By Jade Joddle
The 7 red flags of a psycho as represented in the animation above are based on observations of family life as I was growing up in an unstable home. My mother had an extremely turbulent dating life, and attracted men with obsessive and stalkerish tendencies as a repeating pattern. For me as a child, home was most definitely not safe.
The ‘psycho’ you see represented in the video is a borderline male who has deep emotional wounds in relation to abandonment. He lives in a permanent state of emotional conflict because more than anything he wants to be in a loving relationship, but yet the very act of getting close to someone triggers in him an irrational fear of abandonment over which he has no control. When he is in a relationship, or even casually dating, he lives in constant fear that the relationship could end at any given moment. This fear of the relationship ending is what makes him jealous and possessive in the extreme.
The fact that the borderline male as depicted in the animation is so possessive and insecure about the status of his relationship results in a lot of explosive dating or relationship drama. My mother would often push back against the controlling tendencies of her partners, for example by ignoring their phone calls or not answering the door to them. Her rejection of them would then trigger their abandonment wounds, sending them into a dangerous kind of psychosis.
The psychosis generally involves violent or irrational acts combined with stalking. During these outbreaks of psychosis my mother would have to call the police for protection. There were times when we even had panic alarm buttons installed in our home. Usually, then, after a couple of days she would forgive her boyfriends and after a week or so the cycle would repeat again.
To outsiders, my mother’s borderline boyfriends typically made a good impression. They were the kind of guys that everyone liked. While on some level the men she dated had good qualities to their nature, they also had a dangerous switch that few people got to see in action. From my position within the four walls of the family home, I saw violent acts as well as creepy behaviour, which as a child I had no way of understanding.
Creepy watching and/or stalking is the primary trait I associate with the kind of borderline male my mother dated (or in fact still dates). I remember one time we discovered that her partner had been hiding in the loft silently for over 24 hours without eating anything or going to the toilet so that he could listen to conversations taking place in the house below. Even to this day my mother has an ex partner who does laps walking around her house from front to back multiple times per day, creepily whistling as he walks so that she knows he is there. Most people would unlikely accept this kind of stalking, but it seems my mother is resigned to it after a lifetime of stalker after stalker.
While I have sympathy for my mother living under the oppression of her psycho boyfriends, now as an adult I have a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic in her dysfunctional relationships. I no longer regard her as a victim who needs protection from the men in her life and instead feel that on some level she gets a kick from her never-ending relationship dramas.
My advice to anyone who recognises the 7 signs of dating a psycho in their own relationship dynamics is to wake up to the oppression under which you are living: It’s your life and you have a choice over whether you choose to live your life in fear or not.
Jade Joddle is the content maker at Do Personality Test. See her videos at  http://dopersonalitytest.com/personality-tests/
I wish I had seen this before dating the sociopath…
Jade – The video is great. Very clever. And it makes really good points about the more obsessive types of disordered people. They can be very scary.
Glad you liked the video Donna. Thanks for sharing with your audience. People need to be aware of the signs of obsessional and possessive behaviour so that they can stay safe.
This so much reminds me of my borderline ex partner. I still can’t prove it was him stalking me but far too many coincidences and that gut feeling give me good reasons to think it was him. Things didn’t seem right from the moment I met him. My computer had been hacked & also my phone. The software had been changed on both which was confirmed by the computer engineer and the manager in the shop where I had purchased my phone.
I wasn’t computer savvy so I didnt realise what was happening with either device.
I was logging into fake websites, which explained why every website was different to the authentic websites.
I also had programs removed, messages, emails and personal photos disappearing from my computer.
I watched multiple tabs opening and directing me to porn and dating websites and the mouse was moving around on the screen clicking on random links.
Alot of strange and odd things were happening and I started to think I was going mad.
I Had only bought a new phone two weeks before as the other one had been playing up. Within a week I noticed I couldn’t get a signal no matter where I was, the battery was going flat within the hour.
Nobody could contact me It was just a dead line and nobody replied to my text messages and calls would give a crossed line and I could hear other people’s conversations.
I was still none the wiser as I didn’t really know about hacking and spyware programs.
I came home after being out all day a few times to find my computer switched on and running in my bedroom with some webpage open on the screen.
The third time this happened I panicked believing someone must be in my house ( I lived alone) as I just couldn’t understand how my computer would be logged onto a website.
I was upstairs trying to switch the computer off but it was saying ‘”other persons are still logged onto this computer” when I thought I heard a cupboard door closing in the kitchen downstairs. I remember looking at my bedroom window thinking I need to get out quick but it was 30ft drop so I ran downstairs and out the front door with no coat or anything on my feet. It was past midnight and I had no phone or money on me.
I ended up walking the streets all night until the police station was open at 8am. I was hysterical and in tears but the police did nothing to help me telling me to take my computer and phone to a expert if I thought something was wrong.
I returned home after leaving my door open all night and I was petrified of going inside. I finally got the courage to go inside grab my phone, but again i wasn’t getting replies to my texts and phone calls wouldn’t connect accept for one number.
