Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.
Have you ever seen a cat toy with a stunned, cornered mouse? How it will capture the mouse, dangle it in its mouth for a while, release it momentarily, allowing the mouse the pretense of an escape, only to recapture it, dangle it some more from its mouth, perhaps release it again briefly, now to watch the mouse, increasingly frantic, make another escape bid, only to recapture it, now letting the terrorized mouse (and, as if it’s fate) dangle yet some more, in dreadful uncertainty?
If the mouse could think, it might have thoughts like these: “What will this cat do with me? How long will it continue to toy with me? Will it kill me, or let me go? Strangely, this cat seems to be deriving a perverse pleasure in my predicament. My helplessness and suffering seem to be entertaining and amusing this cat. There is something cold and sadistic about this—that this cat could be using, and exploiting, my vulnerability in this way for its personal, shallow gratification?”
The mouse would think, “there is something wrong with this cat.”
In this analogy, the mouse’s imagined experience of the cat captures, I believe, the victim’s experience of the psychopath. Cats, of course, are not psychopaths, and mice, although traumatizable, are unlikely to experience their victimization in quite so thoughtful a way.
But to elaborate the analogy, let us imagine what’s taking place in the cat’s mind. The cat may be thinking, “This is fun. The mouse I’m terrorizing is pathetic. Look how scared and confused it is. It has no idea what’s in store for it. Even I haven’t decided what’s in store for it. I’m enjoying its helplessness, and my total control over it, too much to worry about my plans for this mouse. I find it amusing that its playing dead. Does this mouse think it can fool me? I, and only I, will determine whether the mouse lives or dies. Presently I’m going to release and taunt it again, with the illusion of escape. When I recapture it immediately, it will be trembling with fear, a prisoner to my designs. This is pretty funny. It’s not that I have anything personal against mice. As a matter of fact, they provide me with a great source of recreation.”
The cat in this analogy (and let me stress that I like cats, who don’t really think like this), captures with a chilling fidelity the perspective of psychopaths towards their victims. It is all there: the cat’s utter lack of empathy for the mouse; its view of the mouse as an “object” that exists to be exploited for its benefit; its amusement at having created the mouse’s predicament, now to watch and enjoy the mouse’s futile bids at escape; its contempt for the mouse’s helplessness and desperation, which the cat, of course, has opportunistically established for its own entertainment; its relish in its omnipotence to decide the mouse’s fate, but only when it is good and ready, and no sooner than the cat has mined the mouse’s helplessness for its full recreational value.
In sum, this is the essence of the psychopath: his joy of the hunt, his contempt for his prey, and his intention to take everything he can, and wants, from his victim.
When the psychopath takes you for a ride—that is, when he is victimizing people—it’s really not personal: You’re simply not enough of a person for it to be personal. In the psychopath’s eyes, you are an expedient, nothing more. When he crosses your path, the psychopath is assessing your expediency. He is asking himself, “Is there something this impending-sucker has for me? Is there something I can take from this fool that I want? Something I can take that will make me feel good?”
As part of his assessment, he is evaluating the kind of target you’ll be. If he decides to pass, it won’t be because he likes you, or feels something charitable; it will be because he’s decided that, either you have nothing, after all, worth taking, or that you’ll pose inconveniences and/or risks to his present self-interests that he prefers to avoid.
For the psychopath, you are like a sealed, vulnerable envelope he is constantly espying, with suspected money inside. He isn’t sure how much money, but he’s pretty sure there’s something in it. It might be a little, it might be a lot; it’s possible there’s too little (or nothing) of value worth his bothering with. Surely, though, he is scheming how best to glimpse what’s in the envelope, and how best to lift anything worth taking.
The psychopath is a high, and often imprudent, risk-taker; he’s in it for the catch, not to be caught. You, and all human beings, are mere commodities to him: maybe useful, maybe not. Certainly, once he’s expended your use, to the psychopath you’ll be as useless as a nagging headache.
OxDover,
After reading your last post, I remembered a story I heard once. It goes something like this. A man went to God and asked him to please take the cross he carries. It was too much for him to bear. God told him he would take the cross, but he would have to exchange it for another, as everyone has some cross to bear. So the man went into a room full of crosses and chose the smallest one he saw. When he informed God of his choice, God informed him he had chosen his same cross.
