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.
I am still very bitter. He raped my little sister many times, and she is now alcoholic and anorexic. I look at her, and I am bitter about how he uses women and just waltzes away. Nothing bad seems to happen to him!!! I understand intellectually what you are saying, but my heart is still bitter – 25 years of marriage and all his destruction and to him, it is just NOTHING that it is over. And he got my daughter. AND made my sister so sick that in November, her four children and new husband were brought into her hospital room to “say good-bye to Mommy.” She has barely survived, and she is still very weak. I am angry. I am. I am in counseling and have been for four years, but I am not YET past that stage. I am working on it though. Thanks for the pep talk. I know you are right.
wontgetfooledagain – i don’t know your story, just what i read in the above post. one thing that was very important to me in dealing with my desire to annihilate the spath was to come up with a very detailed fantasy of it. you see, i was absolutely traumatized, and every 2nd thought was rage and fear. it went on and on and. i fantasiezed about damaging her ALL the time. Then a lovefruad poster helped me concost THE perfect fantasy ending to the spath’s life. The moment I ‘got’ the picture my obsession stopped.
a year later i wrote out the details of it – and i came to understand the importance of each component – they spoke to me of wanting to protect myself, to protect others, to see justice done, to mete out justice, to stop her from ever doing this again. It was very healing for me.
Interesting. I have never let my mind wander to what I would really like to DO to my husband. I guess all I know is I want him to know what pain is, and he will never know it because of what he is.
same with my spath wontgetfooledagain – same with THEM ALL. But i did it for me. And in understanding how i ‘would if I could’; i recognized my own compassion – which if probably the thing in me most damaged by her crap.
one/joy_step_at_a_time,
I just realized it is not clear from my post if it was my sister’s husband or mine. MY husband of 25 years began molesting my little sister when she came to visit us at the military base where he was stationed overseas. Some exciting overseas trip for a sixteen year old, eh, getting molested by the *PERFECT* brother-in-law. He continued raping her every chance her got for years. When she was eighteen, newlywed, pregnant with nowhere to go, I took her in and it turns out he would mess with her while I was at work. At one point, he even had a key to her apartment, which MY MOTHER gave him as he was getting paid to do some work on the place. He would leave our home, let himself into my sister’s place while her husband was working night shift, and get into bed with her while she was sleeping. She was so mixed up by the pressure and afraid to tell anyone, afraid to hurt me. She would try to fight him off and then give up – over and over and over again. He cheated with lots of other women over the years and more recently tried with two teenage girls. He now has my seventeen year old daughter living with him – she is old enough to choose where she wants to live.
Want to hear a great sociopath charmer story? I went on vacation and refused to come home until my car was fixed, as he, a mechanic, had kept me hostage in my home from 2009 to 2010 with a broken car. During the vacation, while I was demanding he fix my car, he happened to call GEICO for a rate quote. The woman he got on the phone he managed to totally charm. They have since met and had an affair. He got the GEICO INSURANCE LADY to send him nudie shots by email before they had even met. He was telling her “I love you” and spending three hours a night on the cell phone with her (that’s how I caught it, the cell phone bill) instead of ever working on my damn car. That’s how I ended up staying gone, a year ago this month, with nothing but the suitcase of things I had packed for a vacation with my high school best friend. Anyway, how is that for a sociopath and their charm? He got the HOME NUMBER of the GEICO LADY!!!
Yes, still angry and bitter. And my sister is down to 96 pounds and barely alive.
Dear Ox Drover…whoa.good analogy…I didnt think of it like that…heroin is horrifying…and yes..I totally see your point. I have been justifying it…..I think to even say that to the cyber universe…my conscience mind knows its wrong…but to hear it that way..thank you…its been a very active week for the satanic being and it was putting me over the edge…I have called an anonymous rehab and spoke with them today…I do have to pull it together or he wins..Thank you for that cool slap in the face that I needed…god..u are so strong! I hope I get there…and soon..Thank you
of course he charmed the Geico Lady! OMFG, they are such audacious pigs!
happy anniversary; here’s to leaving and staying gone.
are you near your sister?
I am now in the same apartment building as my sister. It hurts to see her shivering all the time, her skin falling off her bones, cold because she has no fat on her at all. She is alcoholic too. She is having seizures and almost died, as I said above, back in November. I look at her and I want him to know what pain is, but he just feels nothing. Nothing even about my refusing to come home again after 25 years of marriage. I married him when I was 17, am 42 now. It was my whole life. And it has come undone these last three years.
Yep, audacious pigs is right. Thanks for the anniversary wishes. It has been one hell of a tough year.
Dear Bopeep,
I hesitate to ‘slap” anyone up on the side of the head except with my “cyber skillet” which is a running joke here, but you know the heroin analogy and the vicodin is a DANGEROUS thing and I know you have been in denial…and God I know how the pain hurts and sometimes we will do ANYTHING to get out of the pain, but drugs of that kind are NOT the thing to help us….I’m medically oriented and being retired medical practitioner I realize that sometimes we have to “drain the abscess” in order to effect a cure and it hurts, and there are times that we have to do it “cold turkey.” There are NO instant fixes in this kind of thing, I wish there were.
‘
Antidepressants do help most of us, but they take TIME AND they are not “numbing” medications, they simply let us cope with the pain they don’t cover it up. Covering up the pain is what happens when we drink booze or do drugs in a misguided attempt to feel less pain. In the end it causes more pain.
I am glad that you took my “slap” up side the head in the spirit it was given, one of concern and caring. Sometiimes we get into so much pain that we can’t see the way out….but there are so many healin articles here and so many good folks, but even with all that, you may also need some real life support and counseling as well as antidepressant medications. You would NOT be normal if you didn’t have some ABNORMAL responses to this abnormal situation.
As a medical and mental health professional believe me I wanted to try to fix myself by myself but I realized that even the “shame” of being on the “wrong side” of the Clipboard, I had to become a patient because I was beyond helping myself or seeing my situation logically and clinically. Letting myself be the patient is the best thing I ever did for myself. It has taken years to come to where I am now, and I’m still “walking wounded” at times, but so much better, and life is so much better and more calm and peaceful and satisfying than ever before.
Give yourself the GIFT of taking care of YOU and not focusing on what HE is because you cannot change that, you cannot undo what he has done, you can’t change the past, only YOUR FUTURE. Don’t lose your wonderful future to the horrible past. (((hugs))) and my sincere prayers for your healing and recovery.
wontgetfooledagain – i knew many women years ago, who were anorexic and bulimic and were dying. i was part of a 12 step group for eating disorders. even though these women were not my sisters, i was humbled by the strength and will they needed to just put food in their mouths and keep it there. I was with this group as I had to leave Overeaters Anonymous due to the sexual predators and the denial within the group about their presence and the damage they were doing. Most of the people in OA, both men and women had been sexually abused when they were younger. I think there is a very close tie between the desire and ability to love ourselves, what others have done to us, and our relationship with food and nourishment.
The women I knew sat dressed immaculately – hair in place, nails done, and not able to form a coherent thought toward healing because their brains were so starved. Within that group I saw women come back to life very very slowly and in tiny tiny steps. They came week after week and just sat; until a healing message managed to work its way into their brains and hearts. they gave over controlling their own food to another person – sometimes inpatient, and sometimes people within the program. That group had the rare situation of being created by a female doctor who was anorexic – she helped many people. It has been years since I was in that group, and do not know if the same doctor is involved, but the url is:http://aba12steps.org/ They are in Canada – but maybe they could offer some support.