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 think mine gave me a sign of being mentally disordered, when we were engaged, and he lived 6 months in an apt furnished with only 1 metal folding chair, a TV, and a sleeping bag. Nothing else. When we married and I arrived, we got furniture. He is beyond extreme in his simplicity, and he keeps nothing. But he DID destroy things of mine! This may be along the lines of taking items. Thru our 26 yr relationship (24 married), he destroyed a pair of earthy-looking sandals (jealousy of an earthy, prior boyfriend), a raft I used to sunbathe in the pool (anger rage), my computer tower and cell phone (smashed)—this was when I said, “Done!” and ended the marriage. After that, I found a total of 6 pairs of panties he’d ripped in rage. They were very stretched out. I found one pair in a trash can, and 5 more pairs in a hidden spot in a storage room. This totally weirded me out. I agree with one post-er who said, Don’t assume they are thinking of you. I agree. Mine is clearly a Soc, with extreme narcisssistic tendencies. Everything is about him. In court, when questioned by my atty about kicking a giant dent in the car door (driver’s side, I was driving), he whined, “Yes, and it was my car, and I have to drive around with a dent in my car.” Like, “Poor me”!! The judge recognized how sick he is, and ruled accordingly.
The only other thing of value I have to add is that No Contact, plus prayer and asking God to help me be obedient to His direction, has been unbelievably HEALing.
Yesterday evening, I had an interesting experience regarding being contacted by somebody from the past. Thankfully, it was not the x-spath.
However, it was somebody I briefly dated when I was in Russia. I have not spoken with him in three years but yesterday, received a poke from him on Facebook. This really does show how easy it is for people to come back into your life today…
As I read this, I had to chuckle. Trophies…ah yes…however, the biggest trophy they carry with them DAILY is your vulnerability. This is the biggest prize EVER for them.
It has been 2 years since I threw my SP out. Although there was a year of back-n-forth going on, because as you all know…they become an addiction. However, I’ve had NO CONTACT in place now for almost a full year. Speaking of trophies…I received a text from him about a month ago asking if he could have the guitar that he had bought as a birthday gift for me back…so I SOLD it–LOL–and with that, I advertized the ring he had bought me and a pot rack that mysteriously showed up at my doorstep via my friendly UPS man (as he knew during the remodel of our kitchen, I wanted one). I got rid of any and all things that somehow tied me either emotionally or mentally to that thing. A couple of weeks later, I got a “Merry Christmas” text from him…IGNORE..DELETE.
My daughter and I were going through videos stored on our Flip video camera one day and in there was a Christmas video from about 4 years back…and as I watched him and listened him, I really had to ask myself “What part of ME looked at THAT and said I HAVE GOT TO BE WITH THIS GUY.” THIS is how I know I’ve changed. There was absolutely nothing about him as I sat and observed his behavior, his utterly stupid sense of humor (which I at one time thought was FANTASTIC), nor his appearance that intrigued or attracted me.
As I read through this post, I was reminded of the day he FINALLY came to get his shit out of the house (which had to be mediated by the head honcho at the local sheriff’s department by phone and for which a deputy had to be present), he ORDERED me to go into the house and retrieve this guitar for him (even though he had one of his own, which was put with the rest of his belongings to take)–claiming it was HIS. AND THEN…he told the deputy that he had 2 lawnmowers in the locked shed that belonged to him that he intended to take that day. Here’s the thing: I bought the rider mower from him after he had left because I have a HUGE lawn…wrote out a check for $400 for that mower…and THANK GOD I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him during this time of back-n-forth and made sure I wrote in the memo area of the check –FOR RIDING LAWNMOWER. Once I made the deputy aware that I had a carbon copy of that check inside and could get the actual cancelled check from the bank as proof that that mower indeed belonged to me…A). The sheriff’s department became aware of what I was dealing with. B). The coward all of a sudden became disinterested in that particular “belonging.” C). The sheriff himself was DONE coming to my house, mediating and told him on no uncertain terms to get ALL of his things and never return or he, himself was going to press charges for felony trespass (for which I already had grounds for a time before when he was told more than once NOT to come onto the property without FIRST clearing it with me) and harassment. The next day, my shop vac was missing (which he KNEW was mine) and I ALLOWED him to take a weed trimmer that he swore up and down that HE bought, but I KNOW I bought…JUST TO GET HIM THE HELL AWAY FROM ME.
So he got a couple of things…I’m not attached to them. Who cares?
What I care about is my integrity and how he carries around in his sick head how he has some sort of control over my feelings, my behavior, and my life. I don’t think I have ever been as OPEN with anyone in my life as I was with him…and for what…for nothing more than his satisfaction of WINNING. He saw me at ROCK BOTTOM…and he knows that HE PUT ME THERE…and yet…so many times of running to him to ease the pain that HE caused, so many confessions of my deepest being, my soul. This is their ultimate trophy!! Even if it is just a memory…it is seared into their minds as another victory.