My cross might not be the smallest in the room, but it is far from the largest. After reading your story and some others my load doesn’t feel quite as heavy. When I’m feeling overwhelmed I’m going to try to remember this. I’ve been given an opportunity for an abuse free life and I just need to take it.
Dear Tryingtorecover,
Thank you, “I think” LOL
Believe me, when I say this, my cross is not the largest one I have seen, or the heaviest. I have been reading and rereading a book by Dr. Viktor Frankl who was in the Nazi prison camps (ultimate P-persecution) and his book, called “Man’s Search for Meaning” is the most thoughtful, spiritual work I have ever read.
Suffering, he says, is like gas, it completely fills any empty space in which it is put–expaning to FILL THE ENTIRETY, it doesn’t matter if it is a little suffering or a lot, it fills all the aviailable space. Each persons personal suffering fills up his own “whole”—Dr. Frankl’s spiritual as well as psychiatric messages (he was a psychiatrist) is so life affirming that I ca’t say how much I owe to this man’s thoughts in my own recovery and healing and my own “search for meanning.”
Interestingly enough, Dr. Frankl syas that the EMOTIONAL suffering in the camps was worse than the starvation, the beatings, the mind and body numbing cold and other physical tortures. He also goes on to give his opinion why some of the physically weaker people survived and some of the stronger ones gave up and died, almost willing themselves to die.
The spiritual aspect of healing he thought and so do I is so important to our recovery. Even a person who does not believe in a higher power or a god can use this spirtual aspect to heal themselves.
Another of his concepts is that suffering must also have meaning in order for us to accept it and go on living afterwards, that we must root out the hatred and bitterness within ourselves. This has been so difficult for me, and I cannot say that I have done so 100% at this point, or will ever acheive 100% rooting out of that bitterness at the things that I have done to myself and allowed others to do to me, or to totally accept all of the losses and grief, but I am making great strides compared to where I was 10 -12 months ago.
On your cross analogy, I saw one recently where a man kept whittling down the size of his cross so it would not be so heavy, until it was very light. When he came to a great canyon, though, his travel mates used their huges crosses as BRIDGES to cross and his smaller cross would not reach across the great open space.
I firmly believe that our suffering, or learning experiences, can have meaning not only to us but to others—this and other forums are examples of that—and that we by our suffering can learn and grow in such a way that we never could have without these experiences.
I see new hope and new growth in myself almost every day, spiritually, physically, and mentally and emotionally. In some ways my life has more meaning now than ever before, and my vision is more clear of the world and the things in it, and as Dr. Frankl says LOVE is the most important aspect in our lives. Either the memories of those that we have loved who have passed away, or those that we love today. The thoughts of his wife, though she was also in a camp and h e did not know if she was alive or dead (at one time he was only 1/4 mile from her and didn’t know it at the time, but she was then gassed) but her memory, his love for her, maintained his will to live, and her memory also helped him maintain his sanity and purity of spirit afterwards so that he could heal.
Sir Laurens van der Post, a South African author and former prisoner of war, who was quite arrogant and narcissistic himself, wrote wonderfully about his experiences in a japanese prisoner of war camp in Java. I don’t have any way to know if his thoughts were true or if they were merely ways to make himself appear “heroic” (he actually WAS very heroic in actions and sacrificed a great deal to save others) in the eyes of others, but he worked tirelessly after the war and actually stayed in java for another couple of years to try to promote forgiveness of his former captors by the US and other nations.
I am acquainted with his daughter who lives in London. Though Sir Laurens treated his wife and family with total thoughtlessness and abandoned them for other women, yet some of the things he did for fellow prisoners were awe inspiring and are on the level with Mother Theresa. So on some levels he was a very egocentric N without any apparent idea that he was hurting others very badly, yet, when the chips were down in other ways, he literally risked his life and took multiple beatings to help other prisoners.
The learning experiences I have been through, the self examination have helped me to see myself and my attitudes more clearly I think.
Thre was a time when I worked with abused women at a shelter and I was so frustrated at them for going back repeatedcly to their abusers. I actually felt superior to these women, saying to myself “I would NEVER GO BACK TO A MAN WHO BEAT ME.” Yet, at the time I was looking down my nose at these women, I was DOING THE SAME THING THEY WERE, only it was my SON not my S/O that was “beating” me repeatedly. That I was repeatedly enabling.
