By PressEject
It seems so odd. I wasn’t exactly in love with this person! But I was entirely caught up in his breath, his every sentence, his needs and desires. He charmed me into thinking it was so much more that we shared.
I sensed early on he was not exactly mature in conducting a one-on-one relationship. But I assumed I could help guide him and show him how to trust and become closer.
He came across as unique, at times humble and often very sweet to be with. I heard his “story” and understood how difficult it had been for him trying to feel close to others and I was honored he felt he could be close to me. The story, a true “pity ploy,” pulled me in. But I didn’t think twice. After all, didn’t I also share a similar story of having struggled to achieve deeper intimacy in my life?
But the pace was quick, and it went from instant sexual attraction to having him call me almost every night. It felt wonderful but almost too good. Was I all of a sudden being looked after or being kept in a jar? Was I his focus of warm, kind attention or some kind of lab experiment, something he would slowly dissect each night, probing with questions, appearing to share a sincere interest in my life?
At the time, I didn’t know to question this but instead sensed I had a man that truly thought so much of me. The compliments were lavish, his desire never hidden. I had a wealthy, accomplished, healthy, active and athletic man returning to me with an uncanny and precise regularity. I could almost sense when the phone would ring.
Read more: Seduced by a sociopath — it’s not love, it’s love fraud
Six months have passed since I discovered the ugly truth to the type of love I thought I had in my life. That none of the words of love he had written on cards and in emails meant anything. That the desire for sexual passion was his highest state of consciousness, that all else was secondary, frail constructs made of echos he mimicked to sound like adult conversations, or even less substantial gestures used to form a connection based on reflecting my own personable warmth right back to me. Where was the love? Where was his piercing focus on me after he said “that was it, it’s over,” that he could not continue with me. As fast as the relationship had cemented together, it cracked apart!
Grieving, and confused
I had been idolized then tossed aside. From high in the sky with visions of perfect romantic sunsets to merely a shadow in a deep dark ditch where even the reflected glow of one last fading sunset could not reach. Something had died. I was grieving to be sure, but I was confused. The person I thought I knew wasn’t the person that left at the end. So even the death was beyond comprehension.
To have this kind of trust shattered went beyond my understanding of the relationship, it pulled into question everything I had ever thought or done in my life, every action, every desire, and every hope I had ever felt was all suspect now. I didn’t know who I was anymore, my mind struggled to find something to hold onto that would be stabilizing and comforting. A friend helped me to get to church. I wept in front of friends, a priest and my even my understanding of God and His angels would also be clouded by tears.
Days went by, eventually months. I followed a rule of no contact even though at times my heart and mind demanded some kind of better explanation. I learned to let the feelings try to run through me. To let the memories play over and over if they needed to, each time running into the same dead end, deprived of justice or consolation.
In support groups I went back into my childhood experiences of abuse. It took my mind off what had happened recently to me as an adult. I learned others shared similar stories, that we had at times bonded with those that would only perpetuate victimization in our adult lives as we had simply been blinded to how this all worked.
The gift I was given this year was a raw new sensory awareness of how others are simply not able to love the way I had assumed everyone could. I have been left holding onto this gift, not quite sure how to use it as I still feel somewhat paralyzed from all that happened this year. But I know this is the gift I have been given, that the pain, like a birthing pain, was necessary to give me a new life.
Out of the dark ditch
In dedicating myself to recovery, I was aided greatly by much that makes up the site at Lovefraud.com. I benefited from so much that others have shared. I could start to see clearly again, and find a way out of that dark ditch.
A new awareness came to me to understand that to eventually transcend the hurt, I might need to eventually think of others more than myself, but also to know I could find my own respect again for myself. Once I had reached for help and received a certain amount, I learned there were new ways to heal by sharing my own recovery with others.
In this spirit, there are a few thoughts that came to me I wish to share and hope that somewhere out there, someone might read this and find some kind of benefit or comfort through this effort. Perhaps these observations will shed further light into the discussion we at Lovefraud are all a part of.
