By Ox Drover
Sometimes former victims of psychopaths have voiced to me that they just want others to know that the psychopath was not the victim, but the abuser. Former victims are frustrated that others don’t recognize someone is an abuser. Many times the actual victim has instead been painted by the real abuser as the “bad guy.”
I remember reading a letter from my psychopathic son from his prison cell who told me in the letter he knew that I had to be the one who was “wrong” because he got along with everyone in the family circle and I got along with no one, so therefore I had to be the one “in the wrong.”
Well, democratically voting on something does not make something “right,” it only means that something is “popular—”but not necessarily right. Back in the days when everyone thought the world was flat, and Columbus was about the only one that thought it was “round,” popular opinion did not change the shape of the earth! While in this country we are proud of our democratic system of government, voting on something is not always the most “fair” way to pick a choice. Sometimes “democracy” is like two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner tonight! The bad guys gang up on the weaker ones and take advantage, but that doesn’t make it “fair” or right.
One of the most frequent ploys of the psychopathic abuser is to initiate what is frequently referred to as “the smear campaign.” This may actually start behind the victim’s back while there is active victimization going on between the abuser and the victim, or it may start after the victim has either escaped or been discarded by the psychopath. The psychopath starts to talk badly about the victim to others in their circle, to destroy the credibility of the victim so that if and when the victim starts to talk about him/her to others, they are viewed as the scorned lover or business partner spreading hateful rumors, when in fact, just the opposite is true.
Unfortunately, many times by the time the actual victim realizes that the lies have been spread about them, the damage is done and there is no effective way to counter the damage done by the abuser and their duped accomplices. Many times these accomplices of the abuser are actually unaware that they are accomplices, and are acting in good faith to “protect” what they perceive as a “victim” from the person they now consider an abuser.
The abuser/psychopath recruits as many of these unsuspecting accomplices as possible so that the “consensus” of opinion is that “all these people can’t be wrong.” The sheer numbers of supporters that a psychopath can sometimes recruit is unbelievable. The “gang mentality” takes over sometimes, and the poor legitimate victim is victimized again by having their reputation besmirched. Sometimes they lose their livelihoods, as well as their self-esteem and self-confidence.
Our reputation is important to most of us, and our self-confidence is also important to us, and the strength of an attack from not only the psychopathic adversary, but their dupes and accomplices as well, can destroy that reputation and self-confidence. Sometimes it destroys lives.
In order to survive this attack, we must first understand that “might (and numbers) does not make right.” We must also understand that we can validate the truth, and that our own validation of that truth may be the only validation that we can obtain. We may not be able to convince “others” that we were not the abuser; we may not be able to publicly verify that we were the one who suffered unjustly. We may not be able to prove in a court of law that we were the victims of a psychopath. We may have to raise our heads and to walk away from the situation, emotionally wounded and bleeding, while we see our abuser “skip off merrily into the sunset,” apparently none the worse for wear.
Life isn’t always “fair” and many times those who most deserve justice seem to get the least of it, but we can achieve closure within ourselves. We can find validation of our own personal truths, and no matter what the “vote” is, it doesn’t change that truth. It can be enough to sustain us.
Sage advice, once again Oxy. Very good food for thought and thank you.
Brings to mind, as you refer to the damage done to our “reputation” etc. is also the damage done to our “ego”. The image we have constructed of ourselves. The encounter with the P and our response to them, is, I think closely tied to our own image of ourselves.
When we first “fall” for them, we attach part of our own self perception to being tied up with them and who we believe they are. We see our being special to them as something good and a credit to who we are.
When we discover that we have attached to a monster, our own self image is threatened and sometimes almost destroyed.
Learning to detach from thei association of our “self” being wrapped up with their “fake” self is part of the long and complicated journey to healing.
I now think of it as an abberation, a twist in the path, a wrong turn, in my journey, but not in fact a repudiation of “who” or “what” I am.
Not well articulated, but perhaps you get the drift.
My computer is crashing now, so I will do the same. Got infected with a virus- a predatory one! Ha. Will have to purge the system in the morning. Sounds so familar doesn’t it?
