Do sociopaths know what they are? Many, many Lovefraud readers ask me this question. The short answer is that some of them do and some of them don’t.
The man who sent me the following email certainly has insight into his own personality:
I would like to thank you for making your videos they have given me an insight into how you people recognize us. WE are not to blame for your short comings because you are weak minded and foolish enough to be taken advantage of. We are evolutions next step we don’t allow silly emotions to cloud our judgments. In fact we use our advantage for survival because we are natures next course. I know I sound very narcissistic and apologize for that but if you are so proud and concerned and attached to your emotions why not allow someone to make you feel like a queen for something as worldly as money? We give you what you are missing just as all of the world ecosystem has since the beginning of time. It’s funny how we have been so easily classified and even now as I attempt to alter myself in order to become unparallel to descriptions of us, I find it very difficult to even perceive. I would like to boast of my strategic victories over hearts but I would fear you making another video and making this game more difficult, of course it would make it much more challenging and pleasurable when enjoying the hunt.
This email is a great example of the sociopathic perspective, whether or not individual sociopaths are aware of it. Lest we forget, here is how sociopaths view themselves, the rest of us, and the world:
1. Sociopaths are superior beings, and everyone else is a mark.
2. If marks are dumb enough to be conned, they get what they deserve.
3. Marks deserve to be targeted because of their stupid emotions and consciences.
4. Emotions and consciences are useful in marks, because they can be exploited.
5. Exploitation is a perfectly reasonable way for sociopaths to get what they want.
This is why there is no rehabilitation for sociopaths. They do not feel that they have a disorder; rather, sociopaths believe they have an evolutionary competitive advantage.
Or, for those sociopaths who don’t have the intelligence or education to analyze their place in the world, they’re simply content the way they are and see no need for change.
Jm and Out interesting comments regarding disturbed individuals gravitating to each other. I have noticed that mine seems to be a magnet for other unethical, delusional people. I’ve seen the alliances with her paramours, and how those who are more libertarian, or support her platform covertly are all loosely connected. And yes like both of your stories I’m the mentally off grudge holder who doesn’t know how to love. Their lying, slandering, selfishness, ect. aren’t the problem, I am. Fascinating. The only constant unchangeable feature is I loose. They win. Got it . Thanks.
I have 10s of thousands of emails, from several accounts, (don’t know if I or my IT man found them all), thousands of texts, posts, blogs to and from the latespath. Do I have everything he wrote in 5 years and 3 months; no, I am sure that some were deleted either on purpose or accidentally.
Informative, yes. but it’s akin to realizing that the person you knew, but never really did, was more like fictional characters Alex Forrest, Hannibal Lechter, Not real at all, The best that can be said was that he chose Frank Abagnale as a role model. Chilling, but the shivers never stop.
The latespath was superior to others by anyone’s standard, at least in term of intelligence; his IQ was 180+. He knew how to use his academic abilities to get away with the little things, he considered a waste of his time. Teachers and professors would give him a pass if he didn’t do an assignment, telling him that even without that grade, he would still get an A. Co workers and bosses never pushed him to complete a brief, an answer, etc and would let him get an adjournment because they knew he wrote better then they. He never lost a case.
Me, well I never questioned why he didn’t have any friends, believing that everyone else was jealous of his intelligence.
He even used his academic prowess to reel in escorts: “As for your essay for Rome … I’ll have that to you by tonight (my time) so you can send it off Monday morning (your time). Luv you, del”. (Sent: 6/1/2008 8:15:12 AM; that’s 28 years and a few days since he last attended school)
Everyone that appreciated his brain, became someone that he could eventually use for something..
He never respected the fact that people appreciated his academic prowess. If someone complimented his abilities, he would whisper, they have to look up to me, because they know they can’t do it themselves. I often wonder if he offered to help someone and in doing so, purposely screwed up. Not with a paper or something that the person could directly come back to him on; rather in showing someone how to do something and them blaming them for not understanding his instructions, when they called him on it. After all, if they were smart like him, they wouldn’t need help.
The latespath often told escorts and johns, that he never had to worry about me, as I had made myself responsible for taking care of my now blind mother. Of course he never told them we had no marriage since 1986. Half truths are very important tools for the success of spaths.
I knew that the latespath had no emotions or at least never showed them. I was use to that with my mother. Being the victim of childhood sexual abuse, she built defensive barriers, never allowing herself to be vulnerable again. Show of feelings allow you to be exposed. She would always tell me ladies don’t cry, yell, argue; never make a public spectacle of themselves. In my mind, I saw a hurt little boy, the only one who didn’t know his father (life was different in the early 60s)
.
Spaths are master illusionists, making sure their marked audience only sees what they direct them to.
