Perhaps the hardest thing for those of us targeted by sociopaths to grasp is the extent of their inhumanity.
Sociopaths have no empathy. They do not feel connections to other human beings. We are mere pawns in their games. They view the world as predators and prey—they are the predators, everyone else is prey.
We ask, “How can this be?”
We object, “He said he loved me!” (“She said she loved me!”)
We argue, “I said I was leaving and he cried! He begged me to stay! He said he couldn’t live without me!” (The female sociopath did too.)
Well, let’s take a look at what their words really mean. A Lovefraud reader visited Sociopathworld.com. “They had a discussion going on things they said but what they actually meant to them,” she wrote.
Here’s what our reader sent:
The Cheat-Sheet for What a Sociopath Really Means
1. I love you: I am fond of your companionship and put you above most, but never above me. Consider it an honor.
2. I’m sorry, forgive me: I really do not enjoy the fact that your mood has altered. Please revert back to normal.
3. I’d do anything for you: I’d do plenty to keep you right where I want you to be.
4. My condolences for your loss: *crickets* … It’s just a body. See you later when you aren’t being an emotional train-wreck.
5. S/he fills my heart with joy: I haven’t had this much fun playing in a long time, and the sex is more than acceptable.
6. I love my family: They’re mine.
7. That’s simply shocking: You’ve touched my morbid bone. No need to stop now…
8. Deep down, I feel I’m a good person: I’m not in prison and I stopped abusing animals, mostly. What more can you possibly demand of me?
9. I’m not a monster, I’m a human too: I’m trying to seem human, give me a break. It’s not like this is particularly natural for me.
10. I have feelings too: I feel frustrated when your feelings get in my way.
11. I wouldn’t lie to you: I lie to you every time I say I wouldn’t lie to you.
12. I understand/respect your feelings: I appreciate your feelings because I use them to manipulate you.
13. I never meant to hurt you: mission accomplished.
14. I want to work things out: I want to work things out for today.
15. I’ll always be there for you: I’ll try to as long as I need something from you
Remember this: Never evaluate the words or actions of a sociopath based on what you mean by your words and actions. For a sociopath, it’s all about manipulation.
Dear Hope4joy,
Well, the usual TG day activity that we have done for years with our living history group was “weathered out” so my son D and I will be here by ourselves, just the two of us, and I am thawing the turkey even as we speak. Just the TWO of us and a meal. You know, that is ENOUGH…even if it was just the ONE OF ME….that is still ENOUGH and we can be THANKFUL for what we have, and you and your daughter can have Christmas together.
My egg donor literally turned me against Christmas and Thanksgiving “family” meals and celebrations by throwing fits every year that I had to include UNCLE MONSTER in them and if I didn’t (insert sobbing and hysterical crying here on egg donor’s part) forgive him and have Christmas/Thanksgiving (or any holiday) with him then I was not only going to BURN IN HELL FOREVER FOR BEING UNFORGIVING, but I was RUINING HER HOLIDAY. Paleeeeezzzzze! I asked her once didn’t she get it that SHE was ruining MY holiday? OF COURSE NOT!!! But I would take my kids and/or husband and go somewhere else for the holiday meal, and at that time my living history group started a week long camp out at a local state park as a pre-1840 encampment, so we had our thanksgiving there, camped out, cooking turkeys in dutch ovens and I didn’t have to go to “over the pasture and through the woods to grandmother’s house…”and put up with Uncle Monster.
On Christmas I would arrange to go visit some friend out of state for the holiday celebration! So egg donor and Uncle Monster could have each other! His kids wouldn’t have anything to do with him either so he was more or less SOL except for her.
After he died, I did have Christmas at her house, but there was no real “magic” in it any more, too many UGLY memories of her squawling and bawling and accusing me of being mean to HER by not “forgiving” the MONSTER. LOL
So maybe you and your daughter (and you son if he cares to join you) can start a NEW TRADITION–for Christmas–my step son and his family go to a movie that afternoon after opening presents in the morning with each other. You don’t have to do some Norman Rockwellian Turkey or ham dinner with 12 people to have a warm and merry Christmas, or buy out the stores to give people gifts they don’t need and you can’t afford! Last year my sons C and D and I went out to one of our favorite places to eat together (a couple of days before the 25th as son D would be out of town with his bio-family) and gave each other home made gifts and laughed and had a great time.
