By Peggywhoever
All sociopaths wear a mask. The mask of kindness. The mask of generosity. The mask of romance. The mask of attraction. The mask of intimacy. The mask of seduction. And so on.
This is what reels us in. The pretense. The acting. The mask. The mask of perfection. And we, in our infinite loving goodness, reflect that mask back to them. The perfect mirrored reflection of beauty and adoration.
And then one day, that mask cracks. You remember the moment.. The moment when you look in their eyes and you KNOW the truth about them. The moment you recognize the pathological lies, the deception, the manipulation, the con. The game is up.
And from that moment on, your relationship with the sociopath is forever changed. This moment happened for me when”¦after middle of the night phone calls to his house and cell phone”¦I looked into his eyes and I KNEW. I knew he was having an affair, and that he was a liar. A year’s worth of investigation (yes, obsessing) has confirmed that nearly everything he told me was a lie.
From that point forward, the cruelty begins. Name-calling. Shouting. Out-of-control rage. Accusations of what you have”¦and have not done for them. Assaults on your character. Disparaging remarks. Outright slander. Saying horrible things about you to everyone who will listen. The smear campaign begins in full force.
Once the mask slips, you have a full view of who the sociopath actually is. Nothing is hidden from you anymore. They are the most hateful person you have ever encountered.
I equate the mask with a coin”¦beautiful, golden, intricately detailed and engraved on one side, and the cheapest, molten metal, with indistinguishable or hideous features on the other.
I thought my sociopath had a brain tumor. I couldn’t comprehend how someone who had seemingly been so kind, generous, and thoughtful”¦seemingly a “knight in shining armor”, turned into such a dark knight—instantaneously. Heartless. Cold. Unfeeling. Unsympathetic. Lying. Cheating. Berating. Chillingly frightening. Brrr.
After the mask cracks and you see their naked hatred, they become vengeful. It is as if they become your mortal enemy; even though you still love them and may try to salvage the relationship. And then they usually become cowardly. If you try to expose them, they will use every amount of charm and conning in their power to figuratively and verbally disarm you. (They are very good at this; they have a lifetime of practice).
They will attempt to dissemble your character piece-by-piece. They will not allow you to confront them with the truth; it is almost as if they become fearful of you and will try to retaliate against you with every piece of personal information they have garnered about you. Oh yes, and they will project upon you the very things that they are doing (and which you are innocent of). And they will tell unimaginable lies about you”¦that you are vile, manipulative, conning, vindictive, lying, and of course, crazy. Some of these whoppers are so monstrous that they can even ruin relationships you’ve had with family members and close friends. Everything is your fault, and they are the victim.
It is important to realize that just because you have seen their “true” self, they can still be extremely adept at keeping their mask intact for others. I have seen my sociopath go from screaming at me to laughing and smiling while speaking to someone on the phone”¦within 30 seconds. But you will most likely never see that initial charm again”¦unless there is something very specific they want from you.
And generally it is a very short time after you see their true self, no longer a reflection of beauty and adoration, that they will leave you. Or perhaps they already have their victim lined up. Because the sociopath cannot tolerate seeing their imperfections through your eyes. They will begin the romance phase, and once again have adoration from their next target. And the next. Then the one after that.
It is an awakening moment, when the mask slips. You are witnessing humanity at its very worst. (If they can be deemed “human—¦I prefer to think of them as aliens).
No matter how attractive you initially thought they were, a sociopath is actually very, very ugly…beneath the mask.
Dear Bird,
I can offer one other perspective on the “Holiday Spirit” being presented to you by the ex and his new victim. It is a FRONT being played out for her (the new vicitim’s benifit). He attemps to pretend to be “human” by feigning concern and warm feelings for you and your baby. This makes him look good to her.
The double bonus here, for him, is that it helps him look, (in her eyes), like he “must be a good guy” if he’s still on good enough terms with you to have amicable feelings and interchange between you. This makes him look good to her.
The triple bonus here is that it attempts to “spin your reality,” make you doubt your previous perceptions and memories of the assaults he committed on you and yours. A continued attempt to keep you confused and of balance.
