By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
I’ve recognized that my son is a psychopath since 2006, and have cut contact with him. Unfortunately, he has not forgotten me, and sent one of his friends to kill me, and probably intended to, one by one, kill the rest of the family, so he could have everything we collectively own.
Every so often Patrick comes up for parole. I have been working with an attorney who “gets it” about psychopaths, and with others, to protest his parole. I have had wonderful support here from the Lovefraud community, many of whom have sent letters to my attorney in support of my parole protest. Many family members and friends have written some wonderful letters as well. Some of the strongest, most meaningful letters are written by hand on lined notebook paper. I have wept when I read some of them, wept tears because it made me feel so loved to read what the person wrote.
But going to people and asking them to write the letters has also been very stressful. It has been embarrassing as well. I had to explain the situation to some people who didn’t know about all this ”¦ “I have a son in prison for murder and he tried to have me killed and I’m protesting his parole. Will you write a letter for me to the parole board?”
Other people have known me for decades, know the situation with Patrick, know he is in prison for murder, know I went into hiding because he sent a former cell mate to kill me. I had no doubt these people would freely write letters ”¦ and some of them told me a resounding “No, I won’t write a letter.” Even though I told these people there was no way he could find out they wrote the letter, since parole hearings are secret, like grand jury hearings, still, they would not write the letter.
Betrayed and belittled
I felt betrayed and belittled ”¦ that they did not take my safety as a priority. I began to feel somewhat like I felt when my son, D, and I ran for our lives, leaving our home and most of our possessions to go live in a trailer parked in a friend’s front yard. At that time, my son, C, my daughter-in-law, and my mother “pooh-poohed” my fear of a convicted pedophile that was living in my mother’s home as her “live-in caregiver,” was a “friend” to my son, C, and a former cellmate of Patrick’s.
During that fateful summer when I first discovered LoveFraud, I spent days crouched over my computer compulsively crying. I haven’t felt that bad since then. But this parole hearing, and being turned down by people I considered close friends for decades, has sent me into a tailspin of emotional turmoil and physical symptoms brought on by the anxiety and stress.
Last time when he came up for parole, we had a large packet of documents and evidence against my son and the Trojan Horse friend of his. We had letters and cell phone pictures from inside his prison cell that he had e-mailed out to his friend, before he got caught with the cell phone. This time I don’t have that evidence to present to the parole board. And 20 years, plus or minus one or two years, is about all the time “life” for murder means in Texas. (Unless it is a cop or multiple murders.)
This chaotic mess sounds like a plot from a bad soap opera. It was so unbelievable that my new therapist that summer actually thought I was a paranoid schizophrenic, and asked me to bring in witnesses to my bizarre story. Frankly, I wasn’t offended, because my story did sound like a nut job.
Re-experiencing the trauma of the past
Over all I have done pretty well. Even still, I still get stressed!
No contact is so important in allowing us to heal and to stay healed. But just like a physical wound that heals and leaves a scar, and is never the same as undamaged tissue, neither is our psyche. When we have contact, even “back door” contact, when we have to dredge up all the old feelings and the old emotional responses in order to deal with a current problem with the psychopath, it re-injures us.
I publish articles here all the time on how to deal with psychopaths, how to stay strong, and yet, sometimes I feel that anxiety, I feel that stress, and I feel that pain again. So just knowing about psychopaths, just knowing the things to do, doesn’t always keep us from feeling the painful emotions.
It doesn’t mean I am a failure; it simply means I am human. I, too, have feelings, and I, too, have needs for safety and peace. Sometimes, just thinking about the situation with my son takes away that feeling of safety. The disappointment I feel when friends I loved devalue and belittle me by refusing to help me with my parole protest, by even writing a letter—well, it hurts. The ones who have written powerful validations of my situation, though, have made me realize I do have some wonderful caring friends.
So I am not alone. Most of the time I do okay. Most of the time I count my blessings, and I have many blessings. But sometimes, I just cry into my pillow for those people I wish had loved me as much as I loved them.
What I’m trying to say by this article is that no matter how well you do, how healed you are, there may come times in your life when you feel like you are re-experiencing the trauma from the past, and falling apart again. It’s okay. It happens, even to the strongest of us, even to the ones who “know” all about psychopaths, because we are human. We do have emotions, and sometimes those emotions are triggered.
When it happens, accept it. Be good to yourself, let yourself feel your feelings, but rest, eat right, and reach out to those who love you. And above all, count your blessings. God bless.
As a brit can I ask what’s so bad about burbank?!