He knew I cried, he knew I became attached to things, movies, people, and on and on, and he used this knowledge to make my life hell. Now I can see that he derived a perverse satisfaction in taking, monetarily worthless things that belonged to me, newspapers clippings, yearbook, pictures and holding a cigarette to them in front of me. Watching me beg and cry, while telling me, they belonged in the past, who cared about them, why should I.
Spaths believe they deserve only the best, in my case, my family’s money; note, nothing at all was in my name.
While spaths exploit everyone and everything they can, and believe that they are above all; they are aware that there are rules/laws out there. The latespath was well aware of what he was doing and did everything in his power to conceal it.; all be it different things from different people. He got the brokerage to send estatements to his email account and perfected forging paper statements and envelopes to send to the house; statements which showed everything as it should be, if he wasn’t stealing. He got the broker to change the phone number on the account to his cell phone from my mother’s house phone. A cell phone which he described as ” only he answers, if he can’t it goes to voice mail, locked when he is not available, and no one but him knows the password”.
One thing he couldn’t control was my mother’s health and he needed he alive. He texted to EscortC “Okay. So in a nutsehll, my life has been crazy for the last 3 days – my “other” life. The mother-in-law hjas been in hospital. As I have often said, her kicking the bucket will affect “both” my lives I ways that I cannot fully imagine. Fortunatly, it does not look like that day has come yet. Whew!”. He knew that if my mom died, I would administer her estate and in doing so, all of his crimes would be exposed. As long as she was alive, everything was status quo. He could control.
As for the broker, the latespath started to feel him out in spring of 2001. Once he found out the broker was willing to talk to him, although the broker had no right to, as his name was not on the account nor did he have any account with the brokerage, he made his first in road. The mark was his. He didn’t fully begin to implement his scheme until the day after my mother was diagnosed as blind in fall 2002. Actually the very next day. More faxes to the broker, more phone calls. As my mom needed more and more surgeries, and medical treatment, he got more brazen. At first he stole a check here and there and sent his first forged statements; a test to see if he would be caught. A year later he manged to get the broker to give him a form, that I was to find out by several sources, that the brokerage allow only to be given to the account holder and only at the request of the account holder. Yes, I found a signed ‘account holder’ copy hidden in the basement ceiling. By fall of 2003 the fraud and forgeries were in place.
All the broker had to do was follow the rules and none of this scenario would have ever happened. As the firm posted on the internet, for the public to see: “Protecting the confidentiality and security of client information is an important part of how we conduct our business”.
The latespath was that good, that he got a man with 30 plus experience in the stock sector, a senior level broker in an internationally respected brokerage, a man to which he had no ties, personal or business-wise, to forget that his first duty was to protect my mother and her money; to keep her finances private. My parents were many decades long, clients of this brokerage.
Again the half truths: he described himself in the escorting world as ” gainfully unemployed in the field of computer security”. He was unemployed but stealing plenty of money; computer security, sure he had to make sure that his crimes were well hidden on the computer.
Did the latespath ever feel any guilt about the theft, no. Did he ever feel any guilt about spending over a million dollars of the stolen money on escorting, no. Did he ever feel any guilt about telling the ‘girls and guys’ about me, my family, pets, no. Did he ever feel any guilt about making sure he was here every night after his day of crime and sex, no. Did he feel guilt about what his fraud and forgeries could potentially do to the previously spotless professional record of the broker, no. Did he feel guilt about how his criminal and sordid lifestyle would effect his 80 year old mother, no.
“Successful” sociopaths are not stupid. They are aware of what they need to do to keep their dark lives, in the dark. After EscortM died, the latespath was not shy about needing a new 9 to 5 apartment in Manhattan. People in the escorting world didn’t understand why this guy, who was throwing around thousands and thousands a week, was ‘openly’, at least in that sub-world, paying for EscortM’s luxury place, just didn’t get another one. While not willing to publicly post his reasons, he did not hesitate in say in emails:”I have no problem with cash, but I can not have my name appear on anything. I must avoid that at all costs”.
He posted that he feels no guilt, that the escorting keeps him grounded, never mentioning that he stole the money to allow him to live the escorting life.
We know they have no conscience. In the last week of his loathsome, pernicious, perfidious, insidious life, the latespath committed the most nefarious, opprobrious, execrable, rape imaginable to me. NOTE: I use the word ‘rape’ as having the definition of ‘an outrageous violation’ and no I can not find enough words to describe him.
Rape, why, because what he took is irreplaceable, he had no permission to even touch it, and it was well hidden in several places, not in plain sight advertising to be stolen. The pain of this action I feel every day. I can not deal with the fact that I could not bury my mother with her crucifix and wedding band; that my son can not give a future wife my mother’s engagement ring which she wanted him to do; that a high school ring, a boy gave me for safe keeping before he went to Viet Nam, is no longer there to remember this fella on his birthday; that the pin and ankle bracelet my sweetie gave me for my 16th is gone; that I can’t deliver on my promise to my dad that my son will have his jewelry. I get up many mornings planning what to wear and what jewelry will go with it and then realize there is no jewelry. My daymares are much worse than my nightmares.
