It was just a name in the subject line of an email.
I knew the name. How could I forget it? It was the name of the man who had betrayed my trust and my love for the four years nine months of our relationship.
Curious, I opened the email and read the words of a woman whose daughter’s girlfriend is engaged to a man named ”˜Jack’ (not his real name). I think he’s the same man you knew, she wrote. I read your website and the article from when your book was published. Do you have a picture?
I wrote back and told her I had burnt every picture I had of him. She sent me one by return email. Is this the same man? I’m really scared for my daughter’s safety. Conrad and my daughter’s friend have been living with us for a couple of months. He’s made lots of promises. Lots of commitments to do this, do that. None of them have come true.
I wrote back.
Unfortunately, it’s him. You can’t change him, I told her. You can help your daughter and her friend get free by learning as much as you can as fast as you can about narcissism and sociopaths. I gave her a couple of websites to read and I suggested a couple of things she could do to end the abuse now. There’s a good chance he’s up to his illegal activities once again as he has two high-end cars in their drive and one license plate which he continually shifts from vehicle to vehicle. I’ve suggested she contact the police and have offered to speak with the young woman who believes she has been swept up into Prince Charming’s arms.
When I wrote The Dandelion Spirit, I wanted to help women and men caught in a liar’s web to make sense of the craziness. I wanted to encourage and enlighten as well as inspire people.
Over the two years since the book was published I have heard from countless people — telling me their stories, asking for advice, thanking me for helping them understand and to breathe freely again.
I never expected to be able to help someone extricate themselves from Conrad’s web.
Expect the unexpected and life will never disappoint you.
It is my belief that knowledge is a gift to be shared. I learned a lot through the ”˜Jack’ experience. Learned about narcissism, sociopaths/psychopaths. About liars and abusers. And, I learned about being free. About turning up for me, in all my cuts and bruises, to stand tall and proud, a victor in my own life.
Helping others is not about getting even with the abuser. It’s about ensuring people know their rights, their duty and responsibility to be true to themselves. It’s about helping them understand they have the power to cut the ties that bind them to someone else’s abuse — and to help them find their courage to do it.
I have been blessed. In the 5+ years since my release, I have been given the gift of healing and the opportunity to help others find their paths away from abuse.
I am one lucky woman and I want to share my good fortune with the world around me.
“In today’s environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.” Joseph Bardaracco
Everyday, survivors of these affairs stumble into this sight and take heart at the words written here by those who have journeyed through similar darkness. In our sharing we brighten the road and lighten the load of those who have fallen behind us. In our sharing, we illuminate the path for others to follow.
I never expected to be given the gift of helping someone involved with the same man I was. When first I read her words and thought about my response, I wondered if I was doing it out of vindictiveness, or was I truly coming from a loving heart.
I questioned myself to ensure I stood true to me, my values, principles and beliefs. And then, in the end, I realized — my heart belongs to me. In helping someone else, I am not going after him, I am going after what is right — sharing what I know and have learned so that someone else can find their way out of the darkness.
For the woman who wrote me, the story has a happy ending. She got him out of her house. For his new girlfriend, the story continues. She did not heed their advice. Did not want to hear what they said about him.
I know where she’s at. I know how scared she is and how frightened and alone she feels. I cannot change her path. I cannot alter her course. I can only continue to do what I do to create a world of peace around me: speak out against abuse and speak up for those who have lost their voice.
Robin,
I just checked out your website. How wonderful! Thank you for sharing the wisdom you gained through your own experience to reach out and help others. I have bookmarked the page for your book. The S didn’t take money from me directly but his retaliation efforts have cost me a lot. I am working to get back on track. Most things now need to be budgeted for but I am very interested in reading your book! I would love to give you feedback once I get it. Thanks for sharing this with me.
My client is a young woman in her late 40s. I am in my mid-30s and believe that youth is not a number! My client has such a strong spirit and has endured a lot in her life thus far. It is a privilege watching her break out of the lies she has been fed throughout her life, the lies that have imprisoned her and kept her on a path to continue to repeat the past. Guilt and blame have caused her to internalize her abuse but she is coming into the light. She is finding her voice and figuring out who she really is. She has experienced the loss of her children who were brainwashed by her ex-husband. She is currently remarried and questions how healthy her relationship is with her husband. Facing fears that I think many of us can relate to regarding whether she is projecting her past onto the present or caught up in the cycle again. I fear the later and we’ve had many discussions about this. But this is her story and she continues to rewrite the pages as she comes to a clearer understanding of her past and her present.
I have other clients in similar predicaments. I don’t know what is going on with the cosmos this week but I have spent more time in session and on the phone with clients this week who have been filled with self-doubt. Of all the things that abuse does to individuals, I find that self-doubt is the one aspect that tends to linger on. I have no-doubt experienced this myself. But this is dangerous as it can leave us wide open to manipulation by abusers. It is so important that we know who we are and can distinguish between ourselves and others. Not getting caught up in our emotions or the lies that we’re told from our past abusers. Our tendency to internalize other people’s bad behavior is unbelievable. So I spent a lot of time this week encouraging people to remember who they are. I am thankful to be able to do that as I also reached out to my family and friends with questions about whether I caused the abuse or was to blame for what happened to me. Having someone remind me of who I am and what was unjustly done to me was priceless.