I realized this and remembered the story in the Bible of the Pharisee and the publican both praying in the temple. The Pharisee, a very “holy” man, who followed all the laws, looked down at the publican (a tax collector) and said “Thank you God that I am not such a sinner as this man” and the Publican threw himself on his face and said, “God, help me a sinner.” I knew that I had behaved like the Pharisee in my arrogance that I was “smarter” and “wiser” than these poor women. A humbling experience for sure.
I think too, that until we humble ourselves and realize that we have been duped, that we have ALLOWED the duping, that we cannot quit doing it. Until you recognize your own “sins” (faults) and resolve to STOP that behavior if you get rid of one P you will find another one, or they will find you and you will be back in the same spot.
I have finally gotten all the Ps out of my life either by distance, prison, or their deaths and it is wonderful, though sometimes I stil feel “odd” that there is no chaos or drama in my life. I don’t have to get up each day and wonder what horrible thing is going to come out of “nowhere” at me.
I think I like that though, it is peace!
Tryingtorecover, what a beautiful post. Something to remember, daily. During some difficult times my sons and I practiced carrying a small polished stone in our pocket, our “Gratitude Rock”. It was a daily comfort to rub the stone and think on things to be grateful for.
What Beverly said here is really powerful “It is more a way to play out their omnipotence and the rush it gives them which kicks in when one of their voices is giving them grief. The voice of false self which starts directing them and gives them the kind of tension they know they must break before they get relief. In a sense they are setting up their own pain and pleasure cycle and we happened to get caught up in it. We also need to look within to find out why we have engaged with such a person. Does this make sense?
Yes, yes, yes! it is so hard to remember that it is not ever about you, it is about them. They are constantly in internal conflict, therefore need to constantly maintain control. There is the relentless game going on inside the head, and then the really complex one on the outside.
I was just pushed into breaking the no contact rule, knowing it would be a disaster, but seeing no viable way out. Man did his predator reveal himself. First the apology, the offer of going to counselling, of asking forgiveness, and then BAMM – the switch. I can and will destroy you. 4hrs later he drops in unnanounced at 11;30 pm to tell me how wrong all that anger was.
I had been on a really good roll, and exited about getting a job after 24 yrs as a homemaker and self employed. Today I am useless, back in devastation land. Did he get a whiff of me being OK? Seeing him was just enough to rekindle a feeling of empathy for him, and confuse all my memories of how good it was when I believed the lies and then he showed me his angriest darkest side, the one you KNOW you need to protect yourself from.
This blog is such a great resource, especially on days like today. Thank you all for sharing your survivor stories. They are sustenance. And yes, we do have the opportunity to live a life free of abuse. Peace to all
eyeswideshut, breaking the NC early on in the healing process for me was a BIG MISTAKE, with all of my Ps—but I am at a point now that I can break PHYSICAL NC and still maintain EMOTIONAL NC.
Since I have had to break NC (physically) once with my mother, due to some urgent financial business, I just set my jaw and did it. I called her on the telephone and told her the reason I was calling was BUSINESS, not social. That out of the way, I spoke about the business and when that was done, she tried to “hook” me in emotionally.
I kept my cool (I am so proud of myself!!!!) and told her that I had called about BUSINESS and that was the ONLY reason, that I could not TRUST her and had no intention of resuming the relationship. I said it firmly and nicely, but so that she understood.
My P-X-DIL just got out of jail (after being in jail for 7 months after an attempt to kill him) and I am having to act as go-between in order to get my son’s taxes filed jointly with her (which is to both their benefits) and I had to return her personal items to her after she got out. (My son lives out of state now)
I am still quite angry with her (obviously) but at the same time I am keeping my anger in check and doing the “right thing” even though she has immediately started her manipulations and lies. I have set boundaries for her, told her what I will do and what I will not.
Early on in the situation I could not have been so “detached” at her manuvers and lies, but at this point, I am able to do what has to be done, and let the rest slide. My religion tells me that I must “do good unto those that persecute you” but it doesn’t say “be a door mat.” So I am trying to keep it so that I can face my God with what I have done toward her, but I have no intention of letting her run over me, my son, or steal any more from my mother. I can keep it at “arms’ length” now. Early on I could not have done so.