While he had stolen and spent over a million dollars, that was not enough evil for him. In the last week of his life he stole every bit of jewelry in the house. He didn’t do for access to more money as there was still over $750.000.00 left in my mother’s stock account. He didn’t need the jewelry per se, if he wanted to give the ‘girlies’ gifts, he could have bought them new things; Manhattan has 2 great jewelry districts and he was not a stranger to Tiffany. While the jewelry was worth around $200.000.00, he could have bought much more expensive things. He had no reason to out and out steal the jewelry, other than to inflict pain and deprive my family of tangible pieces of my and their past and my son’s future. As far as my son goes, the latespath was nothing more than a sperm donor, never a father, let alone a dad.
Money is money, one $100.00 bill is just like another, fungible. My dad’s school ring from the 40s, that he wore every day and died with is unique; jewelry brought from Europe in the teens by my grandmother who died before I was born is my only link to her and the past; the ring my dad bought for my mother when he became very ill; graduation presents; birthday presents; charms; crosses; every piece has memories and a story. Nothing can replace them. No, he bought none of it, he bought me an engagement ring for $227.00 in 1974; that was the only piece I ever got from him. He flushed that ring down the toilet, yes really, in 1985 during a fight over divorce.
The damage he did while alive was not enough, he had to insure I had to feel pain forever.
Did he need to steal for survival, NO! He choose to steal because he found away to get away with it.
Did stealing get him more money than he could have earned had he been responsible, NO! Fresh out of law school in 1980 his salary was $35,000.00 plus all sorts of benefits. With his academic abilities, staying on track, he could have easily been earning a million plus a year. But of course he was too good to work.
Did he have to stay married to me, NO. After his abortion comment in August 1980, I was amenable and have been actively wanting one since 1986.
Did he have to become active in the sub-world of sex for money. NO. Real people ask questions, have feelings, care about others, and are speak out; escorting is a world of no questions fantasy, and silence.
His last words to me were the most telling of the mind set of a sociopath: “It’s all your fault”.
Hello Lost Everything. I’ve read your posts before and found them horrific but educational. My experiences honestly seem trivial when compared with the magnitude of what you have had to deal with. I know it’s cathartic to write, to get it out. From an educational standpoint I would think your perspective coupled with all the emails, documents, ect, would be a treasure trove for someone doing clinical research. Have you written a book ? Your strength in surviving the sustained onslaught of evil is almost unbelievable. Hopefully you can begin to have some peace in your live even amongst the wreckage. Remember also that even though he took all those tangible things away from you and you can’t hold them in your hand those precious gifts and memories are still inside of you and you just shared them with us. Those most precious moments in your life he couldn’t take away or even touch.
It is incomprehensible if you have not experienced it. I thought I had escaped with minor injuries in 1975. He had other wives and step-children to keep him away from us. But we are never free. He came back thirty years later and targeted my children and grandchildren…just because he could. Even if he died I would not be free because he would be the unholy martyr in his disguise of respectibility.
If sociopaths are evolutions next step; then I wonder if he can explain why evolution responded with people who share the same traits as sociopaths, in many ways, except they are on the opposite end of the spectrum in regard to feelings. It’s not the way we were intended to be so I don’t believe this is evolution’s answer but more or less biology he needs to overcome. He assumes that a sociopath can fulfill what is missing within me but I am fulfilled. I want things but I don’t need anything. He is the empty vessel looking for something to be filled but he has no possible idea what he is missing. He has no concept of what it feels like to be loved or to truly love another and that to me is sad and such a loss. The connection we get from others is powerful, and he doesn’t know it. He will never experience it for himself. He views his life as something I should aspire to but I view his life as torturous and empty. I’m far from impressed. He has to know that he is never content and constantly searching to fill a void with sex, power, drugs, money, etc. I don’t understand why sociopaths don’t use their intelligence to guide them to control their psychopathy and conform to social norms. I know some don’t think they should have to conform to our ideas but even if they aren’t conforming to our social norms they are still conforming to the sociopathic stereotypes. If I were a sociopath I would want to train myself to feel, I would want to prove that I am smart enough to learn how to function without hurting myself or others. I also view his inability to share his strategies as an indication that he is not truly confident in his abilities or as up for a challenge as he taunts.
JessicaR: I love your post. The part about Sociopaths actually being cookie-cutter people who fit into Sociopath “norms” is amazingly insightful. Their norms are sub-human and truly devolved – not evolved as this spath wants to tell himself. Evolved people have higher levels of intuition, empathy, a high EQ (Emotional Quotient), etc. Sociopaths can not even take care of themselves. They are like feral monkeys pretending to be humans in their devolved drive to get the closest human to meet their base animal instinct needs. Whole humans like us go to wonderful websites like lovefraud and help, educate, and inform other whole, kind, evolved humans. Thank you for you “take” on this. I truly needed to read what you wrote today.
