By Sarah Strudwick
Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships.
First of all I want to thank everyone who commented on the posts that I’ve written over the last couple of years. Recently I did a post on How to speed date a sociopath. Whilst I make every effort to move on with my life after the psychopath, occasionally something will come up that causes me to think “Why do they do that?”
So the topic of this post is whether or not any of you have experienced the following:
In my book Dark Souls, I wrote about an occasion where my ex moved my cash card. A week later I found it hidden behind a bottle of sauce on the top of a very tall cupboard in the kitchen. At the time it went missing, I asked my ex if he may have picked it up by mistake, because he used the same. He commented that I was forgetful, and asked me whether I’d left it in the freezer.
This was a very strange comment. Later, I found a book written by a psychopath about how to manipulate people, putting the victim off guard so they question their own sanity. One of the suggestion was to ask victims if they left something that went missing in a freezer!
Being a complete idiot at the time, I looked in there, just to check I wasn’t losing the plot or going mad.
More items not returned
I also lent my ex some books and a heart-shaped crystal. At the time he was leaving his wife. He promised to keep it safe. When I asked for it to be returned, I got the excuse that he had let his children play with it, and one of his small children managed to drop it out of a two-story building and broke it. The story was preposterous—why would he let his kids play with something he didn’t want his wife to see?
I was also in a relationship with a man call Dan. I was doing acupuncture, and he as asked me if he could borrow my acupuncture books and also a book on Taoism. He also borrowed a cassette of a local radio interview I’d done when I was 19 about backpacking in India. When the relationship ended, I asked Dan to send me back the books and the interview cassette. He still has them to this day, and refused to give a reason for keeping them. Looking back, I think it was his way of keeping a little trophy of me.
Happening again
I was prompted to write this is because straight after I ended the speed date, I noticed something strange. Every day I wear a necklace, which I made myself out of resin and crystals. You could call it my “security blanket,” because I always feel happy when I am wearing it. When I bathe or shower I take it off and leave it in the bathroom as the string is made of leather. Lurch commented on the jewelry I make as he saw the resin and paraphernalia on the worktops in my kitchen.
A day or so after getting my head of the washing machine with all the mind games he played, I suddenly realised I wasn’t wearing the necklace. I searched the flat everywhere but couldn’t find it. I soon realised that a photograph of me was missing as well. It was an old photograph of me when I was about 16, dressed in fancy dress and looking reasonably young, fit and attractive. My son had seen it a few days before and commented on how young I looked. The photograph had been next to the computer, but was gone.
I like to think of myself as a rational person and don’t jump to conclusions before pointing the finger. In fact, I searched multiple times only to find nothing. Whilst I cannot prove that anyone took it, these were not items of value like money. But they had a lot of sentimental value, much like the cassette and the specialist acupuncture books, which, incidentally are irreplaceable.
Trophies
I’ve read before that the psychopath likes to closet their victims, and I’ve heard stories about serial killers keeping “bits” of them as trophies. Whilst we expect the sociopath to steal our hearts, money and valuable possessions, the difference is that all these items are irreplaceable. Which begs the question that they will intentionally go out of their way to take such things, because they know how upset we will be.
I am still searching for these items, just in case I haven’t lost my marbles. Whilst it’s easy to let them go because they have no real value, the whole experience points to the potentially sick and twisted nature of their personalities and has “creeped” me out. Even with such a good understanding of psychopaths/ sociopaths, it’s still beyond all my capacity to understand what motivates someone to do something like this.
It’s for this reason that I shared this experience. I wonder if anyone else had experience the same kind of “creepy” behaviour.
I can’t remember anything about a trophy at the moment, but I do know that he would deliberately do the oposite of what i asked him to do. I would ask him to put stuff in their place in the cardboard & I would find them in other places. etc
When I threw him out, he took my brand new laptop, but what I later discovered is that he had taken all my software as well.
I think he also said stuff to frighten me that we were being watched. We were outside one place where he lived before with me & he supposedly ‘found’ something on the ground, which he said was a warning from those watching us.