The STRICT NC physically helped me acheive “emotional NC” and that is I think the real healing.
I am currently the mouse-and the cat is a disabled sociopath. I didn’t see it spinning out of control as fast as it did. I’ve been very busy with college classes and didn’t pay any real attention to him-just superficial email. This man has spina bifada. I know his parents well, rent the rural space from them for my rv. I became a “sort of” friend with him-I felt sorry for him. All contact was through email. I have seen him, physically, only a few times and he was always with his dad. I have never been in his house nor he in mine, have never been alone with him. To me, he was just an unfortunate individual, born with a terrible disabilty who keeps on keeping on. I (many others still do) respected him for never giving up on life. I have had a “there but for the Grace of God go I” attitude. He was married once, for 3 years, no children.
Out of the blue, he emailed his undying love and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. This declaration came 2 weeks after the initial email. My response was that we were casual email buddies, at best, and that was all it would ever be. He turned very ugly, his real personality surfaced and he became fixated on me. He now stalks me via phone, internet and drives by 5-6 times a day. He has listed my name/phone number on myspace for phone sex. Men call and also email the most disgusting words and photos. He sends me pornography. He has used many different email accounts to issue threats. In the last 6 weeks, he has emailed hundreds of times, going from pathetic, to angry, threatening, sending porn and again, expressing his undying love for me. He claims he will never let me go-will never give up on “our love”. His dad, with whom I have been friends with for many years, will no longer speak to me. He thinks I am a monster for hurting his poor, disabled, sweet little boy. He tells anyone who will listen that I led him on then dumped him. This is as crazy as it gets! During this time, I have been totally immersed in completing my first year graduate work. I studied around the clock, literally. I just finished last week, with a very high grade point and it has consumed all of my time. Because of this, I have been unaware of how much his obsession has escalated. I stopped opening his email 3 weeks ago and put them in a file. I have not contacted him in any way for the last 6 weeks. I chose to ignore him, thinking he would GO AWAY. I’ve sold the rv, (which I have always planned to do) and purchased a house & will be relocating, finally, to the area I much prefer. My new phone number will be unlisted-and I will get a new email address. (I will be very careful from here on out who I give this information to). I have kept a file on him-email, dates/times of phone calls, the myspace email, etc. I will take legal action if this continues, in any way, after I move.
I am stunned by all of this. But then, that’s what a good cat does-stun its prey.
Wow. This is one powerful discussion. I don’t think I have ever read anything more poignant that what OxDrover wrote about her son:
““Losing a child” to death or separtion is difficult, but at the same time, I almost fee that my “real son” died at about age 12 or so, and the MAN who is inside his body (like a sci-fi alien who assumes the idenity and likeness of a human) is NOT my “son” that Iloved. I finally closed the casket lid on my grief for the loss of such a promising child, who no longer is alive. The stalking monster that resembles him is not someone I love, or want contact with. Or rent “space in my head” to.”
When researching and writing about psychopathy, I have always kept in mind the potential anguish of the mother of the psychopathic child, and it just boggles my mind to think about it. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to imagine myself wearing those shoes (I have five beloved children) and it just tears my heart apart to even go there in my thinking much less if I had to do it in reality. OxDrover, my heart goes out to you.
I’ve used the cat and mouse analogy on a number of occasions and this article is well done and much appreciated. One way that I have thought (and written) about it is to say that the psychopath – and the narcissist to a lesser extent – is a predator. If we think about the interactions of predators with their prey in the animal kingdom, we can come to some idea of what is behind the “mask of sanity” of the psychopath. Just as an animal predator will adopt all kinds of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them out of the herd, get close to them and reduce their resistance, so does the psychopath construct all kinds of elaborate camouflage composed of words and appearances – lies and manipulations – in order to “assimilate” their prey.
But this leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath REALLY get from their victims? It’s easy to see what they are after when they lie and manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psychopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual speculations – a problem Cleckley also faced – we can only say that it seems to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite. They are like mirror reflections of humans with souls and conscience, only everything in their inner world is backward, twisted, upside down.
Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse before killing and eating it has probably explained to themselves that the cat is just “entertained” by the antics of the mouse and is unable to conceive of the terror and pain being experienced by the mouse, and the cat, therefore, is innocent of any evil intent. The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is nature. Psychopaths don’t generally eat their victims; or do they?