In particular, I wish to share something that I have questioned for many months and now finally feel I have some better sense of, a deeper personal understanding of the reason why the pain seemed so great. I think it comes down to something very simple. (Please note, this may not apply to other peoples experiences but it seems to make sense of what I went through.)
Child in an adult body
It occurred to me, that being pulled in by a sociopath is similar to being pulled in by a charming child with needs that one would like to help. Yet we are deceived as this is a child in an adult body.
In the early stages of the relationship, I received gifts from the S that seemed to come from genuine caring and adoration. Yet they were very impulsive purchases when I think back.
In numerous accounts, a sociopath is described as having an underdeveloped or missing sense of empathy, and it only becomes fully realized when one is discarded abruptly. And therein lies the shock and the bewilderment. My feeling is that the S pulls us in by appealing to the child in each of us. That we too wish to be completely spontaneous and playful, like carefree children. To be free of adult responsibilities.
If we allow this fantasy to take root, we are then a captive to this, the way any addictive mind-altering drug might make us happy too. Those of us that suffered pain or abuse in our own childhoods, those of us with feelings and adult emotions will often carry some of that hurt with us over the years. Then, when we meet a childlike sociopath, seemingly free of worries and typical adult neuroses, we are able to “join in” and experience a type of childlike innocence (a trance that suspends reality) that never suspects abuse, has never felt abuse and carries no more scars of any of our abuse from the past. We are dangerously deceived in this way. We are liberated yet captive to the drug that deceives us this way.
When the drug wears off, when we are discarded, our nerve endings which only knew the childlike euphoria, along with a sexual high must then experience quite the opposite; abandonment, lost self esteem, and all the adult responsibilities we had been alleviated from temporarily.
Imagine when a child is lost or left behind, that abandonment I feel is the same sad state we are in as we were simply caught up in playing a strange game with an even stranger “child” all along. We cry and hurt and feel it is unfair, and indeed it is.
But we are caught by surprise, and it is this numbing and deceptive child-like trance that we are pulled into and have experienced over some time with our S that factors into how deep the hurt is when it finally arrives. It is like suffering a crash without a seat belt on. We are too innocent in our trance to think we ever needed a seat belt.
The healing process
I believe I return to the discussions here at Lovefraud because the pain I experienced was just so unusual. It is self-protective to try to understand what led us here and to hopefully prevent this from happening again.
Sharing here was helpful. I had struggled to make sense of it all, had put down my experience into words, and in the process, my pain was acknowledged and I felt less alone. Thank you Donna for including me. The healing process is not easy nor is it uncomplicated. I still feel some of the pain from this, but month after month, I walk with my head up a little higher.
I still don’t have all the answers and am learning to accept we never will, but the healing this site alone has given me has been enormous. Hopefully the thoughts I am sharing here will be read as a part of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you also for helping me to remember to use a seat belt! As always, I wish all good things for those that read and share in the site, that we each find the gift of deeper understanding and, in turn, peace from this understanding along with a new found grace in how we apply this into our lives each day.
Learn more: Comprehensive 7-part Recovery Series, presented by Mandy Friedman, LPCC-S
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 23, 2008.
Is there any way to successfully deliver a warning message that the new conquest will actually hear?
Literally Sleeping With Mr. Wrong
There he was stunning and charming as ever. He swept me off my feet upon our first meeting. It was on the line of a New York City cruise where we first laid eyes on each other. He had all white on and was very neat. He had a bald head and a goatee. He smiled a lot and had very intelligent conversations. He told me that he had written a book and that he was in law enforcement. He had been working for Sing Sing Prison as a Corrections Officer (at least that is what he said). He also told me that he had three beautiful daughters.
We started dating slowly but continuously. First there were flowers, cards and then the chocolates. We dined at very nice restaurants in Brooklyn (where he was from). This man knew how to treat a woman. I felt special because I was treated like a queen from a handsome, smart and professional man.
We started to get in a serious relationship. He asked for my hand in marriage. I was so happy that with all the bad happening in my life that I had someone good who was by my side. We got pregnant and we were excited. We decided to combine our lives and children and get a new home to support our upcoming union.
