The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us, by Martha Stout, Ph.D., will be the topic of discussion at a New York City Barnes & Noble Book Store on April 22, 2010, at 7 p.m.
The event is sponsored by the Non-Fiction Reading Club at the Barnes & Noble at 86th and Lexington Avenue. All are welcome.
Event announcement provided by a Lovefraud reader.
stargazer – your mother is manipulating you with her fucking estate – whats it worth? will there be any left by the time she goes into a nursing home etc etc? she will leave it to your sister or a bunch of attornys will get it…do what I did and divorce your mother….my mom promised me the moon for 50 years if I would kiss her royal ass and keep her up on that pedastel and hold her mirror while she adored her self….go no contact with her forever – change numbers etc….she is a narcissist not a mother – you know what my egg doner did to my sister – well its up to you – if you want to spend the rest of your life tryin to get her to listen or understand or undo what she will never think she did? do u think you will get her approval? not on her dying breath you wont — Stargazer SHE IS A NARCISSIST AND EVIL – i am living in poverty but i will eat donkey shit before i will ever give her the opportunity to look in my eyes again – evil evil evil narcissist — star she aint worth your thots – sorry but u hit a nerve…just because someone gives birth to you does not mean they own you or have the right to call them self a parent – your looking for someone who isnt there////period
Star:
I agree with the above posts.
It’s about the puppeteir act…and YOUR the puppet!
Manipulation and control and DENIAL!
If you just pretend everythings good…..they she will put you in the will…..
Wow…what strings….
My parents did the same deal…..but little did they know….I’d rather live in a tent with the kids than dance for their shit.
I can make it on my own…..
If there is an inheritence comeing….well, great…it’ll like having publishers clearing house show up with a check……
But I sure don’t count on it, nor do I think about it.
Move on with YOUR choices…….with YOUR life…..and don’t let others control you.
It’s like marrying a man for money……it sounds good….the comfort, the ‘security’…..but NOTHING comes without a price attached….and sometimes you pay more for the ‘gift’ than the gift is worth…..
Would you feel differently tomorrow if you woke up with a great job, was able to purchase a nice home, travel and have all you want…….ON YOUR OWN ACCORD?
How would you feel about dancing for your mother then?
We are all capable of making the life we want/need.
And the rewards are FAR greater when we have done it on ourown……
Don’t give up……and Do your OWN Dance!!!!
XXOO
EB
Yes, you all are right on the money, no pun intended. My mother is definitely a manipulative narcissist, and I wouldn’t whore myself for her money for all her money plus all the tea in China. It’s just that it makes me so angry because she never did anything for me. Where I’m struggling is with the anger. It is blocked, and I am unable to express it. It’s like if I can’t express it to her, it just stays bottled up. I have developed this belief that it’s not safe to express my feelings. I just assume because my mother doesn’t want to hear it, no one wants to hear it, so I just withdraw. I really need to get the anger out. I go through this every time I get angry. I have often sought help for it. I once had a body worker stick her fingers down my throat to get me to be angry. It worked. Another healer I went to saw I was bottled up and gave me this thing to hit with. He told me to hit the massage table. It worked. But it seems so endless. One layer after another. God, does it ever end? I’ve been going through this for YEARS!
On the plus side, I have 3 new regular massage clients who think I’m the greatest. I keep my prices low so they can all afford to come on a regular basis. I can’t help thinking that if I just raised my rates and could get some insurance work, I’d be in a better space financially.
BTW, I still cannot make up my mind where to go in Costa Rica. I have decided to take the medical massage course here in Denver. But now I have 3 options of where to stay in C.R., and I can’t decide. I’m trying to see if I can extend the trip to go to 2 places.
Dear Star, somewhere in cyberspace is a big long post to you. I DO understand your feeling about your egg donor!