Yes, in extreme cases the entire cat and mouse dynamic is carried out and cannibalism has a long history wherein it was assumed that certain powers of the victim could be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But in ordinary life, psychopaths and narcissists don’t “go all the way”, so to say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenarios again with different eyes. Now we ask: is it too simplistic to think that the innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse running about and frantically trying to escape? Is there something more to this dynamic than meets the eye? Is there something more than being “entertained” by the antics of the mouse trying to flee? After all, in terms of evolution, why would such behavior be hard-wired into the cat? Is the mouse tastier because of the chemicals of fear that flood his little body? Is a mouse frozen with terror more of a “gourmet” meal?
This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas about psychopaths with a slightly different perspective. One thing we do know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and narcissists report feeling “drained” and confused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health. Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue “love relationships” and “friendships” that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?
In the end, only the individual victim can determine what they have lost in the dynamic – and it is often far more than material goods. In a certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul eaters or “Psychophagic.”
The “Cat and Mouse” game was continually played out between me and the psychopath I was involved with for close to six years. HOWEVER, it has come to my attention that the “same” game is NOW being perpetrated on the psychopath I was once involved with by his current wife. He is involved with another psychopath. I’m wondering what the statistics are for that happening? It is eerie how my psychopath is now experiencing the same torment that I had endured while in the relationship with him. It’s as if I’m watching myself in a mirror because he is acting/responding the same way I did. Allowing the emotional abuse. My “theory” is that since many psychopath’s have very little sense of ‘self’ and adapt more readily ‘initially’ to any situation in order to gain their way in, so it would stand to reason that a psychopath is less apt to see another psychopath coming at them. I guess Karma does exist. When he and I were involved, I recall telling him, “my only wish for you is that you meet someone just like you”. He never got it, but now he is.
Wiseronenow. I love it! I must admit to having got one over my exN here and there, right under his nose. They are only tuned into one frequency, theirs – which gives others the edge to abuse them! Some of them like being tortured as well as dishing it out.
For what it is worth, my P-son, when he started his overt P behavior in earnest seemed to get a “rush” out of definace. Of “getting by with” things. If we wanted him to go “south” he went “north”–if he got by with it, he “won” if we caught him, then he got another “rush” by losing, and so I don’t think so much it is winning or losing, but the rush of the “high” of brain chemicals in the “chase”—I think a predator gets a rush in the pursuit of the prey whether they catch it or not.
Redheeler,
The Psychopath’s father being an enabler for his “poor disabled son” is interesting as well. Many psychopaths have parents or others as enablers for them, especially in a situation where the psychopath is disabled physically.
My DIL had a child with muscular dystrophy, the child was not a psychopath (I don’t think) but he was one of the most selfish, selfcentered, unpleasant young men because his mother did not expect manners or politeness out of her “poor disabled” son. He was never expected to “behave nicely.”
Having in the past worked with spinal cord and head injured patients, the ones who became “whole” individuals (even though their bodies might not be whole) were the young people whose parents treated them like NORMAL humans, who just happened to be in a wheel chair. My best friend for the past 20+ years is the p arent of a patient I had when he was 15, quadrapalegic, and his parents treated him just as if he was a “normal” obnoxious teenager, and expected him to behave in a civilized manner. Today, 20+ years later, he is a “successful” human who just happens to be in a wheel chair. The “friends” he made at the hospital, are for the most part either dead or “pitiful” becaue their parents enabled them to behave in “nasty” ways because they were “poor pitiful cripples.”
My son who is VERY ADHD is a successful man, because I never gave him any “slack” because he was ADHD as far as how he behaved or his manners. I have worked with ADHD kids professionally who when they picked up a chair and threw it at the teacher, their parents would want me to write a note to the school excusing this behavior because “what can you expect, he is ADHD?”
Well, MY kid never threw a chair at a teacher….he might have squirmed on it, sat in it upside down on his shoulders, but he never picked up the chair and threw it no matter how angry he got…because he knew there were consequences to doing such a thing, and that if he got in trouble at school for unruly behavior or violent behavior that there would be consequences at home.
