so that I would keep playing his bitch, keep being his doll and keep being his slave.
Alohatraveler – A friend of mine bought ‘Art of Seduction’ last week and a big book it is too. I read through most of it and I was stunned as many of the strategies suggested in it are those that my exN used. Distancing (make yourself the rare prize), insinuation (make your gf think thee are other women in competition with you for him), stir up tricks (keep your gf off balance), draw them into your spirit – mirror their every desire (then draw them into your spirit – youve got them then). There is an article about it on cyberpaths. I was truly shocked as the book uses terminology like target, lure them into your lair/web and most shocking of all – once you have lured them into your web – you can do anything with them – get power money or sex.
After reading that book, I wouldnt be at all surprised if my ex read it because there was so much in it that rang true. My friend was very shocked at the blatant suggestion of exploitation. When i asked her what does seduction mean to you – she said roses and candlelite dinner – I said read the book you will be amazed – and she was.
wow. when iwas with the sociopath I remember i thought that the things he’d say would sound like he copied them out of scripts from a movie, romantic love stories..
he even told me that he read the love stories that he knew girls would like so
“He’d be better able to communicate with them”
ay. wow.
Weird isn’t it? Looking back at myself, I feel like I was a character in the movie, except I didn’t know. I keep referring to that movie with Jim Carey where his whole life is a TV show and he doesn’t know it. (The Trueman Show)
Reading books and reading here has helped me. I have no more questions “WHY? about him.
He is not a loss to me. But I lost time. I feel sad that the happiest moments of my life were fake. I feel sad that I was such a sap. I was so ready for love… or was I? I don’t know anymore. My sister is in Love right now and she is about to turn 30… and she’s getting married. I know this is the way it is supposed to be. I guess if I am sad about anything, it is this… this is the only life I get and my 30’s were wasted being broken hearted about a Good Man and then demolished by a Bad Man. Now I am almost 39. I will never get to live my 30’s with a good man. I will never get this time back.
Sorry. I think I am feeling sorry for myself. I know that I have lost little compared to so many here.
you can still feel sorry for yourself though, we’ve all lost a lot. but the thing is we all survived and while it hurts like hell sometimes at least we can feel the normal human emotions, and at least we’ll be able to change and get our lives back. the bad men will just go on screwin’ people’s lives up and that’s that…
Stay strong
take care
Alohatraveler,
I understand your feeling of sadness that you lost your “life” during those years you were involved with the P, I’ve felt that I lost 40 years with my P’s, in some ways, my entire 60 years. Yet, at the same time, I realize that the strong person I am today (well, most days! LOL) is in part because of those horrific experiences.
Dealing with crisis is I think, to the spirit, what weight lifting is to the body. If we have never done anything but lie on the couch we will become weak, but exercise makes us strong. Those people who never have a true criisis more severe than a broken nail could NOT SURVIVE an encounter with a P.
It takes practice dealing with crisis and loss, grief, etc. in order to gain the strength to survive such an encounter. Yes, we got fooled, and we allowed some of it to go on by “shusshing”our gut instincts when we saw the red flags and ignored or denigrated them, BUT, that said, at some point we TOOK A STAND and did not back down, we did not allow them to totally consume us.
In the end though the “tuition cost” in this “University of Hard Knock” was pretty steep, if we LEARN THE LESSON, then we are much better armed against the next P that we meet and will NOT let him/her get next to us close enough to prey on us again. In my case it took MULTIPLE classes in the “of HK,” with multiple P-professors, who gave some very difficult tests, but believe me, I have gotten the lesson NOW.
I will never be the same “trusting” gullible soul I was before, but personally, I look at that as a good thing. I am not totally bummed out on mankind as a whole, but I do realize that there are EVIL people in this world, and at the FIRST sign of someone being possibly an N or P, I distance myself from them enough to not get conned again.
This summer I made friends with a man that I thought was a very nice man, not a romantic relationship, but a close friendship…but as the friendship progressed, I realized that he had some real anger issues, and I distanced myself from him before I got “sucked” into his good qualities. I don’t think he was a P at all, rather he was also a former victim of two marriages with Ps, but he had not dealt with the anger and other issues appropriately, and his encounters had not let him truly heal, he did not know what the REAL problem was in his former relationships. He was STILL a victim, though he was NC with his predators, in some ways, they still had him in their emotional grasp. I sure don’t want to be that way, I want to grow from the experience, become wiser, more mature, not bitter and anger ridden.
I want to be able to open myself to new relationships, maintain the older and trusted relationships, and who knows, maybe find another soul mate, but I do know I will NOT settle for just “anyone” in order to not be “single.” I’ve had enough pain from Ps to last me the rest of my life, and I sure don’t want any more…but hopefully now I am at a spot that I can actually SEE and not discount the RED FLAGS that they wave if we are observant.
