By Ox Drover
Most victims and former victims of sociopaths are extremely capable and smart people, so why exactly did these really smart people go “bankrupt” in their personal lives by letting a sociopath take over? That’s a question that has plagued me since I started on the road to healing.
I’ve always been a pretty astute businessperson and an excellent manager of both personnel and resources in my professional life. Why did I do so well in my professional life and go so wrong in my personal life?
I finally came to the conclusion that I ran my business like a business and I let my personal life be run in a very ”un-businesslike” manner.
I’ll use my farm as an example. I had a herd of cattle that I raised to provide meat, which I sold. So my product was meat, but my means of production was my cows having healthy calves, nursing those calves with plenty of milk, and being good mothers to the calves. If a cow did not have a calf because she had a fertility problem, she was an “unproductive” worker, so I had to fire her. Even if I was attached to her, and she was otherwise a nice cow, if she did not give birth to a calf every year, I could not afford to feed her (or “pay her salary”). If a cow was not having a calf, I noticed her lack of “production” and terminated her without too many tears, because I realized if I had a pasture full of cows that did not have calves, my farm would go “bankrupt.”
Suppose old “Bessie” hadn’t had a calf in five years, but she is so very sweet, and never kicks at me, so how could I in good conscience get rid of her, when she looks at me with those big brown eyes and nuzzles my hand when I go to feed her? Or how about old “Bell”? She has a calf every year, but she has a bad udder and doesn’t give any milk, so the calf always dies, but it really isn’t her fault, she just had an infection that caused her udder not to produce any more milk, and she really is so sweet, so what’s a little more feed anyway?
Or how about that old bull? I really do hate to get rid of him, he is so pretty, but he does tear down fences and go walkabout a couple of times a week.
How long before I would have nothing but a bunch of very decorative live pasture-art? My farm would go bankrupt because I let my emotions and excuses for why those animals were not “carrying their weight” influence me to keep on feeding unproductive stock.
I had little if any problem getting rid of unproductive or disruptive cows on my farm, because I knew that if I kept cows in my herd that cost more than they produced, or caused trouble for me or the rest of the herd by tearing down fences, trying to hurt me, or just in general causing problems, my farm would start to cost more than it brought in and I would go “bankrupt.”
So why didn’t I apply these same principles to my life that I did to my business? Well, first of all I let emotional attachment to “friends” and “family” who were “costing” me more than they produced to stay on my “emotional payroll.”
I had “friends” who only seemed to come around when they needed something, but after all, they really were in a bind, and maybe it wasn’t entirely their fault. I also had friends who seemed to think it was my responsibility to take care of them for the rest of their lives. I had friends and family who seemed to think that I owed them “unconditional love” because I gave birth to them, and no matter what they did, how badly they treated me, or used and abused me, I had to “play nice” with them.
How come if a cow even shook her head threateningly at me she was immediately hamburger, no matter how many calves she had or how fat she nursed them, and I had no problem at all sending her off to the butcher, but I couldn’t stand up to a “friend” or a family member and say, “Don’t treat me like that!”
I knew how to run a business, and I knew what made a business profitable or bankrupt. Why did I not know how to run a life and how to make it profitable and good? I let my life go bankrupt emotionally. Why did I think that things were going to change or get better if I simply allowed more output than there was income to continue? I kept giving to those in my life, but never receiving.
In our lives there are always times we give more than we get in supporting our friends and family, but if this is a continual occurrence, over time we become physically, financially and emotionally “bankrupt.” We must receive as well as give to friends and family.
Now, while I don’t literally run my “life” like I do the farm, figuratively I do. When a person is disruptive to the peace of my life, just like a cow with a dangerous attitude, I terminate them from my “pasture” so that I am not in danger of being hurt. If a person is always taking and never giving, that person is also removed from my “pasture” as unproductive. If a person is always breaking the rules and “jumping the fences” and causing trouble, what do I need that person in my life for? To get me out of bed at 2 a.m. to post their bail? To pay their rent because they can never seem to keep a job?
The people who are now in my life give as much as they receive, show respect for me and for the fences (boundaries) in my life. They don’t stand around waiting for me to bring them a bucket of “feed,” but they get out and hustle up their own, and take responsibility for themselves. I can count on these people to do what they say they will do, and to be trustworthy individuals.
