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.
My third:
“I don’t think this post was particularly helpful and I’m actually finding it difficult to relate to people who find something beautiful and peaceful in reconciling themselves to the fact that they’ve been screwed their life has been ruined, and it will probably never get better.”
That’s an interesting observation but if you will, an inaccurate one from my perspective. I think the essence here is on a level of sharing in how to find peace when one’s life has been dismantled, to make meaning of complete destruction. that is not a new level of victimization, but a level of new found freedoms and acceptance of what was a very traumatic experience for everyone here and the reality of the world around us.
Thanks for your post.
LL
Very true LL,
Also, this specific post refers to the slandering aspect of spath assaults. So I agree that it is important to share the information with people who will listen, such as Donna has done on this site and how others have written books. But it is also important that we do not WALLOW in the injury. That is what the spath does.
I always used to tell my spath, “you know for as bad as things get, you sure know how to make it worse. Why do you insist on WALLOWING in your misery? You make it worse.”
But that is exactly what he did and expected me to wallow with him. No go, I refused.
So third, what is beautiful is that life does get better – but not in the way we had expected. When we let go of the lies, it gets better.
Skylar
Beautiful post.
And a very good point. Spaths do wallow in it. They want us to wallow too and when we don’t play anymore, believing lies and the facade, they merely find someone else to wallow with them.
It does take time to get over such lethality. I think some longer than others, but eventually I believe we all do and see life in a much more profound and deep way.
LL
Mythirdaccount,
Who knows what’s the best way of overcoming an emotional trauma. Because hiding the trauma, not listening to it, is it going to dessapear? I don’t think so because it is still going to be there but just censured, repressed and later appearing as attacks of pain, fobias, anxiety. No, i don’t think to ignore our feelings is healthy.
And really i don’t see what lie or strange thing has Ox said. Isn’t true we can’t force people to believe what they don’t see or don’t want to see? Isn’t it true that for us it should be more important our own opinion of ourselves than the opinion of those who find the psychopath is a very nice, harmless creature that has done nothing bad to us? Isn’t true that life is what it is, unfair sometimes, and not what it should be?
mythird,
I think there are situations in which encouragement to take steps to defend your good name is the most appropriate.
But I think Ox Drover is addressing the situations in which people discover that their efforts have failed. It is a real situation people have sometimes found themselves in, and the only thing one can really do, is hang on to one’s self. And stop setting one’s self up for wounds and disappointment repeatedly.
I am interested in this question because my mother spent years mentally ill with, among other problems, a serious paranoid disorder (and concrete delusions). This, and a sister’s years, long past, as an anorexic, created in me a very strong instinct to take seriously other people’s feedback and perspective or even criticisms. I am not so great at listening to those, but I know not to venture too far that I might be straying into the area of real delusions of persecution or “martyrdom”. The problem is that I have also had experiences (in my case not the campaign of a spath, but still some awful experiences) in which I eventually learned that sometimes people will listen not to reason but to a mob, or their own emotional investment, or the cliches of their own brainwashing, or some person of status or “authority” greater than yours — and you SHOULD speak to defend yourself, but if it doesn’t work after a certain amount of effort, you have no choice but to let go, or back off, or put a bit of distance between yourself and the people in question, or at least between your sense of self and your sense that these haters’ notions of you matter. You still have your knowledge of yourself.
And those things CAN matter, when it’s related to your employment or your family or there are specific things at stake. But in the situations in which the problem is too far gone to be fixed except for by some happy accident some day in the future, it can be helpful for someone to make a decision to live with these things as they are, but try to keep them far from you physicaly or emotionally or in some other abstract way.
I hope i have not repeated myself too much here.
btw, to the person who wrecked the TVs. I AM a vengeful person. It is part of many if not most people’s human nature. It’s OK to have those sorts of feelings, but it is best for anyone having them to manage them. As you know, acting on such feelings had repercussions for you. It was somewhat appropriate for that guy to get himself a restraining order, because he might have been worried about further activity on your end. It doesn’t mean that he did not deserve some karma of some kind, since he was a dihonest reptile to you — and what you did does not mean you are a P as far as I know. And Oxy addressed it anyway. I am glad you feel better anyway.
mythird,
I just read this:
“That you in your infinite wisdom should decide when someone has hurt enough and has begun to wallow, is outrageous.”