This year it is just D and me for TG meal and for Christmas as C is no longer part of our family or household since his betrayal and lying to us last year just after Christmas…but we are not going to grieve or moan about C’s CHOICES, they were his choices, his decisions, his lack of respect for us…so D and I will just celebrate together in a way that is warm and loving for US. We don’t need a crowd to do that….neither do you and your daughter. I imagine you have given her the best Christmas gift ever—being away from HIM. If the rest of his family wants to be hateful or whatever, then that’s the way it is, THEIR PROBLEM not yours or your daughter’s. BTW don’t expect any loyalty from his family, it might happen, but I’d bet the farm it WON’T. Have a good holiday, just you and your daughter!
Oxy,
That was an amazing post, it made me laugh! I will keep it in mind when we have the holidays and to be grateful for the wonderful people I still have in my life.
Your adamant is strong, healthy and plain kick-ass!
Yep, his family will be taken in by his poor me story, sob, sob. I have a sister-in-law who I will probably remain in contact with, but that’s it. That’s life. Daughter deserves to be spath free and your right, it’s the best gift I could EVER give her.
Dear Hope4joy,
Be careful with the SIL that she doesn’t carry tales to the X, that is one of the problems we have in dealing with people who we WISH were really our friends but who are actually dupes of our Xes and in the “best interest” of things THEY THINK they carry tales to the other side. So CAUTION with his relatives no matter how much you would like to remain “friends” with them. Even ones with GOOD intentions sometimes cause train wrecks by leaving boulders on the tracks not realizing what they are doing.
My egg donor is a great example, she stayed “friends” with Monster’s x wife, but really she blamed X wife for HIS BEHAVIOR and even got ME to blaming X wife for problems in the family, and Looking back, I X wife was NOT the problem, it was UNCLE MONSTER’s abusive and criminally abusive behavior to his X and their kids. X-wife’s worst problem was that she was trauma bonded to Uncle Monster and her kids were traumatized as well. One dtr married 4 times, the other one married a Narcissistic alcoholic who has since stopped drinking but I don’t think he’s stopped being an Narcissistic jerk, and the third child has never really had a decent relationship with anyone, married once as a young guy for a year or so, then is more or less a hermit with social anxiety disorder and depression.
I realize I don’t have a real relationship with any of those three of Uncle Monster’s kids as adults except VERY superficial, though two of the three live close to me. They have a bit more of a relationship with my egg donor, but still pretty superficial and limited to 1 or 2 hour visits once or twice a year and a birthday card. Since the summer of Chaos the male of the three (who lives only a mile or so away from me in his dad’s old house) and I are on speaking terms etc. but not close at all. He is my egg donor’s power of attorney now, but doesn’t want to be, SERIOUSLY doesn’t want to be but feels he has no choice since I don’t volunteer to take it back.
He is actually kind of mad at me, and even went so far as to say so, because “if you dont’ talk to her how can you work it out??” (so I would take back her POA) Well, it just so happens that ONE PERSON of a pair cannot “work things out” no matter how much you TALK if the other person won’t HEAR! Egg donor won’t hear. Egg donor won’t change, and that’s not my problem. I solved MY problem by NC. If he has no desire to go NC with egg donor, or to tell her he doesn’t want to be her POA then that is HIS problem not mine. If he wants to be mad at me for that…that is too bad too. Again, not my problem. When she canceled my Power of attorney to give it to my P-DIL who always “showed great respect” for egg donor (until the final theft of $24,000) then that is NOT my problem. But it does relive me of RESPONSIBLITY for taking care of egg donor. Oh, well….not the way I want things, but that’s the way things are. Polite and superficial. “Let’s pretend we’re a nice normal family” but don’t go any deeper than that with the conversation.
Dear Oxy,
This is a common thread for ‘those’ people, they need to save face. They NEED to present themselves as a normal family unit even if they’re not. It’s like they are so empty inside they need to pretend that they are like the rest of us to seem to be human.