I too tried to please mine, but am starting to realize thaT I recognized quite early probably 4 or 5 years old that my egg donor didn’t even LIKE me, much less love me. I started having a recurring dream at that age and I can still remember every vivid detail of that dream. I usually had it when I was sick with a high fever. Haven’t had the dream in years, but lately I realized the dream was telling me that I knew my egg donor would not protect me. Funny how these dreams can show us what we are FEELING deep inisde.
I tried for years to please her to get her to like me, then eventually when my sperm donor raped me, the dream “came true” she did not believe me (though she knew HE was such a liar that he would (in her words) “tell a lie when the truth would fit better.”) It hurt that she would not believe me at the time, did not validate me at all.
I was only 19 but more hurt my her disbelief than by the rape. I ran away from home, went to California where I had friends and stayed there for 7 or 8 years. Floundering around trying to find myself in the 60s. Then after I had my kids, we moved back near my egg donor. Again, trying to unsuccessfully to please her. After my horrific divorce, went back to college, graduated, paid my own way, borrowed some money from her for plrivate school tuition for the kids, but paid it back with INTEREST because I did not want to be “beholden” to her or give her control over me. She took it anyway, taking my P son in when he started his criminal career to “save him” from his “bad mother”—-and now she is doing it again. It has always been about control.
After my husband’s death she offered me money “if you need it” and I refused because money is always about CONTROL with control freaks. They try to BUY you with money and if you refuse to let them, they have no other idea how to control you. They do not GET IT that you cannot buy love or respect with money, unless you are purchasing a DOG!
Your egg donor has lost her control over you, Star and she is trying to BUY it back. I made up my mind I would live in a card board box or a tent and eat out of a Mickey-D’s DUMPSTER before I woulod ask for a dime from my egg donor.
The last few years she would give me a check instead of a Christmas present “because if I don’t give it to you now the government will get it when I die.” (boy, doesn’t that make you feel warm and loved?) So when I went NC with her, I donated an exact amount to a charity that she supports, so they woujld send her a receipt in HER NAME to let her know I don’t need or WANT any money from her.
Though I have never asked her for a dime except as a loan and that was 25 years or more ago, I PAID IT ALL BACK WITH INTEREST! Even the gifts of money olr other things she has given me I GAVE AWAY I don’t want anything she “gave” me because it wasn’t a GIFT, it was a down payment on CONTROL.
My suggestion to you, Star, is NC with your manipulative egg donor who is trying to get you to let her control you with a promise of an “inheritence” IF YOU WILL DO WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO. Hell she might even stiff you out of it in the future even if you did do what she wants you to. That would be the ULTIMATE insult! LOL Buy you and then not “pay.” LOL
I’m sort of “stuck” here until my egg donor’s death as my home is on the trust lands and I cannot sell them until after her death (assuming I am alive when she dies) but other than doing my best to see that she is not able to leave money to P-son, and to route that money to a charity! I will at least be free to sell my home at that point and move where I will be safe, especially if P son does get some money from her.
I don’t know if my egg donor has changed her will and cut me out and I don’t care. The last time she saw me she3 said “I haven’t changed my will” (which used to be all to me) as if that would make a bit of difference—again, just like yourj egg donor, trying to use MONEY to lure me in.
They will promise you what THEY think would be BAIT and ATTRACTIVE to you. But what they don’t realize is that the bait is NO LONGER ATTRACTIVE. It is “rotten liver” as far as I am concerned and it might attract a bottom feeding cat fish or carp, but it is NOT attractive to me. I will make my own way in the world and be content with what I can provide for myself.
Star we kind of posted over each other. I was also so very angry at my egg donor that some scenes were like short U-tube vids playing over inside my head. But I’m getting to the point now I am letting go of that anger toward her.
