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
skylar
nice one Erin!
keep track of the ex’s.
when you get a gaggle of them together maybe you can get a class action suit.
super chic
…way to go EB!! Planted the seed!
“she’s miserable and scared right now”
Hopefully your phone call will save her more misery and fear!
The call certainly does not sound traceable back to you.
I pray she dumps him immediately! Asshole.
I hope she does look you up!
We’ve got to think up a way to keep him away from your kids friends! ugh
ErinBrock
The kids friends thing is so very obvious to me…..
It’s a VERY small community here…..everyone knows everyone……
It’s the splitting he’s doing to take grasp of young girls……to keep making his mark here, nothing the parents can do since they are ‘legally’ adults….just cause a riff in other families and he can work the sex part out to cause the riff further….
plus he knows he can’t come back and ‘live in peace’ with his chosen profession…..all important peeps are keeping a lookout for his presence.
Additionally, he can continue to ‘gather’ info on the kids activities and movements.
2 of them were friends with this latest young girl……UNTIL TONIGHT! They both de-friended her. I’m sure that will stir up some questions……somewhere…..????
I’ve got seeds germinating in regards to the youngens.
I just WON”T let another child be hurt or preyed on if I can help it. I know I can’t totally control that…….but I also don’t have to keep my mouth shut when it’s obvious. (Not that it would be MY mouth opening directly!).
I said ‘just enough’ to have PL’s BFF believe I was a customer with mutual ties……didn’t sound like a scorned ‘lover’…..or even someone who knew him too well……but someone who knew princess leia and was aware of ‘him’…….by name ofcourse…..she asked what his last name was and I said I didn’t know…..but his first name was ‘spath’…..(he doesn’t have a hugely common name).
Closed all the doors that might be open to negate that we ‘might’ got the wrong guy.
Didn’t sound bitter or angry, just concerned for the very sweet ‘friend’.
Her heads GOT to be reeling right now with concern.
Skylar:
I don’t suspect there will be a gaggle too soon…..he does tend to do the one night/week thing and with young girls. Then he moves states……he’s got the route he takes…..5 states. 1-2 months in each state.
This one was an ‘adult’…..and from what I’ve read, VERY vulnerable……talked publicly about being sick of bad relationships, quoting bible verses…..of foregiveness and trust…….crying out -Arn’t there any good men out there? Talking about her beliefs that all people are good and how magical life is….and sounding a bit desperate for a relationshit. She seemed to latch on pretty quickly…..and reading their exchanges, it was pretty pathetic really.
Sad…….because she did seem to have some VERY close gf’s who were all married, and she talked about meeting Mr. Right.
It’s what most of us would like, but the lesson for me was….SHUT UP ABOUT IT! She appeared vulnerable, naive and very sweet.
I see how he just plucked her, preened her and groomed her with his charm……and she sooooo wanted it, that she morphed him into her dream man, saying all the right things to him. He talked about how sex was so easy with her…….he got it all the time, big tits in his face.
And it sounds like she’s been taking notice of SOMETHING not being right.
Hmmmmmmm shall we guess?
dancingnancies
bravo, EB. They say it’s better to have our hands clean ( for our own sake, of course. and well-being ) , but if you can keep the spath off of ONE more victim, then you’re doing a very important thing. Nice maneuvering to get the message across without revealing yourself, too! 🙂
ErinBrock
Snake under rock. Stay nice and warm, let them pass on the traill a few times, until YOUR ready to strike!
Bite hard, deep and fast…..never leaving a scent.
(I learned that from the spath!) 🙂
kim frederick
EB, You are my hero!!! Towanda. You go girl.
You are so smart. I love the way you back spathed in a covert way…kept your true identity under-cover. Way to go.