It was the phone number of a guy I had recently been on a date with & I had told him I wasn’t interested in dating.
When he answered I initially put the phone down on him but he rang me back asking if everything was alright?. I told him I was having problems with my phone and couldn’t seem to contact anyone so I was surprised he answered. He told me he knew a friend who would could look at my computer if I wanted any help.
I told him It was okay and instead I found a computer expert from a advert in the newspaper, he found 38 viruses installed on my computer and removed them. He failed to detect the keylogger stealth programme that was actually installed though. I took my phone back to the shop and the manager said he would have to send it off for repair as the software had been changed. I was now without a phone.
To this day I never knew how either device had got keyloggers installed.
I had been living on my own 5 years but I was now feeling very vulnerable and frightened especially when I started getting abusive emails. I started dating the guy I initially went on a date with mainly because he made me feel safe and he took my mind off the stalking I was experiencing.
The person who sent the emails was very literate, and mentioned some personal details about myself, what I did for a job, & that I had a teenage son, and also where I lived.
The emails arrived at least once a week. I ignored them as I thought it be best not to acknowledge receiving them. I then got a email with pornographic photos attached and my head stuck onto them from images that had been stolen from my computer.
I was horrified as I knew this person was sick and was probably capable of anything.
I was followed by a dark coloured car mainly at night when it was dark. This person drove at great speed and would drive close to the back bumper of either car I was traveling in.
Several friends noticed this.
The police wouldn’t listen to me and just sent me some advice leaflets in the post about schizophrenia and paranoia leaving me feeling even more vulnerable.
I ended up dating the guy I went on a date with for over 18 months.
He has borderline personality disorder and the more I read on this subject the more I beleive he was something to do with the stalking which actually stopped when I started a relationship with him.
Many things just don’t add up and I’ve gave up trying to get answers from him as he can lie himself out of a lie.
He denies he did anything wrong, but during his abandonment phases of him dumping me every few weeks he would send me creepy text messages that would send a chill down my spine and the words he used seemed very familiar to me.
I’ve now gone no contact but I know he still looks at some of my networking social profiles he knows of on the web.
I’ve blocked him on the websites I know he Is a member of. I’ve also set up new accounts.
One thing I noticed was his multiple email accounts and social networking accounts he tried to hide from me. He also kept passwords on his computer and phone which made me wonder why as I would never think about looking through his personal information.
I have never trusted him and I can’t be in a relationship with someone who stirs up so much doubt about himself.
You know in your heart and gut who it is. No need to look for evidence; your feeling tells you.
Video made me wonder about someone I’d met. I’d never thought about it before.
At singles event or the like, talked a bit. Part of a circle of people who saw a lot of each other at singles events, so there was a sense of “belonging” rather than complete stranger. Yet I can’t remember if that’s where I met him, or how. It’s blocked out of my mind. I could never remember what had happened the day before when we met. (I don’t drink – I did remember the next day, but not in since then.)
The next morning very early, I found a book at my door. Title being “sexual double entrondra” (for security on the internet I’ll leave out the exact title) about stretching with a note that he thought of me and knew I’d appreciate this since I was into keeping fit. I wasn’t into keeping fit, and couldn’t recall indicating that I was, and the name’s inuendo didn’t escape my sense of creepy. What creeped me out is that he lived about 45 mins away. It was a Sat morning, so no traffic, but the picture that he drove that distance to leave this off?
At the time I considered calling him out of basic politeness for a present but to tell him boundries. I considered calling out of anger & wariness to tell him I wasn’t into exercise and the act of giving a present was inappropriate. I definitely wanted nothing to do with this person again.
What I DID do was decide not to call so as not to have contact with him. I think he may have called me. I can’t remember. This to is one of the signs of him being creepy, that it’s blocked out of my mind. I think I told him thank you, then dropped it, and by dropping it, making it very clear he wasn’t going to get a reaction from me — and he never contacted me again.
It never really crossed my mind that he could turn out to be a possessive stalker type. I never pictured WHAT he could be. Only that he’d crossed any sane boundry right up front, and that was enough to decide my future with him. Completely non-existent.
Hum. I was a lot younger then. The title of the book looks clearer now than it did back then.
I always counted myself lucky that he was so over the top immediately, so it was easy to see what to do.
The video is very cute. Most psychos don’t give off such clear clues. There is the possessive variation that does, and it’s a great insight into avoiding them. Also a reminder that ANYTHING obsure and uncomfortable should be taken seriously.
My own taste of creepy momentos – a box of meaningful songs and some things I had touched and a dramatic goodbye letter. I barely knew him. For weeks I dreamed about him climbing in through my window. One’s gut know’s what is creepy, even if describing it doesn’t do it justice.
This animation is ‘too much’. That woman’s voice is meant to instill awareness but sounded like a cartoon written by a psycho (her voice is straight from Hell).
Did not know whether to laugh or freak out.