Well we found a beautiful condominium that was perfect for us. Mr. Wrong asked my mom for my hand in marriage and my mom happily told him yes.
We moved in together and things were fine for the first four months. He went to all prenatal visits with me and still paid a lot of attention to me. It was great, so I thought.
Tragedy struck
I had four children of my own. Life was routine up until one day I had a family tragedy. One of my children did the unthinkable, took the life of their partner. The charge was manslaughter. I felt like my life was in a world wind. I was about to lose my child to the system and I lost their partner to death. Could life have gotten any worse? Well that wonderful man who was in law enforcement came to my rescue. He came with me to court, jail to visit my child and even helped in choosing a lawyer for my case. He was my media spokesperson. I was indebted to this person. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him. I was now vulnerable.
I was in the media a lot because of my child and circumstances surrounding the case. I started getting threatening phone calls from people I didn’t know. How did they get my number? To make a long story short I received a phone call from someone I didn’t know. They were asking me to come to a hotel room; they claimed to be an attorney and said they could help my child. I immediately told Mr. Wrong what happened and he asked me to find out the information of the hotel room and such from the caller. I gave it to him. Well, Mr. Wrong claims he went there in stead of me and he told a chilling story to me that included kidnapping and murder. He claims that in order to protect me and him he would not give me specifics on who these people were or where the bodies were to be hidden. I wanted to go to law enforcement but with what evidence. Was this even true? They would laugh me right out of the police station.
Blessing & Curse
As you would expect the fun didn’t last long. I had spent all my savings on our condo. I was pregnant and I found out that Mr. Wrong had two more children whom he didn’t have anything to do with, four girlfriends and a mentally ill mother in which he collected her social security benefits for himself. He fathered 5 children 3 of which were 2 years old. When I asked him why he didn’t tell me about them he said because it was before me and none of my business. I soon found out that he had four residences prior to living with me in one year.
I was 7 months pregnant and Mr. Wrong left me. No explanations just left. My son is 2 months now and I have not seen Mr. Wrong. I went to court to seek child support and was told that if I can not get him served (process service) that they would have to dismiss my case. I eventually found out that Mr. Wrong left and ended up living with a woman (supposed wife of 15 years) and took his two daughters who he told me about in the beginning there to live with him. These were not her children and to top it off she introduced herself to his daughters as there step mom of 15 years. His daughters knew me because they lived with us in the condo for 6 months. To get them to dislike me, he told them that I killed there hamster and stole money out of their room. Now technically he has 6 children by 5 different women but only cares for 2. Not surprisingly he receives social security benefits for those two daughters. They are an additional source of income for him.
My blessing was giving birth to a 7lb 9oz beautiful baby boy and the curse was having a sociopath as a father.
Please visit me at my personal website: http://www.whenyoucryicry.com
YES HENRY!!! 100% never going back to my x. nothing will ever change my mind about that one. ive really come to understand this game they play and understanding the no contact. if you understand what they are doing or why, its much easier. for me i can predict his behavior. he may still try to call but i dont pick up …one day he will give up trying to reach me.
my one question that i dont get yet is, doest my ex get that i know what he is up to? doest he see that i know his game and i found out he is a liar? its like they still think and act like we have no clue.
Dear Janet f,
Quite frankly, if he will stay out of your life and the life of your child, the price of no child support is I think, well worth it.
I suggest that you visit Dr. Leedom’s blog site about “Parenting the At-risk child.” She too is raising the child of a psychopath and doing her best with parenting to overcome the genetic tendency (if any) for that child to grow up to be disordered. Good luck and God bless you and your child. A good and final discard is a blessing for you and your son.
Hello all,
Excellent letter, press. I think you are onto something–they do tap into our “child minds.” The total abandon, freedom and happiness we feel when in the first stages is very much like a trance state.
I was just thinking the other day about the initial stages with mine. Besides giving me the validation and the praise I had never gotten as a child, he gave me another very important thing I had never gotten before–permission.