We are automatically considered “scorned women”, with an ax to grind, as the X, so I am so impressed with your air of casual aquantance, and also, your timing, to minimize counter questions. Very, very smart.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
EB – How will you handle it if PL and friend find out you are the person who warned PL’s BFF? If PL contacts you that may be the case.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
PTSD response! oh lordy! getting major pressure from defacto boss – she’s freaking out about timelines and is exerting pressure on me for about a week now. i am trying very hard to finish something this am – whcih would diminish her freak out (and she knows i am working on this – i have a deadline of today)…and she is emailing and blahblahing.
i have had a full on physiological response – wow. just like the response to chemicals that i am sensitive to: face went numb, completely distracted, unable to concentrate, flush, tingling down my arms and back…wow wow wow.
so, i have come here to post for a moment until i settle down. i am going to close my email, so that i can finish my work. i have a sked for a meeting with her tomorrow – i compeltely understand her concerns, but exerting pressure on one step who is already working her ass off, is not going to help. we have to find a way forward that supports the goals. she and i have a very different way of working, and i know that i am trying to adapt to her way, but it is stressing me out – so i have to find a polite business way of saying that. she has good ideas, but i don’t knwo about her instincts. I do trust mine, much more than hers. she IS micromanaging, and that needs to stop – but i do want her input.
now i am 1/2 hour behind on finishing what i am working on. (my deadlines are really that tight.) exhale…exhale….exhale….
exhale again.
and back to work.
Ox Drover
Well, EB, you don’t get a boink from me!~ I think you are well passed the point that you are emotionally ripped by the kind of “emotional contact” you had with this situation. Earlier on, when you were still emotionally raw from the loss of the “loveeeee” you had from the X, I would have thought it would have been too much stress, but now, I think it is just scoring some points in the dart-game of live, and you hit a bulls eye with that one! Maybe you can give her enough information to save herself and maybe she won’t use it, but at least you did the best you could.
I felt the same kind of TOWANDA I think you felt warning her when I got the ex-convict pedophile out of our living history group when he had kept his criminal record secret from all but a few, and no one but this big mouthed old biddy wanted to “make a scene”—-but it worked, it got him out of our group. I also got him fired from his job at the museum working with–you got it—-kids! And have sent a copy of his federal sentencing to every principal at the schools where his wife works. She has stayed with this creep and it makes me think she is involved in the pedophile situation too or she wouldn’t stay with him. What spouse would stay with a convicted pedophile? Oh, well, I just answered that, a traumatized one could even though she was innocent, (so maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge) but I figured the principals of her schools needed to know her husband was an ex-convict pedophile anyway since school functions would be perfect hunting grounds for his grooming.
Just passing on copies of his PUBLIC legal documents concerning his court case (along with a mug shot of him) is not illegal or harassment at all since it is just passing on PUBLIC INFORMATION. You can also pin up copies at your local post office and some stores will let you put them up, or put them on light poles like “lost doggie” posters. Run by your local fire department and pass out a few copies there. Isn’t’ Kinkos wonderful? Cheap too.
So there are things we can do that are perfectly legal and quite convincing.
You might get some copies of his indictments and maybe a mug shot and pass out to your kids to give to their “adult” friends who might be suceptible to him or they could post them on their FB pages under “Here’s my DADDY!” LOL (joke)
ErinBrock
Oxy,
I’ve stuck to the covert backspathing only.
I envision,one day…..going full boar! Especially if he get’s off the drug charges!
I see a website in my future……so when anyone googles his name……whammy….mug shot and all. It’ll be there for eternity.
I want to think more on this……and leave no cracks. I think that will be my ‘last’ hurrah……
On Fri…..an aquantance comes up to me and says…..Hi EB, funny, I just saw your hubby a few days agao…..it was clear he didn’t know we were divorced??? so I played along….
He confirmed where I thought he was and what car he was driving! 🙂
So……off with the CS/deed paperwork, directly to him!
Thank YOU!
One step:
If they ‘figure’ it out somehow………I will do as spath does……deny, deny, deny! 🙂
Key to not getting to that point is…..keep it clean and leave no jagged edges!