FFWR – You are very welcome; I am glad I could help. I completely agree with you that evolved humans have higher levels of intuition, empathy, and high EQ’s.
I’ve gone over and over the logic of these type of statements from a sociopath.
My conclusion:
Since a sociopath has to hide their true nature in order to get anyone to follow them, then clearly a false self is superior to their real self. In other words, they know that a non-existent made up person is superior to their being real, honest, truthful about who they are. Sociopaths refine their duping skills, but they never learn what it means to be fully human. The inability to evolve to a full range of humanity is NOT evolution, it is a flaw.
TSTS: I guess it is like the cartoon frog who knows if it can just find the right human to kiss it, it will be a prince/princess someday….when it will really just be a frog who left a frog smell on the lips of a real human! I have the “opportunity” to observe a spath regularly. She sees a prince and I smell a frog. I am learning to keep him away from my pond and flower garden….If I detach from him, it is like observing a devolved man just like the moron who wrote about himself in this article. You would think they would at least be intelligent, or curious, enough to read a lot of the posts here and know that they have twin monkeys and frogs all over the world….people exactly like them. They are not special in any way. They all have the same handbook and do all of the same things and think the same way.
Mine got home from the hospital yesterday. I got him home, helped with some things. Checked on him and mentioned that if he wanted more pain medication from the VA, I would have to take him today. I did not want to. I was being kind. But, I made it clear that I had rearranged some things and could only do it today. He called and told me today that he had called the VA and was ready to go. I said, “OK.” I then began telling him about another situation causing me to have to work around getting him there. He said, “Well, whatever you want to do. I don’t want to get into all that.” (In other words, “what you need to do and how you have to finagle YOUR things to do what I want, means nothing to me.”) I said, “Well, what I want to do is not go and get your medicine. I am tired. I am the one doing you a favor and I don’t WANT to do it.” He said, “I just didn’t care about all of that other stuff!” And I said, “I don’t really CARE about your stuff either. I am just a nice human being.” He then began to yell, “Just do whatever you want.” A rage was going to ensue and I don’t tolerate those any more. I hung up. THAT is exactly what I wanted to do and I did it. It felt so good. He called two hours later sounding like a half-way decent impression of a human! He left a message saying, “I’m taking a nap. Have a good day.” LOL! News flash. Didn’t care, foster monkey.
He has just enough pain medication for the next couple of days. It’s a lot better for me for him to be on that walker as long as possible…forever even. He has been quite docile having to use that walker…to walk out and smoke cigarettes while waiting for a second surgery to repair a femur shattered by bone cancer. I then called a friend. Had a nice conversation, and am about to go give the spath today’s pain pills and make myself some lunch. Yes. Just “doing what I want!” I hope he is enjoying his advanced evolution as the moron spath wrote in the article. HA!
The sociopaths have cookie cutter ‘red flags’, traits. I don’t believe they are cookie cutter individuals. How they use these traits vary from one to the other. That’s what makes them so hard to spot. It would be great if they had a big red ‘S’ tattooed on their foreheads, but they don’t.
I say this based on the reactions of the people in the brokerage. I am sure that in their 80 year history, the company has had many people that tried to ‘rip off’ their business or the businesses’ clients through them.
An important point, from their side, they raised was if the latespath was lying, why would he come into their offices. People that are looking to pull a scam, just don’t walk into the business looking and dressed as shabbily as the latespath was. They contended that outward appearances are how people are initially judged and the latespath didn’t present himself as a ‘swell’ (yes they used that word)so there was nothing for them to be suspicious of.
As far as developing emotions, they or at least the latespath, know their limit. I am paraphrasing a quote from him posted on a ‘pay for play’ board. (note, I can not post the direct quote because this particular board contends that all member postings are the property of the board not the individual poster) The latespath said ‘I don’t want to have a relationship that requires any obligations on me emotionally, above what I know I can deal with. Sex for money, I can deal with’.
That does not mean they are incapable of emulating, aping, what the world in general expects of them in terms of emotions. “Good” spaths have this down pat. When EscortM died he knew exactly what was expected of him in terms of behavior and more important how to use these expected actions to his advantage.
One of the most telling posts, that show the Oscar winning acting prowess the latespath had, was written by a fellow john, he knew for years in the escorting world, when he died. (again paraphrased for the above reason)’He loved EscortM so much, I have never seen love like that. He was earnestly mourning her passing a year after she died. I hoped he could let go, but he couldn’t’.
Reality, the latespath was trolling other escort sites 2 days after EscortM was buried, setting up appointments within the week. What he was missing was the 9 to 5 apartment: ‘Now I’ve got to find myself a new apartment in midtown. Just a studio – but I can’t be without a place – I’ve gotten too used to it.’ Written about a month after her death. Finding another malleable target that was willing to go along with his financial crimes was not so easy.