The real genious in this plan is that he gets her involved in helping the “poor, little things”, Ie, you and the baby. She (assuming she is normal), feels the warm fuzzies and assumes, (naturally, because she doesn’t “Get it”), that he FEELS it too. Most likely, he feels nothing the the satistaction of having orchestrated yet another successful manipulation of his toys.
If you play along, he wins by looking like a saint. If you don’t play along and call him on his crap, he still wins because you look like the bitter, ungrateful, hateful crazy person he has probably already told her you are.
A Brilliant plan, if you think about it….but a shame all this intelligence is wasted on people who will never put it to any PRODUCTIVE use to better the world.
The scariest thing about these behaviors by the “insects,”… I wonder, while they are doing it, if they actually even believe it themselves.
I would ignore it completely…and let them play thier drama games alone. This is the healthiest thing. Let go and let God.
Those of us who are stuck with dealing with these people because of children we have with them have special challenges.
Peace to you and all here.
I love that Insects ! that is a much better analagy of their being ! Except I equate them to Ticks ! Parasites that have no concern for their Host even until death! LOVE JJ
Metaphorically speaking, unfortunately, from my own experience of continually being involved with N’s…I consider them to be a form of “dryrot” of our souls!!! Seriously, google “dryrot” – Wikipedia and read the definition–these N’s are like a fungus amungus!!! They invade our souls and rot away at us, we are their food, they can’t live without us!!! Pitiful, I don’t think they deserve our sympathy, no matter how much “pain” they are in or have experienced…it always seems they are the victims, when in fact they create victims with their insidious rotting behaviors!
Indigo,
Wish I could take credit for the term…LOL. It actually came from someone on this site a long time ago and I “adopted” it.
I wish I could remember who used it so I could credit them.
In its entirety, the phrase was “Emotional Insects.” I thought it was a very appropriate description, because insect have no emotion. They are entirely self serving, acting on instict alone to meet thier needs to survive.
You hit the nail on the head with ticks I think…Extracting THE LIFES BLOOD from thier environment and moving on without regard and often leaving a painful infection once you “remove” them.
Peace and Healing!
Dear Peggy,
Not much renders me speechless, especially in print 🙂 but all I can say to you is, “Lady, you said a mouthful.” I know that guy.
Peace and Healing and hugs!
OK, so I’m over it with that…I found my voice…LOL.
I was married to that guy for 12 years. I think they drop the mask momentarily (red flags we talk about here). Then in our desire to re-establish the dream we pick it up, dust if off and give it back to them. Could we call this denial??? Until we finally wake up.
I know I did countless times over the years. We just want peace and our dreams intact I think….until we just can’t do it anymore.
Peace and Healing and Hugs.
Yes, they are very adept at putting you in a “lose-lose” situation. Man, O, Man, are they EVER adept at that poly and it works so well.
By opting out, by NOT PARTICIPATING, we leave them to their own devices, and in my case, only after I opted out, got out of the picture entirely, did they turn on each other. I think the frustration of not being able to get a response out of us is a BIGGIE to them. It is the ultimate NON CONTROL, no matter what they do they can’t get a response. ANY RESPONSE, is better than NO response to them. So when we slip and back slide and even spit in their faces, they WIN because they “made us do” something. So they have their power to push our buttons back.
Sure, they push our buttons, and we respond, so if we don’t respond, they push harder and harder, just like a rat that has always gotten a treat when he pushed a lever, when the treats stop coming he pounds on that lever to try to get a treat, it always worked before, so he will try it again and again. Eventually, he will stop if he gets NO response, but if you give him an INTERMITTENT, once in a while response, it encourages him to NEVER STOP. That is animal training and reinforcement 101, intermittent rewards encourages the behavior better than continual rewards.
Oh, how we want to strike back at them when they push the buttons, but we MUST NOT EVER RESPOND. If you have kids with them, they will be late, not show up, bring te child back late, “lose” clothes, school books and toys, and pi$$ you off beyond belief and it is difficult not to respond, but even then, you are better off letting someone else be there when the kid is handed off or brought home, and never say a single word about their behavior because they WANT THE FIGHT, they want the interaction with YOU…if they never get to see YOU or make you “mad” (i.e. get a response) then the fun goes out of it all.
If you don’t have to have contact with them, then NO CONTACT is the only way to go. Don’t listen to their friends, don’t let anyone send them information about YOU, just like you are living on another planet.
Bird, I would suggest that the next time he is coming to see the baby Birdie, that you not be there at all, get a friend to “supervise” the visit, and the friend is not to talk about you or the baby, just leave him alone with the friend and the baby, so that the only interaction he gets is from the baby (which won’t be very interesting to him since we know how he “loves’ the baby NOT! So since he doesn’t get what HE WANTS which is time to be with YOU and cry his crocodile tears etc he may stop coming at all. His REWARD for the visit is seeing YOU, not the baby. I will “bet the farm” that two times of “visitiing the baby” ONLY (but with someone watching him but not interacting so he can’t hurt the baby) and he will not come back any more. I would also suggest that e mail correspondence ONLY and only respond to a time and date he can come to visit the BABY (but not you!)
They are soooo predictable sometimes! We just have to learn to think how an animal is “trained” or rewarded for a certain behavior and then we treat them like that to make sure they get the LEAST REWARD for their actions that we can.
Peace and happy holidays to you all!
Oxy,
Yep, Psych 101, (4 semesters ago). And wow, have I learned a lot since then! Email whenever possible and when necessary a calm, factual dissection of their crap. That drives them crazy. No defensive, emotional outbursts = no fun for them. I actually take a couple of days to “cool off”, and research my facts and dates from calendars and journals. Then I respond via email of course with my self respect intact. It works wonders!
Peace, Healing and Hugs
Peggy,
This is such a great blog. EVERYONE here seems to be able to relate to it on such a deep level. It’s also so appropriate for the holidays. It seems like we all start reminscing about our X’s, trying to put some “wishful thinking” spin on how great we think life would be right now, “If only”… we had somehow done it right, they’d still be with us, and everything would be ‘Norman Rockwell’.
I’ve seen that “mask” fall away in several X’s faces. It’s a kick in the gut every time. A perfect reminder to jolt us out of those Norman Rockwell fantasies of how great we think everything “could be”. That’s the part of OUR personalities the N/P/S is on the prowl for. That desire to try to do anything, contort ourselves in any way, to find the “key” to “doing it right” and making them happy. If we could only do that, we think, then everything would be so perfect.
That’s the sick part in me I’ve been trying to heal.
Chaos, I can really relate to you. After realizing through therapy that the majority of my family were N’s/P’s/S’s (as well as most of my “friends”) I began isolating myself from people who are unhealthy for me. Unfortunately, that’s been most of the people in my life. I’m focusing on healing myself before I can attract the right sorts of people into my life. It’s really hard to feel so isolated. I’m very sociable at heart. I think that’s part of the lesson.
I too feel like my closest friends right now are my pets. Observing how they relate to others is really informative.
I wonder if for some of us who’ve been targets, that it might be best to find ways to change how we interact with others. Learn to listen to the clues our spirits are sending us rather that dismissing those nagging thoughts.
This downtime I’ve had has really helped me to “re-boot”. I’m trying to learn to integrate my thoughts and feelings and become more whole again.
I’m so thankful for everyone here on this site!
Dear Stillsortingitout,
The Holidays do seem to be fertile ground for predators. All that peace and good will make thier jobs that much easier.
You got it. But, we must heal that part of us that makes us a victim without loosing those qualities that make us a target of these people…Kindness, empathy, generousity. We just have to learn to recognize when they are being used against us. It takes some effort and once in a while we still “get got.” But we can’t let them take away who we are. Stand strong!
Re-booting….I LOVE THAT!
I’m in the same boat. I have accepted that I have to be my own friend right now. The rest will come later…In God’s time, not mine.
Peace, Healing and Hugs!