By Ox Drover
One of the themes that seems to run throughout the stories of many of, if not most of, the people who have had experiences with psychopaths is that we have either had repeated episodes of being abused by the same psychopath, even after we saw their dishonesty, or had episodes of being sucked into the webs of multiple psychopaths. Or, we have both of these—multiple episodes with multiple psychopaths.
Most of the people I have known who were formerly victims of psychopaths are not stupid. In fact, some of the smartest, most accomplished people I know are former victims, and have been repeatedly victimized by one psychopath after finding out that this person was dishonest and abusive. Somehow, they kept on going back to the relationship, even after multiple attempts to disengage from the abuser. Why? Why does a person who is smart, accomplished, and otherwise successful in life and business keep repeating the same behavior that allows them to be hurt?
There is an often-used quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” It seems by this definition that the victims of psychopaths are “insane,” because we keep on trying to have a relationship with someone who is repeatedly abusive. There must be some reason that otherwise smart and successful people keep repeating the behavior that is unsuccessful in its outcome. There must be some common thread among victims and former victims that makes us susceptible to frequently returning to an unsuccessful and painful relationship.
Here’s a little story that may contain what may be a grain of truth that might point us toward the answer to the question of. “Why?”
The Chief and the Snake
Once upon a time there was a very wise and kind Indian chief. One day as the chief was walking through the forest, he came upon a rattlesnake in the path. He stopped and started to go around the snake, not wanting to hurt it, but not wanting to be bitten either.
As the chief started to pass around the snake, the snake spoke to him (not an unusual thing in those days) and said, “Chief, please have mercy on me, my wife and family are on the other side of yonder river, and I can’t swim, and I can’t get to them. Won’t you please pick me up and carry me across the river?”
The chief looked at the snake and laughed a bit and said, “Why, if I tried to pick you up you would bite me and I would die. I am sad that you have a problem but I must not be bitten, or I would die and my own children would starve because there would be no strong man with a bow to hunt brother deer to provide meat to my little ones. Though my heart feels sad for you, no, I must refuse to pick you up.”
The snake then spoke to the chief saying, “But such a brave man as you should not be afraid of such a small snake as I, and I promise from the bottom of my heart that I would never harm you if you were to help me across yon river. I am so afraid that if I am not able to get across, my wife and children will perish. Please help me in my hour of need.”
The chief looked at the snake and his heart was sad because he knew what it was like to have one’s children without food. His heart took pity on the snake, and he agreed to take the snake across the river, if the snake would agree not to bite him.
The chief reached out to pick up the snake and held him high over his head as he waded the swift and cold waters of the river. About half way across the river when the chief was doing his best to protect the snake from the cold waters, the snake reached down and bit him on the neck, sinking his poison fangs deep into the chief’s blood stream.
The chief was surprised and said to the snake, “Brother Snake, why did you bite me, now I will die and you will drown as well. You promised on your honor not to bite me if I would have mercy on you and help you, now we shall both die and our children starve. You promised me.”
The snake replied, “Ah yes, I promised, but you knew what I was when you picked me up,” as they both sank under the swirling cold water of the river.
What we have in common with the chief
What caused the chief to reach out and pick up a snake that he knew was poisonous, that he knew had the power to harm him, and that if he was wrong in making this decision to pick up the snake, and the snake did bite him, that his own children would suffer because of his decision?
Empathy is what the chief had, empathy for the children of the snake. Because the chief loved his own children, he assumed that the snake must also love its children. Just as the chief would do what was best for his children, he empathized that the snake would also do what was best. Since the chief knew that he would never do anything deliberately to cause consequences for his children, he did not see that the snake would deliberately do something that would cause problems for his own offspring.
Thinking that others have the same motivations that we have can get us into the same problems that the chief got into. The chief wanted to help the snake. He felt pity for the snake. He knew that he would not want someone to refuse to help him if it meant that he would die and his children would go hungry, so it never dawned on him that the snake would be willing to make a decision to do a deed that would insure that the snake-children would go hungry.
The chief’s empathy and his thinking that others had the same empathy, the same motivation for their behavior, and no reason to hurt another, even at the cost of hurting themselves or their near and dear, caused him to want to believe the snake’s promise not to bite.
The snake, however, was right. The chief knew what he was when he picked him up. When we allow ourselves to believe the promises of people who have proven that they are dishonest, we open ourselves to be repeatedly injured or even killed. When someone shows you what they are, believe your eyes. Believe what you see, not what you hear.
