As I was trying to come up with an idea for this week’s blog post, my husband, Terry, made a suggestion: “Why don’t you write about Psycho Squirrel?”
Last fall, we started tossing peanuts in the shells to squirrels in our backyard. We were captivated by the show they put on as they acrobatically chased each other along the fence and through the tree branches. Plus, we liked being nice to our furry neighbors.
Most of the squirrels picked up the peanuts and scurried away, burying them to eat in the winter. A couple of squirrels, however, were smart. They learned that humans meant food, and every time they saw us, bounded over to the ground below our back deck. They’d sit on their hind legs, twitch their tails, and look up at us expectantly. Of course, they were rewarded with peanuts.
Aw, aren’t they cute?
Well, they started getting brave, and crept up the steps of the deck. We opened the back door, which led into the kitchen, and tossed out a peanut. The squirrels scurried away with the peanuts, buried them, and came back for more. So then we squatted down low, cracked open the full-length glass storm door, and held the peanuts at their nose height. They were skittish at first, but soon began taking the peanuts right from our fingers.
They’d sit on the deck, hold the peanut to their mouths and roll it, as if looking for a place to bite the shell. Sometimes they ate the peanuts, and sometimes they ran away, buried them, and came back for more. If we weren’t right at the door, we could hear them tapping on the glass with their tiny claws.
Aren’t they cute?
We ended up with three “pet squirrels—”one day they all kept coming to the door like a tag team. Eventually, if they saw us, they’d leap through the trees to the ground below the deck and then run up the steps. When they saw us walking up the driveway, they followed. We started keeping a small ceramic bowl filled with peanuts on the counter next to the back door, so they’d be handy when our squirrel buddies showed up. We imagined that they really appreciated us when 18 inches of snow blanketed the ground and all their peanuts from the fall were hidden.
A few weeks ago, spring finally arrived, and we exchanged the glass in the storm door for a screen. We hadn’t seen the squirrels in awhile, but one showed up. She looked well fed, but still remembered how to beg for a handout.
I opened the screen door, held a peanut low for her, and she took it. She came back several times; I fed her about five peanuts. Then I had to go back to work. I closed the screen door, but the main back door was open to let the warm breeze into the house.
A couple of hours later I walked back into the kitchen and stopped short. The screen by the door handle was shredded—someone had broken into the house! Then I noticed the ceramic bowl was empty, there were broken peanut shells all over the floor, and a small yellow puddle on the counter.
The squirrel had chewed through the screen, eaten all the peanuts, and left. I couldn’t believe it. I shut the main back door—wood with glass panes at the top—so she couldn’t come back in. But she had learned well, and a little while later I caught her trying to climb through the hole in the screen again.
That was it. Now it was No Contact with the squirrel.
Terry took the screen out so it could be repaired. The squirrel didn’t know this, so when she next saw me in the kitchen, she leaped at the door, expecting to cling to the screen. Instead, she slammed into the regular door with its glass panes. With nothing to hold on to, she slid to the deck.
We stayed on the No Contact program, even though the squirrel kept following us around the yard and begging. No more handouts, no more bowl of peanuts on the counter by the door. In fact, since we couldn’t really tell the squirrels apart, none got fed. One overly aggressive squirrel had ruined it for everyone.
After a couple of weeks, hoping the pushy squirrel had forgotten that she had been sponging off of us, we replaced the screen, which had cost $25 to fix. It was fine for awhile, but the other day, I walked into the kitchen to find holes in the screen next to the door handle. She didn’t forget. But at least there were no peanuts on the counter, so the squirrel didn’t come in.
Now the screen needs to be repaired again. “That squirrel owes me $50 for the two screens,” Terry complained.
We don’t think the squirrel is going to pay. In fact, it’s probably going to cost us even more, because now Terry has decided we should invest in pet-proof screens.
Sigh. And it all started because the squirrels were so cute and we wanted to be friendly.
Blue eyes, I am so grateful for your honesty and openness. I hear you on “the PC notion that HIV can happen to anyone” and the happy-go-lucky “living with HIV” nonsense. I especially question the gay community’s acquiescence in portraying crystal meth as bad only because it makes people do dumb things sexually. The stuff is just bad.