I told mine “off” the last time I sat in her house—and all it did was make her look at me with a P-LOOK, of rage and disgust. She didn’t get it either. But you know, I don’t want to be angry forever, not good for me, so I did let myself feel it, but LIMITED the amount of time I felt it. Eventually, it has subsided enough I can live with it. I got the total bitterness out of my heart about it because it was hurting ME and not hurting her a darned bit. I wish I coulde tell you a formula for doing it, but when I would feel the anger, I woujld say, “OK, 10 minutes of feelin this” and then STOP and start thinking about something else. Eventually, it cropped up less and less. Maybe that might help! ((((Hugs))))
I, too, highly recommend Stout’s ‘The Sociopath Next Door”. I read it first (I still refer to it from time to time) not too long after I was discarded by a man I loved very much. I could not believe it as I read- it was like the book was written about him. Nearly every “red flag” she described fit him perfectly: the initial charm and flattery; the pity play; the exagerated opinion of himself;the inability to keep a job or do any work on a sustained basis (but, just as Stout described on page 190, he was able to get a much undeserved promotion with”an occasional splashy performance, by schmoozing and being charming”. The management saw through him pretty quickly and he was forced to resign or be fired within an year and a half); the lies (even when the truth would do); the unethical behavior; the total lack of conscience or guilt. Sadly, that lack of conscience let him discard me without a backward glance as he moved on to his next victim.
Star:
I found writing ‘letters’ to my parents helpful….and not holding back…..just letting it flow….all of it!
I didi this to the spath also…
NEVER SENDING them….for you only.
You don’t need to sensor, just write…angry and whatever comes to mind.
Just a thought…..
🙂 to you today!!!
Oxy, every time I think I have gotten the anger out and every time I think I have forgiven her, it comes back, and I come out of denial again. I keep forgetting what a monster she is and was, and how nothing has changed. Mine never offered me money. If she had, I would have taken it because I needed it. I can count on 2 fingers the times in my childhood she actually helped me out with something. Unlike you, I cannot tell her off. If I could, I know I’d feel better. I wish I knew how to process this anger without it just sitting in my jaw and making me miserable. I just don’t feel safe being angry. The last time I got really angry at her, I was pet sitting. It is an end-unit townhome with not immediate neighbors, so I yelled and screamed at empty walls. Boy did it feel good. I don’t feel safe doing it here in my condo where the walls are so thin. I just don’t feel comfortable with anger, period.
The first time I felt enraged at my mother i was 16. I had come home on break from college and my stepfather said something abusive. I started yelling at him and picked up a frying pan and nearly killed him (skillets can be SO useful). Then when I saw my mother “having a panic attack” instead of supporting me, I really lost it. I told her I loved her but was very angry at her and walked out. I tried to go back over the years and develop some sort of relationship with her. She was in a 12-step program once and wrote me a letter asking for my forgiveness. She said she wanted to make amends. But then she never was willing to give me ANYthing I asked for. Screw her!!!
Oxy, I wish I had whatever you have that helped you get through the anger. I keep getting stuck in it. One time I went into so much rage on a camping trip that I actually fantasized driving down there and killing her and my stepfather. I was able to work through that by throwing objects in the woods. (I was on a camping trip). I also had my then-boyfriend there with me to witness my feelings, and it helped. It’s harder to do this stuff in a vacuum.
Star, darling, you DO HAVE WHAT I HAVE!!!!! Believe me you do!!!!
I was never allowed to be angry inside the family either, or to express any feelings except “You are right egg donor, I am a bad person” (or some words to that effect) LOL
EB’s suggestion to write letters and don’t hold back. Yea, don’t send them, but don’t hold back. WRITE TO THEM ALL YOUR FEELINGS.
Aloha and I used to scream at them as we were in the car driving (alone) and we would scream and pound on the steering wheel. LOL We laughed about “passing each other on the freeway and seeing this crazy lady doing the same thing we were doing!” I did it for hours as at the time I was driving a lot from my hide out to the farm and back.