Peace and love, A
It’s amazing just how much is damaged by a sociopath. People you thought should know you better, somehow immediately believe the sociopath. Your not believed. You try to explain your situation but no one is really interested. Not interested enough to really listen and try to understand. Unless you have dealt with a sociopath you cannot fathom just how dark and twisted these people are. I have lost many friends and family members due to my sociopath and his lies and venom. I have tried to explain to these people what sociopaths are about and have even asked that they come onto this site and read for themselves. No one actually takes the time to research and the sociopath is believed and I’m now considered the crazy angry one. No one wants to look at the mounds of evidence I have gathered trying to sort the sociopaths messes out. If people close to me actually took the time to consider the type of person that I have been for the last 36 years, to listen to what I am asking and research for themselves about sociopaths and maybe take the time to review the evidence I have collected then they would get a different picture I’m sure. The problem is people are inherantly lazy and are quick to judge. People see situations through their own experiences and if they haven’t experienced a sociopath then they cannot input that data into their equation.
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I’ve been feeling really low lately and in need of validation that I’m not crazy. That just because he can turn people against me doesn’t mean that he is right. Thankyou for this post. It was very well timed and it has made a difference in my life. Its really nice to know that other people actually do understand, even if the people closest to me don’t.
Dear Ox Drover,
This has hit the core of some of my deepest grief.
Because of my sister’s magnificent manipulations that have been pervading our family for years, I am considered to be an evil monster, while she is perceived as a perpetually persecuted victim. It escalated to its worst when my mother died a few years ago, and now it feels as though when I lost her, I lost my whole family.
The good news is that she hasn’t reached all of the extended family, so some will still talk with me. The bad news is that she has reached those with whom I was closest growing up, who now shun me.
Thank you for addressing this aspect of the pain of psychopathy, and so spot on.
Cheers,
SocioSibs
This raises an excellent point. WE MAY NEVER GET OUTSIDE VALIDATION. Period. That is something we have to accept. People that I lived around throughout the entire nightmare, 22 yrs 8 mos, (more than HALF of my life), People I had no choice but to make part of my life, consider family etc., all are still in the psychopathic grid. The funny thing is, most of them seems to know there is something tragically wrong with this creature but they either jusitfy his antics towards othere people or accept it and say “wish I knew what to say”. My reply to them is nothing. The law of life and thier disloyalty will eventually shed some light on them. The day I left for good with my mind solidly made up to leave it behind, ALL of it, I let all of them go too. Not with hatred, but as part of a past I no longer want to be part of. So, for ourselves, at least for me personally, I can throw a seed of truth out there to someone who may be in danger of him, if they take it fine, if not, well, God help them. And its not my place to keep trying to convince them. As was stated in this well written article, we only need convince ourselves.
It IS a continuing journey.
a
Hi Oxy,
such a nice article.
we do not need external validation. our gut and our knowledge is our validation.
enough is enough.
we have to make our own closure.
thanks for this timely article.
LL is thinking of a road trip, it will be incomplete without you. Lets see how we can work it out and meet each other.
petite
Dear guys, glad that you enjoyed the article, and you added so many great points as well.
I can remember how MUCH I wanted that external validation….and How I literally BEGGED for it during the summer of chaos. It was not forth coming.
Looking BAD years from that summer, I see that with other people who were high in P-traits that I worked with, one who actually probably would have “qualified” to be professionally diagnosed, though she held (for a fairly short time) a high level of management in the hospital system I worked in, DESTROYED that hospital system with her smears and her control, until actually every nurse, but one, in the entire hospital left. Eventually, the entire hospital was sold because of this one woman. She played the victim role and recruited her dupes.
Sometimes the dupes end up destroying themselves as well and becoming either collateral damage or actual victims as well, but sometimes they never even comprehend the damage they have done to the lives, reputations and hearts of those that they UNJUSTLY label as “abusers.”
Shakey’s point about people being “lazy” is actually a good one, though I would use a different way of expressing it. They believe the FIRST thing they hear. After that, it is EFFORT to change that opinion, so they do not expend the energy necessary to do so. So, by getting to others with their story FIRST the psychopath gets a decided JUMP on the victim who doesn’t know the smear campaign is going on.
Talking behind the victim’s back, literally “back biting,” or “back stabbing,” is one of the first and quite frankly MOST SUCCESSFUL tactics of the smear campaign.
Being able to emotionally turn loose of this (on our parts) was one of the hardest parts for me….whether it was in the professional setting or the personal setting. It seems like “turning loose” of it—letting it go without trying to mount a defense–seems like we are “giving up” and “letting them win.”
In fact, our urge to fight is in many cases very counter productive. First because it IS DIFFICULT/IMPOSSIBLE to convince others we aren’t guilty as charged,, and secondly, because even if we do fight it, because we Usually “lose” that fight we feel even more abused.
Grasping early on that sometimes there just “ain’t no justice” and that fighting against that is like jousting at windmills, and just holding our heads up high, and going on with our lives in an upright manner is better “proof” than all the documents and arguments we can muster against the smear.