I distanced myself from this man, because to me it is more “work” than I am interested in investing in any relationship with someone who is carrying that kind of “baggage.” I realize now that even though I may say “it is a shame that ‘John’ is unhappy” it is not my place or my responsibility to try to fix him, or to put up with his/her inappropriate attitudes or behavior just because they have “had a rough break” in life. I am doing my best to NOT be an “enabler” or to “put up with” inappropriate behavior regardless of the reason or cause. To set boundaries and stick to them without any guilty feelings that I am “being too hard on” someone.
I expect myself to behave appropriately, so why is it “bad” to expect others in my circle to do so as well? I would never excuse myself by saying, “well, I was drunk” or “I was in a bad mood so that is why I did X to you” or “it really wasn’t my fault because…” so why should I accept that kind of behavior from others?
If nothing else has been learned from these years of pain, I think that one lesson is worth it all…at least the rest of my life will not be spent trying to please the unpleasable or to letting other people wipe their feet on my back.
“
wow
“If nothing else has been learned from these years of pain, I think that one lesson is worth it all”at least the rest of my life will not be spent trying to please the unpleasable or to letting other people wipe their feet on my back.
i think that’s somethin’ I really needed to learn..I know i’m younger and whhat i went through wasn’t as bad..
just wanted to say thank you [i kinow that comment wasn’tsaid in a response to me too] but thanks nonetheless.
take care
Dear Still standing,
Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote a book about his own experience in the Nazi prison camps in WWII called “Man’s search for meaning” and it has had a profound effect on me.
One of the concepts that really hit home with me was that pain is like a gas–whether it is a small amount or a bit amount it ENTIRELY FILLS the space—so whether your “pain” was as “big as mine” or smaller does not make any difference, Pain in any quanity fills OUR ENTIRE BEING at the time it is there.
Dr. Frankl’.s concept too is that suffering (from whatever trials we have in life) must have some meaning for us in order to accept it. That the spiritual person within each of us (whatever your spiritual beliefs are) must find meaning to help us heal.
I’m not sure that I could have endured what he did and come out mentally whole—yet, at times I confess that I “felt like” my pain was as “terrible” as his–yet that man lost everything but his body—lost everyone he loved, everything he held dear as well as the physical pains he suffered from hunger, cold, starvation, beatings, and yet he never lost himself. Some how he hung on to “himself” and came out of those camps a “better man” than the one who went in.
Though I know that MY “quanity” of suffering is NOT a pimple on an elephant’s butt compared to those camps, nevertheless, I want to gain something from this besides BITTERNESS and a poisoned spirit.
I heard a saying once that has some how stuckk with me since I was a teenager–“The finest china has been through the hottest fire and not broken.” I sure don’t want to be like the man I met this summer who allowed his bitterness against his “unjust” treatment by the Ps in his life ruin THE REST of his life, and make it difficult to impossible for him to ever form another intimate relationship with another human being. (Intimate in that sense as “close” and “trusting”, not sexual)
That isn’t “life” to me, it is existence. I want more than existence and pain.
hi…
So, thinking about it [the abuse] it’s just becoming clearer and clearer and as I’m seeing it I want to close my eyes and not let it be true, but I know that that wouldn’t accomplish anything…
It’s so hard for me to believe that everything he and i did was in order for him, his gain, his pleasure, his, whatever.
he is still a teacher [i think] and i don’t get how they [p’s] can just keep going on and abusing people.
i am just feeling bad about it right now.
like, i was sick and stuff for 3 years or more [i think 3 and a half] and then i dated a sociopath or almost 2 1/2 years, i feel so..stupid, i don[‘t know.
sorry for whining, ijust feel kinda low right now..
Dear Still standing,
I think most of us here have said exactly the same words that you did, “I feel so stupid”
For 20+ yrs I enabled my P-son, wanted to badly to believe in him—and all the rest of thePs in my life I wanted to believe the best about them no matter what they did to me or others. I invested in the “malignant hope”—yes, I would like to say that I was smarter than that, but I wasn’t. I chose to stay in the FOG because it held out to me the hope that I hadn’t wasted my life—but you know, after reading Dr. Frankl’s book, I realize that there is more to life than just win or lose, that our existence has MEANING. And even our suffering can have meaning if we learn from it.
I wouldn’t wish this kind of “life lesson” on even my worst enemy,but it’s the old “take lemons and make lemonade” thing. I know that sounds trite but it really isn’t. Sometimes the best advice is really pretty simple.
Hang on, learn from this experience, grow from it, turn the lemon into something good—good for YOU. Positive for YOU. I KNOW I have whined a bunch so don’t ever apologize for “whining” LOL Whine away, and while you are doing it, get some cheese and crackers! LOL (((HUgs to you))))
Hey, thanks 🙂
I know about life lessons, hell, I’ve learned a LOT thus far, before him..cuz of him..after [blah]
Like I’ve mentioned, I got really sick as a kid and was out of normal life for 3 and a half years. that taught me strength, that taught me faith, that taught me a LOT.
Of course that was the experience the P played on, turned it all around and told me how i felt then [i did not know him then].
It’s so weird how I know how screwed up he is but i stil find myself faltering sometimes. I guess that’s alll just part of healing though.
thanks for responding to me OxDrover, it means a lot.
hope you are well
take care