“I feel no guilt”. I believe that is one of the most telling things the latespath ever wrote. Simple, concise and more important, letting us see the way they view their interactions with the world. They see themselves as having no moral responsibility toward anything, let alone anyone.
Thank you 4Light, First let me say that no one’s experience with a sociopath is ever trivial or without damage. If I knew what was happening, my ‘scars’ wouldn’t be so deep, but they would still be there.
The 70s were a very different time and place than the world today. It was a time when silence still ruled. If you needed help with any type of relationships, at least in my world, you went to see the parish priest or maybe a nun. Professional metal health experts were for people ‘who used a hose to clean the inside of their homes’. The lady who lived next door to us had a tragedy happen to her; in the 1940s it appears to have been a common practice to leave a sleeping infant in a carriage outdoors when your other children were playing. Someone passing by her home carelessly tossed a cigarette and it landed in the carriage and her baby son burned to death. She needed hospitalization to cope. Through the late 70s when my parents moved, most people referred to this woman as ‘the crazy lady’. She acted perfectly normal, dressed well, and her other 3 children were well taken care of, but because she didn’t have the ability to deal with losing a child on her own, she was still labeled almost 40 years later.
Women did not talk about getting hit or yelled at. My parents had a really great relationship, that was my role model. I had no idea what to do when the physical abuse started during the last semester of law school. I was too ashamed to even talk about it as I had begged and pleaded with my parents to help with law school expenses.
The put downs just became part of life because of his academics, yes his brain was an excuse for anything. The word and mind games were much more damaging than the physical.
Where did one turn for information? To a psychology professor that you didn’t know, to ‘out’ yourself to a librarian, Women’s Studies programs were in their infancy, at best. No computers! The only ‘internet’ I knew about was a dedicated computer in the law school that allowed for accessing cases and citations called ‘Lexis’.
I really had no idea what a sociopath was, other than in context with movies or headlines. It was a forensic psychologist that diagnosed the latespath during the course of the ‘lawsuit from hell’.
Other than my high school sweetie, my therapist, and my ‘good’ law firm, there is no one to talk to. The internet has been a blessing for me, this site in particular. I don’t feel like a ‘freak’, an outsider here or someone to be pitied. I am just one of the people. When I type and hit the ‘submit button’, it’s like boulder gone.
The book. The first person that suggested I write was the Surrogate who told me ‘he died with nothing, he stole everything, but he left you a story; use it’. I brought the subject up with my therapist and he told me to write. Well I wrote him hundreds of pages, which he read. As a former professor and published himself, he told me ‘great story, sellable, but absolute crap’. I was coming to him, after having written, feeling even more frustrated and down-trodden. I was hurt. Instead of using writing as a ‘release’, I was becoming more sucked in. He then explained to me that there is no way I can write anything about the escorting world having never been in it and leaving ‘ME’ out. That I had re-find myself first. Lovefraud is such a great place because it allows me to focus on one thing at a time, rather than being caught up is a morass that keeps sucking me further and further in. Being here helps me to organize. One thing at a time, one step at a time.
I don’t know if I want to write a book anymore. I do know that I want to regain myself.
If I do eventually decide to formally write, this email from an escort to the latespath is what will push me:”yours always so bloody smart Del, why dont you write a book from the other side ….punter side”.
If they thought he was good enough to write, maybe some day I will have enough confidence to.
Wouldn’t a ‘wifey’ writing about ‘their life’ be a shock to the escorting world!
Hi Lost, saddened to hear your therapist took it upon himself to judge and critique your writing, which at that point must surely have been a therapeutic exercise, not a draft of a book intended for commercial publication! I don’t know whether, in the round, you feel positively towards this therapist , perhaps you do. It seems harsh and misguided, to me, and rather egocentric, to refer to you pouring out your traumatic discoveries of your sociopathic husband’s secret life as a john and then a pimp as ” crap”.
Great to have you here Lost and so glad you find relief from posting, as so many of us do.
I was so out of touch with any emotions, it didn’t bother me. I have not cried in over 20 years. All I wanted to do at the time, this was more than 3 years ago, was write a book. I did not even consider that seeing a therapist was for my getting better, who me need help, never; rather just a way to write a book and this professional was going to help me do it, write it for me. I was new to psychology as a whole, I only took the one required class in college; and the doctor didn’t know me. Actually I went to see him on the recommendation of a paralegal who was afraid I was ‘holding up too good’.
I didn’t see the part the broker played in all of it; I didn’t see the latespath as a disturbed individual, rather an ‘crazy’ person, a thief who was consumed by sex; I didn’t see me at all.
Writing does not come easy to me. I sometimes spend hours thinking about the point raised on Lovefraud and more time planning my answer. I never feel it’s good enough. I would make a lousy reporter.