He also tried to make it seem as though someone had got into my flat & left a warning there. Very creepy.
Then something a recent partner did – I think this one has Aspergers, but also has weird behaviour, but don’t know whether its spth behaviour or just his possible Aspegers.
For several days on the trot I found a decorated food tin that my mum had made on the kitchen worktop. My mum died a few years ago and I found i t very hard, so was a bit weirded out to find this on the counter.
I asked him if he’d moved it & he said no and I began to think perhaps mum was trying to communicate with me. Then one morning I woke up very early – about 5am – and went into the kitchen. the tin wasn’t there and then after he had got up it was there.
I asked him again if he’d moved it & he said yes, he’d used it to balance his whisk on that he made his breakfast shakes with.
He knew I’d been really upset by my mum’s death, but still let me think it had been her moving the tin. I found it really disturbing. There were other issues as well and I’v now broken up from him, but still find it weird that he would do that
Moon, I’ve been wondering the same thing – haven’t “seen” Dupey in weeks. Hope she’s okay.
Isurvivedthebastard, spaths “do things” to deliberately create crazymaking. If you google-search the term, “crazy making behavior,” you will probably read about four dozen examples of things that you can directly identify with. What he did with your mother’s tin may SEEM weird, but it is quite typical of spaths to do this, especially if it involves ANYthing otherworldly.
The second exspath didn’t keep any “trophies” that I am aware of. He just demanded “his” cat and erased me entirely from existence. In fact, he erased the hard-drive on my computer that held 9 years of portfolio imagery, business programs and files, and god-knows-what-else. He simply wanted to wipe me off the face of the earth, which is how he has behaved since the separation.
The second exspath also claimed to communicate with the dead and “see” visions and prophesize. One of the many assertions that he made, numerous times, was that I would outlive him because he had forseen this, and I am substantially older than the exspath. Well, in breaking down this bogus prophesy, I realize that it was strictly to keep me off guard as well as dig into my abandonment issues.
The first exspath actually went through my boxes of personal belongings and began removing items claiming them as belonging to him because he had paid for them, even though they had been gifts. But, the most valuable of all trophies to the first exspath were the children, as is typical, also. He had no intention of “raising” our children or nurturing them, but keeping them from me was the main goal.
Brightest blessings
Thinking that they do this because they want a trophy would mean that we are important. But we are not. They take or break our things just to hurt us, especially when taking objects of no other value than being precious to US. It gives them a thrill, a feeling of power and grandiose.
Moving, hiding things falls into the same category. Or the other way round, placing “false evidence”; all this gas lighting is just for them to get what they want. To confuse us, to keep our minds busy with ourselves instead of thinking about, realizing (and understanding!) the red flags, lies and contractions.
Don’t continuously think that anything they do has something to do with you. It has not. Only with themselves, for their advantage or (sick) joy. They are probably doing that all day long with everyone, their work colleagues, their relatives or total strangers. It’s no trophy hunting, it serves their purpose. While we are mentally, emotionally or simply time wise busy with the issue, they made some space for “the real move” – I discovered that there is a direct link between movements on my bank accounts with the “hidden objects” game.
All the best
Elisee, I can identify with your outrage and despair, but I would caution you to use the EDIT feature on your post, above, and delete the person’s name, if that is his legal name that you have posted, and I’ll tell you why.
The exspath that I am divorcing has relieved me of just about 300K in USD either through coercion, or outright forgeries. This man is not facing any criminal charges, and has not been convicted of a crime, although the forgeries, alone, could result in Federal charges. For me to name this man would be risking a hefty lawsuit that he would most definitely pursue.
Please, do NOT use the legal name of any person on this site, or any other. You’ve already suffered enough. I assure you that you don’t want to risk giving that man the “WIN” through a lawsuit.
Keep reading, keep writing, post your venom, purge your experiences on LoveFraud, but don’t leave yourself open to legal action.