Gay historian Ian Young once wrote that we were encouraged to think of drug “cocktails” as “something rather devil-may-care in a martini glass.” In point of fact, these drugs are actually documented to cause premature aging, as you witnessed. Constant worry over a death diagnosis doesn’t help, either. That was a pool full of stress you left behind; you have your own life to life, and live it well.
I’d like to question the trust that people put in institutions that don’t really have their best interests at heart. Perhaps no institution, anywhere, works for us; we have to trust ourselves.
I respect your need to receive love after being hurt. Maybe the distinction to be made here is between empathy and sentimentality. Go forth unashamedly seeking the tenderness you need, once you know what empathy really looks like.
You did leave me wondering where “closure” will happen for you. Good luck in finding that feeling or event. From what I’ve learned from others here on Lovefraud, I suspect your x-spath isn’t giving it a second thought; he’s out hunting down his next gratifying experience of pity and power.
I don’t ask that anyone here go with me on my findings. I simply believe that people have a right and a duty to investigate things for themselves and come to their own conclusions. So many have shirked that personal responsibility, with encouragement from the world around them, that “growing up” in this way is certainly not a popular option. But if you take the road less traveled, you will find people there you never imagined existed, in all their goodness, humor and depth.
Ox Drover: Oh! Well, my dad has that sign MORE THAN ANY OTHER now that you put it that way. It keeps him going, his love bombs. People still don’t notice him because of those bombs, even though they are obvious to me. They think he’s MR WONDERFUL! His Pity play is a close second, though. Then rage, but only close that are close ever see that, so everybody thinks we’re crazy anyway. :/
breckgirl: Yep, I was confused at first. I get it now. ^_^ IT really does sound like there is a lot of help in that book for me, since I’m the anxious type, anyway. I’m learning of so many good books from this site. I’ll have to make a list soon. ^_^
That’s good the book goes over red flags, as I’m especially interested in those. I wish some more blogs were created covering the different personality disorders and their red flags. I’ve been reading up on The Mask of Sanity blogspot about some adnormal reactions and red flags. Good stuff! ^_^ It mentioned this site, too. I think all the blogs there are old, though.
Once again, thanks for stopping to explain this stuff for me. Sometimes I feel like the outsider here becuase everyone knows so much more about this stuff. Good thing everybody stops to explain. Also, good job on finding somebody that makes you feel a bit more secure. *huggles* ^_^
Dear Near,
Don’t feel like an outsider, EDUCATE YOURSELF MY YOUNG FRIEND!!!!!
Everyone starts out knowing nothing, we are BORN ILLITERATE~ LOL and we have to educate ourselves, you have just started to study this so of course you are not an expert, but there is ALWAYS more to learn even for us who have been here a while!
I would start out by reading Robert Hare’s “Without Conscience” if you can’t afford new books either get them inter library loan or order off the used books at amazon or B&N…. and go on from there…look at the BOOK REVIEWS here at LF (do a “book review” search) and “The Mask of Sanity” is on line. Don’t bother reading anything by “Dr.” Sam Vaknin, he is a psychopath, really! Nutter all the way. Look up the video “I, Psychohpath” on line about him and watch it though.
Start reading the articles here as well, under the various authors and various subject headings, they go back all the way to when LF started, the monthly ones only go back a year. Read just the articles (at first) in the archives (or you’ll never get them all read) and keep on reading and educating yourself. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. Become powerful! It will protect you from people like your sperm donor.
Really? A guy who’s a psychopath wrote a book about psychopaths? As an expert on them?
Ox Drover: True! I’m learning things every day that I’m here. ^_^ I bet even you are still learning!
Oh, I read Hare’s books. They were fantastic! My mom read them as well. Really helped us. I’m been meaning to read Mask of Sanity, but I have not yet. I may have read bits of it, though, just on different sites.
I’ve also been reading all the articles here. I still have a few here and there I haven’t read.
I knew Sam Vaknin was trash! Well, is trash! I’m not even going to bother with his work, like you said. Is he not a real doctor or something? I noticed how you wrote his title, which would imply he just puts “Dr.” in front of his name.
