Editor’s note: The following essay was submitted by a Lovefraud reader.
Snapshots
By AlohaTraveler
In our lifetime, we hope to capture the best moments of our lives in pictures. We keep albums of our family events, weddings, births, first dates, proposals, holidays, vacations, and so on. There is another kind of snapshot that keeps many of us longing for our sociopaths. These are the “snapshots” we hold in our minds. They are the ideal moments, the perfect words, the heightened romance that so many of us felt when we were being seduced by a sociopath.
Browsing through my mental album, I see a snapshot of myself and the Bad Man, as I call him, passionately kissing in Safeway next to the tortilla chips. It was romantic, it was silly, and I felt so in love. Never before had I done a thing like that! It was just a kiss but it was so ideal, so out of the movies. I recall during our first kiss, he embraced me as if he were Fabio on the cover of a Harlequin Romance novel. Who wouldn’t swoon for that?
Here’s another snapshot. This time, I am at Home Depot. Why all the retail?! On the radio, Dan Fogelberg’s Longer Than is playing and I start to weep tears of joy. Suddenly, I felt as if I had a deeper understanding of this song about lovers. I know, it’s c-o-r-n-y! This happened during a time that I have referred to as “the happiest two weeks of my life,” or like I said before, “Relationship Crack.”
Another snapshot I have in my mind is spending an hour choosing just the right birthday card for my budding new romance (and more weeping over drippy love songs being piped in over the sound system). God, I was a sap! I ended up with two cards. I saw this as “the first card I would ever give the love of my life” and it had to be perfect. So what’s more perfect than two?
Yet another. This time I am sitting next to my Captain as he skillfully pilots the craft and gives an enlightening spiel about the marine life over his microphone. The guests were rapt with attention as was I, goo-goo eyes and all. I always had a thing for islands, the water, the whales, which were out in full force that day, and of course, the Captain of the ship. Isn’t it perfect?!
I remember looking at the Bad Man with his tanned skin and his Indiana Jones hat. He looked exactly like Harrison Ford back when Harrison Ford still looked good. It was all too perfect. I was living in Hawaii, I had a hunk of a man for my new boyfriend and of course, he had already told me what a “quality woman” I was, asked me to be his exclusive girlfriend and told me he was “seriously considering” me as a “potential life partner” after only a few short weeks! Considering that my move to Hawaii was my idea of an “alternate” life plan since, at 35 years old, my marital dreams had not come true, you can imagine how ecstatic I was to have such a lucky break in love. I had only been on the island 10 days when I met the “man of my dreams.” It appeared to me that my dreams were coming true after all. I looked at him and thought to myself, “We are going to be one of those couples that everyone wants to be like!” and I was on top of the world. I thought I had beat the system by letting go of the quest-for-love and reaching for my dreams on my own… and BINGO! My prayers were answered.
Sadly, the signs of danger were already present but my ideal moments, my perfect “snapshots” were clouding my ability, or perhaps, my willingness, to see them. The Bad Man had already mentioned that he had been called a “cult leader” in the newspapers back in Seattle during his days as a Pastor for Assemblies of God. He had been “sort-of excommunicated” because he was an “out of the box thinker” and he had “thrown off the templates” of the traditional hard line thinking of his former Church. He was a “rebel” and a “hero.” He had a “permanent restraining order” against him and all women’s health clinics in the Seattle area. He was “honest” about the “B.S. restraining order” his ex-wife had against him. He told me mournfully that his ex “stole the children” (escaped under extreme duress, I am sure) and that the court would issue a restraining order to any woman that said she was afraid. “The court wouldn’t even question it” he told me, with indignation in his voice. He called her a “gossip” and talked at length about how couples should be able to work out their problems in private or go “up the food chain” for advice and not down. Now in my defense, this was confusing. That seemed like good advice coming from a former Minister. Perhaps his ex was a gossip. I mean I was keeping all our problems private, just like he told me to. Why couldn’t she? I know as I write this that it all sounds ridiculous but alas, the kiss… the kiss! Now, I say, “Alas… the red flags, the RED FLAGS!!!”