Brightest blessings
Sarah,
Yes, i do believe that spaths like trophies, and its not because we are important, but rather because another victim bites the dust and it feeds their need for power and absolute control.
I often questioned my own sanity, because everything that did not go his way, was somehow my fault – ALWAYS.
My ex has his staff following me, with more that 120 casual labourers I do not know them all. Once again, like you, I don’t have proof, except to go on how he treated previous partners and bragged to me about how he did it. No one believes me, so according to friends and work colleagues, I’ve lost my marbles and they think i’m looking for sympathy. They lie, cheat and deceive -so well trained by Satan, that they are difficult to catch in the act.
Shell, it’s good to “see” you, again, and I’m sorry that you’re having a tough time of it.
I lost a number of people that I believed were my “friends” in the aftermath of this second exspath. Some couldn’t process the facts and disengaged. Others found a measure of morbid entertainment. Still others were disordered, themselves, and sought to capitalize on my vulnerabilities and desperation.
And, you’re NOT looking for sympathy, necessarily – just “understanding” that what you experienced was harmful, cruel, damaging, and wholly evil. But, people are afraid to accept these truths, Shell. They’re fearful because THEY could be a target, themselves, and it’s too much for them to process.
The only way to get away from the lies, deceptions, and betrayals is to get as far away from the spath as humanly possible.
Brightest blessings
Hi Truthspeak,
Yes, its good to chat again, with you and others here that understand, but no, I’m not having a tough time of it – not anymore. I was, in fact at my lowest point, and probably most angry too, when our church minister felt i was ready to do the Emmaus Walk (church camp). I didn’t want to go, but had nothing to lose and figured it couldn’t be worse than my life already was.
Well, I was wrong- totally wrong. My God loves me and I am special. There is nothing wrong with me – i’m just down and out and waiting for Him to answer my prayers, and as this one song goes, “Sing Halleluya, anyway”, because He is there right by my side.
I became too tired carrying my own baggage all the time, and leaving it all at the cross, lifted me in an indescribeable way.
You see, women are emotional beings, which is why we are targeted by these spaths. But, when you gain control of your emotions, one is able to see more clearly and see and “talk” FACTS ONLY. When we look at the facts about these spaths, it is easier not to be so hard on yourself.
It is in observing only facts and not reacting and becoming emotional, that enables me to face my ex spath when he sees his son, with such confidence that the tables have turned.
NOW…He no longer has power and control over me, and spaths don’t like that-he’s worried because this is not the Shell he knew.!
Mine stole things that meant a lot to me. A watch bought in memory of my dead daughter, and an ipod with music on that I listened to after she died. These things were really special to me.
I never got them back. He never admitted what he had done with them. Its almost like he got off on the power of control. The only control that he had left.
Shell, TOWANDA for you!!!!!!!!! Yes, it’s difficult for men and women in recovery to separate the “Facts” from “feelings.” That was one of the most priceless things that my counselor ever taught me: “Feelings are NOT facts.” Doesn’t mean that the “feeling” isn’t REAL, but it’s most often not based upon fact.
Mayanicole, I’m so sorry that you lost those important things. He wasn’t able to keep your soul, though, and that is an absolute WIN!
Brightest blessings
Carmen,
you said: “Thinking that they do this because they want a trophy would mean that we are important. But we are not. ”
The spath wants you to think you are not important to him. He wants you to FEEL unimportant, devalued and discarded.
But his actions reveal the truth that he is obsessed with you. In fact you are so important in his mind, he is so envious of you that he wants to destroy you and become you. That’s pretty important!!
Spaths always pretend to be/feel/think the 180° opposite of the truth. His intent was to slime you with his OWN feelings of being a nothing, nobody. He is so lacking in being that he doesn’t even exist until he is mirroring your values. His lack of identity is because he has no values and nothing that he believes in. He can’t believe in anything because he can’t trust, which is the core of his PD.
Yes, Carmen, you were very important to him. Would YOU go to such lengths to destroy someone that didn’t affect you at all?