I pray that for all of us going through this journey that we take the opportunity to know ourselves better. To define who we are apart from others in this world and to learn how to take good care of ourselves. Regardless of whether someone has NPD, ASPD, BPD or the like, abuse is abuse is abuse. We don’t necessarily have to name where it comes from to know what it is. But we do need to recognize it and address it. To take care of ourselves.
Often victims are repeatedly abused by various people. This can fool one into thinking that it’s their fault as they are the common denomenator. I’ve heard this so many times. I thought the same way once myself. But if we do the work to learn more about ourselves and stay grounded in the truth, we can be freed from that lie. We can find out why it continues to happen and stop the cycle.
My way out was defined by the poem I shared in my post above. I lifted my heart up to God as I laid flat on my face unable to get back up. Doing so I learned the truth about who I am and what I had experienced. As a result, I have stopped the cycle. Now my job is to stay diligent and continue to avoid being sucked back into it. Self-doubt has been my enemy at times but God reminds me of who I am each day if I continue to seek the truth. LF is one place that grounds me. For that I will be eternally thankful.
Kudos to you Robin for sharing the truth with so many others out there!
God Bless :))
i’m confused (what else is new!).
my ex is a very social person. has friends and family to his house all the time, the life of the party, do anything for anybody type of guy, BUT (BIG BUT), seems that everything i read says they are anti-social. he’s like the mayor of the neighborhood, everyone knows and loves him, guys want to be like him, girls want to be with him, he has more friends than anyone i have ever known (”but all those girls in my cellphone are JUST FRIENDS!” yea, right).
so, it makes me feel like he was just treating me like crap, using me, lying, cheating, etc etc etc … and now his new girlfriend is getting treated great.
by all the definitions he’s a BIG FAT s/p — his PICTURE should be up here! — but it doesn’t jive with his ability to be successful, friendly and fun.
what gives???
Bird,
One thing I want to note. Sociopaths do cut. Rarely does one personality disorder stand alone. There are traits of many regardless of which criteria they fit the most. For example, If an N suffers a severe enough narcissitstic injury their rage usually exists on two levels. One is a rage (overt agression or passive agression) towards the person who “injured” them. The other rage is self-inflicted wrath. Lostingrief your ex sounds like a good example of the self-inflicted wrath behavior after his mother passed away. Recklessly doing what he pleased at the expense of others and himself as a result of such injury in losing his mother. Some will cut for attention, exhibit suicidal and homicidal reckless behavior, etc. NPD and ASPD have thin lines dividing them at times regarding what is occuring in their lives.
Ns will also threaten suicide like BPDIs if you leave them or even cut (often superficially) to get your attention like my ex did. Sociopaths will learn and do what they can to manipulate. Whatever works to draw the attention to them. My N father attempted suicide once. Of course he denied that he was trying to kill himself but it was obvious. My mother had taken us to a hotel overnight as he had gotten violent towards me and she was afraid he would kill me in the middle of the night. He screamed, as he often did, that she was choosing “the children” over him. This was a significant enough narcissitic injury that led him to overdose on sleeping medication which he then hid in a box in his closet. Not an accident but he will never admit to the truth. We found him unconscious the next morning and got him to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. That lead to the doctor seeing the hand-print bruise on my face and a visit from social services. That was another narcissisitic injury that continued to make me the target of his rage for years.
On that same note, Stargazer, thanks for updating us! I do hope that justice is served where it is due. I do want to caution you that regardless of whether your ex has ever been violent in the past, that is not necessarily the best predictor for the future. If he experiences enough “injury” from the military taking action and being forced off the reptile website, he is capable of retaliating. No empathy and no guilt opens the door for all sorts of behavior. I am aware that these folks have more patience than anyone I know. They can make a plan and stick to it for years in retaliation against anyone who gets in their way. Please be careful.
One of the best pieces of advice I learned as a therapist is to never think you know someone too well. This comes from working with a lot of personality disordered clients. Even psychotic clients who are psychiatrically decompensating can act out aggressivley at times (though they are often more harmless than the ridiculous media portrays them). But this stands true at all times, especially with the PDIs. I have to say I’ve rarely been scared of a unstable client suffering from psychosis. But I have been scared many, many times from PDIs! Hit a nerve with a question and they snap, refuse to engage in their power play and watch their blood boil as they up the ante. There’s a reason I am closest to the door in my office as a mean for quick escape. There is also a reason I never have and never will have sessions while alone in a building with clients. Trust in therapy is not just something that therapists need to earn from their client but clients need to earn from therapists as well! The wisdom is in never thinking you know someone too well and setting up measures to protect yourself. I have been attacked before and threatened as well by PD clients. I don’t want to instill fear in anyone, I want to promote awareness so you’ll be safe.
