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
LOL, one step,
and he was watching the drama of her death. that’s pure gold to a spath.
He’ll remember it for next time he catches a cold and he’ll try to imitate her.
oxy, it’s a saying i heard many times growing up, to express the audacity and evil of people who will manipulate any situation to their gain. i don’t know the origin of the saying in my family – mother or turd’s family…but they are had gold in their teeth, and relatives they didn’t trust.
…ahahahaahaa SKY!!!!!
snort… you been reading my turd father’s mail!!!! my mother (the nurse), who has suffered a lot of physical pain in her life, always wanted to smack him when he was sick!
sky – this desire for drama, as drama is fooood rings true to me. why else would the spath of my aquaint do what she does?
no money from it, no goods from it – just lots of juicy emotion to suck on. they are rather vampiric, aren’t they? emotion as meat or blood. i know she has to get off on the suffering she causes, not BECAUSE she wants to hurt others, it’s just a byproduct and irrelevant; it’s the drama food she is after.
this really speaks to them having a rather flat emotional landscape, and wanting to have a rolling landscape, needing hug drama to feel. well, she, no doubt got lots of tasty morsels from me. i remember the day i spent 3 or 4 hours on the phone with the suicidal fake boy. 3 or 4 hours of depleting my adrenals and messing with my adrenaline and cortisol levels. I wonder if their adrenal function is different than ours? Would have to be, given all the drama they live in – they’d all die a lot younger than us if their chemical responses were the same as ours.
You got it, One, the vampire legend is based on them. Remember that the vampire has no reflection in the mirror. Narcissists don’t feel they exist unless they are getting attention. And they mirror us, not just to con us, that’s part of it. They like to wear different masks, try on different personas. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t have one of their own or because what they do have is so hideous that they can’t bear for anyone to see it.
Where a vampire sucks blood, the spath sucks emotions. The effect is the same, first you get addicted to the vampire and being sucked on, then you die.
My experience from the spath is that he almost “didn’t exist”. Hard to explain, but when he was not working a con, I couldn’t feel his presence in the room if he was silent and watching tv. I even told him that once.
Hello,
The “friend” spath was always causing drama, at home and work even at laudramats! You’re right they do “feed” off it…creepy. She drank booze everyday, she may not have gotten drunk everyday but she drank everyday is this common trait?
She got fired from a job as well as another woman and she knew a woman who knew the other woman who got fired and she actually asked her to keep her updated on her miserable life cause she “fed” off it. ugh!
Dear One, I think (can’t remember for sure! CRS) but I think I recall reading that they have a shorter expected life span. Need to look that one up and see if I can find the reference, but would stand to reason on average they would have as so many of the are druggies, drunks, dont’ take care of their health etc. get into fights, are high risk takers, etc.
oxy, but i wonder if part of the lowered mortality rate is about what they do to their systems through drama – stress for us, but is it stress for them?
Ana – she sounds like a horrible piece of work.
I would think that high stress would have an effect on ANY body’s body, I’m on another book about how the body/mind works, you know me, it is about touch and the skin decrease stress, and have 2 more in-house I just ordered about oxytocin and how it works (the bonding hormone).
REsearch from YEARS AGO showed that stress literally decays the body and causes immune system to crap out….mine sure did,, with MULTIPLE major infections starting after my husband died. Been pretty good for the past 2 years since stress decreased some, but is still I am sure having an effect on my body, but that is why I am working so diligently on DECREASING stress in my life and environment.
Quitting the smoking, quitting the high salt foods, losing the weight, and so on, as well as treating my sleep apnea, etc. (been doing that for years with the OSA) but doing everything I can to STOP harming myself, as well as doing POSITIVE THINGS for myself. Keeping the emotional pain out of my life is very important to me. The “chiht happens” carp that happens is no big deal but the emotional stuff is what gets my apple cart all upset and gets me to stressing out…that is what I have to work toward controlling.
I’ve seen you start to cutting down on the reaction and over reaction and HYPER REACTION to stuff happening. Chit happens, so get over it and get on, save your reactions for “guys coming at you with a knife!” Let the rest of it slide off.
A friend of mine used to say “don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember it is all small stuff.” There’s some good advice there. I just need to remember that! (((hugs)))