No Contact
“No contact” is the commonly accepted “treatment” for any abusive relationship. This means that only contact that is required by law (such as meeting that person in a courtroom due to a law uit) or the minimum amount of contact required by law to co-parent with such a person, is the only interaction between you and your former abuser. No contact allows the injuries to cease, and keeps you safe from new and repeated injuries from the abuser.
“No contact” also includes not stalking the person’s Facebook page or other social media. It means blocking or deleting any text messages, phone calls, e-mails or any other form of communication, including having others tell you what the former abuser is “up to.” Refusing to engage in tale carrying, gossip, or drama involved with the former abuser is also essential. If you must speak about the relationship, do it ONLY with a trusted friend or family member who sees that the relationship was/is abusive, and with assurances that the person will keep your information in absolute confidence. This process can be likened to “not renting them space in your head,” which includes wondering if they have a new relationship, and if they are making this new person happy o,r if they will change for this new person, or wondering if you were wrong about what they are.
You know what they are now, so don’t pick them up. NO CONTACT WORKS.
This one’s for you, EVA, you asked for it, here it is! (((hugs)))
NC is a new thing for me (last 6 months), and part of knowing what my BM (Biological Mother) is up to, is how I prepare myself for any further attacks on her part, to keep myself safe. . . is this wrong? Do you think it’s obsessive? I want to keep tabs on where in the country she is and if she’s with somebody new because I know her patterns and this helps me to know if I need to prepare for another attack or not. . . . It’s hard to know what’s right to do. . .
Dear BabyDoll,
Keeping checks on a STALKER is not a bad idea, and I think it doesn’t violate the SPIRIT of no contact….I keep up with my P-son in prison as much as I can and especially when he is up for parole etc. I no longer keep up with my egg donor (biological mother) or talk about her or listen about her. I did respond to an e mail from her of a personal nature a while back and I realized I shouldn’t have, BUSINESS ONLY is the rule from now on, no matter what the temptation is.
NC works because it gets them out of our head. If you think that your BM is stalking you or might show up on your doorstep or in any way reach out and touch you…keeping an eye on her might be wise. If you don’t think she is stalking you I wouldn’t. Also, I would not have any conversations with anyone else that you think might pass on any information about you or your whereabouts.
If your father has enabled her or covered for her that might include him as well.
You’ve had a lot of stress, with the new baby coming, the move, getting away from the abuse….and I strongly suggest that you keep changes of any kind and stress of any kind to a bare minimum for the next 2-3 years (and Yea, I know that will be hard with two toddlers around!) But spend that time bonding with your babies, enjoying them, LOTS OF TOUCHING THEM, holding them (good for both you and the babies) Hopefully, you can breast feed this baby even if you didn’t try it with the first one. There is lots of healing and bonding goes on with breast feeding. If you can’t breast feed, HOLD the baby every time you feed him/her as if you were breast feeding, close and firmly.
If you don’t know how to breast feed there are support groups all over the country La Leche leagues and so on….and it will help your healing as well. Even if you work, breast feeding is not undoable as you can feed the baby before you leave and the caregiver can give water or pumped milk during the day and then you can feed when you get home. Actually it is cheaper and easier I think. By 6 weeks your milk supply should be well established and keep up with your baby’s needs until weening.
Read about Stress responses on the body and mind (there are good books and articles on the net) and keep your stress down, do things that are calming and peaceful and enjoy those babies and your husband. God bless! (((hugs))))
Oxy I would add this – my P lives 4 blocks from me and is seriously out to lunch. I received real death threats – for me and my children. Due to other circumstances beyond my control I chose to stay where I am and prepare myself for any possible dangerous scenarios… It is complicated and not the point.
Here is the point – when I was actively trying to keep tabs on him it kept me emotionally hooked in and also living with that adrenalin rush of fear constantly coursing through my system. This was not good for me or my kids on any level. It was a distraction from living my own life. I firmly believed that by knowing what he was doing I was keeping myself safer and able to know the threat level. It was a horrible time and kept me hooked in for a year longer than i would have otherwise been. Lesson learned.