Permission to have fun, permission to feel good, permission to enjoy myself without guilt. I fell backward into that pool of permission, never dreaming that it had such a dangerous undertow.
This is the way they live every day–they give themselves permission to do anything they want, anytime they want. Because we are fairly normal, we know that feeling of permission cannot be constant, and we accept that we must return to the world of adult responsibilities after our little interludes in Permission Land. They never even enter into the adult world, much less acknowledge that we are correct to return to it. In fact, the opposite. When we return to our adult responsibilities, they see us only as “no fun,” and they give themselves permission to do whatever it takes to get themselves back into a “fun” state. That might mean taking all our money. That might mean molesting a child. That might mean having an affair, or robbing a store, or stealing a car. Whatever gives them a thrill.
And Wini, upon your recommendation I read the Eckhart Tolle book “A New Earth.” Much of what he says makes sense, but be forewarned: Tolle says almost to the letter what my New Age culty friend said many, many years ago.
Oxy, sorry about your recent upset. It is so hard to make a clean break with a family member. Almost impossible. I hope you continue to do what makes you stronger and more centered, and I hope you can leave all their game playing to them. Remember, P-free is the way to be!
Does it make you feel better to know that others know and understand what it is like to have a mother like that? I truly do understand, and I am sorry that you are made to reexperience the pain.
Now I have a question for the board: What are we, post-P? I really don’t think there is a classification for us, and sometimes I find it distressing.
I mean, I can accept that I was immature to have craved a parent-like figure. I can accept even the co-dependent label.(I just resent being equated with them, as if all disorder is the same. It’s not. They are on a different plane of disorder; they are monsters.)
I can accept all the character flaws and deficiencies that led me to be susceptible to an S/P. I can and I have worked on what I have been able to see in myself. It’s a process and I still have far to go. I guess until the day I die, I’ll still be trying to be a better person.
But this experience–no, correct that–this lifetime has given me so many shocks, over and over and over again. So many opportunities to learn about the human condition, and try to rise above my own flawed nature…those of us who have survived one or more of these monsters have this sense about us. I wonder how others “get along” in the world now.
Because I was forced by circumstance to become an “expert” on psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, what-have-you, I now find myself much more detached than I once was. Able to see through the many layers of bullcrap that are the P’s stock-in-trade. Able to see the masks that are part of the everyday personalities of so many other, non-pathological, people. I can see the phoniness and machinations where I couldn’t before, when I was a trusting, immature, every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining sort of person.
So what am I now? What are we now? We’re not the dependent Pollyannas we once were. And, even though we have been forced to create this detachment in ourselves, we are still not like the psychos that we escaped. We all have moral codes, consciences, empathy. We don’t seek to harm others. But we can see the world the way they do, in a sense.
It’s like that old story we read in high school: The Man Without a Country. That’s the way I feel. I can’t go backwards and be the person I once was, and yet I fear that the new version of me is too detached to ever love again. Like before. Certainly I’ll never trust that way again. Is it even possible to trust, post-P?
Does anybody have a term for us, a category? With naming comes power, and I wish I knew what to name us, besides survivors.
I think we should be called psychopath slayers . half the battle of slaying a psychopath is being aware of them , the next part is a little more tricky . When i say slay I mean reveal them to the world and expose them for what they are . The next step is to destroy their ego and along with it the essence of there evilness . Take a lesson from hellboy 2 . Hellboy is a reformed psychopath . The rest of the wierd creatures are all psychopaths . There is a scene where the mist guy that has a space suit looking outfit on says to hellboy he will take him down . Hellboy thinks he is joking and suggests he try . The mist guy then starts to criticise hellboy . Hell boy immediately looses his temper and attacks and appears to have killed him for a minute . The next thing that happens is hellboy is getting the shit kicked out of himself by the locker doors. I guess the moral of the story is , if you want a psychopath to reveal their true colour criticise them . Make sure there are other people around before you do it though
quest: I think we should start taking the psychopaths out of corporate world … take them out of their suits, put them back in overalls … let them rebuild the infrastructures for the bridges/dams let them do what they do best … danger … dangerous work out there that needs to be done. Back to work where they will do the most good … besides, I’m sure none of them will mind it a bit to be swinging thousands of feet up in the air … walking across girders … etc. Remember, they have NO fear and it would release all that crazy energy they seem to be carrying around.