I paid dearly for my writing short comings during the lawsuit. I kept getting asked where was my diary detailing my mother’s medicals; where were my notes outlining my relationship with the latespath. There weren’t any. I never wrote. I have a very good memory, my lawyers were astounded that my mental recalls matched my mother’s doctor’s notes one for one. People want documentation.
I have come to realize that just taking someone’s writings and gluing them together, is not a book. I had to learn what happened and to the best of my abilities, why and how. I have learned all about escorting, how stock bokerages operate, and I am now learning about sociopathy.
I still hurt; writing about the betrayals by so many people, makes me ill, even after all these years. Sometimes I write something, reread it, get sick to my stomach, and don’t go back to the computer for a day.
On the other hand, writing is the release I need to get whole. It forces me to see the reality of the damage a sociopath can do. It shoves it down my throat. It makes sure that I can not put blinders on. Until I can face it, I will never get past the sociopath.
I learn so much, everyday, from everyone here.
Submit button is all empowering!
Hi lost:
I lost my ability to cry for many, many years. That is actually a sign of PTSD for some people. Dr. Peter Levine discussed it in one of his books and it made me recognize it was part of my PTSD. I began trying to cry and it was not easy. I asked a couple of people if I could cry on the phone to them because I absolutely could not cry alone. Even when I watched sad movies all day long….nothing. I went to a calm, female therapist and worked on different trauma treatments. I called the people to cry. They basically agreed to be my crying coaches. One of them is the spath I talk about here. At that time, he was wanting to move to my property and “acted” like he thought he should act and I felt safe. Now, I only feel safe crying to my ex-husband most of the time. I had to work at this since 2009 when I realized I had not mourned many serious things. Now, I can cry by myself for my grieving a lot more than I could before. I don’t always have to have my crying coach.
I went through a situation that was a national story. It was a devastation. People told me I should write a book. One even knew an editor in NY. She had just taken a job as a non fiction agent and when I called and told her my story, she said, “Write the book.” I wrote a book. I submitted it. She liked it and asked for some changes…then as I was working on the changes, she decided to become a fiction editor again. She told me if I wanted to write fiction to let her know. I was so distraught, I didn’t even take her up on it! I stayed working in a dangerous situation determined to WARN all I could about what I knew about this dangerous event and how it could easily happen again if I didn’t keep warning and warning. I wanted my book to inform and warn people. Fiction? I didn’t have time for fiction. I needed to be Paul Revere in my terrorized brain.
I just got worse and worse. I tried to keep a job where everyone either hated me for telling the truth about what they were doing or were scared of me. I was lied about, called into bogus meetings, and cried all the way to and from work every day. I not only had no support at home. I had abuse and irritation at ME for recognizing that I had to do something that was right – not easy and not catering to narcissists and sociopaths.
I became obsessed. I studied every single detail of the disastrous event and its participants. I studied and studied and studied something that had already done great harm to my brain. I finally had to put the book away. I finally had to put hundreds of emails of “proof” away. I finally had to put 10 boxes of “evidence” away.
I had to work on MY health. I am not anyone who was ever in charge of saving the world. Others were charged with that and they failed miserably even when I warned them and gave them evidence months before.
I haven’t looked at the book, the evidence, ANYTHING about it for over 3 years now. I had to hide it away and work at not telling everyone about it to save myself. What your therapist did to you was use your writings to get his jollies. You need a therapist who will listen to your past story when needed, but who will guide you into a future where you refocus yourself more and more. The dirty, disgusting, ugly escort business will eat your brain alive if you don’t put it in a box and get to a good therapist who cares about your future survival, you getting your feelings back, and you being able to cry.
Please accept this as a suggestion to consider. I know you have to get it all out here and that is what this place is for. I am afraid to talk about mine now and I may always be afraid to talk about it. My life was threatened by numerous people. I have been told by serious people in charge of our security that I could be in danger for the rest of my life. So, unless I feel a little safe here and decide to share a small portion of it someday, I just have to know what I know and keep it all in the boxes in closets and under beds until one day I decide to shred 90% of it and keep the rest for my nieces and nephews to find after I’m gone.
Every post here submitted by a victim is exactly perfect. This is one of the safest sites I have ever visited. Donna means business when she protects victims of sociopaths here. But, we also have to learn to protect ourselves. Not crying is devastating to your health. You are holding in toxins. I am very worried about the numbness you are experiencing because I have been there. We try to be tough for so long until we can’t even cry like a human being should.
I hope you will use this forum for a safe group therapy. But, I also hope that you will call around and find the best trauma therapist (female) on your insurance list and make an appointment. I have done the memorizing of dates, people, places, unscrupulous events, warning signs only I could see, apathy, lying, money traded for illegal activities, culminating in a national disaster that could have been prevented. It rarely leaves my mind. But, I have learned how to cry again. I have learned how to open up my brain an inch and have just started thinking about what I want my future to look like. I refuse to look at those boxes or that book until I am ready and that will probably be a long time. I have most of it memorized anyway!
