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.
Kimmy,
I’m sorry if I came off snotty. I know you mean well. I’m glad you get the exhausted anger part. That’s exactly where I’m at. I’m so sick of this man.
LL
Well, don’t you think it’s entirely in keeping with his MO? He like the triangle, and it’s comfortable to him. Of course it makes you angry, but does it surprise you? It doesn’t have any thing to do with new GF and it doesn’t have anything to do with you….It’s all about him.
Just sayin”.
(((LL)))) i don’t know what the contact was (way up-thread i suspect and i missed it), nor does it matter to me; just want to say UGH! and wish you all the best in getting through to the other side of the contact. USE it – use it for anything you can get out of it to further heal! I know you will!
Yes. He did totally disregard your boundrys!!! There’s that entitlement, again.
Mine did that a lot. It sounds like you are ready to up-hold yours. I caved, often.
Nolarn,
I just read the last few pages, as much as I have time. I couldn’t find the original post with whatever the neighbor did that makes you think she’s a spath. So I will qualify my comments because I don’t really know what happened.
I went through something incredibly painful in Costa Rica when I had the realization that everything I felt about that guy there was not returned by him but just my fantasy. It was painful and humiliating beyond belief. When the pain got to its worst point, I sat in my room and cried until I felt a little better. I came back and saw his email, which confirmed that, indeed, though he may have had strong feelings for me at one time, he is not in love with me the way I was. But it was okay, and I don’t feel so plugged in by it because I released some of the pain and got in touch with the deeper need to be loved and to reach out to people who actually CARE. Then I turned around and spent some time with an older lady who was on the trip who is very caring. I was able to be emotional with her (without opening up too much), and it was really great to see that this is what I need – to reach out to people who are capable of loving me.
It really hurts to want someone’s love and they won’t give it. But I hope you keep this about YOU and not about her. It doesn’t matter whether she is a spath or what she is. You need to process this yourself. She is just the trigger. If it wasn’t her, someone else would have come along to trigger the same feelings in you because this is what you need to look at right now. I know you feel like crap, but you can at least feel, and what you can feel, you can process and let go of. Keep focusing on yourself, chica. You will get through this, and maybe even one day you will feel thankful for this lesson.
One J,
My ex sent me a mother’s day ecard. That’s what the fuss is about.
Kimmy, I USE to cave ALL THE TIME…but that’s when I still believed he had “feelings” for me. I know that’s not true now.
I have that in perspective so my NC is something I’m very covetous of at this point.
But it doesn’t stop the ruminating on the why’s. He’ll have to find someone else for the mistress role.
LL
Dear Star, Glad that you had a great trip and enjoyed the trip itself, the socializing with the other members and getting to see the wild life up close.
Vacation romances are sort of like a fantasy, really….and generally they are not lasting….so just don’t take them too seriously.
BTW living in “paradise” is not the same as VISITING paradise…again, our vacations are kind of a “fantasy” existence in the middle of our “real lives”—I look back on my time in Africa and South America doing the wild life photography (even though I was with the P sperm donor) in a way with great memories, but you know it was a “season” that was separate from “real life” in lots of ways. It was a great opportunity that I would never have had otherwise and I got to meet some super people who are now very famous for their wild life conservation efforts…great people that I still keep in touch with. I also met my late husband because of the P sperm donor’s connection with him at the time…so it wasn’t a total loss at all even though there was some real trauma associated with it.
I have some great memories, got to do some things most people never even thought about doing, and so TOWANDA for your vacation. I think you will have some great and wonderful memories from this one without all the associated drama that went with the guy. Just goes to show you that you can have a wonderful time just for YOU. TOWANDA!!!! Again!
LL, you are lucky. He contacted you by email from some old email address of his, is that right? Just block it so he can’t do it again. Plug up all the holes and eventually he will slither away (no offense to all snakes everywhere). You can make this into a positive by looking at it in this way: He gave you an even clearer sign of what he is. It’s not personal – it’s just what he does. Don’t give him any more power!
LL, good for you! They seem to have this idea somehow that they OWN us and they can just put us into “cold storage” and pick up where they left off when they get the desire to…like we are OBJECTS….
Accepting that we are our own person, that we deserve to be treated with love and respect is the most important thing we can do for ourselves. We do not deserve to be treated like that….we deserve to be treated as well as we treat others.
Your whole relationship with him from the get go was him USING YOU. You (for whatever reason) allowed that…and so now he feels ENTITLED to treat you how ever he wants to.
YOU have moved past that now though and you are starting to value yourself and your own worth. Allowing them to treat us poorly (like knowingly having an affair with a wo/man who is cheating on his wife/husband allows them to think we are not valuable….and that we don’t value ourselves, and we NOW know that WE ARE VALUABLE and we DESERVE BETTER than a bad-door cheating relationship. It shows that THEY are not worth our time or effort and that they are DISHONEST. We may have allowed ourselves to behave in a less than stellar way, but WE HAVE CHANGED and WE CAN CHANGE but they do not want to change.
None of us have been “polly pure” I don’t think, we’ve all done things we knew were wrong, and excused them, but NOW we will not accept that any longer…either from them or from ourselves. We hold not only them to a higher standard but ourselves to a higher standard.
It is wrong of us to allow others to treat us poorly, just as it is wrong for anyone to treat anyone else poorly, so we point our moral compass in what we know is the right direction, and follow it. That means we cut off the contact with those people who are toxic and have no moral compasses, honesty or compassion.
What do we need someone in our lives for that will treat us poorly? Why do we need to treat ourselves poorly? The answer to both those questions is WE DON’T NEED IT, IT DOESN’T ADD TO OUR LIVES….so TOWANDA for you! You have moved passed allowing others to treat you badly. It doesn’t get any better than that. You have moved on to treating yourself well, that is the best thing in the world! Good for you!
LL – covet away baby!