My life is now more “profitable” than it has ever been and that “profit” is laid up as a big “bank account” filled to the brim with PEACE, LOVE and JOY! I am the richest woman in the world.
oh and also – I think I developed a decidedly rosy spectacled out look in order to deal with my upbringing, it was me in complete denial mode… thinking that everything had to beautiful in some way…(to look for the beauty even if it wasnt there… so that I could survive….) I realise that’s just not true, but its true for a lot of things and that gives me great joy. I can still enjoy these things but in a more dicerning way, and actually it gives them MORE value than before. waffle, waffle, waffle…
My partner has had years of abuse from a man, father of her kids. I wrote the following poem to show her that i understood (as far as I can) the horror she has endured and also to help her unclutter the noise of emotions in her mind and ‘see’ what has been happening. When she read it she cried as she felt it summed up much of what had been going on.
I have registered here to post the poem in the hope that it helps others, too. The harsh words in the original have been *-out; use your imagination to fill the blanks. You will know the words….
Nine Years of J
“You’re mad, you’re crazy,
That’s not what I meant!
Why did you think that way?”
Because I’m wrong, because I’m bad.
To Hell, again, this day.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“Let me explain it,
really simply, like.
I know you’re head is woolen!”
Please, no, not that voice.
I know I’m just a woman.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“You know that I love you.
And think you’re sexy too
And you love me, I know it’s true.”
Nowhere near the way I want,
but for the kids, “I do.”
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“I’m leaving you now,
And it’s all your fault
You stupid selfish *****”
I breathe again, and with two kids.
Finally life is rich.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“You cow, you slut,
I harden as you weep.
My telephone voice, I know, it really hurts you deep”
I listen while trading my self respect
For a good night’s sleep.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“Your access times? Ha Ha Ha
I can feel your fears.
I can’t arrange the kids’ access but I can arrange my beers.”
His victims count the clock’s seconds,
And I must wipe their tears.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“You *****, you whore
You called the police.
What a great mother you are!”
The kids they think it’s all my fault,
And behave as bees in a jar.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“I know your mum
I know your Dad
I know what buttons to press.”
Emotional Rape by Proxy.
My family I must address.
He must be right,
He’s stronger than me,
He tells me this so often.
I give him my vote
While I kick myself.
Always left feeling rotten.
“The court was wrong,
Full of wimmin!
Me, you’ll never beat!”
You’re wrong, Dear J, I know you’re sick.
Now I’m standing on my own two feet.
It’s me who’s right
I’m stronger than you,
I have been oh so often.
I give me my vote,
While my children smile,
No more feeling rotten.
Stephen McKay Aug 2009
(written for a lover who has incredible strength. “j” is her ex)
Morning Blue. I got the coffe burbling away, and am looking forward to a crisp, clear, golden morning, too! By the way, I love your fluffiness!
:)x Hello Kim:)xxx Thanks *blush*.
Enjoy your beautiful morning!xxx You deserve it!x
gmorniing everyone.
Stephen, nice ending on the poem. That was very touching that you would write that for her.
I’m having more revelations recently…
I can see that my problem and the xP’s are the same.
Most of us have this problem. We suffered emotional trauma as children. The pain was unbearable, so we found a way to overdramatize OTHER feelings in order to block out the ones we couldn’t handle. In my case, it has come out as someone who feels EVERYTHING intensely. Love, hope, sex, sorrow, beauty. That’s why I lived so recklessly as a teenager, hitchhiking everywhere, it was my way of creating fear and excitement so I wouldn’t have to deal with my childhood trauma. When I met my P, this same hidden pain is what I sensed inside him and connected me to him.
But what I didn’t realize is that he had other mechanisms that he was using to drown out the trauma and fears from his dysfunctional childhood. His methods were like mine, but went much further and included hate, revenge, and evil. You can’t have those feelings and still feel empathy, so he removed that one. The overwhelming envy is part of the disorder, but I don’t have it and he does, so I’m not sure where it’s anchored.
He is everything I am, only taken to such an extreme that it produced pure evil. While I was quite willing to be harmed but not to harm, his reaction is to harm others but not be harmed.
I haven’t figured out where to go from here. I see the problem but not the solution. I have a feeling that I have to somehow face the traumas of my childhood. But is there one (the incident involving my doll and my little sister)? or are there many more which I don’t recall? Or is it just an accumulation of living with P-Parents?