My ADHD son is self monitoring of his behavior, has a very good heart, a caring man, and is a productive and good man. I am very proud of him and the set of moral constructs that he has developed. He might have developed those without me holding him accountable for his behavior in spite of his “disability,” so I can’t say that his “raising” was totally or even partly responsible for his success as a person, but I have seen many other examples of people with less disabilities that had no accountability because of their disability that turned out much worse.
My P son was also held accountable for his behavior, but I also realize that I was “conned” by him in his later years after he left my home, in to “enabling” him in many ways….I wasted a lot of time, grief and tears in trying to “save” him and “give him another chance.” It is only in retrospect that I realize I was only enabling him, and that he actually got a “high” out of fooling me, just for the fun of it, playing the cat and mouse game. The predator and the prey.
For so long it was just “fooling the old woman” for commissary money, but when I caught on and tried to “get away” he started the kill in earnest—literally. Fortunately, he was not successful, and I escaped his clutches…but even that I am sure was a “rush” and he is sitting in his cell even as I write this “plotting” revenge (which has been shown in research to stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain) and getting a “high” after even a failed attempt at killing the prey.
So, heads he wins, and tails I lose. He gets a “reward” of one kind or another no matter what happens.
I am somewhat of an older and wiser mouse now though. LOL
Your comment, Wiseronenow, about how the psychopath paired up with a psychopath would be doing, is interesting.
My P-son recruited one of his P ex-convict friends to “infiltrate” the family, which he did, but the Trojan HOrse P got greedy and “blew his cover” too soon, which caused all this “house of cards” plan that P-son had to come down on all their heads before the final goal could be accomplished.
Since Ps have no loyalty to others, two Ps working together are really doing wha tI call “parallel play” like two two-year olds sitting side by side playing, but not really playing together. And when one two-year old gets tired of his toy and decides to take the other one’s toy, the “war is on” so while they may “conspire” for a time toward a mutual goal, at the same time, they are using each other too. That is why the cops can usually get someone in a “gang” of thieves to roll over on the others for a break in sentencing, when it comes down to the “rubber meetiing the road” the psychopath will put his interests above all others.
I’m coming in very late on this thread, which was really amazingly to read. There was a time when it seemed like all of us were in early-stage healing. And now a lot of us are much farther down the road. Time is really our friend in this healing.
I wanted to add something from my own life. I’ve been mulling over what to do about the judgments and anger that seem to continually return when I’m under work or family stress. Judging him, judging myself. It’s not that the judgments aren’t valid, but that I would like to live my life without all that angry noise in my head.
Part of this discussion has been about whether there is something “in us” that makes us vulnerable to predators. And in my own case, I believe I had a vulnerability and that it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a household where there was emotional, physical and sexual abuse of the children. One impact of my background is that my tolerance threshold for abusive behavior is out of whack. I don’t recognize it as a reason not to love a person, and in fact, it may trigger a response in me to get involved, trying to heal the person or cure their problems so the “real” and “good” person can emerge again.
For all my angry and judgmental thoughts, it can be difficult for me to identify someone as a dangerous person, because I’m so good at empathizing with their problems. Okay, I think, he’s behaving like a mean-spirited and selfish jerk, but I also know that he desperately needs validation at work that he’s not getting, or he’s feeling insecure about my making more money that he does, or he’s feeling despair about ever getting his life in order. So his bad behavior makes sense, even though I hate it, and maybe I can help him out of it.
For me, at least part of this recovery process has been to learn to set boundaries about what I want and need in my life, and to feel good enough about them that I can enforce them. To do that, I have to make some judgments about people that aren’t as much about them as about what I want in my life. But still, it is about them, because these boundaries require me to identify them as “bad” or bad for me. And that’s the ultimate judgment, because it leads me to shutting the door on them, believing that no contact is best for me, no matter what they do, or how seductive or promising they may seem for the moment, or how pitiful I may find their problems.
I had a five-year relationship with a man I believe to be a sociopath. Five years is a long time, and I saw him in a lot of different conditions. One of the things that made it so hard to terminally judge him as a bad person, is that I’ve seen him vulnerable and trying to be a better person, and I know about his background and his griefs and emotional damage. Yes, he did everything that a sociopath does — exploit me, abuse me, sneer at my suffering, abandon me and show up again when he wanted to exploit me again — but I see him in all these different ways. And it’s made it hard for me to arrive at and hold onto that final judgment.