What I did to solve this for myself since it is a seriously dangerous situation…when I realized the havoc it was wreaking was to ask 2 trusted people who knew him and knew what he was up to – 1 being a room mate he had in his house – to act as an early warning system. Additionally a friend and neighbor who knows him and the situation and is mostly home keeps watch over us. So if he were to for whatever reason decide he was going to head to my house I would receive a phone call to look out and be prepared for it. The secondary person also interacts with him in a limited way but he knows if he is talking about me or focused on me and therefore can let me know what is in his head and that I need to take extra safety measures – that along with a dog, an excellent alarm system with a secondary system so if power is cut and yes – protective weapons and a very alert local police department (they have a file about 6 inches thick at this point)… Keeps me safe – it keeps me in MY today and not focused on what he is doing over there. I do not need to think about him at all unless I am warned. For over two years now – living 4 blocks from him that has worked beautifully for me.
Good luck to you – peace of mind and heart is amazing!
Dear Breckgirl,
I hear you…I call it LIVING IN CAUTION, NOT TERROR….and you described it very well. I agree with your point to, knowing everything about them daily isn’t necessary if we can have an “early warning system” in place.
I am well armed and well prepared to defend myself, and I know that it’s possible I might fail, but I don’t want, I REFUSE TO, life in TERROR all the time. It does take TIME for the “hyper-alert” or “hyper-vigilance” decrease when we have felt threatened (doesn’t matter if the threat is very real or only imagined, it is the FEELING threatened that is the key word here)
I am tired of living like a “long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” in continual anxiety and renting them space in my head, wondering if the sound I heard outside is one of them driving up. Stress hormones take time to get out of our system and there is a gradual calming down of the effects of that continual surge of hormones and the “fight or flight” mode of thinking.
I totally agree with you that we must do whatever will allow us to FEEL SAFE and to let those hormones calm down and our minds and bodies recover. Being anxious and nervous and paranoid and stressed out also keeps us from thinking clearly and making informed decisions as we tend to “react” rather than RESPOND which is more clear headed.
Thanks for you post BreckGirl, I’m glad you are here! Good points (((hugs)))
i am working on this. its been 3 weeks now. that is usually as long as it lasts before he reaches out though. i’m trying to avoid that though. won’t read the emails, block the phone #.
but we live near each other, we go to the same places. eventually we will run into each other.
how do i handle that? i get jumpy and hyper vigiliant just going to the grocery store because i’m afraid he might be there. he is not physically violent but his words are daggers and i fear what he will say if i ignore him, or what he will say if i don’t!
Thank you Ox Drover!
I have gotten rid of my facebook account entirely– (her pawns are everywhere) and have not contacted my father in 3 months because I can’t handle the emotions, but he doesn’t have my address or phone number. The only thing that both of my parents have is my email address. My sister who snapped out of her stolkholm syndrome during the time that all this hit the fan (in fact both she AND my brother snapped out of it at the same time, it was a true miracle) is the only person I speak to who knows my BM personally and is still in contact with her. My sister has come a long way and only contacts BM with two intentions: 1) to know where she is so that she can keep me in the know and 2) to get a good laugh at the ridiculous and stupid things BM is up to which validates my sisters newfound knowledge that BM is a Sociopath.
The day I told my sister was a remarkable day in our lives. I just got the book “The Sociopath Next Door” and BINGO my eyes were opened. I wasn’t going to tell my siblings what I learned because I knew it was volatile and potentially going to open me up for a lot of accusations and the like.
But days after I found out BM was planning on moving next door (the irony was NOT lost on me) my little sister calls me and says she’s putting herself in the mental ward because she just found out some information that was going to hurt my family a great deal, but made me swear not to tell anybody, and said she needed to go to the ward to keep herself from killing herself. Well then she informed me that BM had gotten our father to agree to giving her a massive amount of money (we were planning on buying the family business)- so she could live very close to us. That’s when I told her. I felt I needed to. She refused it at first, but within the week she was laughing about it. She knew it was true once the truth was made available. Soon after I informed my brother, and he fought it too, saying that even sociopaths could be saved, and I questioned him whether he was going to stake his safety and family for her. He soon accepted the errors of his thinking too . . .and now the three of us are united and AWARE. I call it our sanity miracle. After decades of being turned against each other by BM and favoritism by both parents we were able to put it aside and decide how we wanted to protect ourselves and we CAME TOGETHER. Both siblings totally supported our move even though that meant dad was on his own, the curtains were lifted and TRUTH finally became evident to all of us in one fell swoop. Thanks be to God! I know it is an uncommon grace, and I am so grateful for it, though it hurt like crazy- it was the very best way to end that chapter of our stories.