HOW, do I face something that traumatized a 4 year old but doesn’t traumatize a 43-year old? Is there some kind of unraveling I have to do?
LWH, can you tell me something about the therapy that you and your P had 7 years ago?
Skylar,
Have you read The Betrayal Bond? It may help you.
Skylar
You have to bear in mInd I thought I was dealing with something normal here–childhood wounds that we all have.
I realised that there was something seriously wrong in our relationship 7 years ago and I went to counselling. It was there I found out that woman tend to blame themselves when things go wrong in a relationship. I also realised that the problem was not me–but him.
To take him back-(because I still loved him and thought that he loved me but was just a bit mixed up because of childhood sexual abuse) The condition was that if he could not talk to me about them to go into counselling. He did–and we got happier.
We also went to marriage guidance and we seemed to get better and better.
All Normal progressions.
As I thought.
But what I came up against was not normal in any human sense. There was no normal progression on his part only on mine. It was a crazy world all jumbled up with me in parts to fufill functions for him. The only emotion I could get was deep rage.
This had nothing to do with me. I do not feel this way. Never have done. His stuff. Not mine.
All the emotional connections came from me–not him.
So he has the problem–I don’t.
When I ran for my life two years ago–I felt that instead of holy bonds connecting us–these had been traumatisingly placed by unholy bonds. Which meant all that was healthy was replaced by unhealthy bonds of fear and excitment. I think that this is what he was trying to create.
An addiction.
He went too far though and there was only fear connecting us. I fled for my life.
The whole experience was about enmeshment. Which included our children. His stuff–not mine.
The betrayal bond is a good book and it explains a lot.
I have researched and researched to try and find if we could be salvaged whilst breaking my addiction to him–very unhealthy addiction.
He can’t be cured or healed in any way.
But we can.
What I keep in mind at all times is that I was the healthy one–he wasn’t.
I was also sensitive and loving. My childhood wounds made me that way. I was glad that I was this way. I knew his home was loveless so I poured love on him. I thought it worked.
But his childhood made him different. He chose his path as I chose mine.
We are nothing alike in any way or form.
Hope this helps.
peace and Love xxx
fantastic post LWH:)x Something I now wonder though about the sociopath, is this: I too poured my love on him, to try to heal his ‘childhood wounds’, I knew what that was like, and what needed soothing… but I wonder now, based on his behaviour, his lack of a story that felt real (everything he said jarred and scraped and didn’t quite ‘fit’) … was it all just a reflection? him mirroring me? the deepest way he had to make a connection… to have me thinking that I could and KNEW how to ‘save him’ … just a thinks:)x Thanks.x
Skylar, i was hoping you read my post yest but maybe you didn’t. I’ve been so dam lonely lately and i know i’ve gotten myself into a pickle with the detective, i admit to looking forward to the visits as im so dam bored. You know he mentioned “not wanting to end up like me with a huge wall up ” and i kind of resented the comment but now im sitting here wondering if there isn’t some truth to it. I let so many guys go by the wayside not giving them a chance and pretty much convinced myself that there was something wrong with them all an d yet i’d go back to the s(the old devil you know is better) . When he came by the other night after the awards ceremony i couldn’t be as assertive as i should be because i knew he was low due to his wife not caring about his acheivement etc. but i didn enphasize professional help as well as telling him i didn’t want his wife finding out and retaliating, as i’ve been through so much crap the last few years, i don’t need an ounce more. I gave him the book”Why is it always about You” and that’s the last i saw of him. I saw my alcoholic brother the other day at my aunts funeral and he was not very responsive and im trying not to take it personally and to be honest im worried about his bloodpressure , strokes run in our family and he was beet red. It’s a hard pill to swallow, i still care about him , but he resents me and i know he’s in so much pain, i could see it , losing our dad . He’s the only family i have other than my children and i am close to his ex and neice and ne[hew i just wish it could be diff with him but i know he’s too into the disease. I’ve never spent so much time alone in my life as i have lately. The s daughter called yest wanting to borrow 10 dollars and i said no . Im so overwhelmed with all i should be doing , i think im drawing a complete blank. I did get my perscrips in order as my benefits are running out soon. Got to get on the bandwagon with my resume. love kindheart