Rochelle,
I can tell you they are right about NC, none at all, even the back door contact. I would be 9 months NC had I not slipped up and now it seems worse than at the beginning. It really is 3 steps forward and 20 steps back 🙁
I just keep finding out stuff that keeps me stirred up.
Here is a thought that popped up reading your post. Are you absolutely sure about the suicide attempt and instability on her part or is this just something your spath told you? The reason I ask is because when I first met my spath he convinced me that his wife was unstable and suicidal because he left. The “she can’t live without me” ego trip. I doubt that now, I feel that he just told me that to make himself look better.
I hope you can find the strength to go total NC.
Tea Light. It ain’t Beverly Hills. lol.
(burbank california used to be the boonies, inland valley, no glamour, the back studio sound stages, now… it’s not so bad, great mall nearby)
Daisy
The stories about the wife have a grain of truth. She’s been emotionally abused by him so much for so long that she doesn’t know what is real. BUT it doesn’t mean she’s REALLY suicidal. My husband kept trying to get me to commit suicide. Part of his smear campaign was telling everyone how crazy I was. ANd he’d sabotage me by saying something reallly terrible right before we’d walk into a gathering, so I’d have this look on my face, a look that affirmed for people that I was not in touch with reality. And He’d looked for sympathy, telling people how glad he was that I let him get out to socialize with others. It also fed into his plan to have me killed, and they’d get away with it b/c he’d proven I was CRAZY. Funny though, I’d go away…well, I’d get overwhelmed and runaway to England, go walking in Yorkshire, and totally calm down and talk myself into thinking it was ME, that I was jsut TOOO emotional. I’d be all calm and relaxed upon my return and the oppression would start again…. and whoops back into drama and stress and shame and defensiveness alll over again. My X! told people I couldn’t live without him either, and they were ready to help him do all kinds of stuff to me, kept me destitute so I was financially dependent, (THE BANK would not allow me to write on MY OWN BIZ account, b/c the teller was his schoolmate and HELPED Him so I could not take any money.) It was CRAZYMAKING but I was not crazy. Thus was life with an spath in the smear, dump and discard end of the marriage.
Tea light, it is just an old joke…but “winning” by getting the psychopath sure is NOT ANY GREAT GIFT OR PRIZE. So the wife who gets her husband back, or the GF who gets him back has LOST BIG TIME.
Hello and Happy New Year,
I haven’t been here for a while, but had something occur and felt the desire for support, even just to read, and I came across this most timely article. Thank you Ox Drover for sharing all of the profound feelings that I too, am experiencing at the moment, however, my circumstances are not the same as yours, and I am deeply sorry for what you have expressed that you are having to endure. I would like to write a letter in support of you, if it is not too late.
I need support at the moment, and although I have learned that we should not compare our situations to others, I feel that my issue at hand is minuscule compared to the level of hardship that you are having to contend with, Ox Drover. I don’t expect anyone here to remember me, as I wasn’t here for very long, and I did not share as much as most members, but I am so grateful to have this place to come to. So thank you.
I have been doing very well and healing and growing, post P experience. I had become close via cyber space, with another survivor, who I came to feel a strong and lasting connection with, and who became one of the “safe places”, so to speak, that I have had, in terms of expressing my feelings and purging all of the grief, etc. I grew to have immense trust in this person, and that was important to me, as I have been in that vulnerable place, for lack of a better term.
This evening she informed me that “I have not been tainted enough to have an excuse to dwell on Psychopathy any longer”, and I should just move on, to other things. It was a WTF moment if I have ever had one. She feels that because she had an abusive childhood, incomparable to the childhood that I experienced, I do not have an excuse to still express myself, to help others by sharing my experiences with them, and also went on to say, that I know everything that there is to know about Psychopathy, now, so I should be finished with healing and go focus on other things and be on my way.
I can say that I have periods of time when I feel that I need to go to a place where there is support, and there are times when I do not feel the need. I think this is normal, and in fact may be the case for me, for the rest of my life.
I am exhausted at the moment so I will stop, here.
Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it-
Shane
Dear dear Shane,
I’m sorry this happened to you. You are NOT alone. Several of us have had similar experiences reaching out to other cyberspace friends.
It seems like salt in the wound, but try not to think of it that way. I look at it like I needed a “more rounded” understanding of the cluster b’s. They come in so many shapes and sizes!
I always say that a Spath’s favorite food is a narcissist. So that might group me in with narcissists because I know I was my spath’s favorite food. But the truth is, most of us here were targeted because we needed to learn something. We had some growing up to do. Your “friend” might just need some growing up. In the meantime, you might want to know what I did when I encountered “friends” who didn’t have compassion for me or for others: I went NC. Forever.