Well, I’m not quite sure about anyone else, but I did two super terribly awful things when the truth about my ex was revealed to me.
Two days after we returned from a beach weekend together to celebrate his birthday was the day I found out he was a stone cold liar. I was in a rage and I went into our house – I was staying with friends – but I still had the key. I still had several high ticket items there (two high def flat screens some chairs – I left the creepy mask from Mexico) and I smashed up my stuff along with some plants in pots we bought together.
It wasn’t pretty and he wasn’t home. Ironically enough he was out on a date with the girl he cheated on me with in Mexico.
I was sick to death after I did it. It was an awful terrible thing to do. But I was in so much shock because I found out he had been lieing to me for seven months about his infidelity. It was in that moment that I realized he lied to me about everything else – his ex wife, his two children’s mother and just about everything else.
I wanted him to know I was angry and hurt.
Several months later in November I found out from one of his work colleagues that he had been shamelessly flirting with his public relations assistant since he started working with her which would have covered the time we were happily together still. I couldn’t believe it. My brain went nutty again. I sent an email to his bosses, his father and stepmother and the girl who he was with in Mexico and dating for months while we were trying to work it out. I told them everything – the lies about him telling me his wife was a lesbian, about some of the lies I participated, about the 24-year-old girlfriend and the countless other women from his circle of colleagues that I suspected he had slept with. And I told them I thought he was using his discetionary funds from his work budget to buy dinners, drinks etc to woo for his own purposes not for the work he does. (It’s a gray area when you take people out for business.) But he had expensed some of our evenings and lunches when we were first together, so I had my reasons for the accusations.
At any rate, I know these things were was a totally insane horrible things to do – in fact he took out a restraining order on me so he would look like the victim – maybe he was in this case – but at the moment I sent the emails, I wanted others to know what a horrible monster he is. And I think in some ways I wanted his family at least to get him some help.
So there it is. Does that make me a spath too? I’ve never done anything even remotely similar in my entire life. Ever.
Dear Onebeliever,
NO!!!! That does not make you a psychopath! LOL (((hugs))) it makes you an injured party who struck back.
The smear campaign that they do is sneakier usually than that outright attack….it is SLIME usually, showing them to be the victim.
Your behavior played along with his lies about what a crazy biatch you are…but I totally understand your anger—your JUSTIFIABLE ANGER.
Many of us have “struck back” IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER when we were injured because that is the NATURAL HUMAN REACTION to being injured. There is even research that shows that the human brain pleasure center “lights up” when we even contemplate much less DO vengeful things. So welcome to reality.
Now forgive yourself, understand why you did it. It wasn’t a good thing to do, but it is definitely UNDERSTANDABLE….so “get over it” and don’t beat yourself up over what you did in a justifiable rage. (((hugs))))
Thank you, Ox Drover.
You have no idea how much better I feel right now. Obviously not a lot of people in my life know about those horrible things I did, so your words here have an amazing healing power for me.
I feel like crying with happiness right now.
I am not a vengeful person. But I really felt like he stole everything from me including my good standing (everyone thought I broke up his marriage – happy homewrecker) along with a lot of my pride and dignity and a good portion of my life. (I’ll be 41 in May.)
I’m working hard to earn everything back.
Thank you again.
OneBeliever
Dear Onebeliever,
Your anger or shall we say even rage was a natural and normal and justifiable feeling…acting on it may not have been so wise, but believe me if I had to take off a piece of clothing and pull out a hair off my head for everything I have done in my life that was UNWISE, I’d be standing here naked and BALD!!! LOL
Believe me there are worse things you could have done….and I’ve thought about a whole lot worse than what you did…but the thing is that we must realize that just because “more people” believe something doesn’t make it any more right or true.
They smear us—without or without us doing something like you did—they slime us as Skylar says and many times there is not a darned thing in the world we can do to UN-do the damage that they do to us and what people think about us.
Many people will “believe” these things about us, even people that we THOUGHT knew and cared about us….unfortunately, gossip is “juicy” and “fun” and “drama” and WHY DO YOU THINK “SOAP OPERAS” which are nothing but stories about psychopaths wrecking other’s lives have been SO POPULAR since the time of the Greek Tragedies?
So get over your guilt about what you did…it is past. You acknowledge that it wasn’t a wise thing to do, or a good thing to do, but hey, you did it…you recognize what it was and why, so let it go. Don’t spend the rest of your life or even one more day feeling guilty about it. You destroyed stuff that belonged to you, you told people the truth…you didn’t hurt anyone so quit sweating it! (((hugs))) and God bless you!