This is very important: Everyone has the right to decide for themselves when they have hurt enough or when a situation is hopeless. There is really not a set point that is a universal benchmark. With enough experience, a person can look on another person’s efforts or activities and see that they are focused on things that are a waste of time, won’t yield fruit, or may even casue new problems for them. There IS such a thing as wallowing or being caught up in vengeance, but yes, one should be careful to not blithely apply that language to some other individual, or all cases.
I’m not sure anyone in this thread actually did that. I hope that’s a helpful clarification or distinction.
One more thing!
The concept of NO CONTACT stems partly from a recognition that there are situations in which no amount of invested energy or patience or explaining or logic will “fix” how they are toward you — and in some cases you cannot even believe their own repeated claims that they have been fixed. I think there is some connection there to Oxy’s post.
Vigilance or effort at adhering to NC are themselves a form of letting go, acceptance, moving on.
mythird,
Your reaction to Oxy’s blog was a little strong, and that started you off on the wrong foot with one or two people, who posted things they maybe should not have (?). You may end up helpful to each other in some later thread…
I hope staying on LF will be of some benefit to you in what you are going through, and that it helps you work things out. If this thread has not resonated with you, probably many other articles still will, and will be more applicable to what you are experiencing at this time. I occasionally disagree with something Oxy says, but I have gleaned much wisdom and insight from her at other times.
Skylar,
Interesting observation. I’ve been trying to figure out who it is as well, but apparently you already are aware….
Mythird, I think a verbal (typed) disagreement is bound to happen here from time to time. Skylar states you have attacked Oxy in the past. Well, I’ve not agreed with her on every level either, but I’m still here. She isn’t the only one on this site that I have found the comfort of friendship and validation. Warming up to her is slower than it has been with others, but even in cyberspace, we aren’t always going to “like” nor “agree” with others. The attacks must have been profound enough that required deletion? But I digress. I’m simply assuming at this point.
If you are hurt, perhaps the best approach is not to attack the site itself, but to share your story so that others can comfort you and perhaps guide you into a more positive approach or outlook.
Or, maybe this site isn’t right for you at all. That could also be an issue. There are many out there that I’m sure you could feel some sort of connection too.
Either way, either we will see you here again or we will not.
Blessings.
LL
Hi everyone:
I am writing tonight because, well, I feel seriously depressed. Ive gone through the emotions in the past two months of NC (due to me not responding to his attempts) and at different times really do feel strong. Tonight is not the night…
A piece of me wants to scream and jump up and down in a tantrum yelling “you’re MEAN” and “dont ‘like’ him…he’s been really mean to me!” That, of course, is MY innerchild tantruming because I believed someone, again, who turned out being “mean” to me.
Im sad. There’s nothing more to it. His sons 12th birthday was Wednesday and I made it through that day very well. I figured my ex would be celebrating his birthday this weekend as thats how birthdays go. They are celebrating his sons birthday…in the city, with his biological mother, that I found for HIM 11 months ago. The biological mother who I contacted for the first time, who I spoke to for the first time on his behalf, the biological mother who deleted ME from her facebook and email after HE left because she ‘thought it would be too hard for us to see each others posts” and who hasn’t tried checking in on ME since then.
I feel SO unbelievably used, useless, dumb, forgotten, unimportant, sick to my stomache, insignificant and mostly sad. I am thinking of them WITHOUT ME, the person who united them, after 36 years of not knowing each other. I am thinking of THEM having a great time with his son, the child IVE known and had in my home for the past 5 birthdays. I am thinking of how I was there almost ONE YEAR ago to the day when he and his biological mother met for the first time…and Im thinking of how IM not even a thought in THEIR minds.
And tonight I am so, so, sad as I am at MY moms house, picking up MY dog he gave to me as a ‘commitment’, because I have to put her in daycare because I was given a ‘gift’ that HE was going to help me with. Im thinking of the money I have to spend on her and how he ‘couldnt’ pay the bills when he lived with me but he’s got money to take a person hes known for one year and seen 5 times to the city, spending the money he didnt have…all this, without me.
I am insignificant…although I have responsibilities I never asked for. Mostly, though, I have a broken heart I never asked for either…and he’s not even concerned.