Please consider what I am saying. Back away from the need to know the deep, dark part of all of what has happened. Start to go towards YOU and as you continue to tell us about what you have been through. It is helpful that you have warned us about what spaths who are sex addicts do. However, at what cost to you to pour over all of it all of the time? I know the feeling of telling and warning and knowing and wanting everyone else to know. But, there comes a time when you have to know what you know and get yourself and your feelings back about you. There comes a time to cry for yourself…even if it takes years to accomplish that. Please Start ASAP.
Hi FF, I am thinking on your post, get back to you as soon as I can process it all. Thanks and hugs
Hi FF, I really needed some time to digest your words and see them in my life.
If you think I am obsessed now, you should have known me from the day after the latespath died. I was completely consumed. That lasted almost 4 years. I did nothing but research every free moment.
Believe it or not I have not slept, like a normal person, since the day my mom fell in 2002. While my mom fell in late morning and I took her directly to the hospital ER, an ortho didn’t see her until several hours later and then he decided to do surgery; the hospital kept her in over night. So that night, the not sleeping was just nerves on my part. The following night I put a lounge chair in her bedroom and in case she needed something. 2 days later she couldn’t see and the next day she was diagnosed as blind. Sleeping on and off as she underwent surgery after surgery; in over 6 1/2 years she had 18 surgeries. Majority eye procedures, along the line she had several more ortho surgeries as well. She could not be left alone and would not respond to anyone other than my son, myself and only 2 doctors and one PT. The one time my son and I had go upstairs to check on leaking water, we left my mother sitting at the kitchen table listening to the TV. Just prior to the water incident, we were talking about painting the deck. My son and I were upstairs, about 15 minutes, and when we came down, my mother was no where to be found; seems she decided to go done the basement to find paint. On the way she closed the basement door behind her and fell down 6 stairs to the landing.After a few minutes I opened the basement door and she was laying there; 2 broken arms, gash on her head, re-injury to her hip. 3 1/2 month hospital and rehab stay. Of course no one in the rehab center could be bothered tending to a blind woman who did not talk to them, the had demanding patients. I had to be there 3 times a day to feed her and wash her and tend to her needs; with 2 broken arms no one can do anything for themselves.
When I say my mother never talked to anyone, I mean it. Along the line; her GP suggested that I take her to a geriatric psychiatrist, in the hopes that maybe he could get her to loosen up a bit. That went well, my son and I brought her and when we got into the doctor’s office and he began to just talk to her, my mother’s response was to tell me to answer him, she didn’t feel she needed to. It didn’t surprise me, as my mother was was never a talker, she was the most private person I knew.
I learned to take sleep as it came.
So in addition to the latespath, I had to deal with the house, something I had no experience at, my mom and her needs, her medications, shop, cook and clean. The pets were and are my escape.
The blind institute sent people over, as did the visiting nurses, but my mother just threw them out as she never wanted anyone in her house. She behaved no different after losing her sight as before.
In addition to all of this, she never recovered from the severe depression of losing my father in 1998.
Like the latespath said:”life changing crisis, for which he ever so thankful for”.
I am getting better now. I am sleeping on a bed for at least 6 hours at a time. I no longer need meds, just the occasional Tylenol PM. I have learned not to fear sleep. There are still many things that I fear, and I have to deal with.
More to come
Hi lost:
I want to make sure you know that I was being critical at all…only trying to share what I am trying to do to “come down” from a lot. It does take a long, long time. It took me around 11 years after the ultimate trauma attack on my brain for me to fully realize that I could even get better at all.
I have the sleep issues also and hate to sleep at night. I need a sound machine all the bedroom door locked and ear plugs and medicine before I can even consider going to bed. If my nightmares increase, I will put off going to bed for way too long.
I also understand the family crisis issues…I am in one of those families where everyone who knows any of us says, “I can’t believe all of these horrific things keep happening to you.” I often wonder if people like us just have crazy things happen to us and we are all the same “type” of personality gathered here. It seems like we all have many of the same events, people, crisis, medical conditions, etc. Just like the sociopaths seem to have the same handbook and share many of the traits.
I am so glad you have shared here and know that it is very healing. I know I am still obsessed in too many ways. I guess I was just worried about you and wanted to share that I have been working on the option of keeping the stuff of nightmares in boxes and trying super hard to fill my brain with things that I hope will heal any parts of my brain that can be healed.
I am so sorry that you have to be alert at all times to take care of your mother. You have had a lot of trauma. I am also sorry you lost your pet and I hope that what you release here will help you cry about the many things that have happened to you. I am thinking of you right now and am sending a moment of peace your way.
Thank you so much for caring. I don’t know how to react, my eyes want to cry. I’ll just send hugs. I am taking a break for tonight.