And perhaps, along with letting go of the idea that I might have “fixed” him, I’d like to also to give myself a break about my collusion in all this. Because that’s a related issue that plagues me. How can I blame him, when I got so sucked in, and participated in things that just make me sick when I think about him, harming not just myself but people I care about.
Well, last week, I tried a new thing just to see if it would help me make this final judgment. I decided to remove myself from the memories, and even to remove the context of my life from the memories and just see what he looked like in a vacuum.
To do that, I remembered our history together but with only him in it, doing whatever he did against the kind of “blue screen” they use in film-making before they fill in a background. Nobody else but him, moving and talking, the expressions on his face, his reactions, the stories he told, the decisions he made through those years.
If this sounds a little artificial and weird, it was. But it was also fascinating. Without me in the picture and all my sfeeling and my internal drama, he became … well, pathetic and obnoxious and shallow. There were times when he was childishly pitiful and needy. There were times when he clearly was trying to behave like a responsible person. But the persistent character that seemed to return over and over again was an angry, selfish, self-aggrandizing, grasping, heartless monster. Not only toward me, but in the stories he told about other girlfriends, friends and people he worked for. Totally untrustworthy. Totally unable to feel love or compassion, and certainly not express it in any meaningful way.
That is the man I was in love with for five, horrible years. And when I see him like this, all the confusing questions become less important. It doesn’t matter what vulnerability I had. It doesn’t matter what he convinced me to do. This is not about me. It’s about him. Who he is, and whether I want anything like that in my life, not only in person, but affecting my thoughts about myself and the world.
One of the things I’ve learned since him is that there are a lot of people like him. In fact, there were people like him in my life before, but I just didn’t see them that way. I felt sorry for them, while they damaged me and took advantage of me. I still feel sorry for them, but I am a lot clearer now about where they belong in my life and in my thoughts. And that is, outside the gates. I didn’t create them. I’m not responsible for them. I don’t want them sucking me dry emotionally or financially, or tying me up sexually or romantically. I don’t want them or their influence in my life.
Many years ago, while I was researching a book about rape, I took a self defense course given by a man who was a therapist and a martial arts expert. I went into it with misgivings, because I didn’t want to become “paranoid.” I came out of it knowing that I could physically defend myself, if necessary, and knowing how to keep myself from physically getting into dangerous situation. (I emphasize the “physically” here, because unfortunately, it didn’t address the way I emotionally walked into dangerous situations.) And that knowledge reduced a level of fear and paranoia that I didn’t even know I had.
I feel like a parallel process is happening here. Learning to recognize the signs of a user, staying in touch with my own reality, feeling absolutely justified in saying “no” or “go away,” and being prepared to defend myself…well, you might not think that’s preparation to love again, but I think it is. Except a different kind of love, one that’s not about pity or need.
On April 1, it will be three years since I got him out of my life. I did a lot of ruminating, and I actually think it was a good thing for me. I got to know myself a lot better. I found my spiritual core. I’m building a new sense of self and finding new meaning in my life. So, I spent three years without loving anyone, and thinking about some hard things. I don’t think it was time wasted, if I learned to love myself and take care of myself.
This is a very long post, but the one thing I want to add is that my sociopath forced this issue. By being so brutal toward me, by breaking every rule of kindness or social expectation, by giving me none of the emotional support I truly needed, he forced me to go searching in myself for that emotional support. I found that I really like myself and trust myself enough to live by my own rules. I’ve said this before here, but I think it’s important enough to say it again. I don’t like his behavior or the experience of being involved with him, but I’m grateful for the results of it. I think I manifested him in my life because I was ready to finally grow up.
If you come from a troubled background, like mine, that’s not the easiest thing to do. If I’d hired a trainer to break me of all the bad thinking and dysfunctional emotional patterns I carried out of my childhood, I don’t think it would have been any less painful. I had to let go of a lot. I had to get real about who was responsible for me. I had to build new ways of thinking and feeling and imagining the future. I’m still at it. But when I’m really feeling good about my progress, I look back at him as a kind of Zen teacher. There’s a side of me that keeps complaining about how painful it was and how much it cost. There another side of me that thinks it was worth price.