Never before had I been so taken in by someone, so consumed by a man. I thought this was the big love that I had been waiting for. I thought it was finally my time. These were the things I was telling myself in those brief moments of heightened romance. As I write this, I realize that my snapshots were just my thoughts. In fact, in some of the snapshots I describe, the Bad Man isn’t even present… just me and my thoughts of LOVE. I was in denial of what was really happening and I let a few highly romantic moments, snapshots, overpower the truth. My own thoughts about what this relationship was going to mean for my formerly-empty-before-him-life were seductive enough for me to all but ignore the truth before me.
In my mind, I have burned up these snapshots. I recognize them for what they are now. They are my own fantasies, and my own dreams that I pinned on someone else. Why are all my dreams riding on someone else? Now when I am asked, “What are your hopes and dreams?” I feel sad and empty. For some reason, I keep getting asked this question lately. I can’t think of anything. I have plans that are solid and based on reality. I am working toward some goals. I have named the steps to achieve my goals and I am ticking them off as I go. But there are no dreams.
When someone loves you, they don’t set out to destroy you. They consider your wellbeing and they consider how their actions affect others. This is what is normal. They don’t terrorize you until you feel like you are worthless. I knew this but I sort of forgot. I forgot because he said the magic words”¦“I am seriously considering you as a potential life partner.” I became a slave to those words and would do anything, endure anything, ignore anything, because of them. It’s like I was on Survivor. I formed an alliance with him! I bought in to his strategy to destroy me and I joined in the plan. Hey, in the end, I even voted myself off the island! I guess you could say, I escaped the Bad Man by leaving while he was at work, kind of like the way he described the day his ex left him with her 5 children in tow. God Bless her.
If it seems that I make light of my encounter with a sociopath, I do not. My story is lit up with red flags, more than I would like to admit. My lessons from the Bad Man cost me some money, some time, many tears, a few friendships, and maybe one thing that needed to go, like a baby tooth needs to go to make room for the emerging adult one. Perhaps my fantasies of love, and being in love, and what that would mean for my life, were a bit girlish. Now, I have a plan for my life beyond loving and devoting my life to someone else. Where was I in all that, anyway?
I have a real snapshot of myself from my time on Maui. It was taken by the Bad Man. When I saved it on my computer, I gave it the file name, “pretending to be happy.” It looks like I am having the time of my life but the truth is, I was sleepless, anxious, afraid, and miserable. I was being emotionally battered, manipulated, terrorized and stalked. I had been called a long list of names your Mother wouldn’t want to hear you say. I was never good enough, never knew what he wanted or didn’t want, could never guess how to make him happy, because it changed minute by minute, nor could I keep up with his ever changing relationship rules that always applied to me but never to him. I was crumbling under the stress of it all.
I guess it’s never too late to be truthful with yourself.
Author’s note: The concept for “Snapshots” was introduced to me by my friend, Susan Bradley, RN. Susan is a Relationship Coach, and author of “Irresistible Prescriptions for Love.” For more information, visit her website www.lovinguniversity.com.
Valentine’s Day can be tough for victims of love fraud
holywatersalt –
There’s always the hooks. I think it stymied the Wolf this time around because he did everything “right” to totally hook me and then when I was ready to walk off, he couldn’t fathom how I could leave that type of up one minute, down the next, pain and pleasure roller coaster they create for the purposes OF hooking you. It threw him – I was in a vulnerable place but part of me never let myself trust him fully after our past. Which was that little shred of doubt serving as a life preserver when he started to become strange and mean. That doubt was there from day one and, along with the people who served as sounding boards, it kept me from falling into his lake and totally sinking.
Though, in hindsight, not enough…to just shake this experience off without residual effect.
I’m…far less certain of myself. Anyone else? In everything, my self-worth is damaged. I have trouble going up and speaking to people because he made me think so many people didn’t like me (people we both knew socially). Or that I was annoying them, like I annoyed him.
Discussed this today via email with someone we both knew who I spent years thinking didn’t like me. Finally got to know this person well enough to ASK. And boy, did I hear a bunch of new stuff about the Wolf….from another’s perspective, not romantically involved with him, but still personally involved and feeling negative towards him.