Lostingrief,
Great questions! First, anti-social does not mean a-social. Sociopaths are exteremely social people! They rely on others to get thier “supply”. To reinforce that false image that they are great people. As long as they can manipulate others into believing this and reflecting it back to them they feel “normal”. They can function well in society if they’ve learned how to manipulate effectively. So many of them do. My ex is a volunteer and known as the Big Teddy Bear. He is generous in what he gives to people (though admitted to me that gifts are only given so he looks good and gets attention). He fundraises for cancer research (which his late wife died from at age 38…which I suspect he had something to do with). He’s quick to give advice on pretty much everything but any emotional topic (gee wonder why). He can come off as being your bestest friend ever LOL. But this is his projected image. He needs others to believe this in order to keep it up. Underneath, he is like your ex. A liar, a cheater and an abuser. One big fake lie on the outside and a selfish, greedy monster on the inside.
As I wrote above NPD and ASPD walk a thin line. In fact, malignant narcissism includes both those traist along with traits of paranoid personality disorder (my ex fits this description very well). Usually NPDIs are better at maintaining that social image than straight ASPDIs. At least that’s what they say.
As for what he did to you and if he’s treating his new g/f better- they abuse their nearest and dearest the worst. There is the idealization phase that she will go through, which you experienced as well. The charmer who swept you off your feet. But in time that mask will crack, as it did for you, and his true colors will start pouring out. It always happens. This is who they are. Those who continue to be conned by him are not close enough most of the time to see him revealed. Their nearest and dearest are the main sources of their supply. They will drain those until the supply is depleted and move on.
Sociopaths often learn as they go. There are some predictions of how long it takes for the mask to crack (3-4 months I think) but everyone is different. But the truth is that his motives with his new g/f are no different than his motives were with you. He will abuse her. That is what they do. They don’t change. They may change up the tools they use in their arsenal but they don’t change what they do and why they do it.
Often sociopaths are seen in very prestigious roles throughout society. This fits their grandiouse delusions and goals to be seen as Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful. Like Bird pointed out about Angelina Jolie. Who knows if she’s a sociopath or not at the moment, but her humanitarian efforts, adopting needy chidren from around the world, etc. They fit the profile. That is her pubic image. It does not mean that she truly is what she projects. She is also the woman who married Billy Bob Thornton and wore a vial of his blood dangled from a necklace. She had found her “soulmate” remember? And wasn’t Brad Pitt married to Jennifer Aniston when they got together? Breaking up marriages is part of what they do. I can’t say she’s definitely a sociopath but she could very well be.
So I encourage you to stop thinking that he ONLY treated you badly. I went through that as well and had the same questions at one point. But those “friends” are forms of narcisstic supply for your ex and used by whatever means fill his ego. None of them mean anything to him except for what he gets from them. Everyone in his life is lied to. You know him better than they do. In the end, he’s not such a fun guy afterall is he? His current g/f, she will be abused and he wil demand that she forgo herself in order to meet his every desire. She will not be happy in the end unless she’s using him as well and doesn’t really care about him. Relationships can last longer than you’d think with an S. So please don’t use that as any value judgment regarding yourself. You know who he truly is and know enough to stay away from him. Don’t think enviously about how he’s treating others or think it was only you he targeted. Everyone is a pawn in his game. You have the privilege of knowing the game and choosing to no longer play.
God Bless! Keep asking the questions and let us know how you’re doing!
Stargazer and Lostingrief, regarding the bonds we feel to the Ss. I first read up on “betrayal bonds” which was extremely enlightening. Then someone mentioned “soul ties” to me and I found that concept quite interesting. As you said, Lostingrief, it feels like a Spirit connection. Thought I’ve pass along some food for thought.
Book review betrayal bond
http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2007/04/27/book-review-the-betrayal-bond/
Thanks Dr. Leedom for sharing the link to the review. I found the book extremely helpful in understanding why I felt so drawn to my former abuser.
Dear Takingmeback,
You were in “fair form” today GF, those are some AWESOME posts above—great information. Your “5 cents” is in the mail, Lucy! LOL
Thanks Oxy! I’m racking up the big bucks huh? LOL
takingmeback: thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful reply. all i can say is ”yes, yes, yes.” i’m really getting it. and because i know him and his family dynamics very well, i suppose i’m uniquely qualified to see that he DOES treat those closest to him like crap. it wasn’t just me.
ii stayed because i was fascinated by his fire, and his swag as an alpha-male, something i have always found irresistible. unfortunately, that shows something is wrong with me, too (lol) … while these folks are the demon personified, perhaps we are not totally blameless?
i dunno. either i am deep in self-loathing or i feel as though we collaborate in our own oppression on some level. these s/p’s have patterns, and we let them get over again and again before we extricate ourselves (for the most part, it seems). i’m not giving them an excuse, just saying that i take some of the blame for the macabre dance, ya know?
just my 2 cents …
peace to all