And I started talking to people back in my old hometown, when we were getting to move, people I generally trusted, and finally told them what had happened to me. What was remarkable to me is that most of them KNEW FULL WELL what evil BM was capable of, and had seen her in action or been on the receiving end of her manipulation and blackmail, but had never so much as peeped a hint at it to me. Like the Truman Show, I felt like everybody knew what I didn’t, and their secrets kept me in bondage. Every chance I get to mirror truth to those in captivity, I take it.
sorry about me going on. . . .man it’s so much to process. I am extremely grateful to be on the other side, but it will still take time, it was a long road to freedom, and I think I’m just about to start tasting it.
Breastfeeding was the most brilliant thing I did with my firstborn. He nursed for 18 months, and the bond it created is evident in his confidence as we have moved 2 times in the last 3 months. It’s obvious that he is secure with us. I love the closeness I feel with him and watching him discover the world. I have also found healing in the little things that he has that I didn’t have. Like blueberries. . .he LOVES them and squeals when I bring them out. . .whereas my BM would give food to me and take it away as I was eating it as a sick game. . .I am trying to let myself heal as I enjoy my child’s freedom.
I will look into stress response. . . The Lord knows I need some more physical relaxation as I have stored so many toxins inside of me. Though I found the work of Conrad Baars to be so helpful, especially his cds: Affirmation and Psychological incarnation. With their aid, I have experienced a level of peace that was altogether new to me, as I had hosted PTSD for at least 25 years.
Dear Greenbean,
It doesn’t matter what he says—turn and walk away. Make up your mind NOW what you will do….TURN AND WALK AWAY.
You know what he is, he is a RATTLE SNAKE, he is poison, toxic, and he WILL BITE YOU AGAIN if you get close enough.
You deserve to be safe. The ONLY way you will be safe is if you walk away.
Feeling sorry for him is DANGEROUS and his promises are no better than the Snake’s were.
If you make up your mind that no matter what he does or says that you will WALK AWAY, LEAVE, GO TO SAFETY…If necessary, drive to the nearest police station. (and know where that is in advance). It doesn’t matter what others around you say or how they look at you. What matters is that you are SAFE and AWAY from him.
Avoid places that you think he might be at for a while….I no longer shop the same grocery store where my egg donor shops, I ran into her once unexpectedly and I don’t want that to happen again, so I shop elsewhere. I no longer go to places she might be likely to show up. Sometimes that includes family funerals and gatherings, but I am determined to keep myself physically and EMOTIONALLY safe.
Congratulations on the 3 weeks of NC! YOu can do it! (((hugs)))
Dear Babydoll,
Keep on the healing road that you have started. I would caution you though about keeping up too much “drama” over BM’s antics and stuff going on, it may tend to keep your stress going. Just take it by how you feel when you are talking, thinking, about her.
I’m glad that you were able to breast feed your first child and will this one as well. It is so bonding for the children and for the mother as well. The books I am reading on oxytocin (the bonding hormone released in breast feeding and other times) and also the necessity of TOUCH in the human life. Watching little ones grow is so enjoyable. I love the way they learn language!
I’m glad that you and your sibs were able to bond and to all realize the toxic relationships you had in the situation with your BM and BF. Yes, we wonder at the other people who “knew” about the toxic behavior of the Ps, and did not warn us, but at the same time, the warnings might not have been believed. Sometimes we are like Carrie ten Boom, we have to let God carry the tool box until we are big enough to lift it up.
It seems like God has also been very good to you, blessing you with an understanding and supportive husband, with a new relationship with your sibs and an escape route to get away from the BM and BF. So those are all things to be thankful for! That and finding LF! Your success has put a smile on my face today, BabyDoll! It makes me feel warm inside to hear a GOOD story of escape from the tragic BMs in this world. (((hugs)))
Ox,
Very good and timely article. I’d still like to see one written about the early obsessing ruminating about the ex’s that all of us have been through from the perspective of someone who is further along in the healing journey.
Three more days and it will be four months since I laid eyes on the bastard.
Here’s to a day more! Also, greenbean, I do not shop where I think he will show up. At least for now. This means that I pay A LOT MORE for groceries that I should not, but my safety is more important right now. I also do not go out around town during his lunch breaks or right after I know that he’s off of work. This has been very helpful to me. For right now, I’m staying home most of the time, although therapy, groups and my son’s therapy will say I’m out a lot more, but I do not schedule appointments around the time he might just be out and about. It’s isolating, but it’s necessary for now.
And there isn’t ONE thing wrong with protecting yourself emotionally and/or physically until you’re strong enough to either withstand or be completely indifferent to his presence.
LL