“He pretended to be my friend- but NEVER in any real way was”“I filled-in his blanks- I assumed. I won’t go into details of how he knew I was a the perfect target, but it was easy to discern and he knew I wanted a friends”
That’s what the Wolf did to this person. Used him as a stepping stone, messed with his life for awhile, and when this person was no longer useful, he discarded them…and still badmouths them.
It’s who they are. It’s what they do. Be glad you were never sexually intimate, though emotional intimacy is just as painful.
I don’t think that they are his children although the woman that he has been vacationing with has a son (his godson) who is waiting trial on criminal charges – armed robbery I believe.
My S actually criticized his grand-daughter for lying to her father about where she was and with whom. He said that he can’t believe a thing that she says – the apple didn’t fall far from that tree.
I went to a co-workers house warming and a friend’s birthday party alone today. Enjoyed myself.
Does their behavior ever get better? Do they feel any remorse for what they have done to other people’s lives?
I don’t know, hummingbird. Mine used to say “it’s all about me” about life. Turns out, it appears he meant it. All the literature and studies say they cannot change, but in my heart I believe it’s possible for everyone to change if they really want to. Including us.
He’s the only man who, to this day, still has the capacity to make me crazy. Think it was Ox-D who said mental and emotional NC are as important as physical NC. Have mastered the latter, but am often stuck in the former.
He said we had a love/hate relationship…think it meant I loved him, he hated me, and I would learn to hate what I became when I was around him. 🙂
As for remorse, I never saw any overt remorse on how anything happened in his life with anyone. He said things like “times change, people change” to explain his disconnect from other relationships, personal or business. He kept EVERYTHING to himself, though, buttoned-down pretty tight.
Just like all the other times, he’s gone without so much as a backwards glance, phone call or attempt to contact me. Out of sight, out of mind. Doesn’t sound like someone who carries a lot of remorse.
Lil O-
I just as of Sat. realized I DO NOT CARE. It’s not there, all gone. In fact, he annoys me to no end. I wish I never had to see him.
I am dumbstruck why I ever cared what this clown thought—I pray everyone gets to this point. It is such a relief.
Of course, the P still plays games– I just do not care.
I think something finally snapped- I saw him in his full psycho suit–he puts on these dramatic clown acts to attract attention, huge gestures and pretend assistance…all phoney. Makes me want to wretch.
I made excuses before, but now as they say: I see.
I’d have to change my entire life to avoid him, and I know he shows up to be an affront to me among other things–so I treat him like a plant.
To address the mental NC- I had a hell of a time b/c I obsess naturally—it’s gone. Gone, gone, gone, it’s gone away to quote the Violent Femmes I believe !!! I could dance. You will get to this point —it took me over a year.
Glad to hear that, hummingbird! You sound incredibly free and happy and that’s wonderful!! I felt that way for awhile in December and January. Even tried to start dating in February. But there’s something that just keeps me locked-in, somehow.
Thought this time around I would have done everything I could think of to make it work- because regrets are God’s way of keeping a crack in the door -and that if it didn’t work out it would be “Alls well that ends well.”
Only…it didn’t end well. Feels like there’s leftover business, like I’m left here shadow-boxing with myself and my heart, even though he’s gone. It also feels like I’ve kicked my own butt in the karma department and am going to somehow see him in the next lifetime to try and work this out. Like I failed at something huge and so did he.
A year? It took me five the first time (ouch, I’m cringing as I write that…) and by year five, I think even my persistent brain neurons were like, “Look, lady, we’re TIRED of this subject, already, ya mopey bi-atch!” so it was more a matter of bigger issues, like my parents, taking up my heart.
However long it takes, I have to honor that. Instead of trying to jump into another relationship to get over him, or try to force myself to hate him, or even force myself not to think about it (which was working pretty well there for a few months). Otherwise, I end up back and forth, back and forth.
It’s over for him. Not sure it ever started – for him. But for me, well, I had seriously strong emotions and genuinely loved who I thought he was. Rather than deny that reality because it’s painful, or run from it, or think/do childish little things because they temporarily make me feel better, I’m just gonna have to ride it out without doing anything. Feels like pointless flailing, anyway.