Near, he has an “internet” degree where you send them your $$$ and they send you a “certificate” so he has NOT earned a degree, and he also has a CRIMINAL record and has spent time in prison for crimes. He IS smart, but he is a psychopath, see if you can find the video “I, psychopath” which is about him. It will give you a good idea of what he is like. Made me GRIND MY TEETH! LOL
Sister, Sam Vaknin calls himself a NARCISSIST and claims that he is a “benign” Narcissist, but he is actually a psychopath, look up the video “I, Psychopath” about him and you will see. He’s all over the web promoting his books and writings, and owns several web sites for “survivors” but are actually nothing but places to tout his book….I was on one of his web sites before I found LF and the moderators FLAMED me and others there as well. It was TOXIC.
I really appreciate this post about the squirrels. When we first invited our spath to live in our home as a “family member” we had to really coax him into being comfortable in our family. Specifically we noticed that he would not eat much at dinner time. I tried to cook yummy meals that he would enjoy, and we all ate like kings the first few weeks he was here, as I was trying to put on a good spread!
At meals I would offer him dish after dish, and he would reluctantly, shyly, take a small amount of food. (This was a nearly grown man, hungry-all-the-time teenager, you would think.) When offered food or snacks or almost anything, he assumed a humble “head-down” posture and everything. We tried kidding him, and reassuring him, and coaxing him, to feel comfortable eating with us. Of course this totally tugged at my heartstrings because I thought (assumed too much) this poor guy has never had a decent meal, he’s been so abused all his life, he’s afraid to even eat. Bless his heart, he doesn’t know how to act around generous people like us (my own sickening pride there, I know now).
As time went on, he became more and more “comfortable” taking food from us, and I was glad. But eventually it crossed the line; he became a total mooch! Toward the end he would say, “Hey lady, what kind of crap is this?! Call me if we’re going out to eat!” In the early days, we had to convince him it was ok to have a baloney sandwich, and by the time we kicked him out, he was demanding steak dinners!
I have been blaming myself all this time, for SPOILING HIM, for being unwise in how I dealt with him, being overly generous I guess. He came in with such a humble, unassuming personality. I am the one who tried to coax him out of that! He always said he was just fine with only a baloney sandwich (like Hens and a couple others mentioned earlier, simple child-like foods). Why did I not leave that alone? Why did I have to try to “expand his horizons” with real home-cooked food… and mother him, and put some meat on his skinny bones? I should have left well enough alone. By the time my “corruptive influence” had worked on him, he was no longer appreciative, and began to feel totally entitled to everything, absolutely everything, we had. We were hiding our cash, locking up our tools, and eating our hard-earned steaks on Sundays when he wasn’t around.
I know my thinking isn’t right about all this… I have to remember, I did not necessarily cause his downward spiral. But I have felt that way a long time, and blamed myself for this whole sickening ordeal. I have to remind myself, we only fed him to be NICE. He is the one who chose to respond to “NICE” in the predatory way that he did.
Just wanted to say that the story of the squirrels rings so true to me. His behavior was exactly that, like a wild animal becoming more comfortable with us each day, to the point of totally taking over our household and our lives. Toward the end it became clear, you give him an inch and he takes a mile.
Dear Justdreamin,
Yep, that is what they do, doesn’t matter if they are squirrels, lions or psychopaths, they TAKE OVER if you let them into your territory and try to “be nice.”
The way you described this mooch I can think of several just like him, both sexes, who various people “took in” to help them out. I’ve been just as guilty of falling for that “pity ploy” as anyone on this blog, so I am not throwing stones at anyone.
I think it was Mark Twain who said “the difference between a man and a dog, is that if you feed a starving dog HE WILL NOT BITE YOU.”
justdreamin:
Wow, that’s a story. Maybe he was afraid to eat at first, but sounds like he turned into a monster. How did you get him to leave?
Your very last sentence reminded me of something. My X spath said that exact same thing about his wife…I give her an inch, she takes a mile. I will never know what he meant by that. I didn’t ask him to elaborate. I should have asked just to see more inside his head. I can’t imagine what he meant. I could see HER saying that about him! Again, probably a ploy to turn everything around.
Louise,
yeah, I had heard the they saying, “if you offer them a hand, they will take your arm.” But I never really knew what it meant until I learned about spaths. If there was one sentence to describe them, I think that would be it.
Your ex-spath was projecting. They all do that: scapegoat previous victims. It’s so disgusting, there aren’t words for it.