Just a thought. (LOL)
Peace.
Great post Tood – I will have to ponder this. I have survived many thing’s – so survivor is too general of a term. Maybe The Wounded One’s? Then of course that would mean I am stuck in my misery. Should it be a positve or negative term? I like your question and am waiting for others to comment.
Wini,
A nice thought, however, the only problem with that theory is that they are cowards and it takes courage to do what some of those people do. They literally have nothing good about them, let alone doing something ‘good’ for the rest of us, like taking risks. They only work for themselves. They are lazy, and they get by with doing things the easiest AND SLEEZIEST way (although I would assume living life as a 100% LIE MUST be exhausting…, and in acutality, maybe the HARD way of doing things!). In no way do they do anything that is admirable.
My x-s ‘owns’ a business that his grandfather and father started. It is a well-off business here in N. Cali, and he definitely gets all the benefits. A business to be passed on to him, (he didn’t work for himself), a huge house/yard/pool/hottub (his dad bought long ago and sold to him for cheap, (which is so hard to own a house in N. Cali, his house is probably worth half a mil, and he bought it for 200K I think), and has much freedom with money as he wants. Its quite distgusting how much he has that it makes me so incredibly angry–NOT jealous. Where is the justice?!? He gets EVERYTHING he wants, and probably always has. Sure, its all materials, but he gets whatever he wants. He has the money for whatever, and the ‘prestige’ of owning a business. He has the charm too, of course, and is well known throughout the county, due to his father’s business. He is looked at as a great son, (but”I know some dirty details”) BUT…BUT…he did not work for it. He got out of college and fell into this job. Where are his dreams? Absent, so that makes him less admirable. Then, as the saying goes, BOY is he a gambler! And, when he loses, out of the petty cash comes the bill! At one time last year he owed his bookie $3500 in a matter of weeks. I can just see him being the downfall of that business eventually”.that is if karma and justice kicks in. But, I can just say that I wouldn’t feel bad, sadly for me. His whole family is a bunch of sociopaths. He would call his younger sister with the smear campaign every time we got in a fight and she would freak out on me. Seriously, what a little boy in reality! And Wow! Its just makes me crazy that he goes on and on and on, and he has been given the power of money to continue doing it. Without his business, he would be nothing! (Not that he’s much anyway)!
It’s just so annoying that these creeps get away with so much. He discarded me(which I will eventually be so thankful for once I open my eyes, lol), and moved on like I was just another object he could replace. I know its wrong thinking on my end, but I hate thinking that I was just another object. A flavor of the week, another notch on his belt, and nothing more. He is living his life, in complete greed, after taking so much from me.
I feel terrible that I am sitting here, HOPING for the worst to happen to him. Wow, I am so bitter, its sad. I am angry, resentful, a little jealous I’ll admit, and I have bad thoughts constantly. Will I ever have room for love again in my heart?? I feel like I have forgotten what is and how to love. ïŒ
Tood-
I am certainly in a stage of ‘Bittersweet’ to say the least!
Thanks PressEject for sharing your view about the “child in the Sociopath” and believe it merit some thought and insight. I do believe it is in fact this child like quality that does attract us to them insomuch that it allow both to behave in a child like reunion. And yes that sometimes after we are discarded and devalued do we then understand what happened. Strange how our grieving process is like a child who mourns the lost of them we bonded with. Like a child who is hurt our pain is more emotional and longer lasting. As for them the child like ability to attach so quick to someone and behave at times less responsible and carefree like a child. And/or a child who is wronged and wounded by others (so they tell us) bring out our child like stand to help and assist them in their healing and ours. Yes maybe the sociopath does allow us to behave like a child again giving us false hope of another chance to undo the wrongs done to us as children.
Again thanks for sharing! 🙂