If your eyes want to cry, that is good. This is going to take a long time. Your brain is going to have to learn to give your eyes permission. I got some of my best pre crying advice from a book about intuition by Judith Orloff. If you start reading books about healing you, you will get there. I never thought I would and I have. I can cry, lost. It is still uncomfortable, but it is the right thing for my mind and body.
please save that documentation. I burned the “love” letters from Viet Nam because they made me sick at my stomach. No one knew what a psychopath was back then and I needed to purge. Later, I wished I had them to show the attempts to feign positive regard interspersed with the other spath garbage. Each one slimed me more than the previous one. And I thought I was supposed to tie them up in a pretty ribbon for keepsakes. Nope, I burned them.
“Lost Everything”
What a tragedy about the baby being burned to death. In the 1950s we were not concerned about leaving our doors locked (cars or homes) either. And tossing a cigarette carelessly like that, with a baby carriage in full view (possibly), was complete disregard for any consequences. I grew up in the 1950s. There was hardly any “awareness” about anything. Thank God for the “rockin’ sixties”!
Horrendous tragedy and that poor woman. And what ignorance referring to that mother as the “crazy lady”.
A similar thing happened to my parents’ at their home. A large rock was thrown through their living room window, shattering glass all over the carpet and causing everyone to leave their beds (it was 3 a.m.) and race to the room to see what happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. Unfortunately I have a perfectly sound idea of who tossed that rock…one of my sociopath’s ‘cronies’ (she could get anyone to do anything…except my siblings who saw through her from Day One).
I, unfortunately, did not have that kind of insight. The thing that haunts me about the incident is what if my sister’s baby was in a bassinet in that room when the rock was tossed? The rock could have crushed his skull. We had many people staying over that night and my sister often slept in the living room where there was a pull-out ‘sleeper couch’. What if the baby and/or my sister died as a result of this heinous act?
The evid of sociopathy knows no bounds and wants power over anything else. Cross their path and they will ‘cross you out’.
Lost, about you feeling your posts are never good enough, there’s no judges or critics here, just we survivors, talking and supporting each other and taking it one day at a time. I went through a stage in adolescence, years, of never crying, it was from fear that if I started I would never stop. What I learned from my experiences with my abuser is that the tears release a great deal of tension and allowing myself to cry when I want and need to is necessary to my healing. It’s not pretty, but it helps bring peace mentally and a physical release of tension. And it does stop, too, so Lost, if you want and need to, know that it’s natural, it helps, and it does stop. Love to you.
Hugs, Tea. I need to cry for my mother, for my dog.
I have noticed that I did not have the “notify me of followup comments via email” box checked off…I would love comments to my posts and always try to communicate with some of yours.
“SUBMIT COMMENT” with “Notify me of followup comments via email” is now activated.
Thank you,
Babs
It also took me a while to find the “notify” box at the bottom. Maybe when people tell us their new, we should try to let them know about that.
1. Sociopaths are superior beings, and everyone else is a mark.
a. Truth is, they are low life scum, however superior to themselves.
b. Most of us would rather be a “mark” than a scum.
2. If marks are dumb enough to be conned, they get what they deserve.
a. And we thank them for the education and ability to become more deserving.
b. Eventually, spaths will too, get what they deserve.
3. Marks deserve to be targeted because of their stupid emotions and consciences.
a. There are none so emotional as a spath being caught at his game or told NO!
b. If consciences are so worthless, why to spaths pretend to have one?
4. Emotions and consciences are useful in marks, because they can be exploited.
a. Spaths emotions are fun to mock.
b. Their consciences can’t be mocked, they don’t have them. See 3b.
5. Exploitation is a perfectly reasonable way for sociopaths to get what they want.
a. Spaths can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it.
Sorry, just had to rebutt! Yes, that sounds just like a spath. So funny when they think they might be getting revealed, they are so sensitive to ridicule or public exposure…they too have weaknesses. My biggest problem with spaths is their ability to make puppets of so many people. It sickens me to watch them manipulate others into doing their dirty work and defending them. The world is their stage and everyone in it is their puppet, uurrgghh! I find that one way they manage to keep others from warning the world about them is that they make the world think their victims are psychopaths. Like when my exspath threatned to kill me and my dogs, i called, the cops, when they got there is was enraged, he was as cool as a cucumber. He took them outside and told them i had mental problems. They told me “well, it’s you that is angry and raising your voice”. Uh, yeah…his life wasn’t threatened, he has no reason to be angry! When it’s all said and done and you tell others your story, then you are obsessed and they calmly have “moved on”. What’s hard to get across is that your situation was with a dangerous spath, you have PTSD, spath has a new victim and is off and running like you never existed, so you are the one that’s left looking like a nut case. People have heard plenty of stories from disgruntled ex spouses, they don’t realize that your case really IS different and that for their own well being they should listen carefully to what you have to say…sound familiar?
Renee