I need friends to help me grow up, not people who add more drama to my life.
Thank you very much, Skylar.
I appreciate your input. I do know what you are saying, but disappointed that the person who seemed to “get it”, took this approach with me. I would never have thought this would be possible by this person who seemed to have so much knowledge as well as compassion. Ok, so I am learning.
Thank you, again!
Shane
Shane, I’m sorry that you had this experience and I remember you posting a couple of times and I’m glad that you are back at LoveFraud.
I’m also involved with a couple of other websites that address sociopathy and recovery, and there is a lurking danger in “meeting” people who can hide behind the relative anonymity of the internet to troll for “source targets.” These people often type the words and responses that bait potential targets – the targets present opportunities to exploit, especially if they are being honest and truthful in their communications. The trolls simply present what they believe to be the proper responses. These aren’t always “romantic” situations, Shane, but the LOVEBOMBING is identical. “You are SO strong!” or, “You can TRUST me because I know how YOU feel,” or any other over-amplified flattery or compliments.
Why do these people do this? Because they CAN. Online Life is a form of communication that is relatively “new” in the whole scheme of human interactions. There is no way to really “know” if someone is whom they claim to be unless there is clear documentation (like Donna’s preamble to LoveFraud.com) with facts that can be verified. They do this because it feeds some type of need that they cannot fulfill in regular, normal, face-to-face interactions.
On this site, LoveFraud.com, trolls have come and gone during the years that I’ve been a member, and we can typically “vet out” these people by just observing posts, etc. That this person that you’ve mentioned claimed that you weren’t “tainted enough” to continue focusing on sociopathy is a TERRIBLE slap in the virtual face. Whether or not this person is, indeed, disordered and trolling online for source targets doesn’t matter. Anyone who would minimize another person’s experiences and subsequent pain in such a cold, harsh way is TOXIC!!!
I’m so sorry that you had such a mean experience. Stick around LoveFraud, Shane. You’re welcome, here, and nobody is going to tell you what you “should” be focusing on unless it’s to assist in your healing and recovery.
Brightest and most sincere blessings
EDIT ADD: Shane, it may be helpful to consider that the most proficient narcissists and sociopaths actually RESEARCH sociopathy and studies, and then post links and regurgitate data to APPEAR to understand and empathize with the experiences of a potential source target.
Shane, I remember you, and you know HOW MUCH TRAUMA YOU HAD versus HOW MUCH TRAUMA SOMEONE ELSE HAD is NOT IMPORTANT.
In reading a book by Dr. Viktor Frankl, whho wrote “Man’s search for meaning” (and I recommend you get and read it) after he spent 3-4 years in a Nazi prison camp and lost everything but his life, said that “pain is like a gas, if there is a little gas, it expands to fill the container, or if there is a lot of gas it compresses to fill te container” so in EFFECT all PAIN IS TOTAL.
If a baby drops his passie, it is te END OF HIS WORLD and he cries and cries, his pain is TOTAL. Now of course WE know his pain is only momentary but he doesn’t.
I felt bad for feeling TOTAL PAIN because I had not lost near as much as Dr. Frankl, I felt GUILTY for even feeling bad at my own losses until Ii read what he said about pain being like a gas.
This “friend” that you trusted is NO FRIEND, and it hurts when someone we trusted lets us down and she did that for sure. Maybe she isn’t a psychopath, but she sure is not a functional survivor, and if she is comparing her own pain to yours and saying “well, you didn’t have as much trauma/pain as I did soo yours is not important” she is obviously MISSING THE POINT about healing.
Also, keep in miind that it is not infrequent that a person who presents as a “victim” is indeed a “victim” but are ALSO themselves disordered to some extent. At least dysfunctional.
I have had the dis-pleasure of being lured into thinking someone was a “victim” when in fact they were a psychopath, FULL ON P, whose victim managed to escape so they presented themselves as a victim.
You know what the SMEAR CAMPAIGN IS and they all do it, so if one of the legitimate victims escapes, the P will tell the world that THEY are the victim. Some of them are quite good at it too. It is difficult to tell who is the “real victim” until you have been around the person a while. Even Bob Hare says no one can peg a psychopath on first meeting them so we have to be CAREFUL in any new relationship and not give away TRUST…and when we see a RED FLAG, like your “friend” dis-ing your pain, well, then we KNOW they are not what they appeared to be and we NC them. We all get fooled from time to time.
Just come here to LF and keep on reading and learning and recovering. (((hugs)))