It is liberating to finally figure out who is healthy and really cares for us and who doesn’t. In the case of SIL, she will stay semi-loyal to the family but won’t rat me out. Still, I will remain vigilant. She knows the nature of his side of the family work in manipulation and control, there is a level of addiction as well. SIL has known this about spath’s family for a long time but the rest of them aren’t evil like h-spath.
I still take nothing for granted, as we have found out by living with lies from unlikely sources. Your egg donor probably has a mish-mash of disorders, she is just plain bad for you. That is where I got hung up…what could this be? He’s responsible so it couldn’t be sociopathy…he’s not grandios so it couldn’t be narcissism…he doesn’t hear voices so it couldn’t be schizophrenia…no manic phases so it’s not bi-polar… so WTF? I know he would toss me and his blood daughter under the bus to save himself, i know he has a sexual compulsion, i know he is paranoid, and most important, I know he has no conscience about doing the things he has done. PCR scale or whatever scale, I no longer need validation from tests.
That is the place you got to with egg donor and all the unhealthy family, friends, whatevers in your life. We self validate, how great is that? I NEVER thought I would get to this point, it feels sooooo good! Better than sex! (maybe not all the time) But it feels pretty darn good!!!!!
Dear Hope4joy,
Darling that is true! SELF VALIDATION!!!! And that is what we MUST DO. It doesn’t matter if I can put the egg donor into a square hole and make her fit or not, or a round hole, or any particular hole, it is that she is TOXIC to me. I finally got out of denial actually, and I think I have “known” she didn’t care for me from the time I was a little kid, but didn’t want to believe it….so I kept on trying to please her, to get her to love me and care for me. There were times I thought I had done so, even YEARS when I thought she and I were “best friends”—but I was DEEPLY IN DENIAL and every year when the holidays would roll around and we would have the Uncle Monster DANCE and I would be upset and she would be upset, and then I would go back to PRETENDING WE WERE A NICE NORMAL FAMILY in January til the next time….sheesh! (Head shaking here) how could I have been so BLIND! LOL
But now I see, now I accept the truth, and I don’t need that carp any more! It is stinking dead fish! So why would I want it! It isn’t going to get any sweeter smelling either!
Yea, it is validating, and I can depend on MYSELF NOW, trust MYSELF to not believe in their bull carp!
Yep, they may not qualify on the PCL-R but I they don’t have to in order to be POISON FOR ME! That’s all that matters. They do not treat me well, they do not do nice things for me, they do not care for me, they do not cherish me…so why on earth do I care what they say or think about me? I need them in my life WHY?
This is kinda funny. We should have an s-path dictionary for s-speak.
When I asked questions requiring a yes or no answer, my husband would nod his head up and down and say “YES”… but i discovered to my inevitable destruction that translated to “I hear you”, and he would NOT answer the question. My asking questions and demanding answers was proof that I was controlling (somehow ended up being discussed somewhere, but not with me…) and therefore he was excused for lying to a controlling wife, (and he ALSO got sympathy for having one of “those” wives to boot!).
Dear KatyDid,
HOW DARE YOU WANT THE TRUTH! Yep, that makes you a controlling b1atch for sure! Who but a controlling b1atch would want to make him confess to what he had been up to? Or want to know the TRUTH! WOW, how unreasonable of you! Poor baby, you mistreated him soooo badly!!! I think I’ll send him a “get well” card. NOT!!!! LOL
LOLOLOL Drover! Card!!!
Yes, how dare we want the truth!!!!! The more they hide from us the more they snicker behind our backs. Like the cartoon character dog snidely(?) with his snickering! I think that was the dudley dooright cartoon. HEHEHEHEHE!
Boy I see swiss cheese holes right now!
notcrazee1
HAHAHAHA Oxy.
I KNOW he’d be pleased with a get well card. I can even imagine his smiling about it.
He really has been getting a lot of mileage out of his victimhood, such a saint really, I was “his cross to bear” and he “made the best of a bad situation” until his friends and family rescued him from me. (and that’s when I took advantage and moved thousands of miles away to an undisclosed address. B/c that’s what obsessed crazy wives like me do:)
KatyDid:
Thank God,,,,, you are thousands of miles away!!!! and never look back! Sounds similar to my story. hand in there! Turn it into your local DEA office now. Ha Ha! wouldn’t that be a suprise to the good ol boys!!! LOLOLOLOLOL!
ntcrazee1!