Since you said you obsess naturally, it’s really even greater to hear the certainty in your post that you are done. Gives me hope! Am very happy you’re feeling that way!
LilOrphan,
I know how you feel about the social interaction stuff that you mentioned a few posts ago. I still constantly doubt myself and I always think people are mad at me and then I avoid them and it becomes a huge mess. I am in a much better place than I was before and I have faith in myself but I guess I just don’t have faith in other people’s ability to appreciate who I am. And like me for it. I know I’m not a bad person but I don’t know if people understand me. I think I probably don’t give them a chance to.
Yeah I just have a REALLY hard time trusting anyone. And even if I do start to, sometimes something happens and I obsessively pick it apart and question their intentions. I think my brain is pretty sick of doing that too!
By the way, if the karma thing is true, your BM will probably be born in his next life as a rat eating your garbage.
Holywatersalt,
Congratulations on getting to that stage! That’s really great for you. That is the best way to deal with them, to “treat them like a plant.” Wonderful.
Indifference drives them crazy. I think that is the only effective response to their crap. If you ignore them, they might jump through burning hoops to get your attention but it won’t work. Putting up that emotional wall between you so that they have nothing to work with is the only way, it’s great that you have the courage to do that. I know it isn’t easy to get to that point.
Thanks Ariadne!
I think it was key that I repeat/read over and his voice/words telling me I
am insane, stupid, sociopath (in retrospect–that’s hysterical), tedious and oblivious oh yes and and old. Old? I am 5 yrs. older and as if that is a sin, crime …..see he’s juvenile.
I know it sucks to let what we thought was go or at least for me it was- I had to be true to my friend. Finally sometime I realized he wasn’t ever even a little concerned or interested in me — he lied to me. For awhile I believed I had assumed, imagined, but I have it in print his lies…so I know he just played me. I have a txt message of cruelty I keep/kept to remind myself of how evil he is…at that time I chalked it uo to being “insecure” and scared.
Nope, he played it so well I fell over myself trying to apologize for nothing. I was in quite a state- he was amused. You know what Adriadne that’s not a friend, not how a normal, considerate person acts. He was torturing me for sport, I can’t care for someone who wanted to toy with my entire life for amusement.
One way I cope is to say if he ever did change–it would have to come from him. He’d have to transform….I don’t know what he’d have to do–I’d never trust him again. But if he did ever change— like when gravity ends— it would come from him. My loss, my hurt, my care— hurt me, they don’t help anyone.
It’s your own timetable- I know, these are my feelings…but I know for me, I hung on out of sense of loyalty through my thoughts and concern.
Ariadne:
What causes that social interaction difficulty? Is that common after this kind of experience? It’s soooo odd to feel this way. Was it because our internal trust meters got zapped and temporarily broken from experiences where what we thought was reality truly wasn’t? Does this make us paranoid to some degree that people in general don’t like us because the things the S’paths put in our heads? I miss my faith in the fundamental goodness of humanity; it waivers much more than it should. Miss having faith in my own overall goodness. This experience brought out the absolute worst in me, in many ways.
What do you feel caused you to feel that social anxiety?
And, oh my God…your line about karma made me almost fall over laughing! The people in life who truly care and know me would actually say something along those lines, too. Being here and talking with you guys is some of the best healing possible. Peggy has been wonderful with links and articles I’m still sifting through, you guys all are thought-provoking and insightful about how it feels to come out of the other side of this experience at various stages of healing.
Indifference is the goal, then, as far as he goes. Will try to see a rat eating my garbage whenever I think of him and see if that doesn’t help at least make me laugh!
HWS:
He called you an S’path? Do they have a script somewhere? One of the things that landed me right here typing was him calling me a “psychopath” after we’d had this (I thought) wonderful day and evening cooking out and talking, playing word games with my youngest outside until the wee hours of the morning last summer. It was one of my best memories of being with him. The next day on the phone, not fighting, no problems, just talking, he called me that out of nowhere. It wasn’t the first time and I thought…”huh?”
So I looked it up and it described his actions.
Is that projection on their parts? WTF?