I will be the first to admit that my disdain for this particular individual never leaves. There is no closure…just NO CONTACT. However, that doesn’t help the one who has suffered such injustice. I have no desire to be anywhere around him…that part is gone. Even if he had the capability TO change, TO be human, TO find empathy…that ship has long sailed…he is dangerous and I KNOW this now. I long for justice.
Though I pride myself on being pretty “healthy minded” and I have long since moved on, I find myself most times very impatient to witness what Karma has in store for him. I wish no ill-will upon him…I wish what he has coming to him. This is a promise I hold fast to: “That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly, they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.”~St. Tomas Aquinas.
However, a side note to all of this: As I was swirling around in the last stages of this “relationship” on my way down the SP drain, out of the blue and quite odd to me at the time, I began thinking a lot about my UN-relationship with my mother. I began to talk outwardly about the “sins of a mother” and my not-so-wonderful childhood…and what I didn’t know then, but do now is this: I was raised by a SP. During the worst part of my downward spiral with this man, somewhere in my soul, I was drawing a parallel with my childhood (though I didn’t know it at the time). Now, I’ve cut contact with her as well.
You know you’re dealing with a SP when your success angers them but your failure makes them smile and when YOU discuss events and circumstances that bother you and THEY go straight for the personal attack! The beginning to ANY point they EVER try to make (in their defense, of course) constitutes the words YOU, THEY, IT.
So, we can call these things that they “gather” trophies…or we can see what they really are. An attempt to control our minds, our emotions, and our actions. Because really, at the end of the day, without REACTION nothing means anything to them—THIS is the only thing they live for.
This is really weird and I’ve never thought about it before until I read this article. My ex spath, we split up last September after 11 years of an on/off relationship – off when I found out about his betrayals and then on again when he came crawling back, had boxes in his store cupboard and each one was designated for previous girlfriends. So he would have photos, make-up, used bars of soap, bits and pieces that women had left behind following break-ups. I thought it was his way of keeping something of them alive but now I realise of course that they were little trophies from his past ‘conquests’. It’s more than a little sick when I think of it now.
Fighting to Forgive,
yes, you nailed it, they want our REACTION. Our reactions are what prove to them that something has value. If we fight for it, then THEY fight for it. Rene Girard calls it mimetic rivalry. They only want what we want and they only know what we want by observing our reactions.
When someone is your rival, all your focus is on that rival. That’s why they are so obsessed with us and with WINNING against us.
Imagine my surprise to find out that my spath saw me as his rival, while all I ever saw him as, was a partner! The more I bent over backward, the more he laughed at my foolishness to help him win against me.
How pathetic is that to choose someone who only cares about you, as a rival?
Creepy, indeed. It’s been three years since I squirmed free of my ex-sociopath, and I’ve moved on to a health relationship (I think!) But every now and then I’m reminded of the creep himself, because of the things he took:
I’m missing ONE FORK from my good silverware. I realized it was gone a few months after our break-up.
I’m missing a complete draft of a book I wrote. I KNOW he kept it. I loaned it to his daughter (accomplice, poor thing) who never gave it back to me. When I asked him about it, he said: I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I’m certain he did and does. It’s in his closet now, a creepy meticulous collection of stuff from every stage of his pathetic life.
Be well, dear friends . . .
My experience has been so creepy that I’m afraid of creeping out my fellow posters: my STBX husband took the cremated remains of my stillborn first daughter.
BBE:
Wow, three years. So glad it wasn’t spath.
I would say the whole society of people out there are sociopaths if you are talking about stealing. It is such a rampant crime that anyone/anytime/anywhere can steal your belongings.
Recently my family of origin got together. I had long suspected that my older sister had helped herself to my clothes when in my parents’ house (after they were deceased and I had long since moved out). To this day I cannot account for many dresses, tops, pants…and these clothes were very unique and suitable for me. Most of the clothes were from fabulous stores that have since closed (Touraine’s, Cherry & Webb).
My sister immediately asked me if I had returned to get my clothes (and foolishly I answered “no” when in fact I don’t remember…)
I could tell by the way she was talking that she felt guilty…she became uncomfortable. Did she have the right to help herself to my clothes? Just because they were there? Should she not have called me and informed me they were hanging in my old closet?
Then she said, “That was your first mistake…not getting your clothes out…” Oh boy…blame the victim. If it had been me I would definitely call my sister to tell her about her clothes.
My other sister said she spent 80% of her time in therapy talking about this older sister. We are discovering some ugliness. Older sis is also very tactless and insensitive…has hurt us many times.
I hope she returns whatever she took. She is one strange bird and needs help.
Back to society: how do you separate the real sociopaths from “regular” thieves…stealing is commonplace and everywhere (and committed by non-sociopaths). If there is anything like a non-sociopath.
Louise;
It is very gloomy right now in St. Petersburg, Russia…
BTW, I expect to hear from the x-spath later this year, after he turns 40. But I am prepared…