The last time we (egg donor and I) sat down and “talked” (actually I tried to and she didn’t want to) I caught her with a LIE in her mouth, and I challenged it by saying, “would you like me to call C and ask him what you said?” She was bad to say things and then later deny them having been said. Great at gasllighting! LOL
She looked at me and said “Well! Don’t tell me you’ve never lied to me!” I said “Yes, I have I remember lying to you when I was 15, that’s about 45 years ago, do you have a more recent lie that you can point to? I guess not!” You should have seen the LOOK she gave me. And she didn’t reply. Then she looked at me a while more and said “You really hate me don’t you?” and I said “Yes, Mam, right this moment I DO hate you.” And that was true, I actually realized I HATED HER for what she had done to devalue and diminish me all my life. For the gaslighting and all the nasty things she had done that I had PRETENDED HADN’T HAPPENED, so we coujld have a relationship. Or as Henry would say a relation-chit!
I no longer hate her though Star, because hating her is using my prescious emotions and energy on HER and she is NOT worth it. She supported me financially until I was almost 17 and went to college then I supported myself. Even when I was divorced and absolutely BROKE she did not offer me money or even a place to stay though she had a 4 bedroom house. It was only several years later when I was in college, AND working full time, and I needed to put P-son in a private school, she loaned me the money to do so. When I got out of college I paid her back with interest.
She never overwhelmed me with “help’ either, except to “help” me by telling me everything I did wrong. LOL
It would have been “nice” if she had helped me financially but I was raised to NOT expect financial help after I left home, and I didn’t expect it. But by the time I was divorced and in college full time with a kid on each hip, I realized that there were STRINGS to “help” from people who didn’t like you, especially in laws or parents. My X-in-laws were all the time “giving” my husband and me “help” which actually we didn’t need or want. But boy did they want CONTROL over every aspect of our lives.
Sure our parents OWED us love and support when we were children and nurturing etc. and we didn’t get what we deserved then, and we are not going to get it now either. So, the best thing is NC which cuts the NEW INJURIES from contact with them, then to work on our anger toward them for the past injuries. We can’t change that past, and even Telling them OFF won’t get them to see that THEY did not give their children what we were OWED by them when we were little.
It is only through finally taking the plunge and cutting myself off from my egg donor that I am able to heal. I still have to have e mail contact with her sometimes about the farm, but that’s okay. Also, I think mine thinks I will eventually come around and give in to contact her (on her terms) because a couple of times before we have been NC for a year or more and then “made up,” but she doesn’t UNDERSTAND that now there is NO going back for me. She has lied to me, and defended and helped the man who tried to have me killed. (My P son) She has devalued me, humiliated me and scorned me. I can forgive that, by getting the bitterness out of my heart toward her. But that doesn’t mean I have a “squishy feeling” for her or that I would trust her at all. Or, give her control over me.
She canceled my power of attroney, and since I do not have the legal authority to care for her, I don’t have the responsibility either. Realizing that gave me a great feeling of relief that the world is off my back on that score.
You CAN let go of the anger Star. First though, you must BELIEVE you can let it go, and I am hearing in your posts (whether that is what you are meaningn to convey or not) that you feel like you cannot let the anger go. Or that it is impossible. Or you don’t have what you need to do it. BUT all you need is the BELIEF that you CAN and eventually you will be able to. (((((Hugs)))))
Star:
I’m with OXY on her last paragraph….You CAN let go of the anger…..but only when YOUR ready.
If we put up road blocks and believe we can’t get around them……then we will sit at the road block forever……until we are sick of it and decide to move them ourselves…..
No one will show up to remove these road blocks….
Go for a nice drive…..out in the mountains to a lake or somewhere remote…..and LET IT LOOSE…..stay for several hours and scream and shout and lay on the ground and beat the shit out of the dirt……
Take a pen and pad and then write….or write first…..whatever….
You DO have it in you…..WE all do!!! Release…..you’ll do it when your done hanging onto it all!!!
Oh yeah….and take that skillet with you!!
🙂