UPDATED FOR 2024. Last week, Lovefraud posted a letter from “Cybil,” I did not choose this guy. Here’s more of her experience about “things people say.”
I’ll call this, “Things people say, part II.” This is the other one that bugs me: “You’re paranoid.” I always have a good 24 hours of self-doubt before I realize they’re the ones that are nuts, not me. I know a lot more about what crazy stuff is out there in the world than your average, never-tangled-with-a-sociopath human does.
I just went to a seminar of a national expert on how domestic violence leads to murder, especially for women. Over and over he said, “Trust your instinct.” He told the audience to take women seriously when they have these stories (like those on this blog) and that if she is a co-worker you should elevate these stories to security for everyone’s safety because it could easily become a workplace shooting.
Paranoid
But continually I have had people in my life say I am paranoid since my ex came into my life. HE used to tell me I was paranoid. Crazy. Hysterical. Depressed. I wasn’t. I was living in a psychological and physical war zone. People who survive sociopaths have survived wars. The people on the blog are war-buddies.
The funny part is watching how the people who told me I was paranoid act when their blinders fall off. Like my parents, every few weeks another blinder falls off. When the death threats came in, they were in shock and they never said, “You told us so,” but they started taking things a bit more seriously and realized that when they told me I was paranoid that he was going to kill me (Well, yes, he hit you, he lied to you, he had an arrest record, but he’d never kill you. He’d get in trouble. He’s not that stupid), they were wrong. The sad part is watching them go back into denial as the “living with death threats” thing starts to become routine.
A strange event happened the other day. I called the police. My parents say: You know that was just a random thing that happened. You’re paranoid.
Really?
Responsibility
I am going to start telling people in my life, you are not allowed to tell me I’m paranoid or that I chose this guy. Not only is it horribly deflating, it goes to the heart of what I am healing from and getting stronger by.
When people tell me “You chose him,” they are telling me I have to take more responsibility, but taking more than my share of responsibility for what happened is what kept me in the bad relationship longer than I should have been. Because I started to believe it was my fault, because he told me it was my fault. If I could just fix me, then maybe he wouldn’t have to get so crazy and mean. It took me several years of dangerous experimenting with every “me” I could be, to realize it wasn’t ME. Yeah, I don’t have a problem taking responsibility and I don’t need help taking more.
When people tell me “You’re paranoid,” they are really questioning my instinct and telling me not to listen to it. I am a year and a half out from living with an abuser and a gaslighter; I am largely over the hyper-alert period. I know what I feel. Doubting that was also what kept me in the bad place: Maybe he is telling the truth, maybe he did do that for my own good, maybe I am being too judgmental, maybe I should give him another chance. Not doubting my instinct to walk out that last time was what let me walk out!!!!
I’m not going back there. Not even in a mental sense.
Learn more: Beyond betrayal — how to recover from the trauma
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Nov. 27, 2010.
The sociopathic MO in three easy steps
TOWANDA, one and all.
ahhhh, that’s waaaay better than, merry christmas one and all!
No schit! MERRY TOWANDA ONE AND ALL!
One Steppers,
Awesome making the event work without a hitch!!! It’s wonderful to hear some positive things happening with you. MERRY TOWANDA! I’m really happy for you…
Kathy,
I admire your ability to divest yourself of unneeded baggage. I’ve got so much baggage it’s embarrassing. And speaking of embarrassing, you’re right, I am sharp, responsive and capable, that’s why its embarrassing that I’m falling apart.
25 years I carried the burden of the spath’s pity ploy, making me think I had to be the strong one, carrying us both because he was just not very good at making decisions. When I realized that it had all been an act to sabotage my life, I felt the anchor fall away from my neck and thought I would swim, run and fly for the rest of my life. I was able to work it for a while, but now I’m falling apart again. It happened a little at a time, now it’s worse. I’m not sure why it’s happening, but it might have to do with what we were discussing earlier about boundaries. I think I might have found one, but I’m not sure.
It has to do with my parents. They were subtle narcissists, controlling and gaslighting, unfair and cold emotionally. I rebelled and ran away at 15, came back 2 weeks later and forced them to start behaving the way I thought parents should behave, or else I would leave again. They seemed to comply and I thought I had won that round (but in truth, they held the grudge and waited). Except for the occasional mask slip, they seemed like brand new parents for the next 30 years. We were friends and I couldn’t do enough for them and vice versa.
When “all the evil happened” with my P, I found out that they had known almost from day one that he was after my money because everyone knew I had a large insurance settlement coming. When I confronted them and asked WHY they didn’t tell me, they laughed, “well how much money did you give your mother?” my dad asked. Mom laughed and replied, “Oh, about $500) It wasn’t true, I bought them so many presents, but I think handing over money to someone who doesn’t need or ask for it is pathetic, and they NEVER ASKED me for money. Then they brought up the fact that I had paid for my friend’s doc bill when she gave birth to her firstborn. And my dad was MAD about it! She was broke! But she paid me back even though I didn’t ask her too.
But really I don’t think that money envy was the reason they enjoyed seeing me fall in love with a con artist, because I didn’t get my settlement for another year or two after they overheard him admit he was only with me for my money.
The real reason was because I had refused to be controlled at age 15. They were going to enjoy watching someone else control me. They knew what he was, they hoped he was a wife beater, but he never crossed that boundary.
They knew about nasty people but they had never known anything as evil and dedicated as my spath.
So now they are acting nicer than ever. But I think it’s another trap. I think that I’m getting a “back-handed complement” so to speak. Because they have not apologized. I have educated them about evil and narcissism, they know what I know. By being nice instead of apologizing and taking responsiblity for their part, they are trying to make ME feel guilty for what THEY did. That’s what they did last time. By age 18, I had grown to love them so much that I felt guilty for “putting them through” so much when I was 15. BULLSHIT. THEY put ME through hell since I was an infant, and i had the right to defend myself.
My 46 year old parasitic brother has been living with them for years. when I moved in with them, he waited and played nice, then attacked me and called the cops on a DV and I was hauled away. there was drama, but they didn’t protect me, they could’ve kicked him out. Instead I left and the “princess” is still there.
I really feel that I’m calling it right on my assessment of what they are doing. But it’s so hard to see my parents as spaths, because I want to love them so much. It’s breaking my heart and breaking down my ability to function. Any advice is appreciated.
Dear Sky,
(((hugs)))) In learning about the psychopaths and in learning about what is normal and what is not, and learning about what is abuse and what is not, we learn some things that are painful to know, we might rather not know them.
Get the book “If you had controlling parents” can’t remember who wrote it but shouldn’t be too hard to find on one of the used book seller’s web sites. It was part of what turned me around and Matt as well. That and The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes were the two books that helped both me and Matt—check them out, you might be in a “place’ right now that you would profit from them. There was a time I would not have believed either of those two books applied to me, but when I was ready, they HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. (((HUGS)))) Yes, we WANT to believe they loved us but sometimes it is one of those things where we have to “pretend we are a nice normal family” when that is 180 degrees off the compass. God bless.
Sky,
It took me many, many years to admit my dad is a sadist. It was hard enough to admit he was an alcoholic, so sadist? No way. I ran away at 15 also. I’m 57, and my dad still brings it up at times and uses it to clobber me with. Mainly the selfish part—“don’t you know how worried I was? Noooo, you didn’t care…”
The week after I returned home I was sent to the mountains to live with an aunt and uncle, which was great. No drinking, no one threatening to smash my head into the wall, no one handcuffing me, no more “night visits”—I was safe.
I understand we need and want our parents to love us and we need and want to love them. But at some point, if they aren’t loving toward us maybe they don’t love us, maybe they can’t. I’m not saying your parents don’t love you, maybe they aren’t very good at parenting…but what you describe sounds abusive to me.
My dad has a lot of envy. He mocked me for going to college. He ridiculed and undermined everything I ever wanted to do or did do. He still would if I let him. I don’t.
When he starts up I tell him to knock it off. If he won’t, I leave or hang up the phone. He lives about 15 minutes away but I haven’t seen him in over 3 years. We talk on the phone once in a while.
I think the hardest part was accepting my dad doesn’t love me, but he doesn’t love anyone, so that kind of makes it easier. And accepting he was a child abuser. The night visits weren’t sexual, they were vicious verbal/emotional assaults. And I was a kid.
I still love my dad. It’s such a part of me I can’t stop and don’t really want to or need to. I want him to be well, to be happy. And I am sad at times that he’s never been happy and never will be. He has moments of gratification, that’s it.
I do know that when I finally called my dad a sadist (in therapy) it came at a high price…my health broke, my world kind of fell apart for a while. All that denial disappeared and there I was, a survivor of a sadistic child abuser. It was validating to hear that if a parent behaved as my dad did, and was reported, that I would have been removed from the house. That it was that bad.
But it was yet another label…worse than adult child of an alchoholic. Harder to talk about, more shameful.
I don’t know Sky, you sound pretty clear about your experiences. If they are spaths, then you need to accept that. Maybe you don’t need to stop loving them, but you can change the dynamic.
Those boundries….
Oxy,
thanks I will get the books. It’s really hard because they are being so NICE to me. they hate the spath, they admit that my brother is a P. they are doing and saying all the right things. it’s not like your mom who was vicious to you. these people play it like the spath did, totally sweet. because I’m not good with reading through bs that thick, i am fluctuating between believing them and not. but then I remember the past. How it played out the first time, and I see the “fruit” they have borne, how can i doubt what my knowledge tells me? the fact that you and others here had spath kids tells me that good people can have bad seeds, but i’ve added that to the equation and it’s still coming up looking shady. It’s a case of very subtle crazy-making.
CAmom
thank you, for sharing your own experience with me, it helps. I know others had bad parents too. Just that I thought mine had been “fixed”. I must be the most gullible person on LF, fooled every time, by anyone who pretends to be nice.
I’m still fooled as well. My ex-spath was nice at first. By the time the bad stuff began I was in way too deep. But people who act “nice” to me–I accept it at face value. And